Despite a very significant drop in serious COVID-19 cases, the fear-mongers have to ramp up the fear!
We reported, last Friday, on the actual numbers. Using statistics taken from The Philadelphia Inquirer, not exactly an evil reich-wing news source, we did the actual math:
In Pennsylvania, weekly COVID hospital admissions rose from 281 cases on Aug. 5 to 403 cases on Aug. 19, the most recent week for which data are available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 1,453 weekly COVID hospital admissions reported in the same week of August last year, according to the CDC.
Naturally, the Inky didn’t do the math, but we did: 403 cases in 2023 ÷ 1,453 cases the same week last year = 0.27735719201651754989676531314522, or 27.74%. COVID cases serious enough to require hospitalization are just 27.74% of what they were last year! If “In Pennsylvania, weekly COVID hospital admissions rose from 281 cases on Aug. 5 to 403 cases on Aug. 19,” we have to ask: how many people live in Pennsylvania? According to the Census Bureau’s July 1, 2022 population guesstimate, there were 12,972,008 living in the Keystone State. 403 ÷ 12,972,008 = 3.1066894192479683947157602739684e-5. That means that 0.003107%, 3.107 people out of every 100,000, of the state’s population were sick enough with COVID-19 to be hospitalized, and most of those hospitalized will survive.
In the story noting that First Lady Jill Biden tested positive for the Fauxi Flu, we quoted CNN’s report stating that there were “four new hospital admissions for every 100,000 people nationwide in the week ending August 19,” still a pretty low number, and a gross statistic which could mean anything from a range of 3.51 to 4.49 per 100,000. That was poor journalism, and our guess is that, if the number were any significant fraction over 4, CNN would have used that. But, even if it were in the higher end of that range, it’s still a low number.
Yet, once again, we get more media fearmongering!
It seems like everyone has COVID. Why this wave may be worse than official data suggests
Experts agree that there are probably more infections than the current surveillance systems can capture.
By Deidre McPhillips, CNN, CNNWire | Tuesday, September 5, 2023 | 11:51 AM EDT
COVID-19 certainly didn’t take a vacation this summer. Virus levels in the US have been on the rise for weeks, but it’s hard to know exactly how widely it’s spreading.
Federal data suggests that the current increases have stayed far below earlier peaks and notable surges. But judging by word of mouth among family, friends and coworkers, it can seem like everyone knows someone who’s sick with COVID-19 right now.
Wait, what? What kind of journalistic standards mentions the data, but then gives us “judging by word of mouth” as the basis for a supposedly serious report?
“We have several folks down with COVID, unfortunately,” one health-focused nonprofit told CNN when seeking comment for this story.
Rates of severe disease may be staying at relatively low levels, but experts agree that there are probably more infections than the current surveillance systems can capture.
“There is more transmission out there than what the surveillance data indicates,” said Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. “And we should be paying attention to it, because we are starting to see an increase.”
When I see a phrase like “surveillance data,” it makes me wonder: who or what is being surveilled?
Further down:
(Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences and chief strategy officer of population health at the University of Washington) declined to quantify an estimate for current case counts, but he said he’s been getting lots of calls and questions about COVID-19 recently — similar to what he experienced around the end of last year. In mid-December, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting about 500,000 cases a week. And IHME estimates from that time suggest that the US was in one of the worst waves of the pandemic, second only to the Omicron surge.
President Biden was among the Fearmongers before the winter of 2021-22, when he said:
We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated – for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. But there’s good news: If you’re vaccinated and you have your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death.
Well, we didn’t have that “winter of severe illness and death” in 2021-22, or in the winter of 2022-23, to which Dr Mokdad referred, either.
There’s a lot more in the article, which you can read for yourself, but the truth is that while COVID-19 still exists, it is nowhere as serious as the fearmongers would have people believe.
But now that the vast majority of people in the US have some immunity to COVID-19 through vaccination, infection or both, those same viral concentrations could translate to a larger number of infected individuals with milder — but still contagious — infections. . . . .
“We wanted to make it like flu because that was easier, but it’s never going to be like flu,” (Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Task Force coordinator during the Trump administration) said, explaining that COVID-19 comes in more frequent waves, makes people sicker, kills more people and can have longer-term complications such as long COVID. “So let’s just all agree it’s not flu. It will never be flu. Following it and surveying for it like we do for flu will never be adequate in this country.”
It may not be the flu, but for the vast majority of people, it’s no more serious than the flu. It’s a stuffy yet runny nose, it’s no fun at all, but you’ve got it for a couple of days, and it’s gone.
And then, here it comes:
Precautions like masking and staying up-to-date on vaccinations are especially important as this rise in COVID-19 carries into the broader respiratory virus season, experts say.
Yup, the Powers That Be are trying to push people wearing face diapers again, not because they are somehow effective — they really have not been — but because they love them some compliance from the plebeians.
The truth is simple: the SARS-CoV-2 virus is around, and it spreads, but people have far greater immunity, and the virus itself has mutated into something less serious. It pretty much had to: a virus which kills its host isn’t going to be successful in the long run. If you want to take a booster shout, even the new booster that is supposed to be approved in a couple of weeks, go right ahead. If you want to wear a mask, that’s your choice. But make it your choice; don’t let yourself be dictated to, and don’t support the authoritarians who want to mandate them.