Let me say up front, there’s something very sketchy about the wordy explanations provided by National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Listen/watch or read what he says below.
Encapsulating Dr. Fauci’s position: Data on the coronavirus assembled today doesn’t reflect what is actually taking place today, but rather reflects where we were several days ago…. OK, that part makes sense (there’s a lag).
He then goes on to say what is actually happening today will not be included in data until we arrive at a place a few days from now when today’s reality is quantified. Again, that reasonably makes sense… However….
The media is/are reporting on coronavirus impacts in real time. There is no delay in what the media are reporting from various places around the nation. The media reporting reflects what is taking place today; right now… and what the media is reporting today is not worse than the data Fauci is explaining.
Meaning if Dr. Fauci was correct, and if the coronavirus data (the reports of spread) was behind by several days from the reality of today; then what the media would be reporting (the on the ground reality of the spread today) would be significantly worse (higher incidents) than Fauci’s data, which he claims is lagging several days behind….
The problem with that supposition – The media ground reports do not reflect a higher incidence of coronavirus spread than Fauci’s data today.
The concept of “flattening” the virus curve; the presumptive reason for social distancing; is based on a theory to extend the spread of COVID-19 to a lesser incident rate over a longer duration, thereby lessening the burden on the U.S. healthcare system. Hence, ‘flatten’ the spike in infections.
Put another way: “Flattening” means the same number of people eventually contract the virus, only they do so over a longer period of time, and the healthcare system can treat everyone because the numbers do not rise to level where the system is overloaded. In theory that seems to make sense.
However, no-one is asking: what is the current stress level on the healthcare system right now? Where are we in that capacity?… and what is normal capacity level during a high-level flu outbreak?… and Where are we when compared against that baseline?
The premise to extend the virus duration in an effort to lower the infection rate and spread the virus over a longer period of time needs to measured against: (a) where the healthcare system is at any given moment; and (b) under traditional high-flu seasons where are we during those historic events.
♦ STRESS LEVEL – The healthcare ‘system’ per se, is expending an awful lot of time on mitigation efforts. As Dr. Birx noted: the current negative test rate for coronavirus among those showing symptoms who are tested is 98 to 99 percent. That means of all the people taking coronavirus tests, 98/99 out of 100 are symptomatic (they are sick) but they are not infected with coronavirus. They are normal flu cases.
Our healthcare “system” is expending an incredible amount of resources on a mitigation effort. According to Dr. Birx and the test results 99 percent of those mitigation efforts are not engaging with coronavirus. They are dealing with regular flu (perhaps a strong flu).
If you extract the mitigation effort from the overall effort, the current stress level on the healthcare system doesn’t seem to be overwhelming. What is stressing the system is a coronavirus mitigation effort with a rate of 99 percent testing negative.
♦ Dr. Fauci’s theory is self-fulfilling.
If the viral spread never exceeds the capacity of the healthcare system to deal with it, he can claim success. Look, our flattened curve worked.
However, when contrast against flu outbreaks, no-one knows what the COVID-19 capacity threshold is within the healthcare system. There’s no way to disprove Fauci’s theory.
Given the nature of the baseline for overall U.S. sanitation and hygiene, which is significantly higher than Italy, S-Korea and China; and given the higher standards of food safety (U.S. is the world leader); again significantly higher than Italy, S-Korea and China; and given the nature of the U.S. healthcare system (more capacity per person); is it really a fair comparison to overlay a COVID-19 outbreak, without also overlaying a traditional flu outbreak?
Any theory that cannot be scientifically tested; and is simultaneously self-fulfilling; is, by its nature, a false theory.
This is not to say that Dr. Anthony Fauci is intentionally misleading anyone; however, it is absolutely true that no-one will be able to quantify if trillions of dollars of economic wealth lost; and trillions more in economic activity lost; and trillions more in deficit spending; and that might all be done just to follow the fantastical whims of a doctor who is directing the mitigation of an ordinary flu-virus/season, and appears to be quite full of his own sense of self-importance.
98/99% negative test rate should alarm everyone. We’ve shut down the biggest economic system in the world for a virus that is not appearing in 99% of the people who are sick.
DR. BIRX: Yeah. No, thank you, Mr. Vice President, for mentioning that because, as I told you, in South Korea there are 250,000-plus tests. About 96-plus percent were negative. So — and that was with symptoms.
So we’re working very hard integrating everything they have learned about symptoms and screening, and that is going into the development of this website. So it’s not just a simple checkbox website. It’s actually going to go through critical symptoms. And that’s why we’re giving ourselves the weekend to get it put up.
So far, in the United States, from LabCorp and Quest, they’re running about a 99 to 98 percent negativity. This always worries me because I’ve worked in public health a long time. When you tell someone they’re negative, yes, it’s reassuring, but the last thing we want is them so reassured that they stopped practicing these critical practices that are going to protect all of us.
This epidemic will be stopped at the community level. Those are the individuals — it’s Americans and their response that will get us over this hump. And that’s why, yes, we’ll have testing available. We’ll have to know that many of them are going to be negative, and you’re going to have to help us carry that message that that means, just at that moment, you’re negative, you need to continue to do all of your protection and protection of others to ensure you remain there. (read more)
♦ FACT: 98 to 99% of the American people tested, who have symptoms (similar to flu), test negative for the Wuhan novel coronavirus (COVID-19). We are spending hundreds of billions, and disrupting all facets of life and liberty, to avoid a virus almost no-one carries.
Here’s SKETCHY Dr. Fauci’s explanation:
DR. FAUCI: Thank you very much, Dr. Birx. So just to connect with what I mentioned to you in previous discussions in this room — and Dr. Birx said it very well — that in order to be able to contain and curtail this epidemic to not reach its maximum capability, we have a two-pillar approach, one of which I believe has been very effective in preventing the substantial seeding, and namely the travel restrictions that we’ve discussed many times in this room.
The other, equally, if not more important, is when you have infection in your own country, which we do. And you know I could read the numbers, but they’re really, essentially, what we’ve seen yesterday: incremental increases, both globally as well as in the United States, with the curve doing that.
So therefore, the kinds of things that we do are containment and mitigation.
This — what we’re mentioning now — the guidelines, when you look at them carefully, I believe if the people in the United States take them seriously, because they were based on some rather serious consideration back and forth, some may look at them and say they’re going to be really inconvenient for people.
Some will look and say, well, maybe we’ve gone a little bit too far. They were well thought out.
And the thing that I want to reemphasize, and I’ll say it over and over again:
When you’re dealing with an emerging infectious diseases outbreak, you are always behind where you think you are if you think that today reflects where you really are. That’s not word speak.
It means:
If you think you’re here, you’re really here because you’re only getting the results; therefore, it will always seem that the best way to address it were to be doing something that looks like it might be an overreaction. It isn’t an overreaction. It’s a reaction that we feel is commensurate, which is actually going on in reality.
So take a look at the guidelines. Read them carefully. And we hope that the people of the United States will take them very seriously, because they will fail if people don’t adhere to them. We have to have, as a whole country, cooperate and collaborate to make sure these get done.
Thank you.
If the coronavirus spread never exceeds the capacity of the healthcare system to deal with it, he can claim success. Look, our flattened curve worked. However, we’ve also destroyed the U.S. economy to do so, and we’ve wiped out tens of trillions in U.S. wealth.
If Dr. Fauci’s magic theories are correct, then by THIS Friday there should be tens of thousands of people testing positive for Coronavirus. If not….
Here’s the new Fauci recommendations:
