I am not a scientist, although I always enjoyed science in school. However, I am rather good with numbers. For example, I was able to figure out without a calculator that 30 rolls of toilet paper would last us for 2-1/2 months, while 30 bottles of wine would last about 30 days. However, I am an attorney and I believe in facts rather than guessing.
On March 9th of this year, one “expert” came out with a projection model that estimated 1.1 million deaths in the United States by July 4th, if social distancing achieved 25% suppression. He even went so far as to provide recommendations as to how to deal with “Wuhan coronavirus (CoVid-19) deniers who continue to bury their heads in the sand.” Over the course of a month, this projection has consistently been reduced until the latest number that I have seen is closer to 64,000, which is approximately the number of deaths from influenza in the 2017-2018 flu season.
The politicians panicked, not wanting to be blamed for anything, and the result was a shutdown of the economy, forcing millions out of work, and government responding as they always do. Load the shotgun with $2.2 trillion and see where it falls. Ready, fire, aim.
Early on, one group of researchers said that we should be testing a group of people at random, not just those who showed signs of the virus. This would have provided valuable data to indicate how many people were actually being infected as compared to those who were showing symptoms. Those were ignored.
In the meantime, they ignored certain realities showing that the disease may not as contagious or dangerous as originally let on to believe. The Grand Princess cruise ship had 2500 passengers and approximately 1000 in its crew. From this group, only 2 have died, more than half who tested positive had no symptoms, and most have been released from quarantine with either not contracting the disease or having no discernable symptoms. This would have been an almost perfect control group that could have been used to obtain some valuable data. I have been unable to locate any information as to any data has been gathered. The death rate, based on these numbers, was less than .06%, similar to the death rate from the flu every year.
Another report estimates that at least 8.7 million people were infected across the U.S. during the 3-week period they studied in March at a time that the CDC indicated that 122,000 cases had been confirmed. A group of Stanford University researchers released a new study that looked for COVID-19 antibodies in the blood of 3,300 Santa Clara County residents. Based on their tests, researchers estimate that between 2.5% and 4.2% of county residents have antibodies against the virus, a number that translates into 48,000 to 81,000 infections, or 50 to 85 times as high as the confirmed of known cases. While they are still working on the techniques and results, these numbers could mean that the death rate is 0.1% or less. That would equate to 0.05% in the United States. A similar study conducted by the University of Southern California and the L.A. County Dept. of Public Health yielded similar result. They said they would be conducting similar testing over the next few months, which is ludicrous. These tests should be going on daily.
It has also been discovered that the virus does not do well in hot and/or humid weather, which means summer is coming at just the right time. Who says “global warming” is a bad thing?
Speaking of global warming and climate change, the predictions of things like that the ice on the north pole would be gone by 2011 and that coastal cities would be under water were all based on scientific “models.” If the “models” for the spread of coronavirus come from the same scientific expertise, how can we rely so heavily on their accuracy?
The scientists have helped inflict serious damage to our economy, but fortunately the economy was extraordinarily strong with this whole mess started. Many economists are predicting that it will take 27 months to get back to the level of employment on March 1st. However, economists are generally pessimists who have predicted 23 of the last 2 recessions. In fact, I have heard that the reason we have economists is to make the weatherman look good.
Here is what needs to happen:
- Test a group of 10,000 people, with or without symptoms, to determine a reasonable number of infected people and for the presence of antibodies to the coronavirus, which would give us a number who had the virus but no longer test positive. Those numbers can then be used to determine an accurate death rate.
- Instead of labeling all of the deaths as the result coronavirus caused, let’s publish the related causes such as pneumonia, influenza, obesity, previous lung and heart ailments, etc. We need to know exactly how deadly Covid-19 is, absent other ailments.
- Review the medical records of those who were confirmed to have been infected by Covid-19 in order to determine which of those also had a flu vaccine this year and weather they had a greater or lower chance of being infected by coronavirus.
While scientists and researchers have their systems of investigation, we need some real basic information that should be readily available. Let’s use some common sense in addressing this situation and get our country and economy back to work.
