While the news media report little but chaos and failure in the effort to combat COVID-19, and perpetually chronicle the climbing cumulative death count, the CDC death count by week has declined steadily since April 18. Shouldn’t this hopeful sign work its way into the daily barrage of Coronavirus pandemic reporting? Why has it fallen into a news black hole?
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Bill Whittle Network · News Black Hole? COVID-19 Weekly Death Count Trends Down Since April 18
20 replies on “News Black Hole? COVID-19 Weekly Death Count Trends Down Since April 18”
I believe it is from fire sign theater, but the news on corona sounds alot like the hippy dippy weather man, “and now some baseball scores: 7, 14, 3, 24”
Have not read all below, but also consider # counted who died from car wrecks, gunshots, etc… they just lied about it… also 600,000 told infected and was incorrect… most not even tested…
Gentlemen. I love you guys, and have supported, and will continue to support. I agree with most everything you say here. Bill is right to say took at the framing, but he is still missing the big picture here.
You don’t have guests on this show, but I would suggest moving from the old members only to an occasional quadrangle; with a guest. Even you guys get stuck in a ‘Right Angle’ echo chamber. A good resource is Professor Dolores Cahill, a Fellow at the Irish College of Dublin. She an epidemiologist, and headed the EU commission on scientific rigor in methodology and peer review papers., and consults governments on vectors and pandemics. She would be an excellent interviewee.
Remember the Swedish model; they did the opposite of harsh lock-downs. Their deaths have been at zero now for the last week, and have reached herd immunity. Another great resource for scientific accuracy for environment and C19 data and analysis is Tony Heller.
It would be great to see you three tackle additional view points.
The chart that Scott mentioned (Table 1): https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#AgeAndSex Population by age (2019), which I used to calculate death rates: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2019/demo/age-and-sex/2019-age-sex-composition.html I first saw the chart at: https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/07/20/cdc-chart-shows-rapidly-declining-covid-19-death-rate/ (not to detract from RA; just fyi)
Here, Scott, let me math you a little bit …
Where I live, the nearest “big city” has a population of +/- a quarter million people. According to the Covid map put out by the state there have been 1790 people who tested positive and 24 who actually died of it. That’s a 0.000096 percent chance of dying from the Kung Flu over a 5 month span with peak deaths-per-week far behind today’s date. So …
What are the odds that those 24 particular people out of the 250,000 available bodies — Were actually on death’s door Covid or no?
Additionally, those odds are dwindling rapidly.
South of me about 5 miles begin a lateral line of three counties, the nearest of which is closer than the “big city” mentioned above. The county nearest to me has had 65 confirmed cases and NO deaths. In those entire three counties there have been a total of 154 with a TOTAL death toll in all three counties of FOUR PEOPLE.
Factor in the fact that I’m semi-retired, what work I do I do at home and have been having pretty much everything delivered including groceries for years … well before the Wu Flu was ever heard of. So …
What do you think the odds are of me dying, not contracting but dying from COVID-19? I’d say they pretty much approach close enough to zero that zero is as good a working number as any.
Now that you know all that consider the fact that the COVID-19 maps, IF they were to break down to finer grained political entities (like the actual city and the areas of the city instead of entire counties or states) would almost exactly match the Blue/Red political maps from the 2016 election with the red areas having little or no infection and the blue areas carrying the highest by far death rates and tolls.
Interesting, isn’t it? Who says there’s no God?
I’ve got low level administrators dressing up like surgeons, masks, face shields and surgical smocks, to take our tempeture before we’re allowed to get in the building. It’s all fookin’ panic theater orchestrated by petty tyrants who’ve been given sudden power.
IOW: What Bill said.
They’re doing the same thing here. Our worst week was the week ending the 17th April. More than 22,000 people died, nearly 12,000 more than the 5 year average for that week. Less than 9,000 of them had Covid-19 on their death certificate. The number of dead with C-19 on the certificate has gone down every week since then The total deaths have been on a downward trend, with some blips that follow the five year average deaths.A worrying figure is the 9,000 deaths over and above the avereage that aren’t cvered by C-19.
Elsewhere the offcial figures in both Spain and taly are being questioned, the figures from Russia are a joke. The Germans are being logical and German and only counting people that actually die of C-19 and I won’t even mention the PRC. In that I will be in step with the MSM who are far too busy blaming Bojo and Trump to be pointing out that the corrupt, callous, incompetent cabal in Beijing are to blame for the world’s medical and economic suffering.
Gentlemen: there is no longer is a CHOICE between Good and Bad but, rather, we are confronted with a Bad CHOICE vs. a WORST Choice. The LIES and MISINFORMATION has become so overwhelming and ongoing that MOST folks just raise their hands and give up to the MOB.
WHY? would you think that FakeNEWS is reporting TRUTH when they are the Praetorian Guard of the NEW Democratic Socialist (OXYMORON), the Party of INSANITY and ANT-Americanism.
I have not watched TV for nearly 5 years nor do I read a NewsPaper. My reasoning is SIMPLE. They LIE, DECEIVE, DISTORT, MISINFORM and OMIT. Those 5 reasons alone tell a NIGHTMARE of Epoch portions.
Information is readily available on the Internet. Go to various Sources Left and Right and ALL one has to do is view the Video and read the quoted words and an informed decision can be made.
I’ll disagree in one spot … if it was COVID-19 that pushed a vulnerable person over the edge, and we’re relatively sure of that, then I think it’s fair to say they died of COVID-19, with other contributing factors. I will give them that. It’s how we count deaths from other things. We want to compare apples to apples.
Phil can i supply a minor counter point.
My mother had terrible COPD. The next virus she contracted was going to be the last virus she got. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was the flu, the common cold (also a version of coronavirus) or covid-19, or covid-2 which also attacked the respiratory system. When she got sick in early January, she spiked a very high fever and passed within a few days. Her symptoms actually track with covid-19, but it really doesn’t matter.
When someone is very ill, there is always a last thing. Whatever virus my mom got she died from complications due to COPD which is what her death certificate states. Just because some virus is the last nudge, doesn’t make it the primary cause of death.
There needs to be context in the deaths of the elderly as to what underlying conditions they had such that covid-19 provided that last nudge for them.
My dad taught me that EVERYONE dies of pneumonia. It’s not that pneumonia is especially deadly; it’s that, once every other system has broken down, the “last thing” is pneumonia. (I’m agreeing with you.)
Honest point and well done!
The cumulative chart is useless to someone who wants to understand what’s going on, but useful for those who want to induce despair.
Steve nailed it. Once you’re dead, you stay dead. People who died 3 months ago are still dead. You’re looking at history. Not at current dynamics.
Since I was trained as a Chemical Engineer, I can read and create all sorts of graphs and pie charts. When I saw the cumulative death chart, I saw an initial steep slope followed by a less and less steep slope. That told me the new deaths were getting fewer. However, most people do not have that training. The new death chart is much better for seeing trends (and short lived spikes). Since hysteria, gloom and despair (and blaming Trump) are the media’s goal, that better chart will not be made common.
I will give you one guess why the so called “new” progressive math education has been so pervasive the past ~5 decades. It produces an innumerate population incapable of evaluating number assertions. It is one, two, large, and humungous with no ability to evaluate “so what”. Thus, the population can be frightened into giving up liberty because of the fear of large numbers. Context is not important. It is the large number that becomes fearful simply because it is seen as a fearfully large number. The politicians planned it, implemented the destruction of math education, and the politicians are taking advantage of the consequences of it.
I say this from the perspective of one who actually taught chemistry, physics, and math in high school. Moved to become a biomedical engineer, and then to be a practicing software engineer since ca 1967. I used math like a teenager uses potato chips. Made things that work that involved complex math derivations.
What is that old quote: There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics!
And, since, thanks to ‘common core’ or other non-intuitive ways of teaching math (i.e. teaching kids to hate math because it’s so complicated – so complicated not even their parents can understand it), no one can understand math or statistics, they ‘buy’ whatever the ‘experts’ are telling them.
At least, that’s their hope…
Math is actually quite understandable. It does take significant mental effort to understand it well enough to make it a useful tool. It also takes a math teacher who understands how to communicate concepts in a way that is consistent with the cognitive path of development starting with where the student is. Then the math teacher needs to guide the student through the multiple concepts and procedures of math so the student understands clearly every step of the way. That way math is extensive but each step of the way is simple.
It is the so called “new math” that isn’t understandable. It starts in mid air and builds on concepts that are not communicated. Then, when the student fails to comprehend the uncommunicated concepts, failure to understand math is assured. Progressive education was designed from the get go to achieve failure.
You’re spot on about math teachers, the problem is that they’re not being generated in universities. Most of us that can ‘see’ numbers and find math to be no more difficult than pouring our morning coffee make terrible teachers — I’ve tried for my children, nephews and friends kids. A good math teacher has the ability to communicate at a basic level and relieve the fear that most children have of math when they get past 1x1x1. Unfortunately ‘mathies’ have little interest in putting up with the BS of teaching now, logically they just cannot justify the head and heart aches of the job. Cudo’s to those that are trying to make a difference, you’re a blessing to society.
I love math! I’m actually a mathematician… or was, when I was still working… But I was taught math before all this ‘new math’ and ‘common core’ stuff, I’ve just heard the anecdotes…