Nov 272020
 
 November 27, 2020  Posted by at 5:25 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,


Paul Cézanne The Card Players 1892-3

 

 

When politicians across the globe tell you they listen to “the science” when defining their COVID measures, they don’t really, they are lying. What they listen to is a shred of science as formulated by their local virologists and epidemiologists, which is inevitably questioned by other scientists.

If this were not the case, the entire world would now be taking the same measures, and there would not be any discussions in the scientific community. Still, when measures are imposed in various countries, they are imposed as some kind of law. Lockdowns are popular among failed and failing politicians, because they see it as a failsafe measure (there’s nothing more extreme). But that is only because they have never moved beyond the “COVID is the only problem we have” mindframe.

Still, even then, it would be wise to recognize these measures as arbitrary. That’s why they differ from one place to another; they make it up as they go along, guided by their limited understanding of the issue. What US Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch opined on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decree on closing churches, as the court struck down the decree, is a fine example of why they are arbitrary:

 

 

Things tend to be better defined when courts of law rule on them. Thta’s what courts are for. Which is why we should pay attention when a Portuguese court states that PCR tests are 97% unreliable. We don’t pay attention, because our media ignore that ruling. And we continue to use the PCR test on a massive scale, even if its own inventor says it shouldn’t be used for this purpose. And so says the box that it comes in. “The science”? No, it’s not.

And for all those countries that close their stores and schools, this from Canada should perhaps, no, definitely, open eyes:

 

 

If only 1.5% of COVID deaths happen outside of long term care homes, the “science” doesn’t say close your schools and stores and make everyone wear a mask 24 hours a day, the science says pump massive amounts of resources into those care homes in order to stop the misery there. Closing stores will not do that. It will have other, very negative, effects though, while you’re not taking care of the care homes.

 

This is from Peter Andrews, a geneticist and science journalist:

Landmark Legal Ruling Finds That Covid PCR Tests Are Not Fit For Purpose

Four German holidaymakers who were illegally quarantined in Portugal after one was judged to be positive for Covid-19 have won their case, in a verdict that condemns the widely-used PCR test as being up to 97% unreliable. Earlier this month, Portuguese judges upheld a decision from a lower court that found the forced quarantine of four holidaymakers to be unlawful. The case centred on the reliability (or lack thereof) of Covid-19 PCR tests. The verdict, delivered on November 11, followed an appeal against a writ of habeas corpus filed by four Germans against the Azores Regional Health Authority. This body had been appealing a ruling from a lower court which had found in favour of the tourists, who claimed that they were illegally confined to a hotel without their consent.

The tourists were ordered to stay in the hotel over the summer after one of them tested positive for coronavirus in a PCR test – the other three were labelled close contacts and therefore made to quarantine as well. The deliberation of the Lisbon Appeal Court is comprehensive and fascinating. It ruled that the Azores Regional Health Authority had violated both Portuguese and international law by confining the Germans to the hotel. The judges also said that only a doctor can “diagnose” someone with a disease, and were critical of the fact that they were apparently never assessed by one. They were also scathing about the reliability of the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test, the most commonly used check for Covid.

The conclusion of their 34-page ruling included the following: “In view of current scientific evidence, this test shows itself to be unable to determine beyond reasonable doubt that such positivity corresponds, in fact, to the infection of a person by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.” In the eyes of this court, then, a positive test does not correspond to a Covid case. The two most important reasons for this, said the judges, are that, “the test’s reliability depends on the number of cycles used’’ and that “the test’s reliability depends on the viral load present.’’ In other words, there are simply too many unknowns surrounding PCR testing.

This is not the first challenge to the credibility of PCR tests. Many people will be aware that their results have a lot to do with the number of amplifications that are performed, or the ‘cycle threshold.’ This number in most American and European labs is 35–40 cycles, but experts have claimed that even 35 cycles is far too many, and that a more reasonable protocol would call for 25–30 cycles. (Each cycle exponentially increases the amount of viral DNA in the sample). [..] The Portuguese judges cited a study conducted by “some of the leading European and world specialists,” which was published by Oxford Academic at the end of September. It showed that if someone tested positive for Covid at a cycle threshold of 35 or higher, the chances of that person actually being infected is less than three percent, and that “the probability of… receiving a false positive is 97% or higher.”

Then there are the vaccines that everyone’s so hyped up about. Gilbert Berdine, MD, writing for the Mises Institute, has some questions about the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines (anything to do with why Twitter suspended the institute’s account)?

What exactly is a “case” of COVID? It can’t be a positive PCR test, not if those are only 3% reliable. So “the science” must be doing something wrong, and with them just about any government on the planet.

And yes, Pfizer and Moderna have dollar signs in their eyes. There are many questions about the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, and I can’t help thinking they are linked to the fact that it’s not-for-profit. Likewise, the complete silence about Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is also curious. We want to solve the problem only if our own scientists and the Big Pharma they work for can do it?

 

What The COVID Vaccine Hype Fails To Mention

Both trials have a treatment group that received the vaccine and a control group that did not. All the trial subjects were covid negative prior to the start of the trial. The analysis for both trials was performed when a target number of “cases” were reached. “Cases” were defined by positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing. There was no information about the cycle number for the PCR tests. There was no information about whether the “cases” had symptoms or not. There was no information about hospitalizations or deaths. The Pfizer study had 43,538 participants and was analyzed after 164 cases. So, roughly 150 out 21,750 participants (less than 0.7%) became PCR positive in the control group and about one-tenth that number in the vaccine group became PCR positive.

The Moderna trial had 30,000 participants. There were 95 “cases” in the 15,000 control participants (about 0.6%) and 5 “cases” in the 15,000 vaccine participants (about one-twentieth of 0.6%). The “efficacy” figures quoted in these announcements are odds ratios. There is no evidence, yet, that the vaccine prevented any hospitalizations or any deaths. The Moderna announcement claimed that eleven cases in the control group were “severe” disease, but “severe” was not defined. If there were any hospitalizations or deaths in either group, the public has not been told.

When the risks of an event are small, odds ratios can be misleading about absolute risk. A more meaningful measure of efficacy would be the number to vaccinate to prevent one hospitalization or one death. Those numbers are not available. An estimate of the number to treat from the Moderna trial to prevent a single “case” would be fifteen thousand vaccinations to prevent ninety “cases” or 167 vaccinations per “case” prevented which does not sound nearly as good as 94.5% effective.

The publicists working for pharmaceutical companies are very smart people. If there were a reduction in mortality from these vaccines, that information would be in the first paragraph of the announcement.

There is no information about how long any protective benefit from the vaccine would persist. Antibody response following covid-19 appears to be short lived. Based on what we know, the covid vaccine may require two shots every three to six months to be protective. The more shots required, the greater the risk of side effects from sensitization to the vaccine. There is no information about safety. None. Government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) appear to have two completely different standards for attributing deaths to covid-19 and attributing side effects to covid vaccines.

If these vaccines are approved, as they likely will be, the first group to be vaccinated will be the beta testers. I am employed by a university-based medical center that is a referral center for the West Texas region. My colleagues include resident physicians and faculty physicians who work with covid patients on a daily basis. I have asked a number of my colleagues whether they will be first in line for the new vaccine. I have yet to hear any of my colleagues respond affirmatively.

The reasons for hesitancy are that the uncertainties about safety exceed what they perceive to be a small benefit. In other words, my colleagues would prefer to take their chances with covid rather than beta test the vaccine. Many of my colleagues want to see the safety data after a year of use before getting vaccinated; these colleagues are concerned about possible autoimmune side effects that may not appear for months after vaccination.

Next, we get a look, through the American Institute for Economic Research, at a report that Johns Hopkins University somewhat mysteriously pulled from its website:

 

New Study Highlights Alleged Accounting Error Regarding Covid Deaths

It is already well established that Covid-19 is a disease that is most dangerous to those over the age of 65 and who have preexisting conditions. In the United States, there has been an observed 2.1% mortality rate, with elderly individuals making up over half that number. Young and healthy people are not by any significant capacity threatened by Covid-19. One of the most important factors when it comes to Covid-19 is preventing excess death. According to the CDC, “Estimates of excess deaths can provide information about the burden of mortality potentially related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including deaths that are directly or indirectly attributed to COVID-19. Excess deaths are typically defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods.”

Essentially, there is an average number of deaths every year due to a variety of causes that for the most part have remained constant through the years. This includes morbidities such as heart disease, which has long been the leading cause of death, and cancer, which has long plagued our existence. For Covid-19 to be a serious cause of alarm, it would need to significantly increase the number of average deaths. However, according to the study, “These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.” Total deaths in the United States show no significant change and even mirror past trends of seasonal illness.

[..] What is even more interesting if not more alarming is that the spike in recorded Covid-19 deaths seen in 2020 has coincided with a proportional decrease in death from other diseases. Yanni Gu writes “This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19.” Deaths have remained relatively constant, yet reported deaths due to deadly conditions such as heart disease have fallen while reported Covid deaths have risen. This suggests that the current Covid death count is in some capacity relabeled deaths due to other ailments. According to the graph, reported Covid deaths even overtook heart disease as the main cause of death at one point, which should raise suspicion.

 

And when you see the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal report that some 53 million American may already have been infected, you must ask what the use is of all the COVID measures at this point in time. If this is true in the US, chances are it is true in virtually any other location.

Looks like everybody has it and only people in care homes die from it, and on top of that many of those people didn’t actually die from COVID but from some other affliction. And for that we are closing down our entire societies, force massive amounts of businesses into bankruptcy, force millions upon millions into unemployment. All while relying on a test method that is 97% unreliable.

 

Total COVID19 Cases In US May Be Eight Times Higher Than Reported

The actual number of Covid-19 infections in the U.S. could be about eight times as much as the total reported cases, a model created by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated. The model published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases suggests that nearly 53 million people in the U.S. had been infected with Covid-19 by the end of September. The estimate is around eight times higher than the 7.1 million confirmed cases that had been reported back then. The model tries to account for the fact that most cases of Covid-19 are mild and therefore go unreported. The scientists, however, warned that by the end of September, 84% of the U.S. population had not been infected and was still at risk of catching the disease.

If the trend of unreported cases still holds true as of Thursday, the U.S. — which has 12.5 million confirmed cases — could be approaching 100 million total infections across the country. In October, the World Health Organisation had said that nearly 10% of the world population or nearly 760 million people may have already been infected with Covid-19, despite the fact that only 35 million confirmed cases had been recorded as of that time.

“When you count anything, you can’t count it perfectly,” Mike Ryan, the executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, had said back then adding, “But I can assure you that the current numbers are likely an underestimate of the true toll of Covid.” Scientists have also suggested that deaths due to the pandemic have also been severely undercounted, with the CDC stating that the U.S. had recorded nearly 300,000 excess deaths during the pandemic as of October 3. This number was nearly 100,000 deaths more than what had been officially recorded by the states.

What we need is actual science. Not “a science” or “some science”, but undisputed science. Einstein’s E=MC2 is science, that’s the level we need. Not disputable pseudo-science. Yes, there’s panic among politicians and scientists alike, yes, there is Long-COVID, yes there are people with multiple organ failure, but you will still have to do risk-assessment, you must look at how many people are involved.

And if you’re talking 0.01% of people, you need to wonder if it’s worthwhile to close down your entire society in a Great Reset kind of fashion. Likewise, forcing everyone to wear facemasks outside is something that must be evaluated as per risk factors. What is the risk of infecting anyone while just passing them in the street? It’s never zero, but no risk is ever zero. And if it’s 0.001%, does that justify turning your streets into a zombified society that puts everyone on edge?

“The science” needs to evolve, and it doesn’t appear to have done that. We’re back to square one all the time. COVID equals Groundhog Day. “Well, that didn’t help, so let’s do more of the same”. By now, the science, to remain believable, should have developed, moved on. It hasn’t. The hope for vaccines has taken on desperate levels, and the reliance on Big Pharma doesn’t help. Nor does the outright rejection of Russian, Chinese, Cuban vaccines. All nations with excellent medical resources, but ignored for political reasons. This is not the time to play politics. It’s a time for science to step up to the plate.

Are things much worse in countries that leave their stores open? Are they in places that don’t make people wear facemasks 24/7? The “science” should answer those questions by now. What else are they doing? But it’s not happening. COVID vs “The Science”: 1-0.

 

 

 

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Home Forums COVID Equals Groundhog Day

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
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  • #66104

    Paul Cézanne The Card Players 1892-3     When politicians across the globe tell you they listen to “the science” when defining their COVID m
    [See the full post at: COVID Equals Groundhog Day]

    #66107
    Mr. House
    Participant

    The case some of us have been making seems to get stronger and stronger as time passes. Which leads to the next thought in the chain, if we’re being lied to, why? My first thought goes to it being political. When this first began, people would say how can the entire world be in on it? Well, we all know that the rest of the world hates trump as much as some here, i remember viewing a g-7 pic of trump on one side of the room while the rest of the leaders give him the stink eye. I’ve been paying attention to politics since the 90’s. I remember accusations of the clintons being in bed with the Chi-coms then. Perhaps the globalists are all on board for the new world order and they viewed Trump as an impediment. Four years of unsubstantiated propahandi didn’t do the trick (lets call it what it really was) and perhaps many of them are guilty of things they thought he might expose, wrecking the entire house of cards. Perhaps they are desperate enough to cause such suffering and agony, i wouldn’t put it past them.

    #66108
    Mr. House
    Participant

    RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA and COVID share many of the same characteristics

    #66109
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “better to reign in hell than serve in heaven”

    #66110
    generic
    Participant

    I’ve lost one middle-aged person in my extended family to Covid but no elderly persons as far as I know.

    One of my immediate family members developed Covid the first week in March, had mild symptoms, and seemed to recover quickly. However, he had a lack of energy and now has trouble climbing the stairs. He has excellent health insurance and went through hospital tests for his heart and lungs that turned out normal. That makes one think of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but I doubt he will be diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis. He is middle-aged and has been a jogger with occasional marathons. After 9 months, can he expect a recovery? I suspect many similar people will eventually be diagnosed with “Post Covid Syndrome.”

    A number of medical doctors and researchers are studying these disabilities, but there are no reliable data yet for the infection/disability rate. We probably won’t have that data for at least a couple of years. An infection/disability rate ten times the infection fatality rate would not be surprising. Some of those disabilities would be minor, and others would result in a lower life expectancy.

    A significant percentage of the US population thinks that a Covid infection is not a serious concern. My question would be whether they think they are healthier than Chinese doctor Li Wenliang who died from Covid. I suspect that he received a large inoculum from one of his patients, and his immune system was unable to respond in time. That initial inoculum may be more important than age and most co-morbidities. There are children who have died of Covid. I read of a 113 year old woman in Spain who recovered from Covid, although she did receive hydroxychloroquine and zinc.

    I find it hard to trust the varying health data because politics has interfered to such a large extent. So I calculate my own data. I take the Worldometer dead and increase it by 25% to give me currently about 330,000 dead in the US. Using a infection/fatality rate of 0.01%, the total number of people infected by Covid in the US would be about 33 million or 10% of the US population. So, we are far from herd immunity.

    If there are no interventions, by the time we get to herd immunity, we might have about 2.5 million dead and, who knows, perhaps 25 million disabled persons. That would be worse than all our wars combined. But of course we definitely will have interventions. Reality has a way of imposing itself on politicians and others no matter how foolish.

    #66112
    upstateNYer
    Participant

    @generic:

    I’m sorry your relative is experiencing post-viral syndrome following COVID infection. Millions of Americans have been experiencing this type of thing for decades. Where do you think “chronic Lyme” (not acknowledged by mainstream drs), CFS, Fibromyalgia,Lupus, et al, come from? A percentage of people will be disabled, post COVID infection, to varying degrees. As it was and ever shall be …

    You mention: “A significant percentage of the US population thinks that a Covid infection is not a serious concern. My question would be whether they think they are healthier than Chinese doctor Li Wenliang who died from Covid.” Personally, I do not think I’m healthier. Not by a long shot. I’m almost 60, have had autoimmune (post viral?) issues for the past 3 years. I’m at risk. That doesn’t mean I want to stop living until such time as I die. I’ll take my chances. I get the feeling a lot of the US population feels the same way.

    You also say: “I take the Worldometer dead and increase it by 25% to give me currently about 330,000 dead in the US.” I think you’re calculating in reverse of what is likely true. Did you read Raul’s article before you commented?

    In closing … I humbly, oh so humbly, acknowledge that Dr D and other commenters here at TAE were right all along. Flatten the curve turned into no one can die. We have sold our souls to the parasitic class to save our physical bodies. It is well past time for humanity to set this particular hysteria aside.

    #66113
    generic
    Participant

    @ upstateNYer

    Thanks for your comments.
    I have a number of auto immune conditions among my relatives, and the names of these conditions always seem to be new to me. (primary biliary cholangitis?) Are these due to viruses, retroviruses, diet, genetics, something else? A family member developed something like CFS leaving her gasping for breath for a couple of decades before her death. This was caused by a doubling of her hypertension medication, and her pulmonary doctor told us from the start that this was irreversible. So I’m quite familiar that life is full of risks.

    When I outline how I calculate risks, I’m not saying anyone should follow my reasoning. Everyone needs to do their own calculation based on their knowledge and personal situation. Chris Martenson said a couple months ago that he thought we were near heard immunity. I believe that Raul stated that he thought the number of infected persons might be eight times the number on Worldometer. I think it’s more like three times the Worldometer number. None of us knows for sure. The data is incomplete, uncertain, and sometimes deliberately fraudulent.

    Taleb says that we are dealing with fat-tailed distributions leaving us with uncertainty and unknowable risks. I have responsibilities to family, friends, and animals. I have responsibilities to their lives, health, and finances. Those responsibilities help determine how I respond to risk. The responsibilities for you, Raul, or Dr D might be vastly different. So act accordingly.

    I read about people interned in Japanese concentration camps during World War Two. Those people who took many careless risks didn’t survive. Those who took no risks at all didn’t survive. The people who took very calculated risks were those who survived. That’s exactly the way life is Darwinian.

    “Flatten the Curve” was intended to be a short term attempt to avoid overtaxing the healthcare system while we determined how to deal with the virus. China, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia decided to crush the curve out of existence. And they can do it in about 30 days. Sweden decided to let the virus run wild. The US strategy is to “muddle through.” We have no choice. Our nations governors and mayors have demonstrated conclusively that they have no leadership ability whatsoever. The state health departments are clueless. The Federal Government is AWOL.

    Some new efforts will obviously be forthcoming in the US. I find it hard to be optimistic about that.

    #66114
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    This is very difficult to write.

    It is clear that the Western ruling elite’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is if it makes money, go for it. If it doesn’t (even if it is in the public good), forget it.

    Since South Korea controlled its coronavirus outbreak, it’s been crystal clear that religious ceremonies; packed together, singing, praying, and no protective equipment are super spreader events when an infected virus shedding person attends. This is likely in the USA with the virus running wild. They are extremely hard to control by public health personnel since most of the virus spreaders are asymptomatic (temperature screening is pointless) and the participants generally are anti-state (Christians in a Confucian nation or Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn NY) and they return out into the population afterwards.

    The US Supreme Court has just decided that it is legal to infect, hospitalize and kill other Americans while practicing one’s religion in public.

    #66115
    penname
    Participant

    You’re doubling down on the garbage claim that only 172 Canadians have died of covid outside of long term care homes in Canada? Despite a comment from me and at least one other comment providing links disproving the claim?

    I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve.

    #66116
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    I saw a preprint version of this study earlier this year, and in September it was published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research.

    It’s the study which looks at statistics from various locations and calculates the number of miles you’d have to travel per day in a motor vehicle to make the risk of dying from a crash the same as the risk of dying from Covid-19.

    Here are some examples of the resulting “risk of COVID-19 death for <65 year old people as miles travelled per day equivalent”:

    Canada – 14 miles per day
    Italy – 37 miles per day
    Netherlands – 32 miles per day
    Spain – 65 miles per day
    India – 4 miles per day

    This puts the risks into better perspective. The conclusions of the study get straight to the point:

    Conclusions

    People <65 years old have very small risks of COVID-19 death even in pandemic epicenters and deaths for people <65 years without underlying predisposing conditions are remarkably uncommon. Strategies focusing specifically on protecting high-risk elderly individuals should be considered in managing the pandemic.

    Population-level COVID-19 mortality risk for non-elderly individuals overall and for non-elderly individuals without underlying diseases in pandemic epicenters
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7327471/

    #66117
    MrMoto
    Participant

    This ‘only 172 deaths outside of ltc in Canada’ is total garbage.

    As I said previously

    As of Nov. 26 Ontario alone had a total of 3,595 deaths of which 2,283 were in long term care so that leaves 1,312 non long term care deaths just in this province.

    Surprised you put that number up again.

    And while I’m at it it’s funny that after a big rise in the number of bogus positive pcr test results you get a big rise in the number of people going to hospital with this fake disease and then some of those end up in icu and then some of them die

    It’s just a crazy world I guess!

    #66128

    About that Canada pic: I didn’t read the comments on yesterday’s Debt Rattle until after posting this article. I also said: “If only 1.5% of COVID deaths happen outside of long term care homes..” I had no way of knowing if it is true, CTV seemed a credible enough source. I can’t fact-check everything I use. That two-thirds of all deaths are in care homes is a bad enough number.

    But it’s also not the main point I tried to make, which is that such numbers should be all over the place by now, for all countries and states. We should know where cases and deaths take place, because policies and measures are based on those numbers. The information should by now be much more detailed, so we don’t bring sledgehammers to hammer in tiny nails.

    #66133
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    We like sharing resources that benefit us. That is the foundation of market economics: try and make the good better and more available. We make laws to promote this. Some of these laws are good. Some are awful.

    We don’t like sharing things that hurts us. That is the basis of politics: try to make the bad less bad and less available. We make laws to prevent this. Some of these laws are good. Some are awful.

    El covid brings these two principles into frank conflict.

    It’s an ancient dilemma:

    “Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
    Try not to confuse it with what you do to survive” — Jackson Browne

    Mystery to Me

    #66210
    Jef Jelten
    Participant

    Those of you who still want to cry “why do you want to kill me?” to everyone who does not mask up and hide away I say that the death rate matches the natural death rate exactly. Meaning that it is people who usually die who are dying. Yes this means babies, children, teens, young people, everyone could possibily die from covid-19 but not at a rate different than the demographics of normal death demographics. The chances of dying from covid-19 as a baby in infinitesimal and as you go up the age scale your chances increase proportionally same as it ever was. Maybe more ultimate deaths but not out of context to the normal curve. We shall see if the total deaths are higher but we won’t know for a while. Some deaths were less such as auto accidents, pollution inhalation, stress was down for a while when people had money and were all gardening and cooking.

    SPanish flu killed the young and healthy but this flu is the opposite of that. That and the only meds they pushed was aspirin at about 5 times the lethal rate which killed millions.

    #66238
    Doly
    Participant

    “If only 1.5% of COVID deaths happen outside of long term care homes, the “science” doesn’t say close your schools and stores and make everyone wear a mask 24 hours a day, the science says pump massive amounts of resources into those care homes in order to stop the misery there.”

    Classic case of failure of understanding the science. If it was as simple as protecting only people in care homes, surely the vast majority of governments would be doing exactly that. It isn’t as if there aren’t any countries that tried that, like Sweden.

    The problem is, as soon as the numbers in the community go up enough, it ends up in care homes. In every place that the strategy has been tried. Because people without symptoms can spread it, there is no easy way to stop that, unless the number of cases in the community is low enough. Effectively, to stop deaths in care homes, the only practical way is to stop spread in the community. It’s that simple. Once the numbers in the community reach a certain threshold, it’s proven impossible to protect care homes, in every place where that strategy was tried.

    There is another issue that this article conveniently ignores, and that is overwhelming hospitals. Talking about deaths ignores that covid patients take some time to die, and during all this time they are hospitalised. And while they are being attended to, nurses and doctors have a lot less spare time to attend other patients. In other words, high cases of covid in the community endangers the lives of everyone in the community, those infected and those that aren’t, because hospital care degrades during the time of a spike, inevitably.

    For all those reasons, letting covid spread is generally a terrible idea. There is no country that let covid spread, either deliberately or by accident, that didn’t end up with hospitals that were at least partially overwhelmed and care homes affected. There is no single example of success at that strategy, and if you are thinking that Sweden is “success”, look at their numbers again and convince yourself that they did exactly as badly as every other country that allowed the spread by accident or design (UK, USA, etc.)

    Of course, it’s possible to combine the problems of letting covid spread with the problems of lockdowns. In actual fact, it’s more common to combine the two. Because countries that have done good lockdowns (that is, early and strong) had to do their lockdowns for shorter periods and suffered less problems with the lockdowns as a consequence. Difficult lockdowns and allowing covid to spread are two sides of the same coin.

    It’s like credit cards: the best way of avoiding getting sucked into paying lots of credit card debt is to pay it early, and to pay as much as you can in one go. If instead, you want to be bled dry by a credit card, insist on paying the minimum amount every time. Covid spreads exponentially, so it operates exactly the same as interest rates. If you want maximum suffering, then ignore the facts of compounding. Pay the minimum amount in lockdowns every time, and find yourself quagmired in lockdowns forever.

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