Re: WHO now warning against lockdowns

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I can't imagine a presentation of a circumstance being more

Oct 12, 2020, 8:17 PM

politically or ideologically motivated than this one has been. Truth can be found, but not in the msm articles and reporting. They have done a fabulous job of equating "cases" with "fear", and reporting only those without any context of testing methods/volume and actual health effect.

This link is just about the only information I follow. https://covidtracking.com/data/state/south-carolina

South Carolina

The COVID Tracking Project collects and publishes the most complete testing data available for US states and territories.

The link is to the SC data, but clicking on "Our Data" at the top left takes you to the national data. And one can see any state as well.

The trends over the last three months are clearly in almost free fall. New cases drops if fluctuations in testing volume is accounted for, and usually, as with SC, it drops anyway.

What is really dropping is the number of fatalities. From a high of 50 daily on about Aug 1, we're down to about 10 daily and falling. Nationally, we've dropped from a high of 1200 daily to about 700, also falling. That is not as dramatic a fall as SC has but if you look at individual states you'll see that a few states are experiencing Western Europe type curves: draconian lock downs early on, second waves now. Compare states like SC, GA and FL to states like MI and WI. A few states seem to be keeping the national fatality rate from falling as fast as SC's

In July SC was testing 10,000/day, and we were having 2000 cases/day. Testing is now up to 20,000/day, but cases are down to 700/day. I am not exactly sure what those two graphs going in opposite directions says, but it has to be good news.

Regarding hospitalization numbers, that one seems to be an enigma. As the hospitalizations rise, the fatality rates continue to fall, with little regard to the "lagging indicator" factor (no more lectures on that, please: we got it then and we get it now. Prof Yandle taught us all about it in Econ 101.). In SC, the hospitalizations have risen a little lately even though number of cases is dropping (especially if rising testing numbers is accounted for). I will let someone else speculate on how things are counted and reported, but something else needs to happen before I will think that number (1) is signifying anything or (2) is being consistently measured.

Anyway, when you look at those graphs over a period of time, then read the headlines, it's apparent that the story was decided before the numbers were even considered.

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However, that comment by the CDC, if right, does not say that doing so will reduce the number of people who get it. All it can do, I think, is spread out the time the X number of people will get it. Otherwise, one will have to explain how it is that W Europe, which the left called a model of how to respond, now has more cases than we do. Sweden sits there with almost no activity, while W Europe around it is now catching up.

What could perhaps happen, though I haven't heard anyone discuss this, is that if immunity is achieved at, say, exactly 150 million cases, with extreme social distancing we can reach that number without going too far over. Without distancing, we might have 200 million (takes a while to stop a battleship). Maybe. But you're still looking at a very long time with huge costs to do the former. If the at-risk population is protected, what is the angst about cases in the segment of the population for whom covid is less risky than the flu?

I'll come back to my basic point: the msm has equated "case" with "fear" to the degree that there is no discussion taking place about what trends are actually taking place. The administrative docs like Fauci - the "scientists" we're supposed to listen to - sit there and don't say a danged thing. "Masks are good. Yeah, wear masks. But it won't go away until we have a vaccine. We will have one in November. No wait, June." Really out there on a limb, eh Tony? And really, we're blaming each other for something that is exactly no one's fault.

Forgive my two responses. One was just addressing the issue. This one was more to you personally. You know, because you're a fun guy to talk to.

WHO now warning against lockdowns