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What Is Flattening the Curve?
I had a mini debate/discussion with my neighbor yesterday.
I mentioned that the original goal of lockdown was to flatten the curve.
His response: what is flattening the curve?
I didn’t respond because he had to leave and I didn’t have the energy to explain something. I also didn’t think I could have a productive conversation with someone who doesn’t understand “flatten the curve.” What’s the point?
Published in General
Never have so many given up so much with such incurious indifference.
That, more than anything, is what I find flabbergasting about this whole experience.
“Emergency powers” should be temporary.
They should also go thru the legislative process.
Covid has suppressed legislative process and debate.
This sets a terrible and dangerous precedent.
I guess “flatten the curve” was a slogan for luring people into supporting lockdowns. But once they’re in, the lockdown becomes the end in itself.
bait and switch
[Mistake-redacted]
The thing that has amazed me the most about our current situation – is how quickly every country gave up on their legislative processes. Governors from around the world have been legislating by press conference. In the past 12 weeks the Prime Minister of Canada has spent more than $250 Billion – or more than Canada spent for entire 7 years of World War ii – without a single penny being reviewed by Parliament.
Justine Trudeau has found himself in a new ethics scandal, in that he handed out administration of a youth employment program to a charity run by friends of his. (friends who also have donated to the Liberal Party’s campaigns) I am sure that without parliamentary over site, our little angel will be perfectly angelic.
But I also agree with your premise, there is just no point in arguing with people who dont have the frame of reference to carry on the conversation. I only recall one success in this type of situation. When Trump was first elected and he wanted to liquidate millions of acres of federal lands in the western states. A co-worker was convinced that Yellowstone was for sale. I had him google BLM and how much land the federal government actually owned out west – he had no idea. I was actually able to bring him around on the point, that these lands could be put to better use in private hands… But these victories are few and far between.
Just realized – BLM in this context is Bureau of Land Management – not the other thing.
It does make one question Universal Sufferage, doesn’t it?
Shame on us for giving up our liberties without a fight and without imposing a time limit.
And apparently state legislators are also ok with ceding all authority to the governors.
Lazy
Governors are not supposed to ‘legislate’? They are supposed to enforce laws passed by the legislature.
Executive orders don’t count as legislation.
I wasnt speaking of Governors in a strictly American sense, but rather as those who govern – all over the world, they all seized unilateral control of the governments they’re supposed to manage with the co-operation and supervision of some legislative branch… The legislators all got clubbed like baby seals.
for example:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-emergency-spending-bill-gives-cabinet-sweeping-powers-to-tax-and-spend/
Justine Trudeau proposes that he take unilateral powers to spend and tax until 2022.
Yes, why is that? I think people today are spoiled, because most have never suffered. I think the video of the protesters mocking cops for not going to college sums it up for me. They have lived an easy life without risk or responsibility. They are restless, because they have not had to work for the gifts they have been given and they have never bothered to learn about the sacrifices of previous generations.
In my state, it means spreading the same number of COVID hospitalizations (and deaths) over twice the time, while destroying as much free enterprise as the powers that be thought they could get away with.
Flattening the curve is about destroying the greatest economic recovery in recent history, bending it back to Obamanable levels of haplessness and despond by whatever means necessary.
“Flattening the curve” is a great bumper-sticker slogan.
As for emergency powers, no governor should have to use them during an epidemic. All he has to do is have a plan and procedures in place, then implement them when certain conditions are met. We saw different governors with their wide variety of responses, few of which had any basis, medical or scientific . . .
Yes, I think that all that has been achieved by the shutdowns is a lengthening of the misery.
The purpose was to keep the number of sick patients below the system capacity to care for them and thereby avoid many avoidable deaths d/t inability to care for them. It also was to buy time while the medical system increased capacity and obtained more supplies to care for patients & protect caregivers ( especially since the Obama administration choose not to restock the National PPE stockpile after the H1N1 pandemic).
But Bill Clinton took millions of acres out of the private sector to please a big donor. He declared a national park in Utah that contained billions of tons of coal, thereby putting it out of competition with his Indonesian donor.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/utah-monument-was-a-reward-to-a-clinton-donor/
Bill Clinton’s unilateral land grab in Utah declaring 1.7 million acres a national monument and placing off-limits to an energy-starved United States up to 62 billion tons of environmentally safe low sulfur coal worth $1.2 trillion that could have been mined with minimal surface impact was, in fact, a political payoff to the family of James Riady.
James Riady was the son of Lippo Group owner Mochtar Riady. Young James was found guilty of and paid a multi-million dollar fine for funneling more than $1 million in illegal political contributions through Lippo Bank into various American political campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run. Connect the dots. Riady’s relationship between the Clintons would be long and corrupt, even extending to donations to the Clinton Foundation.
Some of Trump’s rollback reversed this action by Clinton.
As I understand it, the intent of the original “flatten the curve” idea was to stabilize the rate of infection or flatten the increase of infection so that our hospitals would not be overwhelmed.
That has been accomplished and more. The Curve of COVID-19 deaths has not only flattened it has shrunk dramatically to a little more than a quarter of what it was. For the twenty five days between April 7 th and April 30th there were 51,217 COVID-19 deaths in the US, an average of 2,048 per day. In the last eight days there were 4408 deaths, an average of 551 deaths, 26.9% of the daily death rate of those terrible days in April.
More Fearmongering from Dr. Fauci:
From the New York Post:
“The country’s top infectious disease expert said Thursday that a more infectious strain of the coronavirus may be emerging.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the claim Thursday in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Fauci said research suggests Italy was devastated by a different strain of the coronavirus than the one that originated in Wuhan, China.
The main difference between the two, Fauci said, is that Italy’s version passes from person to personmore effectively, making it even more difficult to contain.
“It just seems that the virus replicates better and may be more transmissible,” said Fauci.”
This report by Fauci is utter nonsense and Fauci knows better. It is simple fear mongering and a building a case for continued lockdowns for his Nihilist/Marxist allies in Government.
Continued in next post.
Continued from my last post:
The real story of Strike D614G
It is true that the much more deadly and contagious, COVID-19 with the new “Spike D614G” strain hit Italy. IN MID FEBRUARY
IT HIT NEW YORK MID MARCH. 3 1/2 Months Ago.
On March 15th, there a total of 79 deaths in the entire United States from COVID-19 and the virus had been here at least almost two months by then. To tell you how more devastating this Spike D614G strain is, in the next 23 days when the new strain hit New York, the infection grew exponentially till April 7th with 11,000 people dying in that time period mostly in New York and New Jersey. Then over the next 25 days the dying leveled off at to slightly over 2,000 deaths per day, again mostly in New York and New Jersey.
We need to step back and understand what has happened.
The original COVID-19 was probably accidentally released sometime late last year from the Wuhan Bioweapons Lab. It was no near as virulent and as deadly as this new strain. Then it appears with a very high probability that a new strain was developed at the Wuhan BioWeapons Lab and purposely released to cripple the Western World. This was a deliberate Act of War.
This new strain Strike D614G protein significantly alters the structure of the Strike Protein ( the infectious agent of COVID)to make it much more stable with a much higher ability to infect . That is why infections and deaths grew exponentially everywhere this new strain hit.
When most viruses mutate they mutate in ways that generally do not make the virus more infectious or more powerful, but this new mutation directly improves upon the critical weaknesses of the original COVID-19 in ways that certainly make it look Lab made. Also note that this virus is now the only virus known to man that attacks the brain, the nervous system, the heart, the blood vessels, the lungs, the intestines, the kidneys and the liver. The original COVID virus had 4 long strings of inserted HIV-1 proteins to make the virus transmittal to humans and to attack the immune system. It has also been discovered in the new COVID that it now has long tentacles to make the virus infect quicker. All these new features and simply beyond the possibility of nature.
However that said, Lab produced strains are subject to degradation more quickly that those mutated in nature.
As noted before starting in very late April and early May, total deaths started to diminish and have continued to diminish where we now have only about a quarter of the deaths we had in late April per day. Yes there are recently many more infections likely due to the BLM protests but at least from the report from Complete Care in Texas which runs 13 clinics, the vast majority of these new cases are significantly less potent than before.
That the mortality rate has decreased is not sufficient. Our physicians have apparently gotten better at treating or managing COVID-19, so deaths following hospitalization have declined.
But if the rate of hospitalization increases, as one would expect on the steep side of the infection Bell Curve, then hospitals could yet be overwhelmed. If they are overloaded, COVID-19 patient care declines and some might die of neglect. The mortality rate would increase again, but as a result of limited resources rather than of the virus by itself.
That doesn’t mean the “flatten the curve” strategy is ultimately justifiable. As argued ad nauseum on Ricochet months ago, there are many other grave concerns which must be balanced against that potential overload. It only means that the strategy remains a reasonable position to be argued for or against still today.
The more people infected simultaneously, the faster the infection will spread. Going from 10% to 20% infected will be faster than 1% to 10%.
More infectious does not mean more virulent. Parasites, which viruses are, become more successful by increasing its infectious ability but less lethal. The SARS virus, closely related, burned out because of its 26% mortality rate.
We in the medical profession either didn’t have the courage or the consistency to emphasize ” we can’t protect you from Corona ” but you can help us not get overwhelmed.
Right now in AZ we have lots of cases but the system is not overwhelmed. Therefore we’re not locked down.
Finally someone pointed that out.
The policy was reasonable in March and April.
It is not reasonable today.
More infectious does not mean more virulent.
True. But the D614G strain was much more infectious and more deadly than the original COVID. . Just look at the numbers -79 deaths in the first two months with the first strain and then over 60,000 deaths over the next two months when this new more deadly strain hits. There is no amount of excuses and causal factors that can explain that difference.
That the mortality rate has decreased is not sufficient. Our physicians have apparently gotten better at treating or managing COVID-19, so deaths following hospitalization have declined.
Some physicians using HCQ with zinc have gotten better in dealing with the disease in the early stages, but not the ones who are following Fauci and his friends. With the exception of the very recent British Study that found that the drug dexamethasone was effective in treating the late stages of COVID-19 in some patients – (not all) , I don’t think there is any data that shows that the treatment of COVID-1 patients at hospitals has improved with a high viral load. HCQ is effective at a low viral load. The only improvement I think is that Doctors have stopped using ventilators as much which probably before increased the chances of death.
The reason infections have not led to hospitalizations and then deaths as they once were is that the potency of the disease appears to be significantly less. The CompleteCare study our of Texas this last week borne that out. Health Officials in Italy said the same thing weeks ago. So did ones in Britain.
Gov Gavin Newsom put the mask mandate in place here in California , shortly after ordering one billion bucks worth of masks from China. He did not even run this scheme through the state legislature.
He might not understand medical science, but he sure understands economics via kickbacks.
Were those the defective masks that he had to send back? Did he ever get his money back?
Again, evolution tends to make viruses more infectious and less lethal to increase their success as parasites. MERS has survived in an animal reservoir. SARS 1 died out because its 26% mortality caused it to burn out.
Flatten the curve became flatten the economy almost four months ago.