20A027 No Big Deal by Jim Davies, 7/7/2020

Since February we've been surrounded by industrial-scale government mendacity, both about the extent of the damage supposedly done by the Wuhan Bug worldwide, and by information on how it works. "Experts" are presented on TV and other screens only if their view conforms to government orthodoxy; which is to say, the ocean of lies. So it's very hard to know where to start. This ZGBlog attempts to show where, then what's actually been going on since. It will be a longer Edition than usual. Sorry about that; it's a complex story.

Baseline

The best I've come up with is to select from the reported data those countries which have (a) an economy sufficiently advanced to support an efficient health reporting system and (b) a record of having disposed of the Covid Crisis quickly. There may be others, but I found six that met both of those critieria: China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

Why the second criterion, (b)? - because these were all nearly finished with it before the G-20 subgroup got started, with their rather obvious motivation of scaring their respective populations into accepting a wide range of authoritarian restrictions. Those six may have simply encountered a new virus, done what they thought best, and succeeded. They may have lied, but since their death rates are all in single digits and each is independent of the others, it's not very likely. So they are the least unreliable sources.

Here is what they report:

So this is the baseline: 71 in a million become seriously ill, and 3.4 of them die. That's just 0.0071% and 0.00034% respectively. Everyone else gets infected, but so mildly they may not know it. Those numbers clearly show the Wuhan Bug is no big deal; it's 38 times less lethal than the regular, annual US flu epidemic for example, with about 130 deaths/M.

The government-published data for the US shows, for the same virus affecting the same species over the same time period, death rates of some 400 per million, or 115 times that baseline. Obvious lies, from sea to shining sea; and Democrats are by far the worst liars.

Orthodoxy holds that C-19 is dangerous and needed government action. Reality: government planned to intimidate, in collusion with certain others, and C-19 was a handy pretext. Orthodox spokesmen have presented it exactly upside down.

Growth

Early this year, it was widely reported that the Wuhan Bug would infect people at the rate of a doubling every 3 days, if unimpeded; that's 26% growth per day. Therefore if nothing had been done to stop it, the whole US population would have been infected in 72 days (counting from March 1st when 20 people were found to have the bug) which takes us to May 12th. In practice the varying distances between residences would have clipped the curve's top and given it a long tail, but otherwise it would then have dropped off to zero and all would then have been finished:

20 x 1.26⁷² = 337 million, more than the population.

Given that of those infected only 0.00034% die, that would certainly have been the best policy; leave the Bug alone, laissez faire. But they didn't; they took drastic measures to force people apart, to slow down the Bug's progress. The apparent natural rate of 26% a day became something less, and since reported deaths ended by June 30th I reckon it fell to 14 or 15% a day, which doubles infections (nearly all harmlessly) every 5 days instead of 3. The economic devastation was prolonged.

This slower growth has done nothing to prevent everyone becoming infected eventually, for that could be achieved only with strict and total isolation. The most it's done is to have "flattened the curve" a bit so as to ease the pressure on hospitals. That pressure was great in cities like New York where public panic prevailed after Cuomo's government had announced a terrible plague was on its way; but trivial elsewhere. No "social separation" was ever needed, and certainly not now.

However, was the Bug's progress slowed down in the six baseline countries above? - quite possibly. Wuhan itself was widely reported as being closed, yet bad cases were treated in Shanghai and elsewhere. So it's not clear how the epidemic was ended so fast. It's quite possible that the PRC government realized the disease was not serious and stopped bothering and stopped truthfully reporting, so the Bug went on its way, rapidly infecting all 1.4 billion people but with only minor effect. What we do know for sure is that some combination of those possibilities applied, because the country was declared open for business in late April, proving that one way or the other the Chinese government was not worried about foreign, possibly infectious visitors arriving.

Objections

One that's easily neutered is that C-19 deaths are higher in Europe and America than South of the Equator because the weather has been cool, hence ideal for bugs. Not so; (a) four of the six baseline countries above are in the Northern hemisphere and (b) the period involved (March - June) was Spring here and Fall in the Antipodes, accounting for the remaining two. So the weather was similar.

The archists who launched this massive intimidation scheme naturally don't like this exposure of all their lies, so have countered it with another claim: that if their over-stated death reports were merely mis-classifications of deaths from other causes, there would be no increase in the normal, regular cycle of such deaths; and there is in fact such an increase, so there: yah, boo, sucks.

In the US annually, some 2.83 million people die from all causes, ie 8,576 per million - to compare with the reported 400/m from C-19. So they have to create a statistical "bump" of (400 / 8576 =) 4.7%; or, since the Bogus Plague lasted only March thru June, arguably three times that, 14%.

Adding 1 in 7 to the numbers isn't that hard, when they (in the CDC) control all that gets reported. At least three ways are evident:

1. Just fabricate or forge them. If they are mis-classifying over 100,000 death certificates, they are mega-liars; and mega-liars won't hesitate to falsify a little history for good measure.
2. Use some of the very large "wiggle room" provided by the still-open report of deaths from the strikingly similar influenza epidemic. They gave themselves a range of 38,000 to wiggle in.
3. As an "unintended consequence" (at least I hope it was not intended) there have in fact been a substantial number of excess deaths resulting from the government intimidation campaign itself, as shown by Jon Rappaport here. He says the sudden effect of the lockdowns themselves has prematurely killed vulnerable old folk, particularly in rest homes; not with the Bug, but with the terror and isolation produced by government intervention. He quotes Forbes, the NY Times, Wapo and others to confirm that half of all alleged C-19 deaths take place in nursing homes. That would be over 60,000. A big help, in the fabrication of a statistical bump.

Summary

This would have been a non-event, had government not intruded.

• Exactly as Mr Trump said at first, with 0.00034% true fatalities C-19 was not a big deal
• It should have been ignored, and he should have stuck with that message
• There should have been no restrictions on freedom or business, nor any face masks required
• It has ruined a big part of the economy, some of it for ever
• Slowing down the spread of infection has increased the wreckage but has saved no lives
• Left alone, it would have ended by mid-May, with 38 times less ill effect than the flu
• It has been used as a pretext for the biggest invasion of liberty since 1776
• Ominously, it showed government that people can be bullied far more than supposed
• The associated terror has in fact killed thousands of elderly people prematurely

Government. Who needs it?