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The End of the End

By May 7, 2023Commentary

Is it the beginning of the beginning, the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning; no it is the end of the end.  Who knew over three years ago that humanity would have such an insane and self-destructive reaction to a pretty typical respiratory virus epidemic.  That turned my sleepy health care policy, research and business blog into a CV-19 focussed outlet, primarily to try to and help people understand the terror campaign being waged against them by public health officials and politicians, the futility of the virus suppression measures and the long-term self-inflicted damage from the epidemic response.

Along the way I made a number of new friends and enemies, got the opportunity to spread my views across multiple media outlets, but probably had little impact on those bad, bad policies.  At times I was too harsh, at times demeaning of those with conspiracy theries I have little patience for, or who could not acknowledge their own inability to understand data, experimental design, or statistics.  I have certainly been wrong at times, but generally accurate, particularly in regard to the negative effects of the response, which has become the majority opinion.

I have received so much help and encouragement.  Scott Johnson, John Hinderaker, Doug Tice, Jon Justice were among those who helped my analysis to be heard.  A number of readers assisted.  But one person stands out and always deserves special recognition for his exemplary contributions–Dave Dixon.  Dave tackled the hardest data and analytic problems and produced charts and tables that allow people to understand what was really happening during the epidemic, particularly in regard to vaccine effectiveness.  He managed to wheedle information out of the state Department of Health that no one else was getting.  So once more I have to express my very deepest gratitude for all of Dave’s outstanding work.

As I reflect back, one of the biggest failures of those in charge of the response was not being fully forthcoming and transparent on the data.  I have mentioned many of these before, but here is a fairly good list.  Not giving us the cycle thresholds used on PCR tests, not identifying those counted as hospitalized for CV-19 but admitted for another reason or acquiring the virus in the hospital, exaggerating deaths due to CV-19, not clearly breaking out those who were vaccinated, unvaccinated or had one or more infections, or any combination thereof, with dates, so we could actually assess vaccine effectiveness in the best way.  DOH displayed a combination of ineptitude and releasing only data or massaging data to support the desired messaging.  Truth and accuracy were not prioritized.

This coming week will see publication of the last of the posts on Minnesota’s CV-19 data.  There is no point in going further, we aren’t going to learn anything we don’t already know.  Ironically, as it has throughout the epidemic, the most recent data posted by DOH has major problems in terms of populations used for age groups and for vax status.  As soon as he can resolve these issues, Dave will do a full package, and that is it.  I may do an occasional research summary and Dave and I plan to keep working on the excess death issues.  Dave will also continue to contribute in the area of climate and energy.

And let me express my most sincere gratitude for all of you as readers.  I hope I have brought some greater understanding of the complex issues surrounding the epidemic and I hope you will continue reading my writings on health care, the economy, social issues, climate and other topics.  Thank you.

Join the discussion 24 Comments

  • Dog Mom says:

    Thank you for your work. Your passion for explaining the C19 debacle was refreshing.

  • Stacey Atneosen says:

    Thank you Kevin. Your voice of scientific reason has been the voice of sanity in this insane “Planned Pandemic”.

    • Bill Blanchard says:

      Thank you for being a beacon of light in a state of darkness. Minnesota, that is….

  • Barb says:

    Thank you for being the voice of reason. What would have been unimaginable a few year prior, came to be during the lead up to Covid. The shutting down of our lives and society.

  • Jim Kiehne says:

    Agreed; what you have done was invaluable. Kudos and thanks, Kevin.

  • Kyle Thompson, M.D. says:

    Thanks to your work I wore an N-95 mask for about a day back in 2020 and thereafter comfortably went back to the standard OR mask while my partners (anesthesiologists) were still wearing respirators and face shields looking like they belonged in a welding shop. I was initially thought to be nuts and cavalier but later acknowledged as being on the right side of the science. Only because of this blog’s work did I feel comfortable doing so and going on vacation with my sons anywhere and everywhere we wanted. Thank you for your stand against stupidity.

  • Bob Geist MD says:

    Dear Kevin Roche, I have saved many of your columns; a wonderful work for other skeptics like me. Many thinks! Please stay on duty! Bob

  • Roberto says:

    Your coverage of Covid was by far the best I ever saw and your ability to point out the glaring flaws in the official narrative while not falling for the idiotic conspiracy theories from the other side was absolutely unique and valuable. Thank you so much.

  • Chris W says:

    Grateful for your work. It helped keep me sane through the CV-19 lunacy. Reading this blog has been part of my daily routine since ~May 2020 and it will continue to be. Thank you!

  • joe says:

    We appreciate both your work and David’s.

  • Gregory Fink says:

    Thanks to you and Dave for being persistent voices of sanity during an insane time. I very much enjoyed your Covid work, but have found myself getting hooked on your health care policy and business posts as well. Big changes coming there — some exciting, many ominous.

  • Jolie says:

    Thank you all very much for your invaluable service

  • D says:

    I appreciate the news warriors who shared jab info. I knew things didn’t jive. They still don’t. I sought knowledge because I knew the narratives were incomplete. Thanks to those like Kevin & Dave who dug and shared their treasures. I’m forever grateful!

  • Ann in L.A. says:

    Thank you.

  • Dan Schnittker says:

    Thank you for your important work. I still think you have greatly understated vaccine harm. I wish you and Dr. McCullough would have a public debate about it. If you are right and he is wrong, demonstrating it would be of great benefit to all given Dr. McCullough’s large audience. Also, you state DOH has not prioritized truth and accuracy. Would it not be more accurate to say they have deliberately (and criminally?) obstructed it?

  • Dennis Boone says:

    Kevin, you helped make sense out of a completely insane public response. Thanks so much. My hope is that someone, somewhere, will dive into the question of what made some people naturally immune. Everyone has been exposed. Hell, the teenager across the dinner table form me at night had a case, but I got nothing. Was it the daily Vitamin D/zinc/Quercitin/Tumeric cocktail? Something I was born with? Why haven’t the drug companies gone full-court press to understand why the virus couldn’t penetrate some folks’ defenses? There should be money in that, as well as vaccines.

    • Kevin Roche says:

      I never got infected, as far as I know, despite living with my wife while she was infected and helping care for infected grandkids and being around others who were infected. Some of us have some kind of strong pre-existing immunity

  • John Oh says:

    Thanks for all the hard work going through important but boring research papers and tables and thanks to Dave for the charts that made it a lot easier to understand.

  • Christopher Nelson says:

    Hey Kevin…it was fun to interact with you in the very early days of all this. You published several of my very simplistic graphs during those early days depicting the ebbs and flows of cases/deaths in MN. Looking back now it was probably a waste of time given it was all based on MDH data which we now know was flawed at best. It is time to put Covid to rest…thanks for all your commentary.

  • manerac says:

    It ain’t over. I still see people wearing masks in grocery stores & cars. I still need to mask up at the dentist office, and woke venues (looking at you, History Theater). It’s their teddy bear.

  • Al Gardiner says:

    Thank you both for all the hard work. I feel like I was better informed because of your posts. But mostly, I, and my family, were not cowed by the so-called experts. And I thank you for giving me the necessary information to be comfortable with that.

  • Mark says:

    Immensely helpful and informative. Focused on the FACTS, not the hype and terror campaign tactics. Appreciate your level-headedness through the months and years on this topic. I look forward to your insights on other topics going forward. And thanks to Powerline for highlighting your work. I’m pretty sure I’d have never heard of you without the PL Gang.

  • matt schaefer says:

    Thank you for being a bastion of sanity in this insane world. It helped me immensely during this whole debacle to stay sane

  • Ben says:

    Thank you, Kevin! Your level-headedness was what the whole state of MN needed to hear. You weren’t perfect, but it was honest. It is demoralizing to see how censorship and purposefully omitted information from traditional news outlets has shaped our world for the worse.

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