HERD IMMUNITY

I believe the coronavirus pandemic is overstated and the wrong approach is being used. First, the 1957-58 Asian flu (H2N2) resulted in a stated 69,800 deaths in the USA; the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu (H3N2) resulted in approx. 100,000 deaths in the USA. The country, and indeed the world, was not shut down as now. The concept of “Herd Immunity” where the low risk populations go about their normal work and every day activities may be the best solution. The proponents of this view, which include medical specialists, believe that by exposing these relatively young and healthy individuals they would become immune to the disease and therefore the disease would die out for lack of hosts. Of course, the older and health challenged people (I include me) should still be protected as much as possible. How to protect these people without overtly discriminating against them is somewhat of a dilemma. Perhaps the best approach should be trying to persuade them to protect themselves rather than by demanding that they do so by “social distancing”, wearing protective masks in public, and not congregating in crowded places such as restaurants, sporting events, or other social gatherings. This too, as the cliché goes, will pass. A central idea to this concept, supported by more and more studies, shows that the number of people who have contacted the coronavirus is greatly understated by an order of magnitude or even by a factor of 20 or more. In New York (19 counties) a study of 7500 people were tested with a positive of 15% (extrapolated to 2.9 million cases) of the population. This gives a death rate of about 0.01%; In a study in Miami, Dade County 6% of the population tested positive which gives a 0.1% death rate, 16 times the number of reported cases; A study in Los Angles County showed approx. 4.1% were infected which yielded a total of 221.000 to 442,000, making that 28 to 55 higher than the 8000 confirmed; Similar results were found in studies in Iceland, Germany, and Australia. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that a large-scale COVID-19 diagnostic testing effort in Iceland found 43% of positive cases reported no symptoms and there was a low rate of infections in children under 10 years of age. The University of Bonn in Germany randomly tested a group of 1000 people in the city of Gangelt, one of the area’s most heavily infested, and found 2% of the population had the virus and 14% had antibodies. Approx. 15% had been infected suggesting a mortality rate of 0.37%. The seasonal flu mortality rate is 0.1%. The SARS mortality rate was 9.6% and the MERS mortality rate was 34.4% according to Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and the New England Journal of Medicine. In Australia the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison said, “The incidents of cases amongst younger recovered people is much lower than the rest of the population.” According to Graham T. Allison, political scientist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, of the current 66, 000+ deaths in the USA fewer than 100 of these are people under 25 years old and fewer than 1000 for people under 45 years old. The deaths of those who are 65 years old or more comprise 80% of the total deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) once stated that 3.4% of people getting COVID-19 would die. Two new studies now state this number is 0.1%. If this is representative of this pandemic then it is highly contagious, but also highly fragile and not nearly as deadly as is now being assumed. Additionally it may well be that some of the deaths were overstated. Pathologists in some states were pressured into putting on death certificates the cause of death being COVID-19 even if they had doubts that was the case. Wall Street Journal headline: “Flawed Data: Covid-19 Deaths Much Lower Than Expected”. The WSJ raised the distinct possibility that the numbers of deaths due to the coronavirus are so flawed that the lockdowns of the order we have seen have not been necessary. Auxiliary effects due to the lockdown are the increases in divorces, domestic violence, illegal drug use and suicides. Others negative affects of the shutdown in the USA are that many people are not being treated for other medical procedures and examinations, even serious ones, either because they are afraid of going to medical facilities or they are not allowed to go to make room for COVID-19 patients. This resulted in premature deaths of some of these would be patients. The fear was that hospitals would be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. Because of this lockdown the opposite happened – ironically some hospitals were shutdown owing to a lack of these other patients. It has even been reported some parents were not showing up to get the usual vaccinations for their children, putting their children and other children at risk when schools reopen. According to some medical experts, If children get COVID-19 there is a extremely low probably that they will pass it on to other children or adults and have a near zero probably of dying from it themselves. This tells me that schools should immediately be reopened and perhaps should not have been closed initially. Seasonal flu is more dangerous to children than the coronavirus and schools do not close because of it. There is no correlation between how quickly some states locked down relative to others and the number of deaths from COVID-19 on a per capita basic. An unrealistic fear has gripped this nation, at least partially owing to the original overly pessimistic numbers of contagions, hospitalizations, and deaths resulting from the coronavirus. The words of then President Franklin Roosevelt at his first presidential inaugural address in 1933 concerning the Great Depression the country was in seem apt now: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” When this coronavirus pandemic is over one can be sure there will be extensive post-mortems on the methods used to combat it, the lengths and extent of these interventions, and if some or all of these were necessary or even helpful. It is easily predicable there will be no complete consensus among the experts and the not so experts. Nevertheless I am willing to wait until there is more evidence to decide whether I am closer to the truth about this pandemic than the politicians and TV commentators and their guests, especially on MSNBC and CNN, but also to a lesser extent on ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post who insist that closing down the economy for an extended period of time effectively controlled this pandemic. I say not. Then there is the seemingly profligate spending of several $trillions for the genuine desire to help the millions of small businesses and previously employed and retired people, especially when this country already had a $24 trillion debt. There can be no reasonable conclusion other than inflation, previously under control, will reignite and might well do so as soon as later this year. To me the key, as it has been said a number of times, is that it is extremely important not to let the cure be more harmful than the disease – in this case the potential long term harm to the economy which could cause many millions of people in the USA to be financially, morally, and medically irreparably injured.

COVID-19 VS. PREVIOUS PANDEMICS & EPIDEMICS

Unfortunately this is my 2nd attempt to write this essay. I inadvertently (Naturally, would I intentionally do it?) deleted it just as I had finished the 5-page essay. Here it is again to the best of my ability and memory. This essay is a comparison of the current coronavirus pandemic with previously pandemics and epidemics and with other mass dying situations. In 2019 there were approx. 38,000 motor vehicle deaths in the USA and in 2016, the latest figure available, 1,350,000 deaths in the world. All of these deaths could not have rationally been avoided. However, speed is a killer and a significant number of deaths could have been saved by legislating and enforcing lower speed limits. In order not to inconvenience too many people and interfere somewhat with transportation commerce, lower speed limits than what now exist have not been imposed. It would logically appear that these lives are considered expendable. On average each year approx. 100,000 people in the USA are hospitalized with 36,000 deaths owing to drug overdoses. There has been a 2-fold increase in the last decade. There were 4.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 1999 and 28 per 100,000 people in 2017. These tragic numbers have not been spoken about much at all in the Main Stream Media, other than being commented by Tucker Carlson of Fox-TV for the past couple of years. Other than by Carlson, are these people also considered expendable? In the 1918-19 Spanish flu nearly 1/3 of the world population was infected (It was unfairly called the Spanish flu because Spain was the first country to honestly report the number of cases and deaths. It is thought this flu started in the USA and was carried by United States troops to France during WW1. Then President Woodrow Wilson lied about it because he did not want anything to interfere with the war effort.) An estimated 50 million people in the world died because of it with 675,000 deaths in the USA. Unusually, the most affected was in the 20 to 40 age range. Likely, this was owing to a healthy, but overactive immune system. According to a TV program on National Public Radio (NPR) the general reaction of people when the pandemic was over was to forget it. There was no claimer to plan or prepare for another pandemic. People simply wanted to get past it. In 1957-58 Asian flu (H2N2) nearly 2 million in the world died with 69,800 deaths in the USA. This was the 2nd major pandemic in the 20th century. In 1968-69 Hong Kong flu (H3N2) approx. 20 million people in the world were infected with at least 1 million dead. The USA death toll was approx. 100,000. This flu had a low death rate of 0.5%. The 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) caused 8100 people in the world to get sick with 775 deaths. Most of the cases occurred in China & Hong Kong with 84% of the total deaths. Although there is a great deal of uncertainty in the worldwide number of infections and deaths in the 2009-10 Swine flu pandemic, according to the CDC, there were 15 million infections in the world with 150,000 deaths. In the USA there were 12,469 deaths. The death rate was almost 1% - twice that of the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu. Deaths or serious illnesses were no higher than the yearly flu. In the 2014-15 Ebola flu, according the USA Dept. of Health and Human Services, there were 28,652 cases with 11,325 deaths. Most of the cases were in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. This flu was extremely deadly killing 40% of those infected. The current statistics about the coronavirus as this essay is being written are as follows: Cases and death in the world 1,447,412 and 91,783; USA 363,851 and 15,744 Italy 125,000 and 15,500; Spain 146,250 and 14,262; France 83,000 and 6500; UK 34,000 and 3000; China 81,708 and 3,331. Given the lies and disinformation that the Chinese government has committed from the start of this pandemic, their totals could easily be an order of magnitude more. In fact one expert on China has said on TV that the total infected could be ½ million and 30,000 deaths. The totals in the USA and the rest of the world could also be off in the opposite direction by an honest mistake. According to the CDC, on average the number of people who get the yearly flu is approx. 49,000,000 with 36,000 deaths. So far this flu season there have been approx.18,000 deaths. This is well below what the average is at this stage of the yearly flu. It could be that some of the coronavirus deaths are really just deaths caused by the yearly flu. By the models, which have predicted the number of cases of this virus, the number who have recovered, and the number of deaths were way over estimated. The IHME at the University of Washington estimated last month that 245,000 Americans would die from the coronavirus. Their estimate now is 60,000 Americans will die. Their estimate of the number people who would get the virus and the number requiring hospitalization were also too high by a factor of 3 or 4. These too high figures at least partially resulting in panic by various states and cities requesting what turned out to be in some instances too many, ventilators, hospital beds, gowns, and masks. In 2018 the number of American who died because of the yearly flu was 61,000; by drug overdose 67,000; by suicide 50,000; by excessive drinking of alcohol 88,000; by diabetes 83,000; by cancer 606,000. Except for the last two certainly the others could be significantly reduced with more involved care and intervention. Why was and is not more concern and effort being made to reduce these numbers? These efforts pale in comparison with what is being done now in regard to the coronavirus. After all, what is the difference between the people who die by these various means? What was it in the first 2 weeks of the shutdown, 6 million people filing for unemployment? There are now 16.6 million people who have filed for unemployment benefits or approx. 10% of the workforce. There will obviously be millions more who file for unemployment benefits before normal working conditions are realized and the economy gets back on track. Some of the prominent medical specialists do not seem to fully or even partially appreciate these dire consequences. I would suggest that if the economic shut down lasts more than beyond the end of April or at least has not made a good start of resuming in some areas by then the economic impact would be substantial. If this shutdown goes on well into May and even beyond, say into June, July, August, September, etc. then the unemployment and economic damage will be ongoing for many months or even years, depending upon the length of the shutdown. There is another aspect to what is occurring with this huge government spending. We already have a massive almost $24 trillion national debt. What this 2 to 4 trillion additional federal government spending will almost certainly do is ignite inflation to some degree depending how long the economic shutdown lasts. Admittedly some of these monies are for loans or loan guarantees, however most of is for direct payments and even some of the money loaned to small businesses will become grants if these companies do not layoff any of their employees. I predict we will see increased inflation before the end of this year. And how much after that depends upon, as I have said, how long the shutdown lasts. What to make of the data I have quoted so far? I believe the cited data show that compared to previous pandemics, epidemics, and the many people who have died of the other listed causes there is an over reaction to the coronavirus. True, there was a certain predictability to the number of people killed by vehicle wreaks and to a lesser extent by drug overdoses, suicides, and excessive alcohol drinking, yet the other pandemic death were not any more predictable at the time than the current one is now. I will admit that theoretically I do not know more about the final outcome of this pandemic than what has been forecasted already. However, some of the highly inaccurate projections which have been made leave me with the feeling that I could not do worse than what has been said. At this point in the coronavirus pandemic, based upon the data I have analyzed, I propose the following statistics: In the world 2,500,000 cases of infection & 160,000 deaths; in the USA 900,000 cases of infection & 50,000 deaths.

DR. FAUCI & THE WHO

Dr. Fauci, who has been on television incessantly lately, especially at press conferences of President Trump, is deservedly widely respected by both the political left and right in that role of being an expert on the coronavirus. I will now show he had deficiencies in other areas. First, he is not an economist and does not seem to fully appreciate the dire negative economic impact a prolonged shutdown of the American, and indeed the world, economies would have. There is an even greater deficiency he has which I will now state. That is a lack of good moral character in his judgment of one individual in particular. Do you believe I can make that case in a persuasive manner? Read on. When asked about his relationship with the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Dr. Fauci said he is an outstanding person whom he has known for years. Dr. Fauci continued, stating “under his leadership, WHO has done very well.” When pressed about the WHO relationship with China, Dr. Fauci deferred, stating “he has no viewpoint on Tedros’ position on China.” This is a serious character flaw in Dr. Fauci where he let friendship override the reality of the grievously bad characteristics of Tedros. What are they? When he was an official in the Ethiopian government, Tedros was a member of the Tigray People Liberation Front; which was affiliated with a Marxist party. While he was Minister of Health he covered up three major epidemics of cholera in Ethiopia, calling them “acute watery diarrhea.” Upon reaching the position of Director-General of WHO, with the support of China, Tedros made the following statements: On 1/30/2020 he said “The Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak and shared it with the world.” “China is setting a standard for outbreak response and that is not an exaggeration.” On 2/03/2020 Tedros said, “during my visit to Beijing last week I was so impressed with President Xi Jinping of his detailed knowledge of the outbreak and for his personal leadership. And if it weren’t for China’s efforts the number of cases outside China would have been very much higher. There is no reason for major interference with international travel and trade.” Just 6 weeks later he said, ”Of course we have good news today, yesterday Wuhan reported no new cases for the first time since the outbreak started. Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world that even the most serious situation can be turned around.” Some of the American media repeated these lies. Bloomberg headlined on 3/18/202: “China’s Virus C Reach Zero.” On 3/24/2020 the Chinese mouthpiece, The GLOBAL TIMES tweeted: “US cities such as New York are now the riskiest places in the world.” MSNBC reported “As the coronavirus pandemic continued to wreak havoc around the world the US has overtaken every other country to become the first country to report over 100,000 confirmed cases to overtake China and Italy in the most perverse possible version of Trump’s of America First.” Nobody questioned the Chinese government figures of the coronavirus. Roughly 5 million people fled the city of Wuhan in January. The Chinese government allowed them to travel all over the world where they turned an outbreak into a pandemic and yet somehow almost none of these people traveled to the biggest cities in China and spread the disease there. That is their position. The controlled Chinese press claimed that only one infected person went to the capital city of Beijing and he came from the United States. Overall the report claimed only 416 people in Beijing had been infected domestically of those 394 had already been released from medical care. In other words, in a city of 22 million people there were only 22 hospital patients in the city of Beijing who contacted the virus. So literally there were only one in a million people who did. Is that believable? The very next day China closed every movie theater in the country. Two days ago the government closed down the two most popular tourist attractions, the Shanghai Tower and the Oriental Pearl Tower for an indefinite period. That is not the behavior of a government which believes it has tamed the outbreak. It is an expression of fear. As Tucker Carlson said, the rest of us should be afraid too. China is the largest country in the world in population. When China destroys critical data sets like how many people are infected or how many are dying that directly affects how every other country in the world responds to the disease. We may have wasted months assuming things about the coronavirus that were not true. There is a cost to that. But more broadly we should be worried what comes after this. In a TV interview a few of days ago Assistant Director of WHO, Canadian, Bruce Aylward, refused to address the question of the state of health of Taiwan concerning the coronavirus even when he was asked directly. At first he pretended not to hear the question. Then in a follow up he said we have already discussed China. That was all because the Chinese government does not recognize Taiwan as a separate country from China. That is disgraceful and dishonest conduct by Aylward. In 2017 as the head of WHO, Tedros appointed Robert Mugabe as a Goodwill Ambassador of WHO saying that under Mugabe, Zimbabwe had improved the health condition of its people. Because of international outrage this was rescinded a day later. Still, what kind of judgment by Tedros was that? How bad was the brutal dictator of Zimbabwe who was deposed in late 2017? Mugabe was prime minister then president of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2017. During his reign of power he led the expropriation of the farming lands of the white farmers, over the years by giving these farms and land to black Zimbabweans, in almost all cases without compensation. And it got worst than that, much worst. Many of these white farmers that showed the least resistance, and even some who did not, were badly beaten up or killed. Within a short time 17,000 (10%) of the white farmers fled to South Africa. By now there are only a few whites still living in Zimbabwe. What would you expect happened to the economy of Zimbabwe, which was a largely agricultural country when its skilled farmers were gone? It is hardly necessary to say, but here are some statistics. In the year 2000, 2 million tons of maize was grown, by 2008 this was down to 450,000 tons; in 2008 there was 80% unemployment; in 2008 only 20% of children were in school; in 2007 WHO declared life expectancy was 34 years for women and 36 years for men, in 1997 it was 63 and 54, respectively. Before Mugabe came to power while there were still white farmers, in what was then known as Rhodesia, wheat and maize were exported, now they have to import grains, at least as much as they can afford. It was not wrong for Zimbabwe to integrate more black Zimbabweans into the farming community. What was wrong was the brutal and unfair way it was done to the detriment of both the white and black Zimbabweans. The TV program 60 Minutes Australia, discussed the position on China in the coronavirus: “China was lying from the start and we now know it was spreading from human to human. A Wuhan doctor disappeared after warning the world of the coronavirus. She has not been seen since.” They called out the false propaganda of some of the news media and other people on the left claiming that calling it the China coronavirus is racist. Why is the USA news media, except for Fox-TV, not reporting what 60 Minutes Australia said? Some Chinese scientists said it is likely that the coronavirus originated from the Intermediate Horseshoe bat. There are no known colonies of these bats within 900 kilometers of Wuhan and no evidence they were sold in the “Wet” markets of Wuhan. Fifty-nine out of 60 people who frequent these markets and were interviewed said they never saw any of these bats being sold there. There are two experimental biological government laboratories in the vicinity of Wuhan that performed experiments on Horseshoe bats. One is within a few hundred yards of these markets and the other approximately seven miles away. A report is that one scientist had been exposed to Horseshoe bat blood and urine. National Institute Director, Francis Sellers Collins called these reports, “Outrageous.” Other people have said that to claim the Chinese government was experimenting with biological weapons was false and ridiculous. Notice that the Chinese scientists did not say the government was doing this intentionally. As Tucker Carlson said, when some commentators answer questions which you did not ask they cannot be trusted to be honest and objective.