rigorousintuition.ca

I challenge anybody here to supply data that demonstrates that the entire recent spike in COVID-19 cases is not entirely the result of:

1) The recent federally-enforced roll out of shitty antigen tests admitted by their own manufacturers to have false positive rates of over 3%, and

2) The categorization of what would have been considered inluenza-like illness in every other flu season as COVID-19-like illness this flu season (a miscategorization strongly encouraged by current national healthcare reimbursement policies).

The very slight comparative increase in death rates can also be fully explained by nursing homes' now quarantining patients without COVID-19 together with actual sick and contagious nursing home patients on the basis of the increased false positive results from the new rapid antigen tests as well as the CDC's August 5th directive to include even the deaths of patients who initially tested positive with the crappy antigen tests and then tested negative with the more accurate PCR tests as COVID-19 related cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

Supporting data:

No excess current overall deaths in the USA as we saw earlier this year.



No current excess mortality of all respiratory illnesses in comparison to the 2018 flu season:



Severely diminished hospitalization rates for influenza-like illness to start this flu season:



Strangely enough, the CDC is not publishing any data whatsoever about laboratory confirmed influenza so far this nascent flu season. Could this be because there have only been 60 public laboratory confirmed cases of flu this entire flu season (just 6 last week and just 6 the week before that)?

Case Study: San Francisco

Cases of COVID-19 in San Francisco since 10/27:



OMG!!! CASES PER DAY HAVE DOUBLED IN JUST 25 DAYS!!! LOCK UP THE CHILDREN! DON'T SEE ANY OF YOUR LOVED ONES FOR THE HOLIDAYS!! STAY HOME AND COMMIT SUICIDE LIKE A GOOD CITIZEN!!!

Hospitalizations for confirmed cases of COVID-19 in San Francisco since 10/27:



Deaths associated with COVID-19 in San Francisco since 10/27:



So a grand total of two deaths, either or both of which could have actually been false positives, put the city of San Francisco back on lockdown.

Case study: Vermont

There have been over 1007 positive cases (30% of all cases since the pandemic began) in Vermont over just the last two weeks, yet there are just 17 COVID-19 related hospitalizations in Vermont currently, and there have been just 3 (of 62 total) COVID-19 related deaths in Vermont over that period. And remember that the CDC is forcing states to declare all deaths and hospitializations as COVID-related even if the only relationship they have to COVID is a false positive result on the shitty antigen tests that our federal government bought by the hundreds of millions!



OMG!!! LOCK UP THE CHILDREN! DON'T SEE ANY OF YOUR LOVED ONES FOR THE HOLIDAYS!! STAY HOME AND COMMIT SUICIDE LIKE A GOOD CITIZEN!!!

Now look at the death and hospitalization rates over this same time period.





LOL. So emergent care visits for "COVID-like illness" increased very slightly once it started to get colder in Vermont. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less. Nobody is getting sick or dying more than usual. And this is all during the same period that there have been ZERO confirmed cases of influenza in all of Vermont! LOL. Just look at the chart!



Hmmm, with every single media outlet in Vermont and the national media screaming "COVID SPIKE!" at everyone 24/7, fewer than 4% of Vermont's emergency room or urgent care visits have anything to do with COVID-19-like illness or influenza-like illness. Am I really the only person looking at these data in the entire world?

Check the data for yourself if you don't believe me:

https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/def ... 0-2020.pdf

https://www.healthvermont.gov/sites/def ... Week46.pdf

Note the all travelers to and from Vermont over this holiday season are now subject to strict quarantines because of the "recent COVID-19 spike."

Case Study: North Carolina total COVID-19 cases:



OH MY GOD, SAVE THE CHILDREN!!! THE WHOLE STATE IS GETTING SICK AND DYING!!!

Meanwhile, here are the hospitalization stats in the state of North Carolina since this supposed spike began:



Would any COVID-19 spike true believers care to explain these data?

Case study: Minnesota







OH, MY GOD!! SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE SWEEPING MINNESOTA!!!!! THE HOSPITAL BEDS ARE COMPLETELY OVERFLOWING!!!

Now let's check the actual number of people now hospitalized with severe illnesses in Minnesota:



Hmmm. Somehow the non-COVID hospitalizations have mysteriously diminished in the exact number that the COVID hospitalizations have risen! It must be a Thanksgiving miracle!

And what about regular influenza? Oh, yeah, there have been a grand total of 8 influenza hospitalizations in Minnesota this entire flu season!



Is anybody else here sensing some sort of a trend? Note that the number of patients currently hospitalized in Minnesota supposed due to COVID-19 was easily exceeded in two of the last 40 flu seasons.

Hmmm! I know the correlation does not equal causation, but you have to admit that this is one doozy of a coincidence.

News Release

October 14, 2020

State adding antigen test results to online COVID-19 data

Federal officials pushing out testing equipment to states for use in long-term care and other settings

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced today that it will begin posting on its website COVID-19 cases detected using new antigen testing equipment approved by the FDA under an emergency use authorization. ...

Even with these advantages, there are some drawbacks. Antigen tests are not considered to be as reliable as PCR tests. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has provided large numbers of antigen tests to long-term care facilities to conduct the frequent testing required by the federal officials, but it is not clear whether the antigen testing devices provided to states by the federal government are sufficiently accurate when used to test people without symptoms.

“Federal officials have embraced antigen tests and are aggressively encouraging states and institutions across the country to use them,” Minnesota Commissioner of Health Jan Malcolm said.

New antigen tests show broader Minnesota COVID-19 outbreak

And now the sports news ...

Note that even "gold standard" PCR tests can be extremely crappy

Listeners of Talk Ten Tuesdays may remember that earlier this summer, my 89-year-old father tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 via a saliva polymerase chain reaction test, which his caregivers performed as an attempt to catch COVID-19 infections early, on instructions from the state department of health. The results were returned five days later, and I was informed that evening.

The assisted living facility (ALF) went on lockdown, and we all were waiting to see if our loved ones would become symptomatic. On Wednesday, Aug. 26, I received a call from the ALF administrator requesting permission to retest my dad with an intranasal swab test. There were multiple residents and staff whose tests were positive, and they were concerned that the original tests were false positives. That was eight days after the original test.

Three people had been retested already, and the repeat tests were all negative. The administrator expressed frustration at the inability to procure sufficient supplies to do the follow-up nasal or nasopharyngeal testing. The original NovaDx test had been supplied by the government to all long-term care facilities, per the administrator. It seemed unlikely that multiple elderly patients, some of whom likely had some high-risk co-morbid conditions, would all have been asymptomatic.

Up until now, we had been under the impression that the PCR tests have few false positives, and that false negatives are the real issue. These molecular tests are considered to have high specificity (ability to correctly detect uninfected patients, i.e., true negatives – TN/(TN + FP), but lower sensitivity (ability to detect true positives identifying all infected patients – TP/(TP + FN).

However, the tests had been validated on symptomatic patients. It is problematic to apply tests to situations for which they have not been intended or studied.

A false negative means that a person goes about their business thinking they are not infected or infectious. They can expose other people unknowingly. They can expose an entire football squad or a government office.

The implication of a false positive is different. First, it is insanely difficult to prove that a false positive is actually false, especially in the case of an asymptomatic patient. Cultures for SARS-CoV-2 are not done; the PCR test is considered the gold standard. If there is a lag time of eight days, like in the case of my dad, who’s to say that the first one couldn’t have been a true positive, and the follow-up test was reflective of just the natural clearing of the virus? If we know there are significant numbers of false negatives, how do you know that the second PCR test isn’t the incorrect one?

If a patient is believed to be infected with the coronavirus, they must quarantine and limit their exposure to others. For 14 days, all the residents of the aforementioned ALF were cooped up in their apartments. They ate their meals there, all the activities were on hold again, they didn’t go outside, they didn’t have familial visits. Anyone who has been in contact with a person believed to be positive has to quarantine as well. My father’s healthcare system demands a 28-day lag between the positive test and being able to be seen in person, which leaves him at risk of his other ailments.

If the long-term facility (or a school, for that matter) is doing routine asymptomatic testing, what do they do if quality control issues persist, and there are repeated false positives? Do they undergo serial, perpetual quarantine? Quarantine or isolation has real costs, too. Without socialization, these elderly residents are losing mental faculties. Without school, kids and parents are losing their minds.

What do these nursing homes and assisted living facilities do now with their results? Do they report those patients to the authorities as positives, even if they suspect they are false positives?

Since you can’t really tell who has a false positive, statistics will be skewed. The per-capita death rate is falsely lowered. Inpatient false positives mean the difference between the COVID-19 unit and not. If they don’t really have the disease, they might after being exposed during their hospitalization. Also, remember that Medicare pays an additional 20 percent if there is a positive test result in the chart. Additional resource expenditures and longer hospitalizations may ensue from false positive tests, so perhaps that is not inappropriate.

How did we get here? Tests, similar to the vaccines in development, were hastily thrown into production. Emergency use authorizations, or EUAs, are being handed out like candy on Halloween in 2019.

When this happened to my father, I found an online article from June 18 that uncovered abnormally high numbers of positive results from NovaDx in Texas nursing homes in early June. They were written off as “an isolated incident” involving a specific batch of tubes and transport solution. So why is the government purportedly distributing these tests still?

My dad’s latest test returned negative, and the residents have been released. I am scheduled for my weekly 30-minute visit tomorrow afternoon.

There is room to improve testing, and to improve the tests. To ensure that we know what test results mean in asymptomatic patients. To improve the administration of the tests. We all want the statistics and information surrounding COVID-19 to be accurate and reliable. Testing is one of the key tools in our arsenal to get this pandemic under control.

I just made this graph from ONS data for the UK for the last three years. I wanted to see it for myself.

You can see from the spike in total deaths at week 16 that the increase in total deaths is a good three thousand higher than the spike in deaths attributed to Covid and some 11 to 12 thousand higher than average over the last three years.

Respiratory disease related deaths in 2020 are lower than average over the last five or six years but I didn't bother to go further back than 2018 in the graph.

So the spike attributed to Covid is, interestingly, only a rough match with the spike in total deaths. But according to the data there is definitely a large spike in the number of 'excess deaths' compared to previous years.







I've clumsily superimposed the Covid deaths over the total deaths to illustrate the divergence.






Also interesting, the UK lockdown began in week 12, the week after the first death was attributed to Covid, and the same week that deaths attributed to covid began to increase, according to the data.

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Lockdown measures can be one of the factors driving 'excess deaths' compared to prior years (lack of proper care for terminal illnesses, depression, OD, etc.).
Earlier this year one could have argued there were less accidents due to less travel, which in turn would offset excess deaths. People are still traveling, at least by car, though.

There's also the manner in which a 'COVID death' is defined/tallied which skews figures, at least with respect to covid death counts.

Belligerent Savant » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:44 am wrote:.
Lockdown measures can be one of the factors driving 'excess deaths' compared to prior years (lack of proper care for terminal illnesses, depression, OD, etc.).
Earlier this year one could have argued there were less accidents due to less travel, which in turn would offset excess deaths. People are still traveling, at least by car, though.

There's also the manner in which a 'COVID death' is defined/tallied which skews figures, at least with respect to covid death counts.

See my additional note. The first deaths attributed to covid began the same week lockdown commenced. I should have pointed out earlier, the number of deaths attributed to Covid19 is zero until week 11. In week eleven there are 5 deaths and in week 12, 103 deaths. Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?

This is interesting, and it may be nothing. I'm checking various countries against commencement of lockdown. Every single one without exception, so far, experiences the begining of a spike in excess deaths at exactly the moment lockdown begins. I mean precisely. So far.

Edit: Although Sweden experiences a similar spike, it is significantly later than average and nowhere near as big as the average increase.

^^^^^^^

Very interesting/noteworthy.

An earlier version of my response alluded to 'statistics', and how figures/numbers can be manipulated (and/or, information witheld) to present misleading trends/characteristics.

Modern day sorcery has been in play from the onset with this covid outbreak.


REFUSE. RESIST.

Chaos A.D.
Tanks on the streets
Confronting police
Bleeding the Plebes
Raging crowd
Burning cars
Bloodshed starts
Who'll be alive?!

Chaos A.D.
Army in siege
Total alarm
I'm sick of this
Inside the state
War is created
No man's land
What is this shit?!

Refuse, Resist
Refuse, Resist

Chaos A.D.
Disorder unleashed
Starting to burn
Starting to lynch
Silence means death
Stand on your feet
Inner fear
Your worst enemy

Refuse, Resist
Refuse, Resist

Song release date: 1993.

The lyrics, while prophetic, are crude. Hardly poetic. The music is loud, disruptive, an assault to the ears. Precisely what many need to awaken from their slumber.

.

Graphical summaries like the one below can sometimes be misleading, but I checked out 2 of the totals, for 2017 and 2018, via the CDC website and found them to be exact matches. A bit more legwork can surely confirm the other years. Haven't yet found a chart that offers these counts per year across several years, but will dig into it further when time allows.

If these figures are indeed accurate (and i imagine 2020 figures so far may well be impacted by lesser human 'travel' compared to prior years), it ties back to my earlier point, and more broadly, the points being raised by Stickdog and Harvey (and a few others, across other threads): numbers are being manipulated to instill -- un-founded -- FEAR for reasons that go far beyond (indeed, have nothing to do with) shielding humans from harm.

To the contrary, demonstrably.

Check out the supposedly dire EMERGENCY hospital bed situation in Oklahoma according to our breathless media.

Oklahoma Toddler Fighting COVID Sent to Hospital 50 Miles Away Amid State's Bed Shortage

1-year-old Oklahoma girl fighting COVID-19 transferred to multiple hospitals in order to find an available bed

Moore teacher fighting COVID-19 in hospital after waiting a day for an ICU bed

Local hospitals offer COVID-19 care criteria after mayor says respiratory system must be 'in danger of collapse' for admission

Just a matter of time before metro hospitals reach capacity, OU Health COVID expert says

OMG!!!!1!1!! People are dying in the streets (and rural roads) all throughout the Okie state!

Hmmmm. Has even a single Oklahoma hospital yet implemented the surge plan for extra ICU and acute care beds that every hospital has prepared for months? As of 11/6, the answer was a a resounding no.

Officials: Plenty of hospital beds for COVID patients

November 9, 2020

Ray Carter

Reports of limited hospital capacity for Oklahoma’s COVID-19 patients are largely a product of flawed measurement, not a true shortage of beds, state officials told lawmakers on Monday.

“Our goal of this entire plan is that Oklahoma patients are treated in a hospital-like setting and they always will be treated in a hospital-like setting,” said Oklahoma State Department of Health Surge Plan Advisor Matt Stacy. “And we believe, working with the hospitals, that’s there’s a lot of room to go.”

Oklahoma Commissioner of Health Lance Frye told members of the House Government Efficiency Committee that the state’s surge plan has used three different formulas to measure hospital capacity, but that the state has consistently had sufficient hospital beds to treat patients with the most severe COVID-19 symptoms.

Frye said the initial hospital surge plan was based on a simple number of beds available in state hospitals, using figures provided by the hospitals. At that time, hospital officials said they could increase bed numbers 40 percent if required and needed to reserve only 30 percent of capacity for non-COVID emergent patients, meaning they could fill up to 70 percent of available hospital beds with COVID patients.

“Now when we say they’ve got 15 percent or 20 percent COVID patients in their hospital, you can see how on our end we may not feel like we’re overrun because they said they could take up to 70 (percent),” Frye said.

Hospitals later requested to use a “staffing capacity” figure, and the state’s surge plan was modified to use that metric.

“That wasn’t perfect either because a great day for a hospital is to be at full capacity,” Frye said. “They don’t want nurses manning empty beds. They want their staffing to match up with the number of people in the hospital, which means they’re going to show zero capacity. They’re full.”

Oklahoma hospital officials have previously acknowledged that their business model always keeps intensive care units (ICUs) close to full, including prior to the pandemic.

During a July press conference appearance with Gov. Kevin Stitt, Jim Gebhart, community president of Mercy Hospital said, “For all hospitals across America, we manage ICU capacity very tightly.”

That point has also been noted in other states.

At a September roundtable on public health, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis noted, “Before the pandemic started in Florida, we had 90 percent of our beds were in use at the beginning of March.”

When the staffing-capacity figure was used to determine bed shortages in Oklahoma, Frye said there were instances where a hospital would discharge patients and “have less patients in the hospital than it did the day before, but their ‘capacity’ looked like it worsened because they also got rid of some staff.”

He noted that hospitals set staffing levels based on the number of beds they expect will be filled with patients each day, taking into account factors such as discharges, scheduled surgeries, and anticipated emergency room traffic.

“They staff up or down every day based off of that,” Frye said. “So when you look at ‘staffed capacity,’ that’s a number that it changes every day.”

As a result, the state surge plan was modified again. Today, a hybrid version of the prior two models is in use, Frye said.

Stacy said the state has achieved its goal of treating COVID-19 patients in hospitals.

“We could have stood up 1,000 beds immediately in the Cox Center or other places like that, but that’s not optimal health care and we didn’t think we needed that,” Stacy said.

He said there are 5,673 available staffed hospital beds in Oklahoma, including med-surg and ICU beds combined, based on the latest survey of hospitals.

“That denominator is important, and so when we see a number of 950 hospitalizations, obviously it’s concerning because the trend is upward, but we see a lot of room there in hospitals to continue to cancel certain procedures that are non-emergent and elective,” Stacy said.

He said the decision to cancel non-emergency surgeries to free up bed space for COVID-19 patients is left up to hospitals.

“We’re asking hospitals to be hospitals and manage that, not ask the state to manage that …,” Stacy said. “Because we can’t manage their capacity. We’re not a staffing agency. We’re not a hospital. We don’t control patient-care decisions. We don’t control discharge dates.”

Stacy said that one sign of sufficient capacity is that no hospitals have instituted their own surge plans as of Friday, Nov. 6.

So not a single "overloaded" hospital has yet instituted its surge plan. And what is strange about Oklahoma is that I cannot find any reliable data about total ICU and acute care beds filled in Oklahoma on a historical basis, so I guess an emergency shortage is thus whatever the officials who get on television declare an emergency shortage.

@BelSav: I tried to find a source for the 2020 number, but all I found was this, which only goes up to June:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/prov ... tables.htm

Still, that's 1 626 000 deaths for the first half of the year. Assuming that the next six months will be similar (judging by the 2019 data they should) that ends up with about 3,2 million dead for 2020.

Also, note the huge spike in April, which did not happen in 2019.