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Drowning in Coronavirus Research, Part 92

By September 16, 2020Commentary

So much nonsense to cover.  The depressive and depressing CDC director testified before Congress today and said a few interesting things, the most absurd of which was his near-parody endorsement of the benefits of face masks, claiming they were more protective than a vaccine.  The manner in which he did this makes me think that he doesn’t believe it for a second and went over the top because of pressure to get behind masks.  Just as with the weasel Fauci, earlier this year he is on video as saying the general population shouldn’t wear them, they didn’t make a difference.  He also tweeted on Feb. 5 that the public should not wear face masks.  He claims now that the science shows they stop transmission, but his own agency published research earlier this year rebutting this claim.  When this is over, and examinations of official conduct are released, I hope we get a peek at the politicization of science that has occurred and an explanation of the decisions to promote a mask delusion.

Update.  In my haste to get something out last nite and get to sleep I failed to include a new bon mot from another in the parade of pandemic dunces.  Andy Slavitt claimed that 250,000 college students have been infected and you should head the other way if you see one.  Andy really needs to find some accurate source for information, there isn’t anything that comes close to that estimate.  And of course he fails to note that none are being hospitalized or dying.  I wonder if short college students are less likely to be transmitters?

The CDC Director topped the Minnesota coronavirus briefing today.  Would someone please give the state epidemiologist some meth or something to pep her up a bit, and get rid of that droning speech pattern.  The state has finally launched a more widespread antibody survey, which will likely be managed as incompetently as everything else has been.  Remember the model?  Remember the warehouse for bodies?  Remember Worthington?  Remember the LTC battle plan?  Remember Sturgis?  I think that one purpose of this survey is to show low prevalence so that they can claim we aren’t close to population immunity and justify a forever state of emergency.  I am serious about that.  They will undoubtedly use inadequate antibody assays and of course won’t be looking for cross-reactive immunity or T cell response.

We got a very terse warning about our neighboring states (again, go look at the data, literally nothing to see) and the inevitable tsunami of Labor Day cases (oops, already getting past any incubation period).  The Star Tribune reporter asked a good question about modeling and where is that elusive updated version of the Minnesota Edsel model, or was it a Pinto?  The Commissioner gave a long, rambling answer in which she tried to hit all the messages, managed to slip in that it is only one thing they are informed (maybe she meant misinformed) by, but we can all be relieved that the model is being worked on, “improvements” are being made, close to having something, fairly near future, blah blah.  You can imagine how much I am looking forward to this, sharpening the knives already.  I really want to see how they possibly explain version 3.

The Scottish government has revealed that many hospitalizations attributed to CV-19 were actually due to something else.  (Scotland Story)   Upon investigation, well, let me just give you a couple of quotes: “The audit confirmed that the majority of COVID-19 inpatients reported in the daily published statistics were in hospital for an ongoing condition following a resolved COVID-19 infection, or for a condition unrelated to COVID-19.”   “Comparing the initial data, it’s clear to see the impact of the change. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 inpatients under the previous definition was 262 on Tuesday 15th September while the new definition included 48 patients.”  I don’t know what more I can add.  Do you see that, less than a fifth of the patients reported as CV-19 hospitalizations were actually due to CV-19.  We need audits in the US.

Of course, not only do US hospitals have an incentive to code admissions as CV-19, they get paid more when they do, but they also are giving patients CV-19 so they can code them that way.  According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, over 7400 patients were infected in the hospital, just in 9 weeks of the epidemic and in a limited sample of hospitals.  (WSJ Article) 

Our friends at the Center for Evidence Based Medicine have looked at UK death certificates.  (CEBM Post)   They found that overall about 7.8% of all deaths listing CV-19, did not have it as an underlying cause of death.  But this percent has risen in recent weeks to almost 30%.  So these are people for whom CV-19 was just incidental to the death.  Why are they listed as CV deaths at all?  We have the same nonsense in the US.

And if you thought that was all the government idiocy for one day, you are wrong.  I think these discovered emails reflect what undoubtedly is going on in many governments as they seek to message and shape public perceptions, rather than being transparent and forthcoming with data.  Here is the mayor of Nashville conspiring to hide from the public that there was actually very low transmission occurring in bars and restaurants, using a phony baloney privacy excuse.  (Nashville Story)

I wish I had some dry but interesting research to summarize for you, but unfortunately only this crap.

Join the discussion 6 Comments

  • Ellen says:

    Seeing the way my state senator and state representative, both republicans, keep promoting the COVID hysteria…. I’m pretty discouraged about the future of young people all over the world.

  • SteveD says:

    ‘claiming they were more protective than a vaccine.’

    Why do we need a vaccine then?

    The CDC director is an anti-vaxer. Who knew?

    The irony is that this might convince more people not to take a vaccine than to wear masks.

  • researching says:

    Great find with the report from Scotland.
    Inexcusable that similar data is not being investigated and/or reported on in other places.

  • Matt R says:

    “less than a fifth of the patients reported as CV-19 hospitalizations were actually due to CV-19. We need audits in the US.” No audit needed; MDH is actually pretty straightforward with it on the last page of their weekly report. Go to https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/covidweekly37.pdf the very last page, the graph on the right – although the % “with COVID Diagnosis” (I read positive test) has been ~1-1.5% in recent weeks, you can see the % with COVID symptoms and a negative influenza test has been almost bottomed out around 0.25%…based on this if the prior represents the ~250 “hospitalized” number in the daily reports, probably safe to assume only 50 of them have an actual COVID infection, and to your point – of those, who knows how many picked it up in the hospital, rather than being admitted for it…

  • Lee Swanson says:

    Thanks for your summaries. Besides informative, they are amusing. You should consider doing comedy as a side hustle :-). Thank you!

  • Rob says:

    I’m at a loss for words how the CDC director could tell the entire world that cheap masks are more effective than one’s immune system. It’s either gross incompetence and malpractice or unmitigated evil.

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