Jer's Notes

Everyone knows that this whole mask thing, is mainly so that in a few weeks, when Covid 19 naturally dissipates, out "public health" officials can say "see what we did," everyone knows that right?

COVID -19 STATE'S CASE FATALITY RATES

A million asymptomatic test results does not equal even one death.

At this time the only true indicator of how a state is handling or, if you wish, how a state has been impacted by the covid-19 virus is its CFR, (Case Fatality Rate). Though it is true that an individual state's CFR is impacted by the tests done in that particular state, the national testing program has reached the point that it reasonably represents a state's status. If a state is experiencing a spike in cases, it will have far more tests performed per capita, thus the CFR will fairly well reflect the state's condition. Yesterday the United had almost 930,000 test results reported, in a single day.  The only true metric of how a state is "doing" is deaths. Regardless of how many cases or even hospitalizations there may be in any given time period, it is the fatalities that indicate the severity of the outbreak. A million asymptomatic test results does not equal even one death.

The current national CFR is 3.49%, which means that 3.49% of all cases were fatal. This number has steadily dropped over time as more testing is done and will continue to drop. The national CFR reached its peak on May 16th at 5.98%.

Below I will show the State's including DC and Puerto Rico CFR % broken down in thirds. The top third of states with highest CFR are:

 You will notice that Louisiana, though in the top one third of states is now below the national CFR average. I would also note that all states, even those who are experiencing a "surge" in cases, CFR's are dropping as testing ramps up.

The middle third of states are:

Note that the nation's largest state, California ranks 30th of states with the highest CFR and it is not due to a lack of cases or testing, they rank first in both. You will also notice that Arizona, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and  South Carolina which all are in the media constantly for being "surge" states, all remain in the second tier of CFR states. 

The bottom third of states with the lowest CFR:

The second and third most populous states in the United States are in the bottom tier of Case Fatality Rate states. Florida ranks 42nd while amazingly Texas ranks 46th. Remember that the more testing done in any state will bring their CFR down, not up. This, I suspect, is why New York and New Jersey who currently have few daily deaths and relatively low numbers of new cases continue to test in enormous numbers, it brings down their CFR.

The Recorded Deaths vs Date of Death hype

"There were ten more Covid 19 deaths reported in the South Carolina today. An additional 29 fatalities were added for days earlier in the week, bringing this weeks total fatalities to 131. An additional 10 fatalities going back to May 29th were also added today bringing the state's total fatalities from the Covid 19 virus to 1,334. July 13th remains the South Carolina's deadliest day with 38 deaths.  Check the states web site for details." 

I guess like everything else to do with the Covid-19 "crisis" it should not be surprising that even deaths are taken out of context. Let me begin by pointing out that nearly all states do not report most deaths on the day they occurred. Even some smaller state are behind in reporting deaths since they have not yet received the data from their counties.

This is obvious when comparing when states report their deaths and when they show up on whatever "meter" you are following. Florida for example reports once a day at 10:00 AM, South Carolina once a day at 4:00 PM. Some states, California and Texas, for example, report death more than once a day, but they are never all the deaths that occurred that day nor could they be. Look at any chart of "reported" deaths and you will see up and down spikes in the graph, this is the lack of reporting on weekends look like valleys then are offset by the peaks of mid week as reporting catches up. This compounds itself the bigger the state where the reporting to recording sage can take even longer.

On July 16, the media, both local and national, breathlessly reported that South Carolina had recorded the most deaths of any day since the pandemic started, 72. Here you can see it as it is on the WorldMeter site and all other such sites.

Note that they describe this as "Daily Deaths" and "deaths per day". The reality is that more deaths were "recorded" but that was not the death count for that day. Here is South Carolina's official daily death count by day.

 It may be difficult to read, but the official count for July 16 is seven bars from the right, 23 deaths not 72. A few more may be added in the next few days as the state catches up, it will not come close to 72. Most data is pretty much complete in a week to ten days. Although it will be widely reported that July 16th was South Carolina's "deadliest day" with 72 deaths you will note that the most deaths on any day in South Carolina thus far was 38 on July 13th, 10 days ago. Today's count of 10 deaths (far right) is being recorded and reported as 49 deaths in the media. From the official South Carolina daily death count graph.

Today was Florida's "deadliest day" which is actually yesterday since Florida like almost all states is a day behind. But regardless the delay in reporting at the state level which is totally unavoidable in a nation as large as ours, distorts reality. Tonight, on the evening news we will hear that today Florida set a new record for deaths, but they did not really. Here is Florida's official daily death toll.

As of now 20 people died of COVID-19  on 7/22/2020. As the days go on, that number will grow with more reporting and recording. It is doubtful however that it will ever reach 172 since it is beginning so low. Thus far the actual most deaths on any day in Florida from Covid 19 is 104 on July 8th.

Is this important, well yes. First it is a matter of optics and second it is a matter of timing. The optics are obvious, every day that there is something "dramatic" to report is another day to prolong the "crisis." The actual daily deaths are far less dramatic looking when the graph showing fatalities is spread out.   Compare the chart above with this:

 

 Not only does it look like Florida is on a severe upswing when they are possibly headed downwards. The actual highest daily death toll in Florida, that we are sure of, is 68 less and two weeks earlier than is popularly reported or believed by the general public. The day of death charts will obviously change and more deaths will be added, but doesn't it seem important to know the actual numbers rather than the hype? Can you imagine if, from the beginning, only confirmed recorded daily deaths were reported and then an explanation of recorded deaths were explained, like I wrote at the top of this article.

Meanwhile the Case Fatality Rate, nationally, in South Carolina and in Florida continues to drop, which automatically means the Infection Fatality Rate is also dropping. While the media hypes that we went over the four million cases mark today, they fail to report that at least 2,178,000 , probably far more, have recovered, the vast majority who have never even been seriously ill or ill at all.

Covid 19 is real and as these things go, semi-serious only because there is still much we do not know. However, based on what we do know we are being played.

The current best estimate is an assumption.

The CDC issued an updated Covid 19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios. They have come out with several interesting estimates but probably the most important is that they estimate that 40% of infections, meaning positive tests (new cases) are asymptomatic. Asymptomatic as opposed to pre-symptomatic means that the person has not and will not suffer physically from the covid-19 virus.

If correct this means that whenever you hear a number of new cases, total cases, etc. 40% are not now nor ever will be ill. It would mean, for example, that 40% of the 3.75 million plus cumulative cases or over 1.5 million people never even suffer(ed) from the virus. In fact, if we were not testing in such unprecedented numbers, they would not even know they had the virus.

Some immunologist believe that many of those that test positive are actually not asymptomatic at all, rather they are people who are immune to the virus. They believe that the positive test is of people whose immunity system has smashed the virus and the sensitivity of the test picks up the fragments of the virus that they have not yet shed. These fragment are not contagious. This is speculation though it is based on more science than the 40% figure given by the CDC. Here is the CDC footnote on that figure.

The percent of cases that are asymptomatic, i.e. never experience symptoms, remains uncertain. Longitudinal testing of individuals over time is required to accurately indicate the absence of symptoms for the full period of infectiousness. Current peer-reviewed and preprint studies vary widely in follow-up times for re-testing, or do not include re-testing of cases. Additionally, studies vary in the definition of a symptomatic case, which makes it difficult to make direct comparisons between estimates. Furthermore, the percent of cases that are asymptomatic may vary by age and studies also vary in the age groups included. 

If you think that is a vary "scientific" way of saying "we don't know" you are correct. But that little bit of footnote jujitsu is nothing compared to the one describing how infectious asymptomatic "cases" are. Those sick people that never get sick but infect others because they don't wear mask cases. Here is how the CDC describes their "knowledge" behind these "silent spreaders." I guess they are silent because they neither cough nor sneeze. 

CDC footnote on asymptomatic infectiousness.

The relative infectiousness of asymptomatic cases to symptomatic cases remains highly uncertain as asymptomatic cases are difficult to identify and transmission is difficult to observe and quantify. The estimates for relative infectiousness are assumptions based on studies of viral shedding dynamics....

They then go on to list the various studies that are inconclusive as to the infectiousness of these non-sick, sick cases of Covid 19 and conclude with this final statement. 

The current best estimate is an assumption.

Excuse me? This if you remember, the asymptomatic infectiousness, is the reason given to reverse course on mask wearing. Nice to know that we are following the science.

So I know you are dying to know what that assumption is. Well here it is folks this is the CDC Pandemic Planning Scenario assumption of this nation dividing "suggestion." 

 "Infectiousness of asymptomatic individuals relative to symptomatic"

(drum roll)

75%

After admitting to not having a clue, the CDC assumes that an asymptomatic person is 75% as likely to infect another person as someone who actually shows symptoms, you know like sneezes or coughs. 

There is no proof, there are no studies that reach this conclusion, it is merely an assumption. The IHME has used this assumption to "model" 33,000 less deaths if we all would just wear masks. I'll tell you a little secret, if there turns out to be less deaths than their projections, they will credit it on mask usage, if there are not less deaths, they will blame it on less than full compliance. Today there was a study (based on modeling) saying we could have saved forty thousand live if we had only used masks from the beginning, stupid Trump. I know that in the "beginning" the CDC, Fauci, the Surgeon General and anyone in our national Health Care elite class within six feet of a microphone told everyone to not wear a mask but hey that was then, geez what boobs you are. Now though peasant, you are unpatriotic if you do not wear a mask according to our assumption. And the assumption is built on the guess that 40% of "cases" are asymptomatic to begin with, but that could vary depending on what day of the week it is. 

I thought the first rule of medicine was "first do no harm." The CDC must not realize that its one and only patient is the United States of America. 

Indictment: Silence of the Lambs

 George P. Bush, of all people, said it best. When asked whether he would vote for Trump he answered yes "that is all that stands between America and socialism."
Unfortunately for America, many who are opposed to a socialist America are also not capable of reading the tea leaves, of their own nation's demise, their own self indulged destruction. Two generations of self absorbed civic ignorance bred and fostered by an American education system which had as one of it's most influential stars a man named Bill Ayers. These generations seems hell bent on throwing the "last best hope of earth" into history's waste basket.

There is a reason that so many supposedly capitalist companies financially support what we see as the radical left, the BLM and Antifa movements. They support them, to our chagrin, and it isn't out of corporate stupidity. True, in large part, they do it to pander to a younger demographic for profits, but that is because that younger demographic is rising and the silent ones are falling. We have watched as our children have been conditioned to not respect the wisdom of age, but to disdain it. We watched as our children were taught to hate us and what we allegedly believe in. The motto of the so called silent majority ought to be "help, I've fallen and I can't get up." Perhaps befitting our complacency, the person we have chosen to answer our call is an egomaniac named Donald Trump.

 I do not like Trump, though he often surprises and even amuses me, I am not a fan. I have probably spent as much time yelling at him for his petty narcissism in four years as I did at Obama in eight, often for his petty narcissism. If Trump loses this election, which is very possible, I don't know how I'll be able to feel anything but spite and pity for the man. Trump is a man who, when destiny calls, seldom fails to trip over his own ego on his path towards the greatness he so selfishly craves. If he falls it will be because an ounce of humility was too great a burden for him to bare.

That being said, he is all that stands between America and socialism, or worse. Revolutions are never the product of a majority, but rather they are the offspring of a dedicated minority who either overcome, convince or dupe the majority. This is because the majority in all societies are comprised of followers. In today's America we refer to them as a silent majority.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Ironically the author of this quote, often mistakenly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, is not known. We can only assume that the author was once a person of good conscience. Perhaps a member of the "silent majority" of his time.

The silent majority is nothing new, the phrase was coined by a failed president, forced to resign in disgrace. Rightly or wrongly but perhaps prophetically, his silent majority could not save him from his own pettiness. I fear this is being repeated but worse, at the ballot box. The problem we face today is that the so called silent majority is far too silent and not nearly as large a majority as they think they are. As I said in the beginning, there are now two generations of American's that have been taught an entirely different history than we were, and it is toxic to what the silent ones believe in.

Put bluntly, the "Greatest" generation is just an untaught history whose influence is diminishing faster than their numbers. What can you say of us Boomers? We are silent and dying off, those that do not pander to the youth we did not even have the courage to teach, now proclaim the ballot box as our savior. At some point, probably in November, the ballot box will break our heart and if we remain true to our nature, we will live out our lives in silent frustration at what could have, should have been.The unfortunate even tragic truth is we have lost our history and when you lose your past you lose your future. We were complacent. We were silent.

My guess is that it really doesn't matter who wins this election, the outcome is going to be the same, it is just a matter of when. Ultimately the United States will be divided. The "when" is a product more of courage than anything else. Which side will be the first to say "enough is enough," and seek out division with or without bloodshed. No, you say? Well, ask yourself a question, could you live in a society governed by an unchecked opposition party based on what we see the left is becoming and demanding be enacted?  Has the left shown any sign that they will accept any politician or policies selected or enacted from the right? There is no middle anymore, there is just the constitution and socialism. 

If Biden wins, then chances are good that the Senate flips to Democrats. If that happens, the filibuster is gone...for everything. Unlike when Obama and the Democrats controlled everything, not only will the Senate be far more progressive than it was then, there will be absolutely no checks on what the congress can pass into law. Those laws will make the progressive laws enacted in the beginning of the twentieth century seem like a haven of republicanism compared to what the new progressive movement would enact. Open borders will be just one of our worries. How about federal financing (control) of the media and the internet? How about election "reform" that would make it impossible for a Republican congress or president...forever. Do you think that Joe Biden is going to stand up to his party on anything, even if he wanted to?

On a more basic level, I am from Portland, Oregon, it is a beautiful city in a beautiful state, but I no longer consider it a part of the United States. It is a foreign country to me where what they believe is not what I believe, at least as represented by their chosen leadership and policies. The leadership and policies of such places are anathema to everything I believe. Yet my so called fellow citizens vote them in year after year, how do two such opposing viewpoints coexist? Lincoln famously declared that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and history proved him correct. It is not just that I could not live in a nation ruled by the Wheeler's, DeBlassio's and Sanders, their followers obviously cannot live in an America governed by a Trump or even a George W. Bush. In short the modern left cannot live in a nation that adheres to constitutional precepts and I cannot live in a nation that is bent on overturning them. In a marriage there is a term for this, it is called irreconcilable differences. 

 For a time I believed that the socialist left would ultimately be "put in place" by the merely liberal left, but that time has passed the nation by. The confluence of events has led to where what remains of what was once referred to as the moderate Democrats, have had to submit to the socialist left in order to maintain their political power. Now they will either be eaten alive or just continue to die off, ceding the playing field to their radical offspring. They too, the so called moderate left, like the so called conservative right are part of that once powerful silent majority whose silence was in fact denial. Denial that we were willing to let the nation crumble rather than truly fight for what it stood for. Fight for, by simply teaching our children the truth of what America was, instead of complacently letting the Bill Ayers education system rob them of their inheritance. The inheritance of freedom.

 “But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; And I did not know that they had devised plots against me, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, And let us cut him off from the land of the living, That his name be remembered no more”  

Is Birx Bent?

The media and liberals, I know I repeat myself, are making a deal about the White House having hospitals send data directly to white House rather than CDC, but there could be something more to the story, usually is.
Back in May, Dr. Birx was upset at the CDC about....data. From Business Insider on May 10:

The White House's coronavirus task force response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, said in a recent meeting that "there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust," The Washington Post reported on Saturday.Birx and others reportedly feared that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's data-tracking system was inflating coronavirus statistics like death rates and case numbers.

And from CNN:

In particular, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator for the President's coronavirus task force, has become increasingly critical of the CDC, making clear in recent meetings that she is more than frustrated with the agency, according to two senior administration officials. Specifically, Birx believes the way the CDC gathers data on the coronavirus is antiquated, causing inaccurate and delayed numbers on both virus cases and deaths. Birx has expressed her agitation during recent task force meetings, where at least one conversation between her and CDC Director Robert Redfield has grown heated, according to a source close to the task force. Birx and Redfield have known each other for decades, due to their work on HIV research together. And while Birx defended Redfield to their peers earlier this year over the CDC's faulty test kits, her tone toward him has shifted dramatically in recent weeks, according to multiple officials and a source close to the task force.

I would not be surprised at all if Dr. Birx is behind the change and it has nothing to do with "politics" but rather she sees the institutional CYA is influencing reporting on the pandemic. Which it no doubt is.

Mask or Muzzle?

This picture says a thousand words, Joe Biden does not. First off there are dozens of reporters around to ask questions, here is the only question that was asked and answered.

REPORTER: "Time for a few questions?" JOE BIDEN: "No, no. I'm only here to see Anne."

He was not asked any further questions, how dutiful of the media. The very definition of a meaningless photo op, meant to show Biden out and about for no real purpose. I would point out that he, as always, is wearing a mask. But note that he is standing by himself in the middle of the road and there is nobody within ten feet of him, less alone six. I may be a cynic but it seems to me that Joe's mask is both virtue signalling and a means by which he can avoid answering questions in public, not that he does much of that anywhere else. He had to finally come out of the basement, so his minimum appearances are set up to make it look like he is in public, but he really is not.

If We Were All Infected

Hiding from Covid-19 is not an option

The original operating theory that was put out to the public was that Covid-19 could kill as many as two million people in the US. That was an absurd projection from the get go. It was shown to be based on a totally bogus and discredited model in the UK. Various numbers have been suggested but there really is no way of knowing how large or how deadly the pandemic will ultimately be, but we know quite a bit now that we did not know then. 

In mid-May the CDC put out their COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios in which they analyzed all the available data and information that had been learned to come up with what amounted to their best guess of the mortality and hospitalization rate for COVID-19 . They settled on scenario 5 as the most likely track of the outbreak in the United States.

Scenario 5: 

Parameter values for disease severity, viral transmissibility, and pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic disease transmission that represent the best estimate, based on the latest surveillance data and scientific knowledge. Parameter values are based on data received by CDC prior to 4/29/2020.

Here is a screen shot of the scenarios, including scenario 5.

It is quite likely given the actual data that these numbers will be revised downward over time, but this is or was their best guess. One very important number is that R0 on the top. That is the rate at which the infection is spreading. An R # of 1 means that  every infected person will infect one other person. With a R of 1 the infection is basically stable, it will not go away but it will not grow. Anything above a 1 means that the disease is spreading, below 1 it will begin to fade away. In May they projected a 2.5 R factor. Currently   eight states are estimated to be below 1, so the virus is still spreading in most states. Since testing plays a big part in determining the R factor,  today's number are probably far more accurate than they were when this was put out. 

We can use scenario 5 for something else, we can use it to determine just how bad the pandemic "could" be.

You will notice that in the fatality section they project that overall, .004 persons infected will die. So taking that number let us just magically infect the entire US population.

330,000,000 

    x       .004 

    1,320,000

Obviously that is not going to happen and even if it did there are other factors that come into play. For example based on the age factor risks that are present with the disease, we know that nearly 80% of all deaths have occurred in people over the age of 65. Meaning in our hypothetical "everyone is infected" scenario over a million of the deaths would be people over 65. In fact fully 790,000 deaths would be persons over 75 years of age. This means that many of those who would die would have died anyway, especially in the older age groups. Without COVID-19 nearly three million Americans die each year mostly  those people most susceptible to dying from COVID-19 anyway.

We know that every American is not going to be infected, so what other information do we have? A month after the release of scenario 5, the CDC reported that based on cases and serology testing perhaps as many as ten times the number of known cases are actually infected.

The CDC’s new estimate that for every diagnosis of coronavirus in the US it is likely that 10 more people are or have been infected is based on serology testing used to determine the presence of antibodies that show whether an individual has had the disease, the officials said.
The officials, speaking to a small group of reporters on Wednesday night, said the estimate was based on the number of known cases, currently nearing 2.4m in the US, multiplied by the average rate of antibodies seen from the serology tests, about an average of 10 to one.

That sounds reasonable, but there is problem. As of this writing the CDC reports that 3,047,671 Americans have been infected. Using the 10x rule would mean that 30,476,710 are infected and as they say "we ain't done yet." If we again go back to scenario 5 and use the .004 IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) we would be at 121,907 fatalities but we are now at 132,056 fatalities. This would suggest that either the IFR of scenario 5  or the speculated 10x infection rate is too low. There is also the possibility  that the reported deaths are too high, but we won't go there.  My money is on the 10x rate being too low, my guess is that there are far more infected people in the US than even their 10x estimate accounts for. The results of testing over the month since they announced the 10x theory would suggest that. It is very probable however that both figures are off, changes of fractions of either could change the numbers dramatically. 

Then there is another wrinkle in the mix which has changed everything, but is little reported on. There are actually two strains of the virus, a D  and a G strain. The D strain was the original which came out of Wuhan. At some point early on it seems to have mutated and created another (G) strain. As the D strain began to make its way around the world, it was followed by the G strain which fairly quickly became the dominant strain. Early on in almost all nations the D strain began to be replaced by the G strain starting mainly in Europe then working its way into the US then back to Asia. It appears that the G strain is far more infectious than the D strain. Early on the D strain was the primary in California for example and case levels stayed low, but as the G strain came in infection rates grew. This has been the scenario that has played out all over the world. What does it mean? I guess in time we will find out, but it may explain the sudden explosion of new cases in places that were previously doing well. It also could explain lower death counts, nobody knows yet. 
  

Obviously every death affects someone, sometimes many people, and can be a heart wrenching experience for loved ones. But strictly from a societal standpoint even if everyone in America was infected, based on the CDC's best guess, the affect on our economy and society would be minimal. Minimal because the life years being lost are actually as low as a society could hope for in a tragedy of this magnitude. It would not greatly affect the productivity of the nation since a majority of persons would be retired. The youth, the young adults and middle aged  healthy individuals are simply not at great risk from COVID-19, either in our hypothetical or in the real world. Yet as a society we act as if the world is coming to an end when we have barely even suffered 1/10 the deaths that a 100% infection rate would cause. Whatever Covid -19 brings, we better learn to live with it, we certainly cannot hide from it. 

DE-HYPEING THE SURGE

The surest sign that all the hype around the surge in Covid-19 cases is, well just hype, is this. In mid June, IHME, the government's favorite model, put out their "forecast" of the future of Covid-19 in the US as they have done periodically since the beginning of the "crisis." The screenshot below is from June 22nd. When this particular forecast was done, the "surge" in cases was well under way and the fear mongering was beginning to ramp up. Here is their projections for deaths ending on October 1st.

In June they were projecting deaths of 201,129 by October 1st. Nothing has changed with the trajectory of cases, they have continued to rise. In fact they have risen even faster than anyone expected, primarily driven by a tremendous amount of testing. Based on this increase in cases, one would expect deaths to increase, given the hype around the "surge crisis"  common sense would seem to say that these "spikes"  would be reflected in future projections of deaths. Here is a screen shot taken on July 5th of IHME's next forecast for deaths in the US.

 
As you can see, the new projection has dropped 26,000 deaths from their previous forecast. Why? Simple really, despite the "surge" in cases, deaths are not keeping up with their modeled forecast. By the way every time the virus does not follow their projections, they change the format, adding something to keep people captive, this time it is masks. Since ventilators and ICU beds are no longer viable to promote their fear porn they just add masks as the new scary thingy for all of us to obsess over.
For those people out there just waiting for all these cases to suddenly turn into deaths, as they did in New York in March and April I would make two points. According to New York City's own Health Department records, the city's peak in deaths was the day before their peak in cases. This simple fact indicates that deaths decreased, not increased when cases were at their highest. Two weeks after the most cases ever recorded on a single day in NYC there were 290 LESS deaths than at their peak.
You get a sense of that little inconvenient truth from this graph. This is for the entire nation. Courtesy Phil Kerpen
@kerpen

If the number of cases was the only indicator of future deaths, what has happened since April 12th? It is all well and good to say that Florida is having thousands of new cases a day, so why haven't deaths kept up with them? Even with a built in lag time. For the first two months of the pandemic, deaths and cases rose almost together, but beginning in April they began to diverge from each other, and now drastically so.
One of the things, among many, that was learned in the first couple of months, was that in fatal cases, the average time from onset to death was about twenty days. But even given that twenty day lead time, like New York,  deaths are not keeping up with cases. Here is what it looks like graphically with the lead time.

The decline in deaths relative to cases is only slightly less dramatic given a three week differential. The last data point on the above chart is just a week ago and I can assure you, deaths are still dropping. In fact,  deaths are now so low that Covid-19 may soon no longer qualify, by CDC guidelines, as an epidemic in the United States.
There are reasons for this dramatic difference between cases and deaths, but it is not in the media narrative to investigate, explain, or report on them. But the numbers are the numbers and the numbers of deaths should continue to fall, to the chagrin of the merchants of fear.

Jer's Notes

NY vs FL Covid-19
If you take NYC out of the equation, pretend it is its own state, New York State still has 5,288 more deaths and 56,626 more total cases than Florida with NYC it is 27,729 more deaths and 79,067 more cases. Currently (according to WorldMeter) looking for other sources, New York still has 295,908 active cases while Florida with the "surge" has 106,819. It seems to me that given age disparity in cases, if the active case numbers are close to being correct, then NY is looking at more potential for future deaths than Florida. There is little chance of Florida coming close to NY in overall deaths.

We are the product of history not the judge of it

When Orville and Wilbur Wright took that momentous flight in 1903, they did not do it alone. Of course there were others present who helped the brothers in their historic quest, but I speak of others, known and unknown who were responsible for the world changing event on Kitty Hawk.

The Wright Brothers were bike makers, a rather new fad which allowed them not only an income to finance their famous enterprise but also gave them the machinist expertise necessary to accomplish it. Bicycles at the time of the first flight were a pretty new mode of transportation, the first bicycle having been built less than a hundred years before in 1817.  A crude contraption  without chains,  brakes, or pedals. Of course there would not have been bikes at all had it not been for the wheel which some unknown human with an enterprising and inventive mind first used around 3500 BC. Interesting enough however, the first historic record of men using the wheel was not for transportation but as a potter's wheel. At some later date someone got the idea for a wheel barrow, then the axle then wallah, we become mobile. 
  
An even more recent invention was responsible for the flight, the internal combustion engine.

The first commercially successful internal combustion engine was created by Étienne Lenoir around 1860 and the first modern internal combustion engine was created in 1876 by Nicolaus Otto.

 All these inventions, did I mention the glider (1853) were not only the product of their inventor's minds, but the accumulated knowledge passed onto them from various sources going back thousands of years. 

It is easy to see how inventions and other human enterprises are the offspring of previous human accomplishments, so why is it so difficult to recognize that all human advancement is built upon the past? That we are the product of history not the judge of it.

As great as they may have been, America's Founding Fathers did not come up with their revolutionary ideas regarding freedom out of thin air. They were a product of their times, taught by the evolving ideas and principles of previous generations.

For a society that sees evolution as the beginning and end of all existence we are remarkably ignorant of it when it comes to our own advancement. We did not suddenly find ourselves ending slavery any more than we suddenly found ourselves on the moon. To demean the advancement in human progress by judging the past from a place of progress is no different than Neil Armstrong condemning the Wright Brothers for their lack of ingenuity.

We don't, or shouldn't, expect children to act like adults. Most people realize there is a learning curve to life. The older one gets the more aware you become of that curve and, with humility, realize how steep it is. In a sense that is what is happening now, Rather than recognizing how far we have come, we belittle our less advanced selves.
Some are demanding that the past conform to the enlightened values that the past itself taught us. In condemning our past we are condemning ourselves. We are saying that "they" should have known better when in fact "they" knew better than the generation that preceded them and the generation before that, it is called progress. 

I have always loved history, but to truly understand and appreciate history requires a different kind of humility. It requires the ability to truly know that I did not walk in history's footsteps, I was not there, then try to be there, to understand what it must have been like.

To judge history from today's platform is worse than arrogance, it is immature. It is like an adult demanding a child act and react based on things that they don't know, on knowledge and experience they have not yet gained. Yet that is exactly the path that is being promoted, not only by misinformed mobs in the street but by a large swath of supposed mature society. 

Corporations whose very existence is a bi-product of evolutionary development of ideas and practices are failing to recognize that what created them, created us. Grown Ups who fail to teach their children, politicians who at the best bow to the loud voices of insanity and at worst, cheer it on hoping to be its champion.

As depressing as it is to watch current events, history teaches us one over riding lesson. When mankind crashes to the ground it will always brush itself off and look to fly again. That is the God spark that was built into us from the beginning and from which we cannot escape, no matter how hard we may try.

The formula for respect

There are many people in my life with whom I disagree.

Life being life and opinions being opinions there are untold numbers of issues and situations on which someone may disagree with another person.

When it comes right down to it though, the importance of any disagreement is determined by a simple formula. The importance of the person in your life and the degree to which a disagreed upon issue weighs against the importance of that person in your life.

I can disagree with my wife on a whole host of issues, though I don't, but the trust I have in her on so much more important personal issues easily outweighs the issues I may disagree with her on. Most family members are also given a very large "pass" due to this simple formula. A formula which we all, consciously or not, live by.

Friends even acquaintances are given a pass in direct relation to the importance they play in our lives.

Strangers have little margin for error in this formula.

It is however, important to remember that the people we disagree with are also living within this basic formula.

Life and Death with Covid-19 in South Carolina.

I am about to enter into the higher risk category for Covid-19 when I turn 65 next month. This of course means that I know many people, friends and relatives that are in an older age group. These include my mother, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts. Most of the people I grew up with, are older than the general population and therefore at a higher risk. So what I am about to point out is not to make light of deaths of older people, but it is a reality of this virus. Though known, the threat to elder Americans far outweighs that to younger and even middle age persons. This critical aspect of the Covid-19 drama is basically being ignored.
This allows what are actually minor or even large changes in data to be exaggerated in importance compared to their actual affect on society.
To help make my point I have decided to take the statistics for South Carolina in order to show how the epidemic is being exaggerated. I do this because I live here and because individual states are more up to date than national data. However South Carolina is not in any way abnormal in regards to how Covid-19 affects the general population.
All of the data is current as of Friday 6/19/2020.

*In South Carolina the median age for those who tested positive (cases) is 42 years old. Which means that half of all cases are persons over 42 and half are under 42. The median age in South Carolina overall population is 39.2 years.
* The median age of those who died from Covid-19 is 76 years old.
* People over the age of 70 represent 15% (3395) of all cases but represent 65% (406) of all deaths (625)
* People over the age of 60 represent 85% (531) of all deaths
*People under the age of 60 represent just 15% (94) of all Covid-19 deaths in the state of South Carolina though they represent 73% (16,520) of all cases (22,630).
*Only 4.4% (28) people under the age of 50 in South Carolina have died from Covid-19 though they represent 58% (13,125) of all cases.
*In South Carolina 48% (292) of deaths were patients within a nursing home.I do not know if this count includes or excludes patients that were moved to a hospital then died. I do not know the average life expectancy of a South Carolina nursing home patient but the average age on admission is 79. In the United States the average age of a nursing home patient is 83 and average life expectancy upon entering nursing home is 13 months.

The average life expectancy in South Carolina is 76.95 years, one of the lowest in the nation (41st). This is the result of underlying health issues that prevail in the population. This means that almost half of all Covid-19 deaths in South Carolina are of persons beyond the average life expectancy of the state. Given that nearly half of all deaths are from persons who are statistically most likely to be in their last fourteen months of life, the actual impact of the virus, other than obviously to loved ones, on society is quite small. All of this does not even take into account underlying health conditions for all age groups that contribute to the seriousness of the virus for all ages.

Currently the South Carolina's hospital capacity is at 70% which would mean that state wide about 3,276 beds are occupied. Of those occupied beds, 670 are with Covid-19 patients. This means that just 14.3% of all of the state's hospital beds are being used by virus patients. One reason that the hospital beds are at 70% occupancy is that for almost two months no so called "elective" surgeries were being done. Elective surgeries are any surgery of any type that can be scheduled, non emergency surgeries but not necessarily unimportant ones. All over the country, our healthcare system is catching up with postponed medical procedures.
For the truest indicator of how far we have come in this cycle of the virus, all you have to do is look at the truest indicator, deaths. Nationally on April 19th the 7 day moving average of daily deaths was 2,164 deaths per day. One month later on May 19th that had dropped to 1,404. As of Friday June 19th the daily national 7 day moving average is 654. During this time, even as testing, thus cases, have increased deaths have fallen. The main reason for this seeming disconnect is that far more of the population that is not at risk is being tested. Literally millions of people that will not be seriously affected by the virus are being tested and of course some are positive. However only a small percentage of these positive cases will be hospitalized and even a much smaller number will die.
The main point of this is that for the vast majority of people, Covid-19 represents a very small risk, even if you contract it. Do you get that impression? No, you have been conditioned to think of Covid 19 as some devastating illness laying waste to the world and the nation. The truth is much more ominous, the public health care bureaucracy, the media and politicians have used this pandemic to scare populations to willingly forfeit their freedoms and futures and they are not letting go.

On Reparations

There has been increasing discussion on the subject of reparations to the decedents of slaves. The other night Bret Baier interviewed Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, on his plan for reparations. Presumably the billionaire entrepreneur would forego his share, if he is eligible for the $357,767 he is proposing to give to all black US citizens who are decedents of slaves. A cool fourteen trillion dollar outlay.

The key to this or any other reparations scheme is who will get it and who will pay for it. Obviously the US taxpayers will ultimately pay for it, which by the way most of the people receiving it would be as well. I know kind of silly isn't it. A more practical way, if it was serious would be to give those eligible a permanent tax exemption as reparations, but for how long? How many generations must citizens pay for the offspring of slaves?  But let's look at some other difficulties in this scheme other than the total un-American, unfair idea of making people pay for the sins of their fathers, or actually great, great, great grandfathers.

To be fair, it seems that only actual decedents of slaves would be eligible right? If so, you know who would not qualify? Barack Obama. Not only was his mother white, making him biracial, more on that later, his father, though black, was famously from Kenya. Now his wife, Michelle would be entitled to her share, but what about their daughters? Perhaps they would be entitled to a half share since they like their father are biracial at least as regards to slavehood status. On that subject, in the United States 2.7% of the population identify as biracial. That would be nearly nine million people. A large portion of them would be Black and Caucasian. These people would have to be identified and adjudicated proportionately.  I assume that the white portion of such individuals would pay reparations to their black portion. Silly isn't it? But we have only scratched the surface of the absurdity.

To be fair, we could not possibly penalize the descendants of people who were in no way responsible for America's original sin. Now we are not talking about the progeny of people who were opposed to slavery, or even the decedents of people who might have fought or perhaps even died to end slavery, they would not get a pass. Why? Because these ancestors were Americans when the original sin transpired so they must be held accountable. Abraham Lincoln's offspring are just as responsible for this great transgression as Jefferson Davis. Grant, who once owned a slave, is no less responsible for this than Lee. So, to simplify the reparation codes, all white Americans descended from white Americans prior to the civil war should pay for the sin. Fair enough? The 1860 census of the United States showed that there were 31,443,321 persons in the United States, both North and South. But what about the 77,968,368 individuals AND THEIR OFFSPRING, who migrated to the United States since the 1870? Will you have to prove that your family is post CW American? What about the sixty million plus Hispanic Americans or the nearly twenty million Asian Americans are they responsible for America's original sin? Perhaps they can get some sort of tax break, once their necessary heritage documentation is approved by the authorities. What if I could prove that I have 1/32nd slave blood through some ancestor who was a slave holder but raped a slave of whom I am an offspring? Do I get a cut of the the reparation pie? Far fetched? Thomas Jefferson may have had as many as six children with Sally Hemmings, one of his slaves. Now where do these offspring belong in the reparations debate. Do the get a special dispensation due to the fact that they are the black children of a slave holder. Perhaps they will get a bonus, because a great, great, great grandmother whom they never knew was the mistress of a great, great, great grandfather of a slaveholder that they never knew. Of course we would have to check to see if they had any additional white blood that has contaminated them in the proceeding generations. This would be required in order to determine the proper percentage of slavehood each person has suffered and to be properly compensated.

Sounds a bit like NAZI Germany determining the level of Aryaness or the Jim Crowe south determining whether you are white enough to sit at the front of the bus or drink from a white fountain. Oh and is the Virginia Governor a black man or a member of the KKK? Might be important when they hand out the checks.

When will this all end, it will end when we truly judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character..... on all sides. 

   

Kneeling on the flag

Kneeling during the National Anthem is front and center again. The idea seems to be that given current events Kaepernick's original stand now has merit, so people are coming out of the woodwork saying that they will kneel and it is OK. That now kneeling does not necessarily mean that you are disrespecting the flag, the military or the nation, but rather you are supporting the cause of racial justice.
 The problem with this line of thinking is that it is not based on the facts. If Kaepernick  kneeling had been simply a protest against racial injustice that would have been one thing, but he explicitly made it about the flag and the country when the entire issue started.
For people such as JJ Watts and other obviously patriotic Americans to join in the kneeling now, with an explanation that it is not disrespectful to the flag is to deny the very purpose of the demonstration. The demonstration was explicitly intended to  disrespect the flag and the country. Not because I say so but because from the very beginning Kaepernick said so;

 “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

The demonstration isn't and has not ever been simply a call for racial justice, it is a call to disrespect the flag and the nation because of that injustice. You can believe in the cause, but the demonstration is not just about the cause it is against the flag and the country, he has always said so. Joining in the demonstration may be supporting racial justice, but it is also kneeling on the flag, that was the whole purpose.

“When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction. The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back! Rest in Power George Floyd.”

-Colin Kaepernick

A silent majority is easily silenced

People are saying that there is a silent majority out there that does not agree with what is happening to the country. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, hard to hear a silent majority when they are.....silent. People say there is a culture war going on, maybe there is, maybe there isn't, hard to tell when one side is not fighting.

One thing I do know is that times have changed, they always do and unless you change with the times, well time passes you by. It passes you by even faster when you are standing still, doing nothing and being silent. In fact in that condition you aren't really there at all, are you?

Here is an idea, stop being silent and take back the culture that you think is worth fighting for. How do you do that? Here is a simple start, take back something. If we really are a majority, silent or otherwise, then numbers matter, but they only matter if you don't begin by ceding the battlefield. If you don't show up you can't win. 

I'll give you a simple battlefield where numbers will matter and is now part of a culture that passes the silent majority by....Twitter. Stupid isn't it, who would want to spend time arguing in 240 characters with mostly anonymous people who don't like you and probably never will. So don't, you don't even have to write a thing, just support the people who are on your side. Support the causes that you care about. Read what people are saying and take a side and just support your side. If it is the new digital town hall shouldn't the majority control what is said there? It is really rather simple, but because we are the silent majority we think that we do not need to engage, but we do and if we don't...well we will remain silent until we are gone and the world will not be the same because we did not care to engage and were silent.