The Second Wave Revisited– August 5th 2020
During this made up “second wave” we are told we have 2-3 times more cases on average daily than we did in late March and early April. How? Almost a million tests a day. In a week starting last Thursday we tested over a million people a day twice. Weekly total is over 5 million. Total tests since my June 14 blog have been 40 million. From the beginning of Covid until June 14 there were only 24 million.
Anyone with the virus, sick or not is a new case. So here is why we have the increased cases. It is so plain to see:
The old way of diagnosing Covid 19
The New way of “diagnosing” Covid 19
Cars line up in Texas to take the test
With 2-3 times more cases, hospitals that were close to overrun in April are doing fine. They should be overrun if the numbers are accurate! We have had a few more deaths, but numbers are still way below April numbers. Why?
I have lost all faith in the way the scorekeeping works for this virus. It is political, IMO. They, (whoever “they “are) just keep changing the rules to maintain and create panic. They all seem to err on the side of terror.
People ask me about a 3rd wave and I say, “by the time a 3rd wave may come everyone in the country will have been tested or have antibodies.
Back to School?
California reports the first death of a teen from COVID-19 https://abc7.com/central-valley-teen-covid-death-coronavirus-child-teenager-dies-children-california/6345560/
This was in Fresno. He was 17. Every article says he had underlying conditions but “due to privacy concerns they wouldn’t give information.” What the young man suffered from before Covid 19 is what parents want to know.
Another child died in Tennessee last week. The child was a patient at the St. Judes Children’s hospital known for childhood cancer.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital later released a joint statement:
“We can confirm that a patient of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a child under the age of 18-years-old, died from an underlying condition.
“This child was known to be positive for COVID-19, but was not symptomatic. COVID-19 was not thought to have impacted this child’s condition. However, this information must be included in COVID-19 reporting, as directed by the Tennessee Department of Health,” according to the hospitals.
Even with this statement issued by the hospital, the teenager was counted as a Covid death “per the rules.” https://dailymemphian.com/article/15713/first-childs-death-here-with-covid-confirmed
40 million people in California and not one death of a healthy child or teen. 40 million. About the same population as Spain. For perspective, Australia has only 26 million people.
No one 12 or under has died in California. Other countries are going back to school without causing spread. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/10/european-school-reopeningsreduce-virus-concerns-for-most-312595
So, let’s see? Healthy kids don’t die of Covid and other countries are doing well re-opening so we should listen to the teacher’s unions and keep them home. Right?
The LA teacher’s union will not go back to school unless “their demands are met.”
“Their demands include implementing a moratorium on private schools, defunding the police, increasing taxes on the wealthy, implementing Medicare for all, and passing the HEROES Act, which allocated and additional $116 billion in federal education funding to the states.”
Our students are being stopped not by the virus but by the radical political positions that the teacher’s union takes. I have argued that high level decisions are being made about the virus for purely political reasons. Here is your proof. Either buckle to our political agenda or we won’t teach.
We need to get them back in school. Children with parents that are too busy or too irresponsible to home school will fall behind. We risk a huge wave of dropouts as these students are not up to speed.
The fuzzy way we count hospice and Nursing home patients
Senator and astronaut John Glenn’s wife Annie Glenn died at 100 years old and was in a nursing home. The median stay in a nursing home is 5 months. Mrs. Glenn had multiple issues that would have caused death. But she was chalked up as a Covid death. Had she died and had a cold or flu, they wouldn’t say the cold or flu killed her. They would say they were contributory.
Hospice Care is the end of life care provided by Social Security. They don’t take you on unless they are pretty sure you will die within 30 days. There is an average of 1.4 million people on hospice. The median length of care for hospice patients in the U.S. is 17 days. These people are all terminal. None of those should be counted as Covid deaths. These deaths too, are being mis-labeled. Covid trumps all other causes of death for some reason. Who is deciding these things?
Why so many people in nursing homes test positive is baffling. We have 1,236,079 people in nursing homes as of 2019. That’s a lot of people who only have months to live. Since 45% of total deaths are nursing home related, and we have today 158,000 deaths, 71,000 of those deaths have been attributed to nursing homes. The other 328 million people in the U.S. have 86,900 deaths. With the median stay at 5 months, that is really out of whack. Could it be that those patients would have died anyway and never have been counted?
No one counts a cold or flu as a reason for death when someone has only days to live. Colds and flu are added as a contributing factor, not the cause of death! But with Covid it is listed as the “cause of death” not a contributing factor when anyone dies with or without symptoms. The article below describes the process of determining death by National Institutes of health. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/927445/
So, I will leave you with this, for those of you who can’t believe this is political and orchestrated for our panic and distress before an election.
Why don’t other countries have a second wave?
Not one European country or Canada is experiencing a second wave.
To check out all the other countries not being sold a “second wave” here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries scroll down to countries. Click on a country and scroll down to see charts for daily cases and deaths.
Please comment if you would like.
See you soon,
Craig
The thoughts and opinions in this blog are strictly those of the author