By Joseph Curl , GATEWAY PUNDIT April 29, 2020
When the postmortem is done on the media’s coverage of COVID-19 (and it will be), it will be clear that the virus was no Black Plague — it’s not even the flu on a bad year.
SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, has killed 56,749 Americans as of Tuesday.
That’s not good. But it’s not as bad as the 2017-2018 flu season, when 80,000 -plus perished. And it’s a long cry from what all the experts were warning about just a few weeks ago: First, they predicted 1.7 million Americans dead; then they redid the models (this time apparently entering a few more “facts”) and said 100,000-240,000 dead.
Now, a major model relied on by the White House Coronavirus Task Force predicts about 70,000 dead by the end of August.
And for that we shut down the U.S. economy?!
As the coronavirus swept across China, then Europe — then everywhere — the U.S. media breathlessly reported every terrifying number, almost gleefully. Their ratings soared, of course, as they scared the hell out of every American, many of whom have stayed home for the last 40 days, emerging only to buy toilet paper, but even then clad in masks and tiptoeing in fear.
But here are some facts:
FATALITY RATE
A recent Stanford University antibody study estimated the fatality rate from the virus is likely 0.1% to 0.2%. The World Health Organization (WHO) had estimated that the death rate was 20 to 30 times higher and called for isolation policies. On which version do you think the media focused?
In New York City, the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, the death rate for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01%, or 10 per 100,000 in the population. People aged 75 and older, though, have a death rate 80 times that. For children under 18, the rate of death is zero per 100,000. That’s zero.
HEALTH AND AGE
More than half of the COVID-19 deaths in Europe occurred in long-term care or nursing-home facilities. At least one-fifth of the deaths recorded in the U.S. so far have occurred there.
Nearly all the patients hospitalized for the coronavirus in New York City had underlying health conditions, according to a recent study.
“Health records from 5,700 patients hospitalized within the Northwell Health system — which housed the most patients in the country throughout the pandemic — showed that 94 percent of patients had more than one disease other than COVID-19, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association,” Fox News reported.
The study found 42% of the patients were overweight and 53% had hypertension, and the others suffered from a variety of ailments.
FAR MORE WIDESPREAD
Millions and millions of Americans have already been infected with the virus — even though the U.S. media continues to report the low numbers provided by Johns Hopkins, which says that 998,000 Americans have contracted the virus as of Tuesday.
An antibody study was conducted last week in New York City and found that 1 in 5 (21.2%) of residents have already been infected with the coronavirus. There are 8.5 million people in New York City, so that would mean 1.8 million New Yorkers have had the virus.
At the time of the study, there were 16,249 deaths in the city attributed to COVID-19, which means the death rate in the city was 0.89% at the time — far lower than reports in the U.S. media.
Results of antibody survey last week in Los Angeles found as many as 442,000 Los Angeles County residents might have already been infected with the coronavirus by early April, a number far higher than the 8,000 cases confirmed at the time. The survey suggested that the death rate from the virus could be as low as 0.18% of COVID-19 patients, which means the actual death rate in the city is far lower than reported.
The Daily Mail reported Monday that “coronavirus may kill 70 times fewer patients than official UK death figures suggest, studies have shown.” The Mail said a similar fatality rate — 0.19% — was found in a study of residents in Helsinki, Finland.
By comparison, the Swine Flu, or H1N1 influenza, in 2009 killed 12,469 across the U.S. and as many as 575,000 deaths worldwide. Some 80% of H1N1 victims were age 65 or younger, while in New York, 84% of the victims are over 60 and 65% are over 70 — but there was no shut down for the Swine Flu.
A study, this one by Dr. Justin Silverman, estimates that there were 8.7 million coronavirus infections in the U.S. between March 8 and March 28. And as of April 17, 10% of Americans have been infected — which is roughly 33 million Americans.
Two California doctors, Dan Erickson and Artin Massih, co-owners of Accelerated Urgent Care, say it much ado about nothing. “Do we need to still shelter in place? Our answer is emphatically no. Do we need businesses to be shut down? Emphatically no. … [T]he data is showing it’s time to lift,” Erickson said.
The doctors say locking down all of America “did not produce a statistically different number of deaths” versus not locking down all of America, PJ Media reported. “Millions of cases, a small number of deaths,” Erikson said.
The media has been hyping COVID-19 since Day One, alarming Americans to the point where they voluntarily went along with shutting down the entire economy — a mistake that will likely reverberate for a decade or more.
Even as U.S. states begin to re-open — based on the data, which shows a far lower fatality rate than reported and a much wider spread of the virus — the media continue to report on what they deem frightening numbers over the deadly virus.
They aren’t, and it isn’t. COVID-19 is a bad flu at worst. And the media should be held accountable for telling us otherwise before they knew the facts.
*Joseph Curl ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2014 and covered the White House for a dozen years. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter at @JosephCurl. A version of this article ran previously in The Washington Times.
I think Bear is the only one here, who is still in touch with reality.
Dr. Fauci not only has been shown to be wrong, he seems to be lying outright.
While Dr. Fauci was scaring everyone with “the plague” of the novel coronavirus, he published an article with several co-authors in the New England Journal of Medicine (at the latest on March 26, 2020).
The article stated that this coronavirus may be no worse than a bad seasonal flu, and, “on average, each infected person spreads the infection to an additional two persons”.
It is also clear that Dr. Fauci KNOWS the difference between REPORTED and INFECTED counts.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
He was the one who said AIDS would run rampant through the heterosexual community in the 80’s. Isn’t it funny that Fauci has said its safe for HIV positive people to have sex it they use protection, but we’re not even supposed to leave the house because of the wuhan virus. It’s clear Fauci is making political, not medical decisions.
Laura Said:
I agree. Seems to me the hype and hysteria is mostly media agenda-driven. Data and medical opinions that diverge and contradict a select cadre of media approved POV will be excluded, derided, and banned from public discourse. Fauci has been shown t be wrong on every issue. He financed the Chinese virus after research was banned in America. He is a solid ideological Democrat loyalist. A supporter of H R Clinton, Obama, and probably Biden. IMO he is a trojan horse trying to bring Trump down. He rejects and demeans studies showing some drugs have been effective and chose to support a big Pharma drug all admit has been shown to very limited positive effect but will be very expensive once on the market while other drugs more effective and currently in use have shown in some cases complete reversals of the effects of the virus. Why? $$$$$ Rules the day for them and if it helps bring Trump down all the better.
I’m glad everybody “gets it”. May God keep you all safe from getting “it” (COVID-19)
@ Bear Klein:
I do get it, but as I pointed out, the Hong Kong flu was also a pandemic which killed more people, but there was no panic and hysteria or an economic shut down of the country.
Bottom line some do not get is that is a very real pandemic is killing 100,000s of people in the world.
It is very possible or likely that the current death counts from Covid-19 are on the low side.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/accurate-us-coronavirus-death-count-experts-off-tens/story?id=70385359
In a few hours USA Deaths from Covid-19 are up to 67,391
@ yamit82:
First most deaths do NOT have autopsies. Deaths normally have a death certificate as to the cause of death by a physician in the modern world. The stats I list are per https://www.worldometers.info/about/.
@ yamit82:
First most deaths do NOT have autopsies. Deaths normally have a death certificate as to the cause of death by a physician in the modern world. The stats I list are per https://www.worldometers.info/about/.
@ Bear Klein:
They stopped testing and performing autopsies of most deaths ascribed to coronavirus but automatically assume and just add each death to totals. Seems to me the death totals announced are greatly inflated wrt to cause of death (coronavirus)
@ Laura:
Sounds about right and logical to me… I always ask the primary question CUI BONO “who benefits?,” Common denominator is they all want to be rid of Trump,if for different reasons. Tanking the American economy before an election seems to be the right formula.
Trump Approval Rating Hits All-Time High in New Gallup Poll
I am Quoting media again!
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-approval-rating-hits-all-time-high-in-new-gallup-poll/amp/?fbclid=IwAR2nE7kMSVOLv5wBOGN5I7d8QuKGRUyErBKYGYWcd1PpYk8sFZX58EJrPlY
A few days ago there were less than 60,000 dead from Covid-19 in USA.
Now there are 66,650 and climbing in USA.
World Deaths now at 243,205
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
@ Bear Klein:
Don’t regurgitate the talking points of some dumb twat “reporter”.
@ Bear Klein:
The Hong Kong flu killed more Americans than died in Vietnam. The response to that didn’t come close to the mass hysteria created by the wuhan virus. I doubt many even remember it since it didn’t get covered with the frequency and panic that this has. The wuhan virus is a mere pretext for tanking the economy, taking out Trump, instituting a police state, destroying capitalism and instituting socialism.
My comment got trashed.
@ Bear Klein:
The Hong Kong flu killed more Americans than died in Vietnam. The response to that didn’t come close to the mass hysteria created by the wuhan virus. I doubt many even remember it since it didn’t get covered with the frequency and panic that this has. The wuhan virus is a mere pretext for tanking the economy, taking out Trump, instituting a police state, destroying capitalism and instituting socialism.
@ Bear Klein:
More people died of the Hong Kong flu in 1968-69 than in Vietnam. The reaction was not even close to the hysteria created by the wuhan virus. Probably very few even remember it because it was not covered with the frequency and panic that this has. The Wuhan virus is merely a pretext to tank the economy, install a police state, take out Trump, destroy capitalism and install socialism.
IMPORTANT: COVID-19 is paving the way to the AI controlled way of life drastically different from everything that we are used to (allegedly based on a US government document). Ostensibly, it is done in order not to let China “leap ahead” of the US:
– AI surveillance (facial recognition, phone tracking, 5G, etc.)
– smart cities
– self-driving cars with NO individual car ownership
– no more cash (it has GERMS!)
– no personal shopping (online, drive-by, or delivery only)
– telemedicine (no personal doctor visits)
– etc., etc.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/techno-tyranny-how-us-national-security-state-using-covid-19-fulfill-orwellian-vision
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Not only they don’t know anything for sure but they utterly refuse to listen to the reports “from the battlefield” about how the virus actually works, which medications and equipment help and which don’t, that high-pressure intubation tends to damage patient’s lungs without adding oxygen (I am wondering how many patients were actually “finished off” by this procedure), that isolating healthy people actually weakens their immune systems, etc.
This information is dismissed as anecdotal evidence or worse in order to cover the “experts” a$$e$.
The “tender care for the safety of the elderly” turns into cruelty and abuse. I just spoke on the phone to a very old man who was trapped in a nursing home because of the lockdown, and now he is not feeling well (feels weak and, of course, he hasn’t seen his family for a month already). I suggested he talk to his doctor, and he told me that his doctor speaks to him from a distance. How can anyone diagnose anything from a distance? I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t want to complain because everything he says will be assumed to be a symptom of COVID-19, and they will immediately start (mis)treating him for the virus.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
For obesity and diabetes epidemic (even among children) we also have the government ”experts” to thank because for decades they have been recommending a low-fat, “moderate” protein, high-carb (read: refined sugar, flour, fruit juices instead of fruit, processed foods, etc.) “heart-healthy” diet.
The expanded standards for high blood pressure just serve, I think, for prescribing blood pressure meds to millions more people.
“Percent of U.S. Adults 55 and Over with Chronic Conditions”
—-
“Today, just over 34 percent of the US population is aged 50 and over, and their numbers are rising rapidly with the aging of the baby-boom generation.”
“According to CIA World Factbook, the world has over 7 billion people. About 17% of them are above the age of 55 and 41% in the age group of 25-55. So to get a figure for those above 50, I would add about 7% to the 17% and thus about 24% people are above the age of 50.” Didn’t bother with the citations. From random googling of the question. Do it yourselves. If you add up all the people who are over 50 or who have chronic underlying conditions, that’s a lot of people. I read about famous people dying every day! I’ve never heard of such a thing with any other disease.
What I’m getting from all this is that no one knows anything for sure and the experts don’t agree on so much as the time of day, so I’m for erring on the side of caution. And, I have read of people under 18 getting it and dying, too, if not in the same numbers. People of all ages, actually. If you look at the percentages of any population who have underlying conditions, that’s a lot of people.
Obesity: “Updated September 2019: According to the most recent Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data, adult obesity rates now exceed 35% in nine states, 30% in 31 states and 25% in 48 states. Mississippi and West Virginia have the highest adult obesity rate at 39.5% and Colorado has the lowest at 23%.”
Hypertension: “The percentage of U.S. adults with high blood pressure jumped from 32 percent under the old definition to nearly 46 percent.Jan 31, 2018”
Diabetes: “More than 100 million U.S. adults are now living with diabetes or prediabetes, according to a new report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report finds that as of 2015, 30.3 million Americans – 9.4 percent of the U.S. population –have diabetes.Jul 18, 2017” and so on
Drug worked in 91% cases tested (2300+ tested) per Association of American Physicians and Surgeons says hydroxychloroquine effective!
Good News
US doctors org. supports anti-coronavirus drug recommended by President Trump
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons says hydroxychloroquine drug Trump called a ‘game changer’ helps in 91% of cases.
What will greatly mitigate deaths is finding drugs that work and a vaccine. So the social distancing has helped buy time. In the goods news front:
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons says hydroxychloroquine drug Trump called a ‘game changer’ helps in 91% of cases.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/279418
@ Shmuel Mohalever:
What the Chinese told WHO was the earliest statistics when they themselves didn’t have or couldn’t determine the complete data.
The WHO’s Director General Tedros Gebreyesus himself compared apples and oranges when he said: “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected.” [from a Global Research article originally published on March 10, 2020]
Reported is NOT the same as infected (a much larger number). This causes the dramatic difference in death rates that he quoted.
Apparently, no one noticed this (possibly including himself) or they ignored it because at the time there was no way to know the actual number of people INFECTED with the virus. They just assumed that everyone who is infected is symptomatic.
The same media that OMG are anti-Semitic! Just an observation!
@ Bear Klein: Not only “many many more people” people will die, but everyone participating in this discussion will die. So will everyone reading it. All humans die.
What we don’t know at this point is how many people’s deaths will be hastened, or have been hastened, by the novel coronavirus. We don’t know this because none of the disease-control “experts” have conducted the extensive testing and collected and processed the relevant statistics that are needed to determine this. Basically, they have accepted what the Chinese told WHO was true without any independent verification.
The economist John Maynard Keynes once wisely said “in the long run we are all dead.” Let’s keep that in mind before we inflict unnecessary hardship on hundredes of millions of people.
The article in the Daily Mail says that as many as 70 times as many people in the UK may have been infected with the novel coronavirus than official statistics indicate. That translates into 9.5 million people The Mail also reports 21,745 people in the UK have died of the coronavirus as of today (April 29.) Using my pocket calculator, that comes out to about 0.022% of those infected with the novel coronavirus individuals have died in the UK .
Not all of these people died 0f COVID-19. Most are presumed died of “complications” from coronavirus, usually meaning a bacterial infection such as pneumonia, bronchitis, etc. In addition, for some patients, “underlying” conditions such as cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer’s may have been the primary cause of death. The number of those who died only of COVID-19 could be very small, while the number of those whose deaths were completely unrelated to the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in their bodies might be very large. If so, the number of people who die becausethey were infected with the novel coronavirus may be minuscule.
Only large number of random “broad spectrum” tests that test not only for coronavirus in people’s systems but for the presence of other microbial pathogens as well, can determine whether COVID-19 is really a major killer or not. Before declaring a pandemic and lockdowns, no one bothered to conduct these tests.
A VACCINE for Covid-19 is BADLY NEEDED OR MANY MORE WILL DIE
Antibody Testing Indicates 1 Million Could Still Die From Coronavirus
. Clearly the math matters here. What is obvious without a vaccine many many more people will die!!
https://www.newsmax.com/us/antibody-test-deaths-testing-infection/2020/04/29/id/965173/
Dr. Ionnides has written that the coronavirus cases double every four weeks through human contact. And his estimate is conservative. Othe physicians have calculated the rate of doubling at 3.5 days or 3.1 days. If this rate of the spread of the infections continues at this rate, according to my (much ridiculed) calculations on a simple calculator, all Americans should be infected with the virus by the week of August 20 to 27.
This calculation is based on the first COVID-19 cases in the U.S. having been detected around January 20-21 of this year.
All or nearly all Americans have been infected, the American people will have achieved “herd immunity.” Some scientists think that 50-60% of the population infected should create herd immunity–in which case, the new virus cases could decline sharply even sooner than August. It is then a real possibility that the virus will disappear completely or almost completely, as happened to the “swine flue,” “Legionaire’s disease,” SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV-1 did.
Yeah what a Hoax more people in the US have died of Covid-19 than did in the VietNam war which raged for years.
USA Covid-19 Deaths: 59,284
(in about 2 months and death toll is still rising)
Global Covid-19 Deaths 219,287
One half of the USA deaths are in NY.