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Five charts prove the continuing COVID-19 panic unwarranted

Link here. Not surprisingly, the U.S. is doing better than almost every other country in the world, and the numbers also show that the epidemic is dying off.

On confirmed cases per million, the U.S. ranks 9th, but this is in part due to the extensive testing we’ve done. In fact, despite what Biden and Co. will have you believe, we are in the top of the pack when it comes to COVID-19 tests per capita. (Note that only four of the other 36 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations do better than the U.S. on tests per capita. Also, every country that does better than the U.S. has a significantly smaller population — some just tens of thousands. In fact, if you add up the populations of every country in the top 17, it equals a little more than half the U.S. population. )

When it comes to the case fatality rate – the share of confirmed cases who have died – there is no comparison. Not only does the U.S. outperform most countries – as well as the world overall – the case fatality rate in the U.S. has been steadily declining.

Finally, there’s the chart Democrats really don’t want you to see: The number of new COVID-19 cases peaked a month ago and has been trending downward ever since.

Make sure you take a look at where Sweden stands when compared to everyone else. For a country that imposed no odious lock downs, their numbers are quite good, and in fact beat nations like Italy and the United Kingdom, which imposed strict rules and house arrests.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

25 comments

  • Andrew_W

    Of those 5 charts:
    Deaths per million, tests per million of population, case fatality rate, trend in case fatality rate, and trend in daily new cases for the US, wouldn’t the important one be Deaths per million? And on that measure the US is the 11th worst in the world.

  • mkent

    … wouldn’t the important one be Deaths per million? And on that measure the US is the 11th worst in the world.

    Yup. Tenth, actually. And Sweden is 8th. Though Chile will probably pass up Sweden and Brazil pass up the USA tomorrow.

  • Edward

    mkent,
    You answered the question: “wouldn’t the important one be Deaths per million?” with: “Yup.

    But why is this the important chart? Is not the case fatality rate (CFR) much more important, since we are sacrificing all that we have and all that we are in order to reduce the number of new cases? Thus in order to further reduce the deaths, the CFR is the important measure.

    Or if continuing the Great Oppression is the goal (the destruction of all we have and all we are), then the daily new cases is certainly the important chart. If we don’t have a large number of new cases, perhaps from the ill effects of the general public’s misuse of masks, then how can we rationalize a continuation of the Great Oppression?

  • Tom Biggar

    IMO – The US vs xxx comparisons are largely meaningless. According to the official numbers, China has tested 90,410,000, with 84,996 confirmed cases and 4,634 deaths. OK, sure. We know US death numbers are inflated and the European numbers have no standardization. Apples / Oranges / Pears / Track Shoes

  • Andrew_W

    Edward: Is not the case fatality rate (CFR) much more important, since we are sacrificing all that we have and all that we are in order to reduce the number of new cases?

    No, the “sacrifices” are intended to reduced the number of new infections the number of cases is a poor guide the number of infections since it’s certain that in many jurisdictions less than 10% of infections are being diagnosed while in other jurisdictions over 50% of infections are diagnosed. More cases is a good thing if it’s a result of less undiagnosed infections.

  • pzatchok

    You can test everyone on the planet and the only test numbers that count are the “previously infected and now immune” numbers.

    All the other tests are just foggy snapshots of cases weeks old.
    We do not even have a 100% test yet. All we keep finding are false positives and negatives.

    Testing just provides scary numbers for people to panic over.

    The only number that I care about is the hospitalized cases and the proven Covid dead cases. Other than that your just telling me someone has or even had covid and more than likely didn’t even know it themselves.

    People act like this is equal to Polio or even as bad as Leprosy.

    I am tired of it. I put on a mask because I have to by law. When with friends none of us even think about putting them on.
    Why not a 24 hour body condom along with a full face mask? While locked in your closet. You will be perfectly safe then and so will everyone else.
    You will be a bit hungry and may die alone. But the world is safe from you and you it.

  • pzatchok: Be aware that the mask order in your state exempts anyone with a medical condition. And HIPPA forbids anyone from asking you for more details or documentation. All you need to do is say you have a medical condition that requires you to not wear a mask and they must back off and leave you alone. See the order here.

    More people have to use this loophole, all the time. The more that do, the more who will not be wearing masks and thus making it more acceptable to go without.

  • mkent

    More people have to use this loophole, all the time. The more that do, the more who will not be wearing masks and thus making it more acceptable to go without.

    And then the more people that will spread SARS-CoV2, the more people that will get COVID-19, and the more people that will die of it.

    But you don’t care about that. Do you?

  • F16 Guy

    It appears that mkent is following the bouncing ball provided by the main stream media, and has not read or understood the numerous verified links Robert has provided.
    Here’s another great one:

    https://wmbriggs.com/post/32326/

  • pzatchok

    I also have to have a mask at work. Along with a proximity beeper to help keep us all 6 feet apart.

    I need my job for now. But some days…….

  • pzatchok

    mkent

    I am not going to lie.
    I care about the people I know far far more than the people I do not. I will not act all sanctimonious about the dead I never knew just to make you think I care more than someone else does.

    Now having said that and proven to everyone I must be the worlds most heartless human ever conceived you must feel so much better now. Your a better human than me.

    But lets get back to something real.
    Can you prove beyond a shadow or doubt that MORE people have died this year them would have died anyways of other causes?

    The US has a mortality rate of almost 2.8 to 3 million a year. You could slip 250,000 covid cases in there and no one would notice.

  • Max

    https://www.nfl.com/news/all-77-false-positive-covid-19-tests-come-back-negative-upon-reruns

    Nothing ruins a party like 100% of the test coming back positive. Other tests must have standards to maintain. Like pregnancy test must have less than 5% failure rate or they are removed from the market. It’s a good thing no one’s lives are dependent upon the test information… Biden has the answer, let’s shut down the country until we figure it out. Once the vaccination shot comes out, we can all take our masks off and breathe easier because salvation has arrived… It will be just in time for the next flu season that will be different from last year’s flu. Then, here we go again.

    So what is the solution? Let’s change the rules again! Let’s do no more testing unless you’re actually sick…

    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html

    Then let’s change them again…

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/the-cdc-just-changed-how-long-you-have-to-quarantine-after-covid-19/ar-BB178OmS

    ” Based on new research, the CDC guidance now states that people with mild to moderate COVID-19 cases can stop isolating after just 10 days and do not need to be tested before returning to work—they just need to be fever free for 24 hours.
    Symptoms, Not Testing, Should Be the Gauge”

    Do you get the feeling they’re just winging it? That nobody actually knows what they’re doing? Let’s throw this against the wall and see if it sticks…

    It doesn’t help when they have stories like this, that even Snopes cannot disapprove.

    “Tanzania President John Magufuli secretly sent specimens from a fruit, quail, and goat to a lab testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus disease in humans — and the results came back positive.”
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tanzania-president-covid-tests/

    Meanwhile, zero hedge warns people that the virus is in the sewer system. Make sure the water traps in your home are filled with water to prevent gases from leaking into your house. The fart from the infected person can be as dangerous as having them breathe in your face… Flying soon anyone?

    Lisa haven and Tucker Carlson reveals why this is happening to us. They even back up everything Bob Zimmerman has told us about masks, quoting the CDC. 7min.
    http://www.stateoftoday.com/lisa-haven/

    The OBiden/Sanders manifesto confirms it on their own webpage. “We must destroy America, to save it. And the world.”

    https://joebiden.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/UNITY-TASK-FORCE-RECOMMENDATIONS.pdf

    (it says their primary goal is to eliminate all carbon consumption. As a carbon-based life form, I must consume carbon food and use carbon energy to survive. The only way to remove the demand for carbon is to remove all the carbon consumers. When mass genocide is in the plan, does it matter what methods you take to get to your ultimate goal?)

    In Utah, an emergency gathering of legislatures, on zoom, refused to pass a law to mandate masks. Mayors are refusing, and people are protesting mask use. The governor who’s been forcing cities to mandate masks was very upset and signed a “state order” finally becoming the bad guy he’s been trying to avoid, mandating everyone in public “must” wear masks with a misdemeanor and fine for noncompliance, even for any child who removes their mask in school.
    Lawyers say it is not enforceable nor legal;

    “Teachers, parent and students do not have to wear a mask in schools.
    Simply don’t do it if you don’t want to.
    There is no law, constitutional or pretended, that requires it”

    The media asked a law professor who determined this;
    “U of U law professor and former judge, says the constitution is not legally valid.”

    Apparently the pandemic “state of emergency” for COVID-19 has given the health department unlimited powers that no one, not even the legislature, can override. All constitutional rights have been suspended until the threat of the common cold has been resolved.

    Last night, following all of the medical mandates for masks, handwashing, distancing in a soccer stadium were followed.
    Everything was good to go to reopen sports as “almost” normal.
    All it took was a lot of people with black lives matter shirts to show up and shut the entire thing down.
    Yes, the health department has their own Nazi brown shirts to enforce their politically correct policies. “Resistance is futile”

  • Andrew_W

    pzatchok: The US has a mortality rate of almost 2.8 to 3 million a year. You could slip 250,000 covid cases in there and no one would notice.

    You raise an important point, how much year on year variation in the death rate is there and what’s the overall trend?

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/06/11/how-many-people-died-the-year-you-were-born/111928450/

    Over the 20 years to 2018 deaths in the US have increased at an average rate of 25,000/yr, over the 10 years to 2018 the rate of increase has been at 37,000/yr, over the 3 years to 2018 it’s been at 42,000/yr.

    Over the 10 years to 2018 the year on year increase ranges from -34,000 from 2008 – 2009 to +86,000 from 2014 – 2015.

    So I disagree that an increase in one year of 250,000 wouldn’t be noticed, but acknowledge the year on year variations are larger than I’d have expected.

  • Max

    While we are all debating the parameters and conditions to get an accurate measurement of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, larger organizations bigger than countries have positioned themselves to make the conditions to be the ones, with the bribery of world leaders, for them to institute big brothers “New World order”.
    Belarus provides whistleblower evidence.10min.

    http://www.stateoftoday.com/lisa-haven/
    (Hopefully this works, money to compensate lock down to world leaders by the IMF)
    The “new normal” you’re being forced to except is also that “boot on your face forever”.

    HIPAA laws where I work are just window dressing. A friend of mine, using HIPAA, refused to wear the mask that has been mandated for everyone where I work as part of the new PPE. (I work outdoors in a naturally sterile environment where even plants won’t grow)
    My friend was told; no mask, no work. They also wanted to know why the company Doctor, whom we must have a physical with every year as part of employment, did not know about his medical condition. (mild asthma complicated by humid conditions caused by mask use. Which was not a condition of employment until recently)
    In the end, anyone who cannot work with the mask on will be with held from service without pay until the nonexistent pandemic is over. Your personal health is not as important as the health risk to others. (social justice against non-conformers)

    Now, nasal testing is mandatory for all employees monthly… regardless of there being no symptoms, against the advice of the CDC. People testing positive will be with held from work for two weeks. Vacation!
    They may think you have a disease on the flimsiest of testing, so they send you home where you can socialize, shop, visit friends and long-distance family members, be with your kids who are in school now, go to entertainment or protest and do all manner of risky behavior thinking you’ll come back to work without the virus? What is the recommended solution? Self isolation/imprisonment. No wonder so many people are committing suicide, some of the people I know are drinking themselves to death.

  • Max

    Here are some charts of the 10 leading reasons that cause death. Cold and flu is 1/10 of cancer or heart disease.
    Cause of death for men, suicide is higher than cold or flu.
    https://www.finder.com/what-are-the-top-20-causes-of-death-in-united-states

    On the CDC website, death from coronavirus is artificially high but only 6% of the death certificates name it as the “only” cause of death.

    This problem is political, an ant hill as viewed through binoculars. Just like global warming, It gets hot every summer.

  • Edward

    mkent Wrote: “And then the more people that will spread SARS-CoV2, the more people that will get COVID-19, and the more people that will die of it. But you don’t care about that. Do you?

    Actually, in the U.S. the infection and death rates increased when the mask mandates began. Clearly the masks do not prevent but contribute to the spread of the disease. Because the general public does not treat them properly, the way that medical professionals do, our masks become contaminated as we put them on (for the first of many times) or almost as soon. Thus, rather than prevent spread they create spread, infection, illness, hospitalizations, and death.

    But you don’t care about that. Do you? You just like feeling superior to everyone else, and forget about the data, the science, and the reality. Emotion is all that matters — even when lives are lost due to mask use.

  • mkent

    Can you prove beyond a shadow or doubt that MORE people have died this year them would have died anyways of other causes?

    Yes. It’s quite obvious. Just look at the graph here.

    https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm#dashboard

  • Edward

    mkent,
    Your linked chart fails to show how many would have died anyway of other causes. It only shows how many have died. No conclusions can be made as to cause of death or whether there are more than would have been otherwise.

    Indeed, because the records of those who died of Wuhan flu have been corrupted with numbers of those who died with the Wuhan virus as well as those suspected or assumed to have the virus, it is impossible to prove how many died of this cause vs. other causes, including causes from lack of proper healthcare due to the lockdown and refusal at hospitals of non-Wuhan cases and other causes associated with the lockdown. We know that the horrific government reaction to the Wuhan outbreak caused deaths that would not have occurred otherwise. Do we really want to include those who died because six or seven states intentionally — intentionally — sent Wuhan-ailing patients directly into population concentrations of the most vulnerable? This intentional killing of people also skews the data as compared to any usual year.

    There is a shockingly low number of people who died from regular flus, this year. Would deaths from these flus have been this low had there not been a Wuhan flu? It is likely that deaths due to the regular flu became suspected or assumed to have been Wuhan, especially since the federal government made it so financially lucrative to do so.

    Because the governments worldwide so badly managed this flu, we really cannot determine how many would have died otherwise, not even beyond a reasonable doubt, and certainly not beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  • pzatchok

    And everyone forgets the 2.5 million who died in two years of SARs during Obamas reign.

    Oh I remember the world wide lock downs and the mandated masks. Every day we would get the death count for everyplace, World wide, national, state and local.

    I can tell we are right on pace with that 1.25/year death rate now.

    But But !? Doesn’t anyone else remember the great pandemic?

  • Steve Richter

    just to agree on terms. Covid-19 is not the flu, correct?
    https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/28/my-severe-covid-19-felt-like-dying-in-solitary-confinement/

    and some numbers. Florida has not decreased as much as was expected.
    https://fdoh.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/8d0de33f260d444c852a615dc7837c86
    I have been plugging the numbers posted here into an excel spreadsheet. The last 3 weeks the daily number of deaths is around 130, which is 3% of those who test positive.

  • commodude

    Steve, that number is meaningless, as the number of asymptomatic cases that never get tested or reported is between 10 and 100 times the number of cases that have positive tests.

  • commodude

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/shock-report-week-cdc-quietly-updated-covid-19-numbers-9210-americans-died-covid-19-alone-rest-serious-illnesses/

    “This week the CDC quietly updated the Covid number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from Covid

    End the lockdowns and idiocy NOW!

  • commodude: The actual quote from the CDC webpage is “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.” All other deaths had other contributing causes, most of which were likely the primary cause of death.

    This is not actually news. It has been clear for months that this is the case, that few people die only from the Wuhan virus, that you must be sick with other things and usually old too to have it kill you.

    What I don’t know if the CDC has firmed up this number now, or had previously but not made it as clear as this.

    Either way, this only once again confirms the reality: This panic and fear over this virus has been unwarranted. It is comparable to other similar seasonal respiratory illnesses, and likely replace those this year so that the overall numbers are not much higher than normal. In fact, if you look at the excess deaths graph from the CDC, which also shows the bad flu season in 2018, you can see that though this year the numbers are higher, they are not that much higher.

    As you say, the lockdowns and mask mandates should end now. Too bad no one will believe us.

  • commodude

    Robert, this is prima facie evidence that rule by models and unelected bureaucrats needs to end. They won’t know the true toll from COVID-19 for a couple years, and the politicization of the response spun it completely out of control.

    Congress needs to reclaim their Constitutional power, and end rulemaking as it’s currently practiced.

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “the lockdowns and mask mandates should end now. Too bad no one will believe us.

    Actually, even here in deep-blue California, in the county that had the very first Wuhan flu diagnosis, road traffic is heavy, foot traffic is heavy, and only half the people wear masks outdoors. The weekly Saturday block party at the end of my block continues, with very few masks, and I didn’t see any yesterday. Huge numbers believe that the lockdowns must end and that masks are useless to the task they are assigned. The problem is that our rulers continue to insist, but the lockdowns continue in name only, and the mask mandates continue in name only (in practice, mandated outdoor mask use is only voluntary), and since they have the police and business-license offices on their side the shutdown continues in force.

    I keep seeing barber shops and nail salons attempting to do business outdoors on sidewalks or in the parking lots out front of their storefronts, so the shutdown is not quite as successful as our fearful leaders desire.

    What may be missing is organized uprisings demanding an end to the Great Oppression of 2020. Black Lives Marxists and Anti First Amendment are burning down cities and beating people to death, but the rest of us are peacefully doing our fiercely independent best to make our lives work despite our rulers’s decrees. The question is whether we really need to do more or whether we are already winning because we have our rulers begging us to obey their futile, useless, unreasonable rules.

    Many of the people I speak with expect the Great Oppression to come to a sudden end on November 4th, or within a couple of days of then. Most of them believe that an uprising is not warranted, because an end is in sight. In the next two months, how many millions of people will run out of money and lose their homes, their businesses, and their pursuits of happiness?

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