George Rebane

Yes, C19 has made us and the world’s other countries do terrible things to our economies, but being an extraordinary killer it ain’t.  As I explained in ‘Mismanaging Covid-19 …’, all that the virus has done is substituted its own grim reaper for the usual ones that work on the various age groups with their usual comorbidities.  Of course, the older people who are already scheduled to die of some malady they are now fighting, or soon will be fighting, are vulnerable to death from some cause.  Then along comes C19 and pre-empts the other causes, but in the process does not add to the nation’s mortality counts.

Well, that’s not exactly true.  Actually, C19 is decreasing the death rate of the nation when we examine CDC published data on deaths in America over the years. (more here)  Check the plot below.

The 2020 death count was extrapolated from 2,033,736 total deaths by 24 September 2020.  The daily average to that date of 7,588 deaths times 365 days gives this year’s total of 2,769,620.  (Say, that our end of year spike is higher than the computed average, and the mortality curve just keeps following the set trend.  Then the point made here still holds regarding the overall mortality impact of C19.)

So why are deaths going down in 2020, the year of our historic pandemic, during which people are running around screaming insane warnings, locking everything down, keeping immune kids from being educated, and destroying millions of small businesses?  Easy answer – gross ignorance and evil political agendas.

Some other factors are contributing to lowering the death rate include the decrease in people seeking medical aid from healthcare professionals as they hunker down and try to protect themselves from C19 infections.  According to government figures (as reported here many times) medical mistakes kill over 250,000 Americans year-in year-out.  It’s one of our leading causes of death, so if you stay out of hospitals and clinics, and don’t let them get their hands on you, there’s a better chance that they won’t getcha.  And more people will keep living at the end of the year.

The bottom line of my screed is that we have been fed wagon loads of bullshit about this pandemic, its morbidity and mortality, its virulence, effective therapeutics, public response policies, etc during the past year.  And all we’ve managed to do is cripple our economy, ruin countless lives, and abandon our freedoms to power hungry politicians, for what?  To save lives?  Not really.  Now what are you going to do about it?

[8dec20 update] It appears that CDC does publish various versions of data on the same topics.  I received an appreciated email from a reader who makes this point clear with CDC data that supports (calls out?) my above comment about the trendline being maintained even with an appropriate population-relative increase in the 2020 deathcount.

[9dec20 update]  The Democrats’ idiots delight continues in Sacramento in coming up with insane and insaner response policies to the pandemic.  Now even some members of the Lockdown Luminaries are beginning to evince doubt in both their policies and the tortured ‘logic’ that has given rise to them over the past months.  Here’s ‘I’m Not Sure We Know What We’re Doing,’ Says a Newly Skeptical California Lockdown Advocate that indicates against all hope that there is a ray of sanity that might be leaking into the deep dark depths of Gavin’s mind.