There is no problem so large it cannot be made worse through overregulation, or bad regulation.
Month: August 2020
Categories
Farr’s Corrolary
The death and disease numbers don’t really matter until the society is operating normally.
You can’t compare the deaths in a nation which remains in lockdown to those of a nation which is open. You have to get through the curve, and if you are not allowing the free flow of people and activity, then you have not yet traversed the curve, and the worst death may well be ahead of you.
I say this specifically because people are saying Sweden’s numbers are high. This is true. But they are also at the end of a curve most Western nations most likely remain on the front end or middle of.
And again, the Swiss model is best. If you simply give HCQ to people who have been exposed, who are high risk, or who are in the early stages of the illness, nearly all the bad stuff disappears. Almost no one dies and the pandemic is done in a month.
Angry texts will be written for some years once the scope of unnecessary death is truly and honestly assessed from the back end of this whole disaster. It is not too early to be angry now.
Categories
Improved email
Here is the thing: once you realize that HCQ has been used to defeat COVID in the most crowded slums of Asia, you KNOW that we are BEING LIED TO. This is a MANUFACTURED CRISIS, being funded and run by we don’t know who, but if it doesn’t involve parts of our supposed “national security” apparatus, it is hard to see how it could be perpetrated without detection.
This whole global catastrophe, in sheer numbers, is likely to dwarf the crimes of Hitler in World War 2, at least if the predicted deaths from starvation are even remotely close to accurate.
It is literally possible that in the next year more people could die from the Deep State’s effort to stop Trump than died in the previous century from all the crimes of the Communists and Nazis COMBINED.
It is that large. If you don’t feel a bit dizzy, you have not understood me or the situation.
Hello!!
This is a mass email I am choosing to forward. If you have no time or inclination to look at it, deleting it will be easy enough.
For the busy, here are the key bullet points:
- It appears to be true that this pandemic, and the lockdowns which have been enacted in response, could be ended in a MONTH, with intelligent policy. The country of Switzerland had this disease largely beaten by April 27th, and has been for most purposes fully reopened since June 9th. They had no deaths in May, and only started having deaths again after they banned the treatment they had been using, which was Hydroxychloroquine, which they relegalized immediately once they realized their mistake. India, with a population roughly four times that of the United States, had only recorded roughly 40,000 deaths as of early August, despite pervasive overcrowding, malnutrition, and terrible poverty. They themselves attribute their success to HCQ. More details are below.
- 1 in 4 young adults contemplated suicide over the summer. An as-yet undisclosed number actually did commit suicide. The case that we are building a national mental illness pandemic is really irrefutable. This mental health pandemic is almost certain to kill vastly more people than COVID, and is certain to last a number of years.
- This disease is vastly less dangerous than most Americans have been led to believe.
- The conclusion that we need to reopen schools, and move as quickly as possible to end the lockdowns, in order to SAVE lives, is unavoidable.
The following is a bit of a read, but this thing is affecting all of us–and killing many of us, in a variety of ways–and at least some of this is likely new to most of you. Please forward this, if you find it useful or interesting, to as many people as you think might read it. It is intended as a sort of primer of all the things you should know by now, but have not been told by anyone in authority.
This email is written roughly at the level of a college bound high school senior. It is intended for intelligent, educated, serious adults, who are rightly concerned with the state of our country. Time and care have been put into its creation. It may save you time in finding out facts which you had not suspected, if you choose to invest a small part of your day–or perhaps small parts of several days–reading, digesting, and validating the claims made to your satisfaction.
I will start with a description of epidemics, as seen scientifically, followed by three obvious and now proven solutions to our quandary, before describing many details which are important. There are almost no complex topics in the world which do not find equally qualified people arguing opposing views. The ideas expressed are those of a highly intelligent but amateur student of this mess. All are defensible. None are, most likely, completely invulnerable to criticism or at least amendment. Where further research might be desired by the reader, useful search phrases which have been tested recently will be offered, since most people rightly mistrust hyperlinks from unknown sources.
1. Most importantly, most people seem to have no idea what “curve” we are supposed to be flattening. The “curve” is called Farr’s Law. It was first described in the 1800’s by a British doctor and states that epidemics nearly always form a Bell Curve (also known as a Normal Curve). They start small, grow rapidly, peak, and then diminish. All the things you saw showing exponential growth (1 dead, 2 dead, 4 dead, all dead) were not grounded in science or actual observation. What happens is that a disease shows up, infects a few, then a lot, then runs into roadblocks of people who have been infected and acquired immunity, people who have natural immunity for some unknown reason (about a third of people seem to be resistant to COVID-19, for reasons that are not clear), or people who are simply healthy and who fight the disease off. When the disease can’t find efficient ways to spread any more, it withers and dies. This condition we call Herd Immunity. That is the back of the curve, where it merges with the zero line. [Both Farr’s Law and Herd Immunity should yield useful hits]
A useful analogy is that of a pack of wolves. Wolves prey on the slow and the weak, just as diseases prey on the weakened and sickly. Once those people are dead, or infected and healed, by and large the disease will stop, just as wolves, faced with a coherent and organized pack of any herd animal, will disperse and move on.
A key element which has not been shared with you, most likely, but which is familiar to all epidemiologists is that the SAME NUMBER of people get infected–or at least are exposed–in all scenarios. If it is a cold epidemic–and these happen often–then you don’t notice since very few people die. But they obey Farr’s Law. If it is a Black Plague epidemic, likewise, but many more people die. Whether an epidemic lasts a week or a year, the SAME NUMBER OF PEOPLE DIE, because in the end the same number of people MUST be exposed for the circulation of the disease to end. This means that as we open back up, it is inevitable that more people will get infected. This should not come as a surprise to any policy maker. This is the only way we get through this. Everyone familiar with the science has known this from the beginning. It has also been obvious from the beginning that strict lockdowns only make sense for those who are truly vulnerable, which is those who are sickly and over the age of 70 or so.
Here are three examples of what appear to have been successful strategies:
Sweden: At the outset of this pandemic, Sweden looked at it like any other pandemic. They knew that the best way out is through. What the math predicts is a slow increase in cases, then a peak, then a drop to nothing. And in fact, this is what happened. Sweden’s death rate from COVID, after peaking at a relatively high rate, has dropped to nearly zero. What is significant is that they didn’t close down most businesses, didn’t close their primary schools, and even allowed many sporting events. Cafes and restaurants were not closed, masks were not and are not demanded, and social distancing was only very loosely enforced. They did ban large gatherings, and take other modest measures, but nothing like what was done in much of the world. They DID try and quarantine their elderly, since on all accounts that is where most of the death happens, but were not fully successful. The disease did get into some of their nursing homes, and caused their death rate even in the early stages to be higher than their neighbors in Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Even so, even at their peak, their death numbers were lower than those in most of Europe, including Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
But importantly, they didn’t destroy their economy, didn’t lock people in fear in their homes, and didn’t experience all that much death. It is not too late for us to open everything up, and allow the disease to spread–ideally subject to some ideas I will share farther down–while protecting our sick and elderly, who do need to be quarantined, even though they have already been suffering now for 5 months without being able to see their children and grandchildren. Many Americans will not need to be told to socially distance. Many will want to wear masks whether or not they are required to. But there is every reason to think that if we accept that the death rates may spike again for a short period of perhaps a month, that we can be DONE with this thing for the foreseeable future, without any more of the huge problems I will be describing. And what needs to be emphasized is that these deaths will happen no matter what. It doesn’t matter if we push this thing a year, as Fauci once proposed. The death will be the same. We cannot now avoid it, at least without better medicine. [There is a Wikipedia article on this exact topic. “Wikipedia sweden covid 19” should turn it up; what you need to look at is the chart showing deaths. This is what a Farr’s Law related Bell curve looks like.]
A second and even more interesting case is that of Switzerland. The Swiss never had a full lockdown either. They prohibited meetings of more than five people, and closed bars and schools and many business from about mid-March to mid-April. They began reopening on April 27, and were fully reopened for everything, including bars and schools, on June 9. They were more open in June than even Sweden was.
The Swiss seem to have used a fairly vintage and tested anti-malarial drug called Hydroxychloroquine as a key element in their primary course of treatment. This drug has been on the market for 65 years, and is available over the counter in much of the world, particularly in countries where malaria is still common. If you look up their charts [wikipedia switzerland covid 19 should do it], the deaths stopped April 27th. Then they started again, in small numbers about June 7th. What is interesting is that the Swiss government had banned HCQ on May 27th, per World Health Organization recommendation, then made HCQ legal again on June 11 and began using it again, and since then perhaps 20 people total have died. They never again climbed to where they had been early in the pandemic. It has diminished ever since. They have only had 3 deaths in August. For all intents and purposes, Switzerland is open, and the disease is through. Again, you can look at the charts and see Farr’s Law operating in the graph showing deaths. It only goes to May, but there is a numerical graph showing recent deaths.
[Also search “pj media mea culpa french”, where they show HCQ working, then getting banned, then getting reintroduced].
A third and final example is perhaps best, that of India. India is a nation with some of the most densely populated cities on the planet, and one of the largest populations, of about 1.3 Billion. The largest, densest slum in Asia–or so I read–a place called Dharavi, is in India. Yet India has had only about 40,000 COVID related deaths since the pandemic began. There WAS an outbreak in Dharavi, but it was contained quickly. How? On their account, by using HCQ as a preventative (prophylaxis). [search “Asia’s Largest Slum a Success Model american thinker”]
Quote from the article: “HCQ has been widely used across India to treat early-stage COVID-19. It is also prescribed for prophylaxis among those who have come into contact with people who have tested positive.”
Needless to say, “social distancing” is impossible in much of India, and few are wearing masks. It is HCQ that has kept the numbers of a country four times more populous than ours at roughly a quarter of ours. Their COVID death rate is lower than that from Tuberculosis. It is impossible not to conclude that a large amount of completely pointless and unnecessary death has happened in our own country.
I will comment more on Hydroxychloroquine below. It has been an unnecessarily politicized topic.
2. “Flatten the curve” never had anything to do with getting rid of the disease by stopping its spread. THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS. Technically, the amount of infection and following death “under the curve” (which is to say Farr’s Bell Curve) is the same over any time domain. “Flattening the Curve” was supposed to be a very short term policy, of a week or two, maybe up to a month, in which measures were taken to slow the virus down so that we didn’t run out of hospital space to treat the seriously ill. We have had largely empty hospitals for most of this pandemic. Many of them are flirting with bankruptcy. The stated goal was achieved no later than the middle of April in the United States. Everything since has been politicians flexing their muscles and not their brains. Again, Switzerland beat the virus by the end of April with very little fuss.
3. COVID-19 is much less dangerous than most people think. According to Stanford Professor John Ioaniddis–who has called this whole thing right from the beginning–it kills about 4 people in a thousand who get it, 93% of whom are over the age of 55, and 99% of whom are over the age of 35. Since February 1, about 13,000 persons 25 and under have died of all causes. Only around 200 are alleged to have died of COVID. The total supposed deaths as of the beginning of August, 2020 are around 120,000. [There are many articles involving Ioaniddis, and most of them are worth reading, even though of course, given his criticisms of our response and the “data” used to justify it, he has many critics].
As background, a bit over 2.8 million Americans die of something every year, or about 230,000 a month, or about 1 in 118 of us. If you look at your State’s normal monthly mortality–it is not hard to do the math, but it does require a bit of math, since it will likely be listed as annual mortality per thousand–then compare it to claimed COVID deaths, you will find that the TOTAL since February would fade easily even into most monthly totals, and averaged across a year disappears completely statistically. [these numbers are from the CDC’s website]
And another point I have not seen anyone else make is that with no other illness do we routinely test people at random. Every flu season–which is a roughly four month period from December 1st to April 1st–between 20,000 and 80,000 people die in the US. About 60 million people GET the flu in the US. They are sick for a day or two, or a week. Here is the thing, though: if 60 million people have SYMPTOMS, then probably upwards of 200 million people are EXPOSED to it. If you took blood samples of any of those people while their immune systems were successfully fighting it off, then they could be listed as “new cases of the flu”, and terror recommended as the obvious remedy. That is all they are doing with COVID. Only deaths and hospitalizations truly matter, not “new cases.”
And in this regard it is worth making the obvious point that the death rate is not known cases divided by attributed deaths. VASTLY more people are most likely infected with this disease–two or three times as many–as are ever formally diagnosed. The true death rate is necessarily speculative, and derives much from random testing of people with no symptoms.
Obvious conclusion: if the media had not made this thing appear a terrible emergency, most people would not perceive it as such. A bad disease is floating around–probably about twice as bad as the worst flu–and all of us have every reason to wash our hands more, perhaps go out less, and take better care of ourselves, but statistically that is all that can be said.
4. There is good reason to think deaths are being overcounted. In one recent and well publicized example, a man who died in a motorcycle accident in Florida was counted as a COVID death. One can attribute this to many things, but simple economics is the most obvious: Hospitals are paid vastly more for COVID cases. Given that most governors of most States have ordered them to stop most of their money making activities–which involve the treatment and prevention of literally every other disease–there is a built in financial incentive to code cases as COVID. [A search for “beckers hospital review finance state by state breakdown covid” should pull up a relevant article.] Some States are being paid up to $300,000 by the Federal government per COVID case.
5. There are many reasons to think the lockdowns will kill more people than COVID, and that the numbers will not even be close.
To begin with, according to the CDC, ONE IN FOUR persons aged 18 to 24 contemplated suicide this past summer. A search for “politico one in four young adults suicide covid” should pull up the link.
Logically, this means perhaps up to half of them are flirting with clinical depression. Logically, this means that most of AMERICA is flirting with depression. We have yet to see suicide and drug overdose numbers, but it is very possible that they will total much more than the COVID numbers. And the thing with depression is that studies show that after the first depressive episode, future episodes are vastly more likely. We KNOW that social isolation, joblessness, and the chronic stress which comes with a relentlessly negative and fear mongering press all work to make people miserable. Miserable is just a synonym, more or less, for depression. And misery causes huge increases in all diseases, including heart disease, stroke, and even cancer. People who are miserable take poor care of themselves, tend to find functioning difficult, and live shorter, less productive, and obviously less happy lives than should be possible for them.
These Lockdowns are a direct cause of the disease of depression, and unlike COVID, that disease is likely to remain an important and deadly element in our public life for a long time to come. What our Governors are doing to us is creating a second, worse, and completely preventable mental illness pandemic.
Further, in a typical year about 1.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer, and about 600,000 die. 1.7 million amounts to about 142,000 new diagnoses a month. The problem is, most of these diagnoses ARE NOT HAPPENING, BECAUSE THE MEDICAL FACILITIES ARE NOT DOING THEM. We have been locked down, let’s say, since April 1st. As of August 1st, that works out to 4 months. 4 times 142,000 is 568,000, which is the number of people who might have discovered–hopefully but not certainly early–that they had cancer. That cancer is even now eating away at them, and will likely only be found once it is too late to do anything. Let us say that in normal times 1 in 3 cancer cases leads to early death over the next five years. Is it unreasonable to suppose that with so many cases of lung cancer, and breast cancer, and colon cancer, and prostate cancer remaining hidden, that it might jump to 1 in 2, or even higher? A jump from 600,000 (current annual deaths) to 850,000 deaths (half of 1.7 million) is 250,000, which ALONE is roughly 100,000 more deaths than have died thus far of COVID, even with the likely inflated numbers. [CDC and cancer dot gov]
And these numbers do not factor in that STRESS kills. A mere 1% increase in unemployment seems to cause an overall net increase in overall mortality of about 37,000 people, from all causes. People who don’t have jobs and can’t pay their bills don’t sleep well. They don’t eat well. They don’t exercise. They don’t take care of themselves. They smoke too much. They drink too much. They do drugs. They take unnecessary risks. Their relationships fail. All of this snowballs into vastly more death. [look up an interesting talk at “BBC Big short unemployment more or less”]
If we use a mere 10,000 more deaths per point increase in unemployment, then a 15 point jump is again more deaths in the next year than have thus far died of COVID, and that increase will last as long as our long term unemployment lasts, which at this point could be a number of years.
6. Hydroxychloroquine, in some depth. If you have followed the discussions about COVID, you know that Hydroxychloroquine was championed by President Trump a long time ago, early, early in the epidemic. His advocacy, seemingly, caused emotional and scientifically indefensible reactions which have in the months since caused many States to ban or restrict HCQ, for its use to be denigrated, and for its partisans to be attacked personally and professionally. It is literally the case that the author has been accused of being a Trump supporter merely for suggesting that HCQ might be a good solution, by strangers with no other data (I AM a Trump supporter, but there is no just cause to politicize something this important when 331 million Americans are suffering. No previous generation of Democrats–and I was a Democrat over half my life–would have even considered it. All of us should be on the side of anything with even a remote chance of reducing the suffering of the American people).
But many doctors, both domestically and abroad, have persisted. Many have claimed that if you follow their protocol, almost no one will die. Switzerland seems to have proven this. So in my view has India. Why we are not copying the Swiss and Indians is an issue for social psychology, not science. The specific treatment protocol involves Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc supplementation, and an antibiotic called Azithromycin (marketed as Z-Pack). Many doctors have testified to the efficacy of this treatment. According to international studies, HCQ is an easy favorite among all doctors around the world as the first line of treatment.
One Yale epidemiologist, Harvey Risch, has incurred a great number of personal attacks for stating that HCQ needs to be a key element in our response. He has penned articles on this and his qualifications are considerable: he has an MD from UC-San Diego and a Ph.D from the University of Chicago. By and large his critics are citing bad studies which are easily cast aside for valid reasons. It seems reasonable to suppose that he is speaking science, and that his opponents are speaking politics, as he alleges [Newsweek Harvey Risch COVID].
Among other claims made by front line doctors treating this illness, it even appears that HCQ can be used in low doses to PREVENT COVID-19, as is being done in India. This has been claimed by actual doctors treating actual patients, who use it for themselves and their staff. That amounts to a vaccine, and a month’s worth runs–I read–$20 or so. It is thus affordable even for people without insurance. 1 200mg dose twice a week seems to work to prevent you from getting COVID-19 in the first place. This is the claim made. At a minimum, we should all be given that option. Instead, many States are inexplicably and inexcusably BANNING it. Why?
HCQ has been on the market for SIXTY FIVE YEARS. It is available over the counter in much of the world. You can go to your grocery store and pick up eggs, milk, and Hydroxychloroquine, in, say, Indonesia or Iran or India. It is a very, very safe drug used as directed. Like Tylenol or aspirin–or probably vitamins–you can kill yourself if you take too much, but no one is recommending or suggesting that.
Dr. Anthony Fauci claims this drug does not work, but he is not seeing patients. He has not personally seen or treated–much less cured–ONE person since this thing began, and has not come up with any good course of treatment other than trying to avoid infection in the first place, using methods which themselves lack scientific support. The claims that HCQ causes heart arrhythmias–which is the core objection to its widespread use–stem from people using the drug for long periods of time–five years or more–for other conditions, like lupus and arthritis. In reasonable doses delivered for less than a year, there is ZERO evidence any risks outweigh the many claimed and observed benefits, particularly given the catastrophic costs of the lockdowns. [refer to the Harvey Risch article]
The one large study purporting to show it was dangerous–and again, remember this drug has been on the market for 65 years, and available in generic form over the counter in much of the world for decades–was FAKED. The data used was made up. Fabricated. The Lancet–which was formerly one of the premier medical journals–was forced into an embarrassing retraction, which is almost never done, because they normally do their homework up front. Consider who might fake such a study, and why. [Lancet Web MD Surgisphere]
You have on the one hand thousands of doctors who are TREATING PATIENTS around the world saying that people get better when they are given this treatment protocol, and on the other you have someone who has not seen a patient in 40 years saying that the pharmaceutical companies, who make nothing on HCQ but stand to make TRILLIONS, potentially, with a new treatment, have not done “double blind” trials. Such trials take years, and people are dying now, and he KNOWS THIS.
As mentioned, in Switzerland, they used HCQ early on with good success, then abandoned it per World Health Organization suggestion, and had fatalities jump nearly immediately. They reimplemented the use of HCQ, and are now pretty much done with the epidemic. They have been averaging less than 1 death a day for a month or so.
India is making us look like idiots, in the authors view, with the same method.
President Trump has been taking HCQ since May, with the consent of his doctor, and has suffered no ill effects, despite continuing to see people quite often.
Finally, the doctors who are talking about the benefits of HCQ are being censored. Their videos are being pulled from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other places. Disappeared. Memory Holed (Irrelevant but fun fact: Orwell took the idea of the Memory Hole from an actual practice at the BBC, where he had worked). This, while BILL GATES, whose only experience with viruses is with COMPUTER viruses, is being looked to as some sort of expert. This should worry anyone with a conscience and a brain. [“front line doctors banned video infowars” pulled up the most important video just now; Alex Jones is in the author’s opinion two thirds crazy, but being deplatformed caused him to create his own version of YouTube where videos can be posted and not easily removed by Big Tech censors. Watching that video there is worth your time. It is very hard to find anywhere else.]
If the people opposing the use of HCQ solely for political reasons are wrong–and it appears they are–then this constitutes a de facto act of mass murder.
7. We KNOW that the only reliable “vaccine” or preventative is robust health. You need to be healthy to resist disease. You need to be a healthy weight (obesity is a serious risk factor for complications), exercise regularly, eat a sound diet, get plenty of good quality sleep, and to the extent possible keep a calm, tranquil mind. This works for EVERYTHING. It makes you more resistant to COVID-19, yes, but also heart disease, diabetes, and everything else. Overall good health is likely also one reason Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, and some other countries have had relatively low death tolls.
And we KNOW that dietary deficiencies, particularly, in zinc and Vitamin D are correlated with poor outcomes if and when a person is infected. There is NO REASON Fauci and the others should not have recommended vitamin supplementation. Talk with your doctor, or do your own reading, but a basic goal that should work for most people would be to shoot for 2,000 IU (not grams) of Vitamin D a day (one tiny, cheap pill), 1,000 MG of Vitamin C, and 20-30mg of zinc. For most people these are all within healthy ranges, but more than many people get. These are all inexpensive, easy to find vitamins. And we know that zinc helps shorten colds, which are also forms of coronaviruses (there are seven coronaviruses; four of them cause what we call “colds”).
A strong case can be made that perhaps up to tens of thousands of people would still be alive today if Dr. Fauci had made this recommendation–or one like it–early on. Many people’s parents, grandparents, and even children are dead because our top supposed disease expert failed to offer basic, common sense advice.
And vaccines STILL REQUIRE A HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM. EVEN IF we develop a vaccine, it will still need to stimulate your (ideally) healthy immune system into generating antibodies. And given that it seems to be nearly impossible to generate permanent immunity to most viruses–you need a flu shot every year, and no vaccine exists for any of the coronaviruses which cause the common cold–any vaccine developed will likely need to be administered periodically forever, which means you still need a healthy immune system no matter how this plays out.
Conclusion
When all the death is tallied, and our abusive Governors finally see fit to allow us to return to our lives, it will be CLEAR that the RESPONSE to the pandemic was vastly worse than the disease. Not even close. We may one day speak of the Great COVID Overreaction of 2020.
Vast numbers of bankruptcies are coming, both personal and business. Vast numbers of home foreclosures and evictions. Sooner or later we will get the suicide and drug overdose numbers, and they will be terrifying. Our mental health system will be overwhelmed to breaking, and will include many people who normally don’t have mental health issues in large numbers, like teenagers and young adults. Even our very young are being traumatized. 5 year old kids are being imprinted with masks and fear.
When all this hits, keep in mind that there is nothing Trump could have done to prevent any of this. Nearly all the response has been driven by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the Governors who listened to him. If Obama or George W. Bush or Bill Clinton had been in office, the responses would have been the same. We expect our Presidents to listen to the “experts”, at least in fields far outside of their personal expertise.
And to be sure, Trump is slowly forming his own new policies based on his own thinking and observation. He has understood that these lockdowns are causing vastly more harm than good, and said as much. He also identified the value of HCQ early on, but was overruled by what more or less amounts to the Establishment. There is of course another phrase in use.
Research all the claims made here. Do your own work. Do your own thinking. Form your own conclusions.
And again, please forward this to as many people of all political persuasions as you think might read it. People are dying miserable and preventable deaths right now, not from COVID, but from despair. All of this needs to stop as soon as possible.
Categories
The ethics of discussing suicide
We really should have some suicide statistics by now. We have that one hospital in the San Francisco area saying they had “a years worth of suicides in a month”, and I personally was told by a funeral director that he was seeing a lot of suicides, and I also know someone who knew four people who overdosed.
But where is the CDC in all this? They recently admitted 1 in 4 young adults had, as they say, “suicidal ideation”. But how many killed themselves?
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, the first book of sociology, arguably, was on the topic of suicide, and reached the conclusion, based on data, that journalistic coverage of suicides causes in increase in suicides. In effect, you kill people indirectly by telling the public that someone shot or hung or poisoned themselves.
Here is the thing, though: you may cause more people to die THIS MONTH if you admit there is a pandemic of suicide, but in our present situation, it is equally possible–and probably likely–that you kill MORE people down the road–a month, two months, six months–by failing to admit we have a HUGE PROBLEM, and working from that basis of public knowledge to end it.
We are not living in normal times. These are highly stressful times, and the numerical cost of the stress MUST be a factor in how long and to what extent we continue the mask charade, the physical distancing, the fear, the terror and the panic.
In my view, it is highly unethical NOT to admit the obvious, that many people who were already on the brink are ending their lives, and doing so in much, much higher numbers than they were before.
We really, really need to have this discussion, and the people who work for us need to provide the fucking numbers.
Categories
Worth the watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=_kJdOtnBUcw&feature=emb_logo
Among other things Bobby Kennedy’s son says he thinks the CIA killed his uncle, and that he thinks he knows the name of the man who actually killed his father.
He also has some interesting takes on the pandemic, saying among other things, that the whole New Deal is being destroyed. For me, that is not a huge problem, but mass poverty and misery is, as is the transfer of that wealth to the already very, very filthy rich. That is something that I and sane Democrats can agree on.
Hello!!
This is a mass email I am choosing to forward. If you have no time or inclination to look at it, deleting it will be easy enough.
The following is a bit of a read, but this thing is affecting all of us–and killing many of us, in a variety of ways–and at least some of this is likely new to most of you. Please forward this, if you find it useful or interesting, to as many people as you think might read it. It is intended as a sort of primer of all the things you should know by now, but have not been told by anyone in authority.
For the busy, here are the key bullet points:
- It appears to be true that this pandemic, and the lockdowns which have been enacted in response, could be ended in a MONTH, with intelligent policy. The country of Switzerland had this disease largely beaten by April 27th, and has been for most purposes fully reopened since June 9th. They had no deaths in May, and only started having deaths again after they banned the treatment they had been using, which was Hydroxychloroquine, which they relegalized immediately once they realized their mistake. Details are below.
- 1 in 4 young adults contemplated suicide over the summer. An as-yet undisclosed number actually did commit suicide. The case that we are building a national mental illness pandemic is really irrefutable. This mental health pandemic is almost certain to kill vastly more people than COVID, and is certain to last a number of years.
- This disease is vastly less dangerous than most Americans have been led to believe.
- The conclusion that we need to reopen schools, and move as quickly as possible to ending the lockdowns is unavoidable.
This email is written roughly at the level of a college bound high school senior. It is intended for intelligent, educated, serious adults, who are rightly concerned with the state of our country. Time and care have been put into its creation. It may save YOU time in finding out facts which you had not suspected, if you choose to invest a small part of your day–or perhaps small parts of several days–reading and digesting it.
I will start with a description of epidemics, as seen scientifically, followed by two obvious and now proven solutions to our quandary, before describing many details which are important. There are almost no complex topics in the world which do not find equally qualified people arguing opposing views. The ideas expressed are those of a highly intelligent but amateur student of this mess. All are defensible. None are, most likely, completely invulnerable to criticism or at least amendment. Where further research might be desired by the reader, useful search phrases which have been tested recently will be offered, since most people rightly mistrust hyperlinks from unknown sources.
1. Most importantly, most people seem to have no idea what “curve” we are supposed to be flattening. The “curve” is called Farr’s Law. It was first described in the 1800’s by a British doctor and states that epidemics nearly always form a Bell Curve (also known as a Normal Curve). They start small, grow rapidly, peak, and then diminish. All the things you saw showing exponential growth (1 dead, 2 dead, 4 dead, all dead) were not grounded in science or actual observation. What happens is that a disease shows up, infects a few, then a lot, then runs into roadblocks of people who have been infected and acquired immunity, people who have natural immunity for some unknown reason (about a third of people seem to be resistant to COVID-19, for reasons that are not clear), or people who are simply healthy and who fight the disease off. When the disease can’t find efficient ways to spread any more, it withers and dies. This condition we call Herd Immunity. That is the back of the curve, where it merges with the zero line. [Both Farr’s Law and Herd Immunity should yield useful hits]
A useful analogy is that of a pack of wolves. Wolves prey on the slow and the weak, just as diseases prey on the weakened and sickly. Once those people are dead, or infected and healed, by and large the disease will stop, just as wolves, faced with a coherent and organized pack of any herd animal, will disperse and move on.
A key element which has not been shared with you, most likely, but which is familiar to all epidemiologists is that the SAME NUMBER of people get infected–or at least are exposed–in all scenarios. If it is a cold epidemic–and these happen often–then you don’t notice since very few people die. But they obey Farr’s Law. If it is a Black Plague epidemic, likewise, but many more people die. Whether an epidemic lasts a week or a year, the SAME NUMBER OF PEOPLE DIE, because in the end the same number of people MUST be exposed for the circulation of the disease to end. This means that as we open back up, it is inevitable that more people will get infected. But this is the only way we get through this. Everyone familiar with the science has known this from the beginning. It has also been obvious from the beginning that strict lockdowns only make sense for those who are truly vulnerable, which is those who are sickly and over the age of 70 or so.
Here are two examples of what appear to have been successful strategies:
Sweden: At the outset of this pandemic, Sweden looked at it like any other pandemic. They knew that the best way out is through. What the math predicts is a slow increase in cases, then a peak, then a drop to nothing. And in fact, this is what happened. Sweden’s death rate from COVID, after peaking at a relatively high rate, has dropped to nearly zero. What is significant is that they didn’t close down most businesses, didn’t close their primary schools, and even allowed many sporting events. Cafes and restaurants were not closed, masks were not and are not demanded, and social distancing was only very loosely enforced. They did ban large gatherings, and take other modest measures, but nothing like what was done in much of the world. They DID try and quarantine their elderly, since on all accounts that is where most of the death happens, but were not fully successful. The disease did get into some of their nursing homes, and caused their death rate even in the early stages to be higher than their neighbors in Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Even so, even at their peak, their death numbers were lower than those in most of Europe, including Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
But importantly, they didn’t destroy their economy, didn’t lock people in fear in their homes, and didn’t experience all that much death. It is not too late for us to open everything up, and allow the disease to spread–ideally subject to some ideas I will share farther down–while protecting our sick and elderly, who do need to be quarantined, even though they have already been suffering now for 5 months without being able to see their children and grandchildren. Many Americans will not need to be told to socially distance. Many will want to wear masks whether or not they are required to. But there is every reason to think that if we accept that the death rates may spike again for a short period of perhaps a month, that we can be DONE with this thing for the foreseeable future, without any more of the huge problems I will be describing. And what needs to be emphasized is that these deaths will happen no matter what. It doesn’t matter if we push this thing a year, as Fauci once proposed. The death will be the same. We cannot now avoid it, at least without better medicine. [There is a Wikipedia article on this exact topic. “Wikipedia sweden covid 19” should turn it up; what you need to look at is the chart showing deaths. This is what a Farr’s Law related Bell curve looks like.]
A second and even more interesting case is that of Switzerland. The Swiss never had a full lockdown either. They prohibited meetings of more than five people, and closed bars and schools and many business from about mid-March to mid-April. They began reopening on April 27, and were fully reopened for everything, including bars and schools, on June 9. They were more open in June than even Sweden was.
The Swiss seem to have used a fairly vintage and tested anti-malarial drug called Hydroxychloroquine as a key element in their primary course of treatment. This drug has been on the market for 65 years, and is available over the counter in much of the world, particularly in countries where malaria is still common. If you look up their charts [wikipedia switzerland covid 19 should do it], the deaths stopped April 27th. Then they started again, in small numbers about June 7th. What is interesting is that the Swiss government had banned HCQ on May 27th, per World Health Organization recommendation, then made HCQ legal again on June 11 and began using it again, and since then perhaps 20 people total have died. They never again climbed to where they had been early in the pandemic. It has diminished ever since. They have only had 3 deaths in August. For all intents and purposes, Switzerland is open, and the disease is through. Again, you can look at the charts and see Farr’s Law operating in the graph showing deaths. It only goes to May, but there is a numerical graph showing recent deaths.
I will comment more on Hydroxychloroquine below. It has been an unnecessarily politicized topic. [with regard to Switzerland specifically, search “pj media mea culpa french”, where they show HCQ working, then getting banned, then getting reintroduced].
I will note that neither Switzerland nor Sweden ever recommended mask wearing. They did recommend social distancing, and did ban large gatherings for a time. But by and large people’s freedom remained intact.
2. “Flatten the curve” never had anything to do with getting rid of the disease by stopping its spread. THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS. Technically, the amount of infection and following death “under the curve” (which is to say Farr’s Bell Curve) is the same over any time domain. “Flattening the Curve” was supposed to be a very short term policy, of a week or two, maybe up to a month, in which measures were taken to slow the virus down so that we didn’t run out of hospital space to treat the seriously ill. We have had largely empty hospitals for most of this pandemic. Many of them are flirting with bankruptcy. The stated goal was achieved no later than the middle of April in the United States. Everything since has been politicians flexing their muscles and not their brains. Again, Switzerland beat the virus by the end of April with very little fuss.
3. COVID-19 is much less dangerous than most people think. According to Stanford Professor John Ioaniddis–who has called this whole thing right from the beginning–it kills about 4 people in a thousand who get it, 93% of whom are over the age of 55, and 99% of whom are over the age of 35. Since February 1, about 13,000 persons 25 and under have died of all causes. Only around 200 are alleged to have died of COVID. The total supposed deaths as of the beginning of August, 2020 are around 120,000. [There are many articles involving Ioaniddis, and most of them are worth reading].
As background, a bit over 2.8 million Americans die of something every year, or about 230,000 a month, or about 1 in 118 of us. If you look at your State’s normal monthly mortality–it is not hard to do the math, but it does require a bit of math, since it will likely be listed as annual mortality per thousand–then compare it to claimed COVID deaths, you will find that the TOTAL since February would fade easily even into most monthly totals, and averaged across a year disappears completely statistically. [these numbers are from the CDC’s website]
And another point I have not seen anyone else make is that with no other illness do we routinely test people at random. Every flu season–which is a roughly four month period from December 1st to April 1st–between 20,000 and 80,000 people die in the US, and usually over half a million worldwide. About 60 million people GET the flu in the US. They are sick for a day or two, or a week. Here is the thing, though: if 60 million people have SYMPTOMS, then probably upwards of 200 million people are EXPOSED to it. If you took blood samples of any of those people while their immune systems were successfully fighting it off, then they could be listed as “new cases of the flu”, and terror recommended as the obvious remedy. That is all they are doing with COVID. Only deaths and hospitalizations truly matter, not “new cases.”
And in this regard it is worth making the obvious point that the death rate is not known cases divided by attributed deaths. VASTLY more people are most likely infected with this disease–two or three times as many–as are ever formally diagnosed. The true death rate is necessarily speculative, and derives much from random testing of people with no symptoms.
Obvious conclusion: if the media had not made this thing appear a terrible emergency, most people would not perceive it as such. A bad disease is floating around–probably about twice as bad as the worst flu–and all of us have every reason to wash our hands more, perhaps go out less, and take better care of ourselves, but statistically that is all that can be said.
4. There is good reason to think deaths are being overcounted. In one recent and well publicized example, a man who died in a motorcycle accident in Florida was recently counted as a COVID death. One can attribute this to many things, but simple economics is the most obvious: Hospitals are paid vastly more for COVID cases. Given that most governors of most States have ordered them to stop most of their money making activities–which involve the treatment and prevention of literally every other disease–there is a built in financial incentive to code cases as COVID. [A search for “beckers hospital review finance state by state breakdown covid”] should pull up a relevant article. Some States are being paid up to $300,000 by the Federal government per COVID case.
5. There are many reasons to think the lockdowns will kill more people than COVID, and that the numbers will not even be close.
To begin with, according to the CDC, ONE IN FOUR persons aged 18 to 24 contemplated suicide this past summer. A search for “politico one in four young adults suicide covid” should pull up the link.
Logically, this means perhaps up to half of them are flirting with clinical depression. Logically, this means that most of AMERICA is flirting with depression. We have yet to see suicide and drug overdose numbers, but it is very possible that they will total much more than the COVID numbers. And the thing with depression is that studies show that after the first depressive episode, future episodes are vastly more likely. We KNOW that social isolation, joblessness, and the chronic stress which comes with a relentlessly negative and fear mongering press all work to make people miserable. Miserable is just a synonym, more or less, for depression. And misery causes huge increases in all diseases, including heart disease, stroke, and even cancer. People who are miserable take poor care of themselves, tend to find functioning difficult, and live shorter, less productive, and obviously less happy lives than should be possible for them.
These Lockdowns are a direct cause of the disease of depression, and unlike COVID, that disease is likely to remain an important and deadly element in our public life for a long time to come. What our Governors are doing to us is creating a second, worse, and completely preventable mental illness pandemic.
Further, in a typical year about 1.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer, and about 600,000 die. 1.7 million amounts to about 142,000 new diagnoses a month. The problem is, most of these diagnoses ARE NOT HAPPENING, BECAUSE THE MEDICAL FACILITIES ARE NOT DOING THEM. We have been locked down, let’s say, since April 1st. As of August 1st, that works out to 4 months. 4 times 142,000 is 568,000, which is the number of people who might have discovered–hopefully but not certainly early–that they had cancer. That cancer is even now eating away at them, and will likely only be found once it is too late to do anything. Let us say that in normal times 1 in 3 cancer cases leads to early death over the next five years. Is it unreasonable to suppose that with so many cases of lung cancer, and breast cancer, and colon cancer, and prostate cancer remaining hidden, that it might jump to 1 in 2, or even higher? A jump from 600,000 (current annual deaths) to 850,000 deaths (half of 1.7 million) is 250,000, which ALONE is roughly 100,000 more deaths than have died thus far of COVID, even with the likely inflated numbers. [CDC and cancer dot gov]
And these numbers do not factor in that STRESS kills. A mere 1% increase in unemployment seems to cause an overall net increase in overall mortality of about 37,000 people, from all causes. People who don’t have jobs and can’t pay their bills don’t sleep well. They don’t eat well. They don’t exercise. They don’t take care of themselves. They smoke too much. They drink too much. They do drugs. They take unnecessary risks. Their relationships fail. All of this snowballs into vastly more death. [look up an interesting talk at “BBC Big short unemployment more or less”]
If we use a mere 10,000 more deaths per point increase in unemployment, then a 15 point jump is again more deaths in the next year than have thus far died of COVID.
Are you starting to get the picture?
6. Hydroxychloroquine, at some length. If you have followed the discussions about COVID, you know that Hydroxychloroquine was championed by President Trump a long time ago, early, early in the epidemic. His advocacy, seemingly, caused emotional and scientifically indefensible reactions which have in the months since caused many States to ban or restrict HCQ, for its use to be denigrated, and for its partisans to be attacked personally and professionally. It is literally the case that the author has been accused of being a Trump supporter merely for suggesting that HCQ might be a good solution, by strangers with no other data (I am a Trump supporter, but there is no just cause to politicize something this important when 330 million Americans are suffering. No previous generation of Democrats–and I was a Democrat over half my life–would have even considered it).
But many doctors, both domestically and abroad, have persisted. Many have claimed that if you follow their protocol, almost no one will die. Switzerland seems to have proven this. Why we are not copying the Swiss is an issue for social psychology, not science. The specific treatment protocol involves Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc supplementation, and an antibiotic called Azithromycin (marketed as Z-Pack). Many doctors have testified to the efficacy of this treatment. According to international studies, HCQ is an easy favorite among all doctors around the world as the first line of treatment.
One Yale epidemiologist, Harvey Risch, has incurred a great number of personal attacks for stating that HCQ needs to be a key element in our response. He has penned articles on this and his qualifications are considerable: he has an MD from UC-San Diego and a Ph.D from the University of Chicago. By and large his critics are citing bad studies which are easily cast aside for valid reasons. It seems reasonable to suppose that he is speaking science, and that his opponents are speaking politics, as he alleges [Newsweek Harvey Risch COVID].
Among other claims made by front line doctors treating this illness, it even appears that HCQ can be used in low doses to PREVENT COVID-19. This has been claimed by actual doctors treating actual patients, who use it for themselves and their staff. That amounts to a vaccine, and a month’s worth runs–I read–$20 or so. It is thus affordable even for people without insurance. 1 200mg dose twice a week seems to work to prevent you from getting COVID-19 in the first place. This is the claim made. At a minimum, we should all be given that option. Instead, many States are inexplicably and inexcusably BANNING it. Why?
HCQ has been on the market for SIXTY FIVE YEARS. It is available over the counter in much of the world. You can go to your grocery store and pick up eggs, milk, and Hydroxychloroquine, in, say, Indonesia or Iran. It is a very, very safe drug used as directed. Like Tylenol or aspirin, you can kill yourself if you take too much, but no one is recommending or suggesting that.
Dr. Anthony Fauci claims this drug does not work, but he is not seeing patients. He has not personally seen or treated–much less cured–ONE person since this thing began, and has not come up with any good course of treatment other than trying to avoid infection in the first place, using methods which themselves lack scientific support. The claims that HCQ causes heart arrhythmias stem from people using the drug for long periods of time–five years or more–for other conditions, like lupus and arthritis. In reasonable doses delivered for less than a year, there is ZERO evidence any risks outweigh the many claimed and observed benefits, particularly given the catastrophic costs of the lockdowns. [refer to the Harvey Risch article]
The one large study purporting to show it was dangerous–and again, remember this drug has been on the market for 65 years, and available in generic form over the counter in much of the world for decades–was FAKED. The data used was made up. Fabricated. The Lancet–which was formerly one of the premier medical journals–was forced into an embarrassing retraction, which is almost never done, because they normally do their homework up front. Consider who might fake such a study, and why. [Lancet Web MD Surgisphere]
You have on the one hand thousands of doctors who are TREATING PATIENTS around the world saying that people get better when they are given this treatment protocol, and on the other you have someone who has not seen a patient in 40 years saying that the pharmaceutical companies, who make nothing on HCQ but stand to make TRILLIONS, potentially, with a new treatment, have not done “double blind” trials. Such trials take years, and people are dying now, and he KNOWS THIS.
As mentioned, in Switzerland, they used HCQ early on with good success, then abandoned it per World Health Organization suggestion, and had fatalities jump nearly immediately. They reimplemented the use of HCQ, and are now pretty much done with the epidemic. They have been averaging less than 1 death a day for a month or so.
President Trump has been taking HCQ since May, with the consent of his doctor, and has suffered no ill effects, despite continuing to see people quite often.
Finally, the doctors who are talking about the benefits of HCQ are being censored. Their videos are being pulled from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other places. Disappeared. Memory Holed (Irrelevant but fun fact: Orwell took the idea of the Memory Hole from an actual practice at the BBC, where he had worked). This, while BILL GATES, whose only experience with viruses is with COMPUTER viruses, is being looked to as some sort of expert. This should worry anyone with a conscience and a brain. [“front line doctors banned video infowars” pulled up the most important video just now; Alex Jones is in the author’s opinion two thirds crazy, but being deplatformed caused him to create his own version of YouTube where videos can be posted and not easily removed by Big Tech censors. Watching that video there is worth your time. It is very hard to find anywhere else.]
If the people opposing the use of HCQ solely for political reasons are wrong–and it appears they are–then this constitutes a de facto act of mass murder.
7. We KNOW that the only reliable “vaccine” or preventative is robust health. You need to be healthy to resist disease. You need to be a healthy weight (obesity is a serious risk factor for complications), exercise regularly, eat a sound diet, get plenty of good quality sleep, and to the extent possible keep a calm, tranquil mind. This works for EVERYTHING. It makes you more resistant to COVID-19, yes, but also heart disease, diabetes, and everything else. Overall good health is likely also one reason Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, and some other countries have had relatively low death tolls.
And we KNOW that dietary deficiencies, particularly, in zinc and Vitamin D are correlated with poor outcomes if and when a person is infected. There is NO REASON Fauci and the others should not have recommended vitamin supplementation. Talk with your doctor, or do your own reading, but a basic goal that should work for most people would be to shoot for 2,000 IU (not grams) of Vitamin D a day (one tiny, cheap pill), 1,000 MG of Vitamin C, and 20-30mg of zinc. For most people these are all within healthy ranges, but more than many people get. These are all inexpensive, easy to find vitamins. And we know that zinc helps shorten colds, which are also forms of coronaviruses (there are seven coronaviruses; four of them cause what we call “colds”).
A strong case can be made that perhaps up to tens of thousands of people would still be alive today if Dr. Fauci had made this recommendation–or one like it–early on. Many people’s parents, grandparents, and even children are dead because our top supposed disease expert failed to offer basic, common sense advice.
And vaccines STILL REQUIRE A HEALTHY IMMUNE SYSTEM. EVEN IF we develop a vaccine, it will still need to stimulate your (ideally) healthy immune system into generating antibodies. And given that it seems to be nearly impossible to generate permanent immunity to most viruses–you need a flu shot every year, and no vaccine exists for any of the coronaviruses which cause the common cold–any vaccine developed will likely need to be administered periodically forever, which means you still need a healthy immune system no matter how this plays out.
Conclusion
When all the death is tallied, and our abusive Governors finally see fit to allow us to return to our lives, it will be CLEAR that the RESPONSE to the pandemic was vastly worse than the disease. Not even close. We may one day speak of the Great COVID Overreaction of 2020.
Vast numbers of bankruptcies are coming, both personal and business. Vast numbers of home foreclosures and evictions. Sooner or later we will get the suicide and drug overdose numbers, and they will be terrifying. Our mental health system will be overwhelmed to breaking, and will include many people who normally don’t have mental health issues in large numbers, like teenagers and young adults. Even our very young are being traumatized. 5 year old kids are being imprinted with masks and fear.
When all this hits, keep in mind that there is nothing Trump could have done to prevent any of this. Nearly all the response has been driven by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the Governors who listened to him. If Obama or George W. Bush or Bill Clinton had been in office, the responses would have been the same. We expect our Presidents to listen to the “experts”, at least in fields far outside of their personal expertise.
And to be sure, Trump is slowly forming his own new policies based on his own thinking and observation. He has understood that these lockdowns are causing vastly more harm than good, and said as much. He also identified the value of HCQ early on, but was overruled by what more or less amounts to the Establishment. There is of course another phrase in use.
Research all the claims made here. Do your own work. Do your own thinking. Form your own conclusions.
And again, please forward this to as many people of all political persuasions as you think might read it. People are dying miserable and preventable deaths right now, not from COVID, but from despair. All of this needs to stop as soon as possible.
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Switzerland is the model
https://en.wikipedia.org/w…/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Switzerland
Digging, like I do, I discovered that the BEST model for all this is Switzerland. Forget Sweden. They had this thing licked on APRIL 27TH, for all intents and purposes, and have been FULLY open since June 9th.
FULLY OPEN. EVERYTHING.
AND THEY SEEM TO HAVE USED HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE
Yes, this is Wikipedia, so perhaps more data gathering is warranted, but the gist seems clear enough.
Here is a link discussing Switzerland. The deaths do not seem to have quadrupled, according to this data, but they did rise from nothing to something in June: https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535
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Principles
1. No one who has not themselves been humiliated feels any pleasure in humiliating others. What, for example, Ghislane Maxwell did to those girls was done to her. Perhaps not literally, but emotionally, and deeply.
2. No one who lacks the space in their personalities for sin can allow the entrance of authentic Goodness. Much of what people call piety or devoutness or goodness has all the spontaneity of squirrels burying acorns for winter. Our task as humans is to evolve beyond our instincts, beyond our “givens”–both biological and social–and enter into a free relation with the spirit of goodness which coexists alongside all the evil in this world.
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Joe Biden’s de facto Campaign motto
Keep America Gray.
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Prayer
It occurs to me that in prayer, as in human relations, what matters the most is what is communicated without words