By now, I’ve despaired of convincing anyone who can open their own eyes and look around and is yet not convinced that the COVID 19 panic is and has been from the beginning a fraud. If you can’t see that, I don’t know what I could say to convince you. But, for my own satisfaction:
Way, way back on April 3, using then-available number, basic logic and a little math, I came up with an infection fatality rate (IFR) of around 0.25%, and said that was still probably quite a bit high. About 6 weeks later, the CDC published their “COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios“. Digging around a bit, their most likely scenario used an IFR of. 0.15 to 0.26%. That means the CDC expects about 15 to 26 out of every 10,000 infected people to die.
Imagine. And they evidently based this on their very ‘generous’ counting of COVID deaths. Now, I’m not some genius sleuth or anything, just pointing out that the data needed to reach these very-much-not-worth-panicking-over-numbers were right there all along, so that even I could reach them. And I’d still bet the CDC IRF is high by a factor of maybe 4. Just a hunch.
Thus: even accepting a world where we all are encouraged to imagine ourselves under dire threat from a disease where 95% of the attributed deaths are among very sick, often very elderly, people with multiple health problems and short, as in months, life expectancies, that risk is still TINY according to the CDC driving the panic. If you’re not in a nursing home or otherwise under palliative care, you are literally under more risk crossing the street than from catching this virus.
Those watching Our Betters decide that rioting over the approved issues immunizes people, while golf or church or a visit to a restaurant is literally courting DEATH for MILLIONS, all while even the ridiculously ‘generous’ death counts plummet, and STILL think the lockup was a good idea and people who don’t wear masks are evil, are not going to be convinced otherwise by math and facts. But I tried.
Charts, because we haven’t done those since they got boring:
In the US, boy, are they trying to make it seem bad despite all the evidence to the contrary. In a country with 330M people, where close to 8,000 people die on an average day, we’re supposed to cower like rabbits because, with ‘generous’ counting, because around 500 people (and falling), almost all of whom were very sick and most near death before they (may or may not have) gotten infected, are dying while infected per day.
No deaths at all since May 26. Note the hilarious “correction” on May 25, where they can’t say: “we overcounted deaths by a couple thousand, which is about 10% of the total,” Because that would be too easy. Instead, they said:
“Spain: On May 25th, the government decreased the number of total cases by 372 and the number of deaths to 26837. The discrepancy is the result of the validation of the same data by the autonomous communities and the transition to a new surveillance strategy. Discrepancies could persist for several days. We’ve adjusted our figures to reflect the new numbers [source] [source] [source]”
Over. Was over once a) it had ripped through the nursing homes; and b) spring weather arrived.
Stick a fork in it.
Turned the corner yet? Hard to say. Southern hemisphere, but the population is mostly in tropical and subtropical climates – usually hard on airborne viruses. Not sure what’s happening, but remember: 220M people, many living in very poor conditions – kind of like Wuhan tenements. This level of deaths, while certainly tragic on a personal level, is not something to panic over. Will keep an eye on this.
Fuggetaboutit.
Mexico (pop: 129M, or twice Italy or France) is approaching the Top 6 in deaths (above). Will keep an eye on our neighbor to the south.
Also also: William Briggs took the data in the CDC report linked to above, and produced this chart, showing graphically the about 62M infections generating those 1.7M cases we’ve heard about. Again, it’s that whole functionally numerate thing: if this doesn’t make you guffaw, maybe numbers aren’t your thing?
And Dr. Briggs’ analysis:
As of Wednesday night, and using our standard sources (which exaggerate death counts), there were 1,689,630 reported “cases” (positive tests) and 94,352 reported deaths. The crude CFR was 94,352/1,689,630 = 5.6%. Again, this bug is not killing 5.6% of those with symptoms. The RFR was 0.03%.
The number of estimated actual cases are anywhere from 8 to 30 million Americans. That is, about 2.4% to 9.1% of the US’s population had symptoms or were otherwise cases.
The number of estimated actual infections are anywhere from 37 to 62 million people. That is, about 11% to 19% of the US’s population are already infected.
If actual deaths are lower, then all these numbers will be too high.
The point of all this: to find more cases, all you’d have to do is run more tests – the infection is out there in millions of (asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic) people. Panicking over increased cases is idiotic. Or, to be more generous, shows a lack of understanding of the data.
Yard Sale of the Mind 
In places with almost no outbreaks thus far we are getting outbreaks, finally – with basically no deaths.
Why?
Maybe, just maybe, because it’s a regular cold bug and old people now know to avoid it.
It’s over.
Joseph: Your posts on this subject have been excellent. It is appalling how few commentators and so-called experts are capable of thinking about this with logic or reason. I get a weekly email from an individual who comments on economic and stock-market related events. He is pretty good on “big picture” economic conditions. My wild-a*s guesstimate is that his regular audience is pretty substantial in size – likely multiple hundreds of thousands. So, in this week’s piece he discusses the continuing risks of Covid-19 to the U.S. economy. Quote: “Former Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Scott Gottlieb said the states hardest hit by the latest coronavirus surge are “on the cusp of losing control.” Ten states, most of them concentrated in the South and West, have recently seen new record-high, seven-day averages of new coronavirus cases. Those states are Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, and Texas. Gottlieb is a serious medical professional and not prone to wild statements. We should pay attention.” Serious medical professional? An MD who is in venture capital, sits on boards, etc. No background in statistics, big data, or epidemiology. Can’t talk shop with Briggs, let alone Ioannidis. But this pap is out there being absorbed by the logically-challenged amongst his readers.
I legitimately at this point blame Fauci and Birx for the vast majority of this.