Eric Zuesse
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture
There are basically two different policy-approaches to the coronavirus problem: One is the passive approach, waiting for ‘herd immunity’ to develop naturally. And the other is the active approach, in which the Government does take action — not just wait while the most-vulnerable individuals die off from the disease. The “herd immunity” approach is libertarian; it assumes that “let nature take its course” is always best; it is “laissez faire.” The “take action” approach is the exact opposite — very restrictive (including strong disincentives — “punishment” — for individuals’ misbehaviors that transmit the disease and endanger other people). This is the old debate between some form of anarchy on the one side, and some form of “socialism” (legally enforced governmental policies) on the other side.
The earliest popular ideological debate regarding coronavirus-policy was between advocates of Denmark’s socialistic approach, versus neighboring Sweden’s laissez-fair approach. EuroNews headlined on March 26th “Neighbours Denmark and Sweden miles apart on coronavirus confinement”, and reported that “when it comes to handling the coronavirus crisis, they are on very different trajectories,” which were Denmark’s socialism, versus Sweden’s libertarianism.
At that time, there was no clear indication, yet, as to which approach would win out. For example, on April 19th, Denmark had 1,275 Covid-19 cases per million, whereas Sweden had 1,424. So: per million inhabitants, they were about the same.
Even as late as 12 May 2020, three libertarian co-authors at the prestigious U.S. neoliberal and neoconservative Council on Foreign Relations’s journal Foreign Affairs headlined, confidently, that libertarianism would win out: “Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s: Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option—the Question Is How to Get There Safely”.
But, by the time of June 29th, the data had become clear to the exact contrary, and so I headlined “‘Herd Immunity’ Is a Failed Response to Coronavirus”, and reported the subsequent increases in each of these two countries’ numbers.
On April 22nd:
DENMARK = 1,329 (up 4%)
SWEDEN = 1,517 (up 7%)
On May 10th:
DENMARK = 1,782 (up 34%)
SWEDEN = 2,567 (up 69%)
On June 17th:
DENMARK = 2,123 (up another 19%)
SWEDEN = 5,404 ( up another 111%)
And here it is as of June 28th:
DENMARK = 2,188 (up another 3%)
SWEDEN = 5,450 (up another 1%)
And, finally, on 22 August:
DENMARK = 2,783 (up another 27%)
SWEDEN = 8,515 (up another 56%)
Furthermore, one of the leading libertarian arguments against taking action has been that supposedly the economy will perform better if there are no coronavirus-restrictions placed by the Government. However, Sweden’s unemployment-rate has been hit at least as hard by coronavirus as Denmark’s has:
Denmark’s unemployment-rate was 4.1% in March, 5.4% in April, 5.6% in May, and 5.5% in June.
Sweden’s unemployment-rate was 7.1% in March, 8.2% in April, 9% in May, and 9.8% in June.
So, on that day, August 22nd, I sent to an influential libertarian website (not as influential as Foreign Affairs, but more populist — not funded by billionaires like the CFR is), which has come to specialize on coronavirus, the following article for them to consider, since it discredits their many libertarian articles about coronavirus:
and the response from them three hours later was:
I appreciate you’re willingness to engage on this topic, but your choice of source is poor. The logic is bad, and whole areas of policy are ignored.
Firstly, comparing Sweden only to Denmark and Norway is absurd. Sweden imposed no lockdown, yet fared far better than many countries which did so (Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Spain and Italy). This alone is a perfectly strong argument that lockdowns are totally ineffective for their stated aims.
Secondly, it at no point talks about deaths caused by lockdowns, which is a huge factor (accounting for nearly half the excess deaths in the UK).
Thirdly, it mentions GDP but doesn’t discuss that the economy is MORE than that. A suffering economy is not about money or finance, it is about well-being for the working class. Good wages, affordable rent and the freedom to run your own small business. All of which have been destroyed by the lockdown policy, which Sweden shows was (at best) pointless.
I promptly replied:
The Belgian policy-response was unclear, unfocused, and such a mess that nothing has even been generally reported regarding their contact-tracing (which is such a crucial aspect of effective policy-response to the virus).
None of the countries with good results have achieved them via an expectation of ‘herd immunity’. No country is anywhere near the 70%-infection-rate that produces herd-immunity. It’s a myth; it’s just a lie.
For example, though the imperialistic libertarian country United States warns travelers that the coronavirus risk is exceptionally high in Uganda (warning “Level 3,” which is their highest), Uganda is actually one of the world’s lowest coronavirus-risk countries, and they achieved it by stringent policies, which is exactly what you reject. Whereas U.S. now has 17,587 cases per million, Uganda has 47. The country that has a 374 times higher percentage of its population coronavirus-infected, warns its suckers to stay away from the country that has 1/374th of the risk.
Why is [your site] feeding into this deception of its readers, instead of exposing it to them? Have you switched to being pro-imperialistic (pro-neoconservative, which is a variety of neoliberal or “libertarian”)? All of a sudden, the neoliberal countries, such as U.S., Brazil, and India, which are or have been the world’s worst on coronavirus-performance, are the ones to emulate? Why? Or else: which countries ARE the ones to emulate on this? Say it. Prove it. The statistical data by now are certainly sufficient to do this. Why don’t you do it, instead of continue to deceive readers? Why do you deceive readers so that they would support, instead of condemn, the imperialistic U.S. Government’s alleging that Uganda is more coronavirus-dangerous than the U.S. itself is? It’s a lie, but how would your readers be able to know this?
I don’t get it. You seem stuck in your existing false beliefs. Please explain so that I will become able to understand. Right now, I don’t.
I received a reply that said I should “apologise” because “We have never expressed any support for the US or its Imperial policies in any way, shape or form,” and “the statistics speak for themselves — the virus is harmless to the vast majority of people, and in no way justifies any of the draconian or authoritarian laws being imposed opportunistically in many countries around the world (including the United States).” In other words: the U.S. under Trump isn’t being sufficiently laissez-faire about this matter. The evidence that I had cited was ignored, not discussed, by him.
Subsequently, I checked a few of the other nations that are among the best on coronavirus-performance. For example, there’s China. It has 59 coronavirus-19 cases per million population, and the U.S. has 298 times as many cases per million, but the U.S. Government rates China also in the highest-risk category, “Level 3,” for Americans to visit, on account of its supposedly higher-than-U.S. danger of becoming infected with that virus.
Then, there’s Vietnam, which the U.S. Government had tried to conquer but couldn’t. Vietnam has only 10 coronavirus cases per million inhabitants. America has 17,587 per million; so, obviously, that’s 1,759 times as many. Vietnam also is rated “Level 3” — the worst, most coronavirus-dangerous, category. The Government of Americans is warning Americans to avoid visiting Vietnam because it’s just too dangerous a coronavirus-risk for an American, whose country has 17,587 cases per million. Obviously, no intelligent person trusts a government such as this. (No more than such a person would trust the Government that had promised it was certain that WMD existed in Iraq in 2002, or that Syria had gassed people on 7 April 2018, or that the overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President in 2014 was a ‘democratic revolution’ instead of a U.S. coup — or on, and on, such as about “Russiagate”.)
Then, there’s Burundi, with 36 cases per million, and it’s likewise a “Level 3” country — 488 times safer on coronavirus than U.S. is, but rated by the U.S. Government as being instead too coronavirus-dangerous for Americans to travel to.
Then, there’s Myanmar, which has only 8 cases per million inhabitants — 1 divided by 2,198 times as many cases-per-million as the U.S. does — and the U.S. Government refuses even to call that nation “Myanmar,” but instead calls it by what the British did when they had it as a colony, which is “Burma,” and the U.S. regime’s travel-advisory rating of “Burma,” for ‘Burma’s would-be now U.S. imperial masters, is likewise exactly the same as they rate Uganda: “Warning — Level 3”. The U.S. regime is telling its citizens that a country which is 2,198 times safer on the coronavirus danger than the U.S. itself is, is instead too unsafe on coronavirus for Americans to travel to. They care so much about the safety of their own citizens, as to warn them against visiting a country that’s thousands of times safer. How sincere is that? But some people still respect the lie, and the liars (serial-liars), as if they weren’t.
Perhaps people who are in denial about coronavirus are simply in denial about reality — the broader, global, reality.
On coronavirus-19 — this pandemic — the best data regarding the international reality is this, which is the constantly up-to-date listings of all countries and their respective numbers. To see the rankings there of all countries on the crucial outcome-variable of “Tot Cases/1M pop” just click onto that column’s heading and countries will be ranked that way. Same for the other crucial outcome-variable “Deaths/1M pop,” and for the far less-crucial process-variables (such as “Tests/1M pop”). Two successive clicks onto the given column-heading will reverse the ordering of the countries regarding that variable. You’ll be seeing there the existing rankings, as of that given moment. To see the trends within any given country, just click onto the name of that country, and then scroll down to the charts “Daily New Cases” and “Daily New Deaths” (tracking both of the crucial outcome-variables)
However, people who are in denial about coronavirus-reality avoid those numbers like the plague. Perhaps they do that because, to their libertarian ideology, these numbers are “the plague.”
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
You are a very disturbed, anti-science retard.
Last time I visit this shithole.
Just the worst article ever written by this uninformed jerk-off pundit. Apparently totally uninformed as to the effect of lock down on economy that was the cause of the destruction of lives in the USA as well as the entire nation. The virus is trivial compared to the massive horror of useless lock downs, social distancing and muzzles, all worthless ploys to destroy our lives and culture, nothing more, all ineffective at dealing with this trivial cold virus. And it doesn’t need “dealing with”. Leave it like all other past “pandemic” to follow its course is the right way to… Read more »
“the effect of lock down on economy that was the cause of the destruction of lives in the USA as well as the entire nation“: Why, then, is it that Sweden had a bigger rise in unemployment than did Denmark? Why does U.S. have a bigger rise in unemployment than Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, etc.?
Because the US economy is built on sand while the others are built on rock. This is what happens when you can print your own money and thus have lost your sense of fiscal responsibility. The US also has a lot of unnecessary businesses that are basically luxury. When people can no longer have access to that or lack the money to frequent that, unessential businesses will go under. The rate of unemployment simply shows you how much unessential business the US has. Or in other words, what a luxurious life the average american, including poor americans, lived before covid.… Read more »
I have no idea why Sweden had a higher rise in unemployment, and neither do you. A proper investigation by someone with an education would of controlled for other variables, not assume one variable was a causal factor without evidence.
Thank you for this excellent article, Eric. As always, it is a pleasure to read what you write. Regarding the coronavirus, I feel that the world is falling apart into the western and the eastern hemisphere. Where I Iive, in Moscow, the coronavirus thing is taken very seriously. We still need to wear masks when visiting shops, banks, etc. And the flight with Aeroflot I wanted to take to Geneva in Switzerland recently, was cancelled, due to “coronavirus” fears. I find it interesting that you mention Myanmar. There, people take the coronvirus danger seriously, like in Russia, China, and most… Read more »
Thanks for your kind and informative comment, Olivia. I am happy to learn, from someone living in Moscow, that Russians learn from the relevant data and behave accordingly for their own safety and for the safety of others. Unfortunately, not all individuals do likewise, such as Kwai Chang, who won’t “visit this shithole” ever again and considers this article’s author an “anti-science retard” (but fails to provide any empirical evidence whatsoever for his rejecting the data that I cite and link to here). It’s no surprise; I routinely run into that reaction, from people who are in denial about coronavirus.… Read more »
Some very unreasonable, impolite entities are sometimes invading this board, Eric. I have had some prats troll me, too. They followed every single comment to write something insulting, rude and nasty. Regarding the topic you wrote about, I see that the USA and Russia are two worlds apart, not only in politics, economy, culture – but also in the treatment of the COVID-19 crisis. I read the Russian news agency TASS daily, since I live in Moscow. They give the numbers for Russia and many other countries on a daily basis because in Russia the crisis is treated seriously. It… Read more »
Re: Worldometres data. “Tot Cases/1M pop” is utterly irrelevant. Since this condition presents with only the mildest symptoms in the vast majority of cases, the only metric of relevance on the Worldometres site is the death rate per million. An attentive reader will see that Peru stands clearly above all other countries (except Belgium) with the highest death rate (837 per million). It just so happens that Peru has also applied the most severe and complete lockdown of any country in the world, with the military enforcing a nationwide mandatory curfew, a universal mask mandate, face shileds on public transportation… Read more »
Peruvians massively distrust their government and so have ignored its urgings that they wear masks etc. — that is one of the most libertarian nations regarding coronavirus.
Yes, some Peruvians refused to starve and chose to work instead, in spite of the brutal crackdown. So what? Is that your explanation for the death rate? Sorry, it doesn’t wash. Taiwan, with a population of 23 million implemented no lockdown at all and has suffered only 7 (!) deaths due to the supposedly novel virus. Japan also implemented no lockdown and also has one of the lowest death rates in the world, despite some 80% of its tourists arriving from China and South Korea. But why do i even bother replying? You’ll no doubt have some “just-so” story to… Read more »
Taiwan shut down its borders on March 19th. When no more virus comes in its a lot easier to control the spread and with that deaths. Does not compare to any other country. Plus it’s an island so entries can be monitored very easily. Just does not compare. Japan has a very disciplined society. Japan was very diligent on contact tracing and implemented localized action in case of infection but along the whole contact chain. It also urged its citizen to avoid scenarios that would pose a high infection risk: closed spaces, crowded places, and high contact setting, especially those… Read more »
Wrong conclusion. The reason for the delay in excessive death numbers is because of the incubation period on one hand, and the fact that countries like Spain and Italy had super spreader events where localized infections very suddenly caused a lot of ill people and localized excessive deaths. These localized events overburdened local hospitals. Patients were flown out to other countries because there were no more capacities. That helped the receiving countries to gain some experience in dealing with such cases first hand. But it was these infectious events with localized spikes led to the lock downs. First regionally. When… Read more »
You undermine your own thesis with these absurd assertions: “In Germany one single evening out during carnival festivities caused one single person to infect 300 others.” Was even a single virion isolated in order to demonstrate its provenance? I can tell you with certainty that it wasn’t. The diagnostic in use is RT-PCR, and even assuming it was used for the cases you mention, it is a completely meaningless test when it comes to identifying specific viruses. PCR was never conceived for this purpose. It is a thermal cycling method for amplyfying DNA. It cannot – and does not –… Read more »
Here is a nice experiment you can do: Copy the first two sentences into google search and see what comes up. What you will see is a link to this article. Not a Duran link but another site that posted the article and obviously does better SEO. But it takes only these first two sentences to correctly identify the whole article. And that is how PCR tests work. They do not need a complete match, they need enough of a match to identify the whole. Is there a margin for error? Of course. No science today is that perfect to… Read more »
It’s one of the great puzzlements in life that people who do good work in one area, can then crash and burn in another. The good work appears to be in areas that they have studied closely and worked out that MSN and government is lying to them and the poor work reflects areas where they accept the ‘official’ narrative through their own lack of knowledge. Herd immunity is not a do nothing approach, it’s what we operate every year in the ‘respiratory illness’ season. If you are sick you stay at home or keep your distance and if the… Read more »
“the poor work reflects areas where they accept the ‘official’ narrative through their own lack of knowledge.”: So: the numbers that this article cites constitute “the official narrative” and can therefore be ignored?
Hi Eric Thanks for the response. An initial thought. Perfectly happy to take the figures as presented, but – The narrative – COVID 19 is an existential threat and regardless of the collateral damage we must lock down to save humanity and every case is a disaster. The reality – Sweden cases per million 8600, deaths per million 575 (and that includes the mess they made in their care homes) – annual all cause deaths per million 8500 – 9000. I realise we are only 8 months into the year but I would suggest that does not support the narrative.… Read more »
“The narrative – COVID 19 is an existential threat and regardless of the collateral damage we must lock down to save humanity and every case is a disaster.” That’s totally false. It falsely assumes that letting the contagion run its natural course is better for the economy than taking appropriate measures to restrain it is. The data do not support that . If anything, the unemployment-rates have been rising a higher percentage in the coronavirus-policy-libertarian countries such as Sweden and India and U.S. and Brazil and Peru than in the coronavirus-policy-socialistic countries such as Taiwan, China, Venezuela, Vietnam, Myanmar, and… Read more »
Hi Eric
I suspect we will have to agree to disagree.
If the virus had been left to run its course, I doubt that the world economy will have even realised it was out there, except that it may have bumped up GDP by 0.1% due to extra spending on health services.
Without the disproportionate reaction of so many countries fuelled by the narrative, the thread underneath your article would probably be ‘virus what virus’.
Eric you have badly misunderstood both the dynamics of covid19 as well as the idea of laissez faire capitalism. Nor is the libertarian indifferent to the plight of the covid vulnerable. To the contrary the libertarian advocates isolating the elderly and vulnerable population susceptible to covid while leaving everyone else as well as the productive economy undisturbed. Now as to the dynamics of covid. Dr Gilber Berdine has just published the definitive study on the subject. He analyzes four distinct strategies deployed in Sweden, New York, Illinois, and Texas. Sweden isolated its small vulnerable population while leaving everyone else and… Read more »
Sweden did not isolate its vulnerable, it refused treatment to the vulnerable. Nursing home residents were forbidden to be treated in properly equipped hospitals. Did that study mention that? If Sweden had reached heard immunity there’d be no new infections. The curve does not represent that. The reason why deaths are lower is because hospitals now have more experience in treating corona patients.
“Herd immunity” is a highly speculative concept in epidemiology. Demonstrating it in practice has always been dificult. This is why the target number for herd immunity is constantly in flux with regard to many communicable diseases. But here is a screenshot of the latest from Worldometres on Sweden. New cases are neglible, and decline from the summer is dramatic..
hundreds of new infections are not negligible. With herd immunity there should be ZERO! Also the graph is going up, numbers are increasing. Same as with other European countries one possibility is that some who are returning from holidays are bringing in infections. Also something that should not happen IF there was herd immunity. Example – vaccination scheme create herd immunity. Only those where the vaccination did not take or who were not vaccinated may become infected when the pathogen is introduced to the herd again. Ie foreign travelers who bring in measles. The rest of the herd is protected… Read more »
No herd immediately is not a speculative concept it is an absolute truth, if you have falling daily death rates in lockdown and non lockdown countries, you have reached herd immunity. Their is no evidence that 70-80%™of the population have to be exposed to develop herd immunity, the 80% was an unfounded assumption in Neil Fergisons paper. The % that have to be exposed for herd immunity depends on the pathogen, and the existing inate immunity from similar pathogens. Covid 19, as it is not dangerous to the majority of the population seems to need about 20% of the population… Read more »
“Nor is the libertarian indifferent to the plight of the covid vulnerable.“: That’s false: libertarianism asserts that no one has any obligations except to fulfill on contracts, and therefore people who have no money deserve nothing except what people donate to them out of kindness — there is no obligation to the poor, not by any individual, and not by any government: nothing of a redistributionist type ought to be done by government; it’s sink or swim for everybody, each on his/her own. It is the institutionalization of callousness.
Eric no it is you who is the calous psychopath, who cannot even add up as UK deaths from lockdown exceed even the inflated c19 deaths. Even UK government advisors project 200,000 lockdown deaths (see Telegraph article), far higher than even the 41,000 figure, or the previous 47,000 figure.
A medical intervention is of no use if it kills more than it saves, remember the hypocratic oath, first do no harm.
All those supporting lockdown, you have blood on your hands.
Total rubbish. The world is full of grey, everything is grey, but in the mind of EZ everything is black and white. Your arguments are nonsense, but like any charlatan you are trying to sell snake oil so you need to take liberties with the truth to prove your point. Firstly, how many Libertarians have you met that match your description of a Libertarian: someone who will not help anybody. Where do you did up this rubbish. Human nature just doesn’t work that way: show me your Libertarian who would allow his children or parents to die because of his… Read more »
I have been intensively involved with libertarianism ever since its start at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s.
Overwhelmingly the commenters here are faith-believing libertarians who ignore the data, and who even dismiss both the virus itself and the nation-by-nation counts of cases-per-million and of deaths-per-million. Some of them express ‘compassion’ while ignoring that penalties are necessary against inconsiderate persons who irresponsibly pass along to others a disease that can murder them in an excruciating way. These commenters are willfully blind psychopaths: they ignore reality. including the rights of others. What’s wrong about them is not what they might be doing to themselves but what they don’t give a damn about what they might be doing to others.… Read more »
With all due respect, a study painstakingly researched by an MD has been cited for your perusal which quite conclusively demonstrates the great superiority of Sweden’s covid19 strategy. Of course you are free to reject the study, to disagree with it, to make counter arguments and so on. However it is the polemicist who resorts to the ad hominem attack, who puts forth grandiose, blustering claims to the moral high ground, who impugns the motives, character, and ernestness of his opponents in the debate.
“faith-believing libertarians” Stop labelling people. If you cannot find an argument based on facts, reason and logic then your labels will not add anything to the conversation!
The people I am referring to as “faith-believing libertarians” have here publicly displayed themselves to be such, by 1: ignoring this article’s data and simply asserting (without citing contrary evidence) that it’s not so. 2: presenting their opinions about how dangerous this virus is, as if their opinions about that can reasonably be based upon other evidence than the percentages of people who are infected by the virus, the percentages who die from the virus, and the virus-caused changes in the percentages of the population who are unemployed. The danger of any infectious disease to any country is shown in… Read more »
The response mentions excessive deaths caused by the lockdown but does not mention how that is supported. Actually right now death rate is below average in many European countries, because of the lock downs. Denmark and Norway never had an excessive death rate throughout the whole corona season. While Sweden’s excessive death rate was significant. Ireland is now well below average. The UK is at the bottom of the average scale. Numbers are rising in some countries like Spain and Portugal due to tourist season. Belgium is on the rise again, perhaps because of people returning and bringing the virus… Read more »
Here’s my opinion, discard it if you wish. FYI I have spent 30 years in Clinical Research, including disease identification and treatment, my specialty being infectious diseases and I have a Masters in the management and analysis of clinical data. The data do not lie, the data do not support a novel virus ‘pandemic’ but indicate instead a moderate+ flu which is extremely similar to SARS-CoV-1. As with any flu type virus, the resulting disease can become severe when the elderly and/or people with serious concurrent disease are infected. The data do not support a shutdown of the world economy… Read more »
Your view describes what may be the majority view in the libertarian-majority countries such as the U.S., Brazil, and India, but it is not the majority view in any of the countries that are at the bottom end of the cases-per-million, which (as of July 24th) were: Laos=3, Papua=4, Vietnam=4, Myanmar=6, Tanzania=9, Cambodia=12, Taiwan=19, Uganda=14, Angola=27, Burundi=29, Syria=35, Niger=46, Thailand=47, Burkina Faso=51, Mozambique=51, Chad=56, Yemen=56, China=58, DRC=98, Togo=100, Ethiopia=110, Jordan=112, Tunisia=120, Mali=123, Sri Lanka=129, Rwanda=132, Benin=140, Zimbabwe=143, Malawi=177, Nigeria=189, S. Sudan=200, Zambia=209, Japan=214, Cuba=218, Sierra Leone=219, Liberia=224, Sudan=257, S. Korea=273, Malaysia=274, Kenya=302, N.Z.=311, Madagascar=315, Hong Kong=316, Libya=336, Indonesia=349, Slovakia=388, Greece=397, Hungary=455,… Read more »
Focus on cases is a nonsense trotted out by charlatans when the death rate becomes so low that it is impossible to justify any government action at all.
re: “the mandating of masks becomes a stepping stone to the mandating of vaccines”. Yes, this is the ultimate endgame. Mandatory vax has long been the goal of the malthusian billionnaire cartel behind this entire farce. Doctrinaire writers like Zuesse cannot understand this dimension of biopolitics because it sits so far outside of their pre-conceived notions. The rest of your comment is also supremely well-informed. As Kary Mullis pointed out, PCR is primarily a manufacturing process, not a viral diagnostic. The arbitrary cut-off points in this thermal cycling method obscure the reality that *everybody* could potentially test positive with this… Read more »
Fantastic ! Thank you, TEP, for taking the time to write such an informative and probing response. Unfortunately Eric Zeusse seems to be suffering from what Peter Lavelle of the Duran terms ‘ideological possession’. Your choice is either to agree with him or face denunciation. Also I think youre absolutely right when you point out that the great beneficiaries of the covid crisis have been the ruling political class. While war allows the political class to nakedly exercise power over its subjects, it is during times of ‘peace’ that political rulers plot and plan all sorts of supplementary strategies for… Read more »
How, then, do you explain that the best-performing nations on coronavirus-control are the ones that are controlling it the most aggressively, and the worst performing ones are those that are controlling it the least aggressively and that believe that spreading the virus isn’t worse for the economy than strict control-measures are. It’s right there in the data, and virtually everyone commenting here ignores it. What’s most-protective of public health is NOT worse for the economy. Libertarianism is a lie, on coronavirus-policy as on everything else. But the true-believers don’t care: nothing persuades them.
Taiwan and Japan are not controlling it aggressively, but rather sensibly. Germany as well. Canada has half the population of Germany and the same death rate. You are conflating numbers with outcomes that do not follow a common theme. Higher infection rates occur in very densely populated areas where people are clustered together, and thus infections occur in clusters, rather an even spread throughout the population. There is an area in Wuhan that is half a square mile or so if I remember correctly that has the same population as the largest city of Norway including all of its suburbs.… Read more »
Like so many other authors
“Your knowledge is limited and you really shouldn’t be writing about this.”
I cite the actual data regarding the ultimate outcome-variables on coronavirus-policy, which are: the percentage of the population who are infected, the percentage who have been killed by the virus, and the percentage-increase in the unemployment-rate. What do you cite?
Problem is that you seem unable to interpret the data properly, never mind that that data does not stand on its own. The overall statistics only tell part of the story. You have to expand on it and look into how it spreads, where it has the greatest impact. In NYC for example the highest infection rate were recorded where the busiest public transportation lines meet the areas with the highest population density. Or in other words, where most people commuted to work. That pattern repeats itself in other cities. If you kept abreast of how the situation played out… Read more »
For example here is a new study from the RKI of Germany re where people actually got infected. Below is the origin of 55,141 detected infections that could be assigned to at least one outbreak event… … 30,905 – homes (56.0 percent), … 6,393 – medical treatment facilities (11.6 percent), … 5,824 – workplace (10.6 percent), … 2,280 – care facilities and senior day care centers (4.1 percent), … 1,953 – leisure activities (3.5 percent), … 662 – hotels and cruise ships (1.2 percent) … 371 – daycare centers, schools and universities (0.7 percent), … 293 – restaurants (0.5 percent)… Read more »
Eric, no the best proforming countries did not lock down, you are dishonesty cherry picking data. University of East Anglia and the Lancet did regressions on the data and found social distancing ineffective in reducing the the number of deaths per capita. Limited measures such as banning mass gatherings (university of East Anglia study) were effective, but stay at home orders, closing non essential buisness and masks were ineffective. Belarus did not lockdown, and has very low per capita c19 death’s. Japan did not lockdown and did not have extensive track and trace, but had similar per capita c19 death’s… Read more »
Untrue, while Sweden has had a q on q drop in GDP growth (OECD figures) of 8%, being an export dependent economy, falls have been far worse in the UK, Italy and Spain. It is also dishonest of you to suggest Beligium despite having lockdown has the highest per capita c19 death’s this is somehow due to poor implementation of lockdown, when the UK, Spain and Italy also have higher per capita c19 death’s than Sweden in Europe. This is even more obvious when comparing overall excess mortality, with Sweden having the 11th highest percentage increase in mortality over the… Read more »
Good insights TEP, but your opinion is just one among many in the science community. The lack of consensus is a major problem in the whole corona saga.
Medical staff wears masks all the time with no ill effect. That is a mute argument.
Also much of the virus is trapped in droplets. Much of a individual virus dries out and becomes inactive very quickly when not trapped in droplets. So masks do make sense. And are more of an inconvenience than anything else. Really nothing much to cry about and yet people do. Adult temper tantrums.
To all the freedom lovers who downvoted my comment. A new study in Germany showed that the one place where wearing a mask is mandatory for all is public transport and that accounted for only 0.2 % of infections. More details in my answer to Eric in the comment above.
There is no evidence that droplets are the overwhelming main vector of transmission, or that they dry out and become inert. Indeed several studies, with live viruses, such as by the HSE have indicated aerosol transmission when simulating a cough through a N95 mask, when measuring the virus cloud emmited.
Not true there are a number of accedemic studies on the I’ll effects of mask wearing. But the central point is masks used for limited periods as part of an infection control regime, and used as directed, and not reused are unlikely to cause serious adverse reactions if used on those without pre existing conditions. However under prolonged general usage these guidelines are not followed, (see WHO video in correct mask usage and disposal) where masks are reused and end up as a medium for growing a bacteria and fungal culture, and lead to increased lung infection’s. Masks can be… Read more »
It’s a shame that you cannot back up your assertions with scientific studies. The problem with the pandemic data is the lack of consistency in measurements and conditions that make the comparison of different districts, let alone countries, almost impossible due to the huge number of fluctuating variables. Bad data reveals nothing but poor understanding.
I would ask, based on your insight and evidence, why we have no lock-downs during the Flu Season, no mask, no gloves, no social distance, no school closures, no business shut-downs… H1N1, alone, infected over 60 Million in the US… COVID-19, to date is less than 5 million. And while deaths “counted” (and CDC and WHO has admitted that ANY death that also shows the deceased was “positive” is counted as a COVID death, so one could speculate a 35-75% error rate) may be higher, there appears a grotesque incentive to make it so. And, during the time of Ebola… Read more »
The only reason why we have lock downs is because politicians did not want to be responsible in case things got bad. The fingers would be pointed at them. Then they lemminged along with what was being done in other countries because science could not, still cannot give them a clear answer. Because that whole thing is not as cut and dry as people would like it to be. The big question is why did they not shut down their borders when this all started, why did all countries outside of China allow the spread? Stupidity. Russia shut down its… Read more »
Rubbish. The reason we did not have lockdowns is because it is a totally over-the-top “solution” that nobody wants to use to battle flu. Why not? The MSM told us that millions were going to die from Covid, whereas we all know that only a tiny number die from flu. When Covid turned out to have a similar death rate to flu, many more people started asking “Hang on, why are we doing lockdown?”.
You forgot the third approach: you treat those who get sick with Hydroxychloroquine plus zinc and you cure them.
unfortunately too many people refuse to look at the mechanism of this and the credible sources that have good a success rate. When intervention is provided early, that is a key point in this treatment.
so many factors, but a major one is doing the right thing badly vs. doing nothing perfectly well! In Oz our Governments and beauracracy have dropped the ball at every critical juncture, so the authoritarian response is pretty ineffective but a big inconvenience. Then, it looks like the US vassal States have done the worst job – they want to fail to better implement the ‘great reset’, whatever that is, ditto the DEM. cities in the US. Wherever you look the death rate is no or little worse than a normal year…much to-do about nothing?
sorry for your fear in this casedemic
Eric, I am providing below of the breakdown by age of covid-19 deaths in Sweden: 9 years and younger – 1 20-29 years – 10 30-39 years – 16 40-49 years – 45 50-59 years – 162 60-69 years – 401 70-79 years – 1,252 80-90 years – 2,412 90 years and older – 1,518 As is clear from the data, only 4% of the c19 deaths in Sweden were people below the age of 60. 96% or 5,583 deaths were people 60 years of age or above. And of that 96%, 70% of those were in senior care facilities.… Read more »
Eric, You likely know that you have been cited here: https://off-guardian.org/2020/08/27/offguardian-is-not-in-denial/ and your dishonesty duly noted. I’m inviting you to that conversation for an open debate on the Covid swindle. Your baseline assumption that there is, or ever was, a “coronavirus problem”, is a classical logical fallacy- we can start there. Seems it is an excellent opportunity for you to head over to one of those “libertarian sites” and make your case. Think of how glorious that could be for you to have proven your intellectual abilities and you will have the added benefit of having your next article as… Read more »
Thank you, Allen, I hadn’t known of that, and I have now read it, and I have responded there (in the reader-comments) directly to Kit’s accusations against me. He ignored the data I present in this article, he attacked only me. I have long been trying, in emails, to get him to confront the data that I cited there, but he has always ignored it.
PCR test is not a proper test for this, so your numbers are flawed.
Interesting audio podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/user/acrnetwork/sunday-wire-live_7?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=user%3A7623132&utm_term=episode_title