Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Science is Settled: It is Time to End the Lockdown
The CDC announced new numbers on COVID mortality. For those interested, fatality rates (by age) are now reported as:
- 0-49 years old: 0.05%
- 50-64 years old: 0.2%
- 65+ years old: 1.3%
- Over all ages: 0.4%
Additionally, apparently 30% of the cases are asymptomatic – so mild you do not know you had it.
The people who said it was only slightly more serious than a bad influenza season turn out to be wrong. It turns out to be less serious. As for the doomsayers? This. I know next time could be worse. Maybe.
It is time to declare victory, end the lockdowns, mask-wearing, and social distancing. Hold a victory parade and let’s return to normal.
Published in Healthcare
Today, the county just north of mine mandated that everyone wear masks if going out in public.
The insanity will continue until a sufficient portion of the public stands up to it.
Do raw numbers support this? Seriously, are 97K + deaths and counting less serious than a bad flu season?
And why are fatalities the only consideration?
I think if we dug deep enough, we might find that a good number of the deaths were actually from something else. One doctor in Italy has already spoken out to say that a huge percentage of their deaths were people age 80 or over who did have Covid when they died, but actually died of something unrelated. He said they “died WITH Covid, not OF it.” And yet their deaths were attributed to it.
This weird outbreak got political. There were and are just too many people who have a vested interest in making it seem as terrible as possible, for reasons having nothing to do with public health. And they have irreparably harmed millions of lives, and they bear a huge burden of shame.
The Democrats said they would trash the economy to rid us of Trump. They told us many times and very publicly. Well here we are. A trashed economy just in time for Trumps reelection. I do not know why people do not take them at their word. Conservatives are about the biggest suckers around.
Go to the linked reports. It includes information on hospital stays the duration and severity of the disease, etc.
As for the 97K dead? That number is questionable because it includes everyone who died who tested positive for Covid. Among those “dying of Covid are those who died from gunshot wounds, and at least one person who had a fatal percentage of alcohol in his system when he died. Additionally that number is boosted by deaths in nursing homes forced to accept recovering Covid patients. In some states over half the deaths are in nursing homes. Had those states taken the same precautions as Florida the death toll would be 2/3rds the current reported death toll (or possibly half if spurious deaths are removed from the count.
As I recall, the 2018 influenza led to the deaths of 120K nationwide. That does not seem like a high fatality rate in a nation of 330 million.
Anyhow, I am not going to discourage those who wish to cling to despair. It is a free country – or was before this nonsense.
I certainly get that. but I don’t think that’s the issue presented here–or by the quoted passage. Within a reasonable margin of error, I believe that challenging the “accepted” numbers could also be interpreted as gaming the totals in the opposite direction by those with a vested interest in that–certainly by those who made underwhelming predictions a month or so ago. I’m not sure why one “side” should be viewed as more pure of heart than the other. In any event, the issue here is bad flu season or not. For now, I’m going with worse. On top of 1.6 million cases contracted.
I don’t see this discussion about the seriousness of the virus over time as the same as a discussion about the present wisdom of opening things up now.
It is time for the proggies to declare victory and continue with the new normal. They won, and next time they will start from the new ground that they captured. We are demoralized, stupefied, and more submissive than ever. The mask’s physical effects are irrelevant. They do nothing good, as far as the state could ever claim based on scientific research. They do known harm in reducing immunological health, to the extent that they do anything at all.
Their significant effect is psychological, and otherwise effective for the left. Psychologically…
They also enable the enforcement structure. In the final stages, a Progressivist society, like Maoist China, Stalin’s USSR and East Germany, and the Nazi state, depends on a snitch culture. Before the current massive human rights crackdown–under the pretext of preventing COVID-19 from causing a breakdown of social order–a snitch couldn’t tell what you were thinking…did you support the unlimited State or not? But with masks, a person who was not submissive could be detected at 50 yards distance, and reported to the authorities.
The leverage of masks in terms of concentrating power is enormous. At the store where I work, most customers would be delighted to shop and socialize without masks. Even under dictatorial orders, we would all naturally comply to the minimum possible degree: masks aren’t that bad if you don’t cover your nose with them, causing you to feel suffocated, and blinded by your fogged glasses. But I was ordered by co-workers and managers more than once to cover my nose. At one of the owners’ other stores, one snitch had reported not the offender but the store manager for one case of a worker not having his nose suitably hidden. Now I comply, in order to protect the livelihood and property of the owners, whom I like, from destruction by the governor and his enforcers.
One reason? Because the numbers for this flu are undoubtedly overstated – for obvious political maneuvering advantage and because hospitals get paid a ton to ascribe as many deaths to covid as possible. Human nature and the two biggest forms of incentive – money and political power – say the 97K is probably half that. There is no such reason the ordinary seasonal flu numbers are overinflated.
Another? Because this virus kills primarily old people. The ordinary flu kills old people and babies and children.
But you’re right – fatalities should not be the only consideration. A much more important one should be the crushing of our entire way of life, the danger to our free enterprise system, the danger of the rising police state, the impoverishing of millions, finally breaking the back of our already ludicrously indebted government, the rise of a possible hot war with the Chinese, and nobody being able to get a decent haircut.
I’m still holding out hope that we may come out of all of this owning Greenland, so there’s one in the plus column.
See my comment on this above. I’ve seen theories on the overstatement of numbers and I buy there’s a margin for error. I’ve seen other speculation that the numbers are understated. I don’t buy some grand conspiracy, and I’ve seen no convincing evidence that one exists.
I’ll accept this as a sincerely-held belief and not view it as a personal shot simply because I challenged your assertion.
Yes, we’ll need a ritual like a parade to mark the end and make it clear that we should accept that we’re back to life as we knew it.
The 2017-18 number is 61,000. By the way, what is the denominator in the CDC estimate. That is, how many estimated cases are they applying the 0.4% fatality estimate to?
And “dying with covid” was accepted by mere assumption.
Sorry for pasting links, but this was interesting:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/11/why-herd-immunity-to-covid-19-is-reached-much-earlier-than-thought/
Exactly. The damage being done is not the virus, it’s the government and legal response to the virus. It’s the incredible world-wide push to force vaccinations, to restrict travel, to close merchants. To surveil everyone and to abrogate the Constitution.
And half the country agrees with this, generally. And most of the world, the Western world at least, seems okay with this medically-excused tyranny.
I just can’t believe that the Bill of Rights is up for debate.
Comparing COVID death against flu death is a bit pointless. None of this stuff is actually based on real detail data. It all is based on mathematical models that are not published. Who knows how accurate any of these models are. I suspect that this stuff is all generated busy work to justify money
The Bill of Right is an old document that gets mostly ignored and is only referenced for power to justify what they are going to do anyway.
Here’s a little tidbit from my corner of the world.
The vast majority of the state lockdown orders are valid under the Constitution and do not violate the Bill of Rights. On a related note, having flattened the curve, which was the purpose of them, the majority of states are easing up. In most states, this was the plan all along and that’s been more or less how the governors have handled things.
I feel like I must have been taking crazy pills during this whole debate, as I have read over and over about this alleged tyranny, this conspiracy to grab power by using the virus as a pretense, this unreasonable insistence on saving “just one life” and ignoring the economic damage.
Meanwhile, the governor of my state, and most of them as far as I can tell, are and have been, far from ignoring economic issues, obviously -obviously – working hard to strike a balance between safety and freedom and the economy. The fact that we will emerge from this pandemic with our complete set of rights intact is not in doubt in my mind.
Of course I realize there have been exceptions here and there, some overstepping here and there. That happens fairly often in ordinary times, as you will see if you happen to check out a court docket every now and then. I get involved in those kind of disputes myself from time to time. It will be fine.
As a conservative, or classical liberal, I’m more troubled by the wolf-crying going on from the right. Tyranny is a real thing, of course, to worry about and watch for. It will be helpful, when the threat is real, if the rest of the public doesn’t roll their eyes when we sound the alarm.
I think I’ll take your assurances to the bank tomorrow to see if I can cash them.
Go for it. The banks will be open and not a single government official will care if you go there. Maybe call ahead to see what their mask policy is. Way back in the 2000-teens, wearing a mask to the bank might have been illegal, now you might have to. Strange times and it’s hard to keep up, but the Bill of Rights doesn’t have much to say about masks either way.
My wife recently told me that she is starting to feel rather depressed about this. She said that some people had been commenting things like “how many deaths are you willing to accept,” and it’s just impossible to reason with that mindset.
I told her that the honest answer, even taking that ludicrous question at face value, is: “way more than we’re looking at now.”
The importance of what you refer to in your comment cannot be overstated. It is our culture. It is liberty. It is a way of life worth living for and worth preserving.
I would support a war to defend that. I would participate in a war to defend that. I would risk my life to defend it for my children.
This mindset of preservation of life at any cost (leaving aside the hypocrisy of abortion and assisted suicide) is empty and fruitless. It has developed over time, and it is why our response to this pandemic is so different than ever before, and why it seems to differ along political and religious lines. This is not about lives saved or lives lost- it is about life writ large.
Kittitas county just mandated masks. We need an uprising in WA, but it won’t come from your neck of the woods, I’m afraid.
Suggest she turn the question back on them and ask how many deaths they’re will to accept resulting from the suicides and lack of healthcare that come with the lockdowns.
Don’t forget heart, lung, kidney, liver disease, and diabetes and cancer screening and treatment.
Starvation–if not in America, somewhere.
Measles vaccinations aren’t happening. Malaria prevention isn’t happening.
AND:
I was thinking of these things with the “lack of healthcare” phrasing. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt to break them out individually when talking to someone. The longer the list the better in that case.
People are, at least in places, lining up for a mile to get free food. Does that count as starvation lite? Pre-starvation syndrome?
Yes.
Had I been less busy I might have thought through more carefully whether I was adding much! (Mosquito spraying is adding something!)
I have no idea. It bodes ill, but I have no idea how many people in the USA are having trouble getting food these days.
On the other side of the world, there’s this ministry.