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Apply This to Israeli Government ‘Second Wave’ Corona Fearmongering…

Why I’m Not That Worried About Latest Increase in U.S. COVID Cases (At Least Not Yet)

Monday, July 6, 2020

As we have lifted the lockdowns, we move closer and closer to whatever the “new normal” may be. Those have been clamoring for extended lockdowns worry that the lockdowns have been lifted prematurely. The New York Times dismally lamented about a gloomy picture. The Los Angeles Times analogize the spread of COVID-19 to a forest fire. One of the main metrics that lockdown proponents have used to try to justify either returning to lockdowns or prolonging reopening provisions is that of increased confirmed cases. As we see below (figures extracted from Johns Hopkins website on July 5), the number of confirmed cases has reached 52,391. The percent of positive cases has also increased to 7.6% from its 4.4% trough. Dr. Anthony Fauci called last week “a very disturbing week” in terms of this increase. While it might make some intuitive sense to use number of confirmed cases as basis for whether the pandemic is getting worse in the United States (especially relative to other countries), I have some reasons to doubt that assertion.

  • Confirmed cases are not indicative of total amount of infected individuals. One of the best features in favor of confirmed cases as a metric is that it is one of the earlier indicators within the infection timeline. Hospitalizations lag infections, and deaths lag hospitalizations. As nice as it might seem, it does not tell us as much as we would like. As a matter of fact, well-renown statistician Nate Silver wrote a piece in April about how coronavirus tests are actually meaningless. Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, the testing was prioritized for those showing symptoms. While the testing is still skewed in that direction, increased testing capabilities has allowed for more mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic individuals to get tested. Since the testing is not randomized, it suffers from a selection bias that makes COVID-19 look deadlier than it is. Over time, we see that the crude fatality rate (CFR) end up higher than the infection fatality rate (IFR), the latter of which being the apparent death rate.
    • On June 25, the CDC said that for every confirmed case, there are about ten people who had antibodies. At that moment, there were about 2.3 million confirmed cases, which means there were at least an estimated 23 million actual cases.
    • In case you did not have enough evidence that there are a lot more infected than we think, the Pennsylvania State University released an eye-opening paper late last month. This Penn State study examined influenza-like illnesses (ILI) surveillance data. After looking through the ILI data, they concluded that the initial infection rate was much higher. Rather than the initially estimated 100,000 new cases in the last three months, they estimated that there were actually 8.7 million cases, which implies an initial infection rate over 80 times higher than initially estimated. They also found that the number of cases also double twice as quickly as initially estimated (Silverman et al., 2020).
    • As Reason Magazine points out, even if we want to use CFR as a metric (although it is a poor one), the CFR has fallen from more than 6 percent on May 16 to less than 5 percent as of June 28 (see Worldometers data here).
  • Demographic shift in who is getting infected. At the beginning of the pandemic, what we observed in the United States that it was those 60 and older disproportionately contracting COVID-19. Using Florida as an example, the median age dropped from 65 in March to 35 in June. On the whole, 43 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. took place in long-term care facilities. As the Heritage Foundation reminds us, the age demographics matter a lot when it comes to a serious illness. Younger adults are not immune from contracting a serious case of COVID-19, but the probability of a severe case or death for this demographic is much less likely. What has happened in recent weeks is that younger adults are accounting for a greater share of those infected. With more young adults contracting COVID-19, it is likely that the incident of severe cases and deaths vis-à-vis the IFR will be lower. While there is concern for younger adults infecting the elderly (which means we can have stricter protocols for long-term care facilities instead of another round of lockdowns), this shift is accompanied by other positive trends.
  • Decline in new hospitalizations. According to The Covid Tracking Project, which provides nationwide and state-level COVID data, there has been an increase in overall hospitalizations. At the same time, we have to be mindful of the number of new hospitalizations. Even when accounting for a two-week lag between infection and symptom onset, the CDC still shows an overall decline in new hospitalizations since mid-April. Looking at the CDC’s interpretation of hospitalization forecasting, most of the models show a nationwide plateau of new hospitalizations in the upcoming weeks, although certain states (e.g., Arizona, California) are expected to see an increase.
  • Decrease in COVID-19 Deaths. It is more difficult to draw conclusions from the death data since it can take several weeks between infection and death. At the same time, what CDC data show us is that there has been a decline in all age demographics from the April 18 peak.
  • Our ability to treat COVID-19 has improved. Aside from adequate hospital capacity in most jurisdictions, we preliminarily have two treatments that show at least some promise: remdesivir and dexamethasone. We also have greater knowledge on how to treat COVID-19 in terms of treatment protocol (e.g., how to better use ventilators and their limits, prone positioning). I expect preparedness, palliative care, and treatment to only improve as time passes.

Continue reading…

From Libertarian Jew, here.

Corona Likely Man-Made…

– The most logical explanation is that it comes from a laboratory

The well-known Norwegian virologist Birger Sørensen and his colleagues have examined the corona virus. They believe it has certain properties which would not evolve naturally. These conclusions are politically controversial, but in this interview he shares the findings behind the headlines.

PUBLISERT  SIST OPPDATERT 

“I understand that this is controversial, but the public has a legitimate need to know, and it is important that it is possible to freely discuss alternate hypotheses on how the virus originated” Birger Sørensen starts to explain when Minerva visits him in his office one morning in Oslo.

Despite the explosiveness of his statements and research, Sørensen remains calm and collected.

Sørensen has been a point of controversy ever since former MI6 director Richard Dearlove cited a yet to be published article by Sørensen and his colleagues in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. The article claims that the virus that causes Covid-19 most likely has not emerged naturally.

“It’s a shame that there has already been so much talk about this, because I have yet to publish the article where I put forward my analysis”, Sørensen says in the form of an exasperated sigh.

Together with his colleagues, Angus Dalgleish and Andres Susrud have authored an article that looks into the most plausible explanations regarding the origins of the novel coronavirus. The article builds upon an already published article in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics that describes newly discovered properties in the virus spike protein. The authors are still in dialogue with scientific journals regarding an upcoming publication of the article.

News outlets are thus confronted with a difficult question: Are the findings and arguments Sørensen and his colleagues put forward of a sufficiently high quality to be presented and discussed in the public sphere? Sørensen explains that they in their dialogue with scientific journals are encountering a certain reluctance to publishing the article – without, however, proper scientific objections. Minerva has read a draft of the article, and has after an overall assessment decided that the findings and arguments do deserve public debate, and that this discussion cannot depend entirely on the publication process of scientific journals.

In this interview with Minerva, Sørensen therefore puts forward his hypothesis on why it is highly unlikely that the coronavirus emerged naturally.

On May 18th, WHO decided to conduct an inquiry into the coronavirus epidemic in China. Sørensen believes that it is important that this inquiry looks into new and alternate explanations for how the virus originated, beyond the already well-known suggestion that the virus originated in the Wuhan Seafood Market.

“There are very few who still believe that the epidemic started there, so as of today we have no good answers on how the epidemic started. Then we must also dare to look at more controversial, alternative explanations for the origin,” Sørensen says.

Birger Sørensen and one of his co-authors, Angus Dalgleish, are already known as HIV researchers par excellence.

In 2008, Sørensen’s work came to international attention when he launched a new immunotherapy for HIV. Angus Dalgleish is the professor at St. George’s Medical School in London who became world famous in 1984 after having discovered a novel receptor that the HIV virus uses to enter human cells.

The purpose of the work Sørensen and his colleagues have done on the novel coronavirus, has been to produce a vaccine. And they have taken their experience in trialling HIV vaccines with them to analyse the coronavirus more thoroughly, in order to make a vaccine that can protect against Covid-19 without major side effects.

Continue reading…

From Minerva, here.

Corona: Victory for Swedish Hands-Off Policy

Sweden – Number of Covid deaths plummeting even as the number cases rises

 by 

Similar pattern in the United States! Number of deaths declining rapidly.

 

________

In case you weren’t aware of this, Sweden refused to go into a lockdown mode. Restaurants remained open, bars remained open, the entire country remained open, all because Swedish authorities decided to let the virus run its course. They expected the country to reach what is known as “herd immunity.” And they succeeded!

At first, coronavirus cases rose quite rapidly, as expected. But even as the number of new cases continued climbing, the number deaths began declining. I don’t know that the proper word is “plummeting,” but as you can see from the graph below, the decline is very pronounced.

“Over the past ten weeks, the number of daily reported COVID-19 cases in Sweden has more than doubled, yet the number of deaths has plummeted,” writes Tony Heller. “The vast majority of deaths in Sweden were the result of nursing homes getting infected.”

“Their strategy has been to get the low risk population exposed so that they can reach herd immunity, so more cases is to be expected.”

Sweden Coronavirus: 67,667 Cases and 5,310 Deaths – Worldometer

“The same pattern is occurring in the US,” says Tony. The number of daily deaths is declining markedly.

United States Coronavirus: 2,681,811 Cases and 128,783 Deaths – Worldometer

The point here is that the number of new cases is meaningless propaganda. Many of those new cases came as a result of more testing, and many more came from what I consider fraudulent reporting.

And, as reader Michael Jenkins correctly points out, “even the death rate reported is, in all likelihood, grossly exaggerated.”

Forget the number of “new cases.” What we need to keep our eyes on is the death rate.

See more from Tony Heller:
https://realclimatescience.com/2020/06/no-correlation-between-covid-cases-and-deaths/

Thanks to Penelope for this link

From Ice Age Now, here.

Rabbi Horowitz of ‘Let’s Stay Safe’ – How to Speak to Your Children About Intimate Safety

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz Child Safety/Abuse Prevention Video

Apr 16, 2019

Learn how to speak to your children about child safety/abuse prevention in an effective, research-based manner.

Presented as a public service by The Karasick Child Safety Initiative of The Center for Jewish Family Life/Project YES

From YouTube, here.

Walter Block: Stop the Corona Cash Giveaways!

Universal Basic Income: A Critique

By 

July 3, 2020

Due to the pandemic, the government is giving out $1,000 to all who qualify for it. This program is the equivalent of a temporary Universal Basic Income program. If Covid 19 continues, the Trump administration’s policy will more and more come to resemble UBI. What is the permanent version of this program? UBI has the advantage of simplicity: $12,000 per year to all, from the richest to the poorest. Even some erstwhile supporters of the free enterprise system have been taken in by the siren song of this proposal.

It is time, then, for a critical review of this initiative.

First, it will promote laziness and reduce labor force participation. If people can scrape by with this relatively modest amount of money in their pockets, why go to work so as to help others? Why become a dishwasher or house-cleaner when you can indulge yourself in poetry, tv watching, computer gaming or day-dreaming? Investment in human capital, the be-all and end-all for rising to the middle class, will have taken a shot to the solar plexus.

Second. it will increase immigration on the part of poor and thus presumably not very productive folks. A highly skilled worker from abroad is not likely to line up at our borders for this amount of money, but to a poverty stricken person on the fence, this offer is likely to tip him over into crossing our borders.

Third, while the UBI is pegged at a low level, experience suggests it can be radically raised. The income tax was introduced at 3% of earnings, and look at it now. There is at present a group supporting so-called “welfare rights.” A UBI “rights” organization is sure to follow. How can we be so callous as to offer everyone such a pittance? The voting bloc for expanding its scope will be immense. It will include all “low information” voters who do not realize that the money has to come from somewhere.

Fourth, while these funds are now promised to all and sundry, it can always in future be taken away from dis-favored groups. This possibility, even if not carried out, gives the government more and more power over the populace, at a time when a move in the very opposite direction is more in keeping with economic freedom. Do we really need more people dependent upon the largesse of the all-loving state?

Fifth, some argue that the UBI is an improvement over the present system. It penalizes no one from obtaining a job. True enough. But the extreme likelihood is that it will not replace welfare as we know it, but, rather, be added to present disastrous policies.

Sixth, given that this new “rag in the bag” will raise taxes (or further enhance deficits) some of our most productive citizens will migrate to other countries. It is no accident that people are leaving the likes of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, California, etc., and moving to low tax states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona. Do we really want to introduce this tendency on the national level?

Seventh, UBI will not cure poverty, as claimed by its adherents. The way to enrich ourselves, says Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, is through more capital goods, based, in turn, on savings, based, in further turn, on economic freedom. This program leads us in the very opposite direction.

Eighth, what’s the point of taxing millionaires like Bernie Sanders and Bill Gates, and then turning around and giving them back some of their cash? These transfers are costly. More money will thus flow into the pockets of those living in the very richest counties in the U.S., near Washington D.C. The only benefit is publicity.

UBI will further rend the fabric of the social order, not improve it. As for the present scheme, according to Milton Friedman, there is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program. Better to phase this out as soon as possible, now that it has begun, which never should have been the case in the first place.

Sources:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/;

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrDQqO8OiZevfkAhAIPxQt.;_ylc=X1MDMjExNDcwMDU1OQRfcgMyBGZyA3locy1pdG0tMDAxBGdwcmlkAzhhTU1tU1ZkUy5LQjRLekhpZnY0bUEEbl9yc2x0AzAEbl9zdWdnAzQEb3JpZ2luA3VzLnNlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzIEcHFzdHIDYXQgd2hhdCBsZXZlbCB3YXMgdGhlIGluY29tZSB0YXggZmlyc3QgaW50cm9kdWNlZD8EcHFzdHJsAzUwBHFzdHJsAzUyBHF1ZXJ5A2F0JTIwd2hhdCUyMGxldmVsJTIwd2FzJTIwdGhlJTIwaW5jb21lJTIwdGF4JTIwZmlyc3QlMjBpbnRyb2R1Y2VkJTIwdXMEdF9zdG1wAzE1Nzk1NjM3NDMEdXNlX2Nhc2UD?p=at+what+level+was+the+income+tax+first+introduced+us&fr2=sa-gp-search&hspart=itm&hsimp=yhs-001&param1=1&param2=f%3D4%26b%3Dchrome%26ip%3D141.164.29.80%26pa%3Dpdfconverterds%26type%3Dpds_sjiqmxum1acegikmuebkmoqsuwl96p7j8qmodg_19_45_ssg10%26cat%3Dweb%26a%3Dpds_sjiqmxum1acegikmuebkmoqsuwl96p7j8qmodg_19_45_ssg10%26xlp_pers_guid%3Dgclid_eaiaiqobchmixflg9_pr5qivyqt9ch2onq8eeaeyasaaegly5_d_bwe%26xlp_sess_guid%3Dgclid_eaiaiqobchmixflg9_pr5qivyqt9ch2onq8eeaeyasaaegly5_d_bwe-9fc3-29c00f804e86%26uref%3D%26abid%3D%26xt_abg%3D%26xt_ver%3D10.1.4.57%26ls_ts

From LRC, here.