More Summaries of Recent News

A selection of stories which bring a ray of reality into the discussion. Unfortunately, most of the media is till working hard on convincing all Americans that they are going to get sick and die.

A column in the New York Post notes that science, if that is supposedly what we are following, would suggest we should ease the lockdowns.   (NY Post Article)  This story notes the many studies showing how widespread the infection actually is and what a low fatality rate exists, particularly for the general public.  The author notes the now familiar statistics, the death rate for those over 75 is 80 times that of people aged 18 to 45.  Over 99% of those who died had a pre-existing condition.  It also cites the increasing evidence that fear is causing people to skip needed health care.  Chemotherapy and transplant patients and heart attack victims are among those most affected.  And of course, the shutdowns are preventing broad immunity which would be the best solution to slow virus transmission.

Another New York Post article, this one by an emergency room physician, saying it is time to end the lockdowns, because they are leading people to defer needed health care and because, while coronavirus is serious, people have been misled as to what their risk actually is.  (NY Post Article)

And one more article on how bad modeling and a media seeking the greatest hype have caused a draconian over-reaction.   (Reno Article)

The author of this article notes how terrified Americans have been made of coronavirus.   (Spectator Article)    She notes that the public health experts and the media have terrified people into believing they are all going to get sick and die.  She quotes the statistics demonstrating that for the average person, the risk of serious illness is almost non-existent.   Here is an illustration; the per 100,000 population death rate from flu and pneumonia in 2018 was 14.4.  Most states are currently under that number for coronavirus deaths and many are well under it.  And the phenomenon that we see most starkly in Minnesota, that the virus is mostly a threat to infirm elderly persons, is seen everywhere.  For those under the age of 17, the risk is essentially zero.  But the media and some public health experts just keep the fear flowing.

Meanwhile, we have a real epidemic of job loss and and income cuts.   (Zero Hedge Story)   Almost a third of Americans say they they have already either been laid off, had hours cut, or had income reduced due to the shutdowns and that number is only going to rise.  As usual the impact is greater among low-income people.

Finally, think all these severe lockdowns have worked?  Think again.  An analysis in the Wall Street Journal finds no benefit to a quick shutdown of the economy in terms of deaths.  (WSJ Article)  The authors analyzed data per population death rates and compared them to when states did, or didn’t in a few cases, go into a lockdown.  They found basically no correlation.  On the other hand, population density was 44% correlated with per capita death rates.  And Sweden comes in for kudos from not going full frontal lockdown, but still having lower per capita death rates than many countries.