Media Hoaxes: No, Sturgis Was Not A ‘Superspreader Event,” And No, It Did Not Cost ‘Public Health $12.2 Billion’
Gov. Kristi Noem: “This report isn’t science; it’s fiction. Under the guise of academic research, this report is nothing short of an attack on those who exercised their personal freedom to attend Sturgis”
Last month, I wrote about the media meltdown over Sturgis Bike Week. The pearl-clutching over a large outdoor gathering of pro-American, pro-freedom bikers was more than their little hearts could endure.
Bikers gathering by the hundreds of thousands, most of whom are most assuredly not on board with the leftist goal of destabilizing our great nation, was just a bridge too far for the hypocrites in the partisan activist media. After all, the only large outdoor gatherings currently permitted by our new self-appointed overlords are Marxist, anti-American riots, replete with looting, arson, vandalism, assault, and murder.
So it was with no surprise that I watched the leftstream media gobble up a fact-free article published on some obscure leftist German think tank’s website and shout it from the rooftops as if it were written by actual virologists—or by anyone remotely related to the study of pandemics or health care—and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The “report” in question falsely, demonstrably falsely, proclaims that “large crowds, coupled with minimal mask-wearing and social distancing by attendees” turned the rally into a “superspreader” infecting 260,000 people and costing “pubic health $12.2 billion.”
You’re already rolling your eyes and trying not to laugh, right?
But the Trump-deranged leftstream media leaped on this clearly ludicrous “study” as if it were in any way, even remotely, meaningful.
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was "superspreading event" that cost public health $12.2 billion: analysis https://t.co/Xnu4bvvIhJ pic.twitter.com/krMuy3ZAtC
— The Hill (@thehill) September 8, 2020
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally held in South Dakota last month may have caused 250,000 new coronavirus cases, study finds. https://t.co/p1BiGhoZY6
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 9, 2020
- The Miami Herald: “Sturgis biker rally adds 267,000 COVID cases and $12.2B in health costs, report says”
- Newsweek: “Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Cost $12.2 Billion in Public Health Due to Coronavirus Spread, Economists Conclude”
- Fox News (yes, really): “Sturgis Motorcycle Rally linked to 20% of US coronavirus cases in August: researchers”
- The Washington Post: “‘Worst case scenarios’ at Sturgis rally could link event to 266,000 coronavirus cases, study says”
- Daily Mail: “Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is responsible for 260,000 new cases of coronavirus and will cost $12.2 billion in health care to treat those whose infections can be tied back to the South Dakota event, new study claims”
- Boston Globe: “Sturgis biker rally fallout may have costly health consequences”
- Kaiser Health News (yes, really): “Sturgis Biker Rally Linked To 260,000 COVID cases”
This is “journalism” as performed in 2020, and it’s an embarrassment.
The problem? Pretty much everything.
First of all, we already have a rough idea of how many people were infected (70) and how many died (one so far) possibly as a result of Sturgis.
Even by @cnn standards, this effort to blame the Sturgis rally for "superspreading" #sarscov2 is humiliating.
460,000+ went to Sturgis for up to 10 days.
Almost two weeks later, 70 infections are reported.
That's far LOWER than the background US rate.https://t.co/w7SYBsPINx
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) August 27, 2020
Secondly, it still, as of this writing anyway, matters where studies are published and by whom they are authored.
BTW: not that anyone needs to trash the idiotic Sturgis study any further – it has been weighed in the balance and found wanting – but it's worth noting no medical journal would touch it. It was posted on the website of the "Institute of Labor Economics."https://t.co/OIczMjHbSd
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) September 8, 2020
It is curious that such an earth-shattering study couldn’t find a more worthy publication in which to share its findings, no? Apparently, this German labor website isn’t even peer-reviewed . . . not that it would change anything since it’s a labor website, not one in any way related to health, epidemics, or anything credibly related to the “study” it published.
Do a little digging and you'll see how health officials as well as scientists are calling this pure bullshit. It's a white paper, not peer reviewed, authored by economists. It's not even a legit apples to apples comparison. https://t.co/sa0oVlAKdE
— John Comfort (@johnmcomfort) September 8, 2020
Thirdly, there’s the math. Even accepting, which most do not (more on this below), that Sturgis did somehow result in 260,000 new Wuhan coronavirus cases, how on earth does one conclude that this costs “public health” a whopping $12.2 billion?
Also worth noting that the $46k per covid case study they reference is also only on their website, and the methodology is suspect at best. (They estimate it costs 11k for an ASYMPTOMATIC case!)
— dnacarna (@dnacarna) September 9, 2020
Wait, what? I have no idea I have the WuFlu because I have no symptoms at all, but I still cost “public health” $11k without ever seeing a doctor, getting tested, or buying so much as a throat lozenge (with my own hard-earned money)? How does that work?
But that’s not the worst of the ridiculously faulty “report.”
The fourth, and to my mind, most ridiculous claim is based on methodology that a high school senior should be able to recognize as problematic.
Essentially, the researchers assumed that new spikes in cases in areas where people went post-rally must have been caused by those rally attendees, despite there being no particular evidence that this was the case. The paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, failed to account for simultaneous happenings—like schools in South Dakota reopening, among other things—that could have contributed to coronavirus spread in some of the studied areas.
The researchers also assumed a $46,000 price tag for each person infected to calculate the $12.2 billion public health cost of the event—but this figure would only make sense if every person had a severe case requiring hospitalization.
The results of the IZA paper “do not align with what we know,” South Dakota epidemiologist Joshua Clayton said at a Tuesday news briefing.
So if someone from upstate New York state attended Sturgis, any new cases—including suspected asymptomatic cases, apparently—in upstate New York are counted as Sturgis-related? That is not scientific (nor any other kind of) research. That is pure fantasy.
It reminds me of the old canard intended to discourage faulty logic: crime rates spike during heatwaves, and people eat more ice cream during heatwaves; therefore, eating ice cream causes people to commit crimes.
The conclusions of authors Dhaval M. Dave, Andrew I. Friedson, Drew McNichols, and Joseph J. Sabia are unsupportable gibberish (which is probably why they couldn’t get a reputable—medical or even economic—publication to publish it).
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Where the study jumps off the rails is linking all of the relative increase in virus cases in counties with attendees compared to those without rally participants. The modelers multiplied the percent increase in cases for counties with attendees by their pre-rally cumulative cases to get a total of 263,708 additional cases—266,796 including South Dakota’s increase.
But many “high inflow” counties like Los Angeles, Maricopa (Arizona), Clark (Nevada) and El Paso were experiencing flare-ups before the rally. These counties may have shared other characteristics like higher population density that contributed to their increases. There could be other “endogenous” variables—for instance, counties with more people who attended the motorcycle rally may also have had populations less observant of social distancing.
The study’s authors nonetheless assign each of these 266,796 Covid cases a public-health cost of $46,000—ergo $12.2 billion—though the vast majority of all virus cases are mild or moderate. Talk about a case study in statistical overreach—and double standards.
Apparently, attending Sturgis causes WuFlu cases to skyrocket, even if it demonstrably didn’t. Anyone shown by phone records to be in an area where WuFlu cases spike after Sturgis is deemed a result of Sturgis.
This ill-conceived “study” concluded that it doesn’t matter what else is going on in the area, such as antifa/BLM riots, state and local officials loosening lockdown measures, returns to school/work, people dying from motorcycle accidents who tested positive for WuFlu during autopsy (and were counted as WuFlu deaths, because of course), and etc. It’s all on Sturgis, they laughably claim.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is pushing back against this outlandish “report” and goes so far as to call it “fiction.”
Gov. Kristi Noem echos what health officials said in their Tuesday morning press meeting the report should be dismissed.
“This report isn’t science; it’s fiction. Under the guise of academic research, this report is nothing short of an attack on those who exercised their personal freedom to attend Sturgis,” said Gov. Noem in a press release Tuesday.”Predictably, some in the media breathlessly report on this nonpeer-reviewed model, built on incredibly faulty assumptions that do not reflect the actual facts and data here in South Dakota.”
The report gathered its results by using cellphone data from SafeGraph, Inc. It shoed [sic] “smartphone pings from nonresidents” and “foot traffic at restaurants and bars, retail establishments and entertainment venues, hotels and campgrounds each rose substantially” through Aug. 7 through 16. It says that the Rally is linked to an estimated 267,000 COVID-19 cases nationwide and says the overall health costs from the Rally are $12.2 billion.
“At one point, academic modeling also told us that South Dakota would have 10,000 COVID patients in the hospital at our peak. Today, we have less than 70. I look forward to good journalists, credible academics, and honest citizens repudiating this nonsense,” Gov. Noem said.
We have been covering Media Hoaxes. Here are our posts to date:
- Media Hoaxes: No, Trump Did Not Ignore Daily Intel Briefings Regarding Wuhan Coronavirus
- Media Hoaxes: No, There Has Not Been A Spike In Calls To Poison Control Because Of Trump’s Recent Comments
- Media Hoaxes: No, Trump does not owe $200 million to Bank of China (UPDATE: Politico issues statement noting other reporting errors)
- Media Hoaxes: No, Trump Did Not Send 17 Tons of Public U.S. Coronavirus Supplies to China
- Media Hoaxes: No, Trump Did Not Call Coronavirus a Hoax, and No, Fauci Was Not “Muzzled”
- Media Hoaxes: No, Trump did not “disband” WH pandemic office, cut CDC work from “49 to 10” countries, or refuse WHO “testing kits”
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Comments
So the Demon-crats are wishing for a Welcome Wagon visit from the bikers?
Leftists hate all those bikers for President Trump.
Why is it these riots are never questioned?? That’s all I need to tell me this is an overreaction.
2024: Pence-Haley; or Haley-Noem!
Pompeo-Hawley 2024
OK, that’ll work just as well (unless the veep candidate-in mind will be kind of busy deciding the constitutionality of cases — especially those decided by the Ninth Circuit, on appeal — across town).
OK, here’s one from way out left field. In 2022 Trump offers Thomas the chance to retire and choose his own replacement; Thomas then runs for president in 2024.
I think Thomas has too much sense for that. 🙂
I mean, you have to be a major narcissist, or masochist, or both to want to go through a presidential campaign meatgrinder.
2024: OK, Thomas-Noem (Mate.); or Thomas-Scott!
I agree with the bird. I’ve long thought mental illness of some kind was a necessary prerequisite for wanting to campaign for president. It’s not something to which anyone in their right mind would voluntarily subject themselves. And I came to this conclusion decades ago. Campaigning is much more punishing and mean-spirited than it was 30 or 40 years ago when the MSM was still managing to approximate neutrality.
Get the Facts About Stupid – take steps to care for yourself and help protect others in your home and community.
FAQ
What Is Stupid?
If you gotta ask….
People At Increased Risk For Contracting Stupid
Democrats have an alarming high risk of catching Stupid. Do you watch the news, read your local paper, participate in Facebookery? These factors also skyrocket your risk of catching Stupid.
Will Wearing A Mask Prevent Me From Catching Stupid?
Sorry, I’m laughing. Yeah. Wear a mask.
“After all, the only large outdoor gatherings currently permitted by our new self-appointed overlords are Marxist, anti-American riots, replete with looting, arson, vandalism, assault, and murder.”
That’s precisely why all of this wuhan bat flu panic pr0n is horsecrap, lies, fake news, scamdemic propagana, etc. (And they have to go to Europe to burp it up).
Last week, it was some other outrage du jur(Trump hates dead soldiers); Yesterday it was Woodward’s book (Trump hates sick people); today it’s a fake mass spreader event (Trump hates crowd control); tomorrow it will be yet another spittle flecked tirade of TDS. Every day, all day until election day –
horsecrap, lies, fake news, scamdemic propagana, etc.
IMHP, FSs, congrats on this, a piece of fine corroboratory reporting, analyzing, and concluding!
IMHO, rather.
I look forward to good journalists, credible academics, and honest citizens repudiating this nonsense,” Gov. Noem said.
Yeah, good luck with that, governor. /Eyore
Dude,
You, among us all others, are reacting to one, right here.
To sum up, you’re in the Comments thread of a good journalist’s pretty decent repudiation of that so-called scientific nonsense.
Okay, maybe you’re joking . . . I see.
More leftist hypocrisy.
Allowed: george floyd funerals/riots. Any leftist riots. Forced salon openings with no mask. democrat apparatchik haircuts, gym visits, strolls in the park/China Town, non-masked restaurant dining… non-covid compliant anything, actually.
Not allowed: Freedom/Rights for anyone who dissents with the democrat party polit bureau.
Not allowed: Freedom/Rights for anyone who dissents with the democrat party polit bureau.
Or even anyone who wants to live in some way that doesn’t give them absolute power over their lives and fortunes.
They are doing this stupid thing in Maine too. I feel sorry for the poor bride and groom at this wedding. They are being falsely accused as being a spreader event.
https://nypost.com/2020/09/05/three-dead-147-infected-after-covid-super-spreader-wedding/
With the good old 6 degrees of separation, you could make any event a super spreader.
I am not sure, but I think the 3 dead were linked 2nd or 3 hand. It is pure BS.
Fuzzy Slippers: So if someone from upstate New York state attended Sturgis, any new cases—including suspected asymptomatic cases, apparently—in upstate New York are counted as Sturgis-related?
That is incorrect. They are looking at the *change* in numbers of cases in areas that had people attending the rally and controlling against areas which did not have attendees to the rally.
Fuzzy Slippers: This ill-conceived “study” concluded that it doesn’t matter what else is going on in the area,
You would have to explain what is different about the areas under comparison, other than that people attended the rally.
No, they have to show that nothing else was happening. They’re the ones making the assertion so the burden of proof is on them. Generally hundreds of different things are always happening in all sorts of different places, so it’s not valid to assume any two places are comparable without examining all variables and ruling them out.
Milhouse: No, they have to show that nothing else was happening. They’re the ones making the assertion so the burden of proof is on them.
Science doesn’t “prove,” but garners *evidence* to test hypotheses.
Consider a simplified example. Ten people leave a city that has had an outbreak of plague. They travel to ten other cities, which then have an outbreak of plague, but other cities, did not have an outbreak of plague. This is not proof. There could be another coincident cause. However, it is *evidence* that the people carried the plague.
The questions are how strong is the correlation? Are there other possible explanations? But to say it is “meaningless” or that it is not evidence would be fallacious and a misunderstanding of how science works.
Milhouse: Generally hundreds of different things are always happening in all sorts of different places, so it’s not valid to assume any two places are comparable without examining all variables and ruling them out.
The stronger the correlation the stronger the support. There could be a linked cause, but an unlinked cause can be considered less likely when there is a strong correlation.
As for examining “all variables,” if science required knowing everything, then science would never be able to know anything. But that’s not how it works.
True, but you didn’t address his concern. Scientific studies do, in fact, have to devote time to explaining possible confounding variables and how they are controlled. I mean…if you want to pass even a crappy peer-review process. Those authors didn’t. This little study is worthy of instant dismissal from this failure alone.
Of course, if you wanna make an airtight case against the “study” you would have to identify those variables and quantify them. But why should anyone bother? The only people taking it seriously are already npc zombies.
Dathurtz: Scientific studies do, in fact, have to devote time to explaining possible confounding variables and how they are controlled.
The study used cities that had few or no rally attendees as a control, as well as considered population density as a possible confounding factor.
Merely saying there are confounding variables isn’t scientifically useful. Perhaps they should have considered biker hygiene, but that wouldn’t explain the correlation. Maybe it was demons.
In any case, the observation of correlation remains.
You’re wrong and Milhouse is correct. When doing actual science, the onus is on investigators to identify and rule out (by analysis and proofs) other factors to demonstrate how or why those factors should be ignored. When a strange radio signal is received from space, scientists can’t just say “Aliens.” All possible explanations for the signal must be considered and ruled out for cause, and even then, the conclusion must be supported by evidence that shows the event had unique characteristics that can only be explained with the hypothesis “aliens.”
Coincidence does not equal causality. Causality must be proven by ruling out all known potential explanations and by showing evidence to support a particular explanation for an event. (Otherwise there’s a stronger possibility that the event was caused by another, unknown factor, a possibility that can only be reduced, and not eliminated, in most situations.)
DaveGinOly: When doing actual science, the onus is on investigators to identify and rule out (by analysis and proofs) other factors to demonstrate how or why those factors should be ignored.
The study used cities that had few or no rally attendees as a control, as well as considered population density as a possible confounding factor.
Merely waving your hands and saying there are other confounding variables isn’t scientifically useful. The observation of the correlation remains. The most probable explanation is due to movement of attendees to and from the rally.
DaveGinOly: When a strange radio signal is received from space, scientists can’t just say “Aliens.”
Why would they? There are a vast number of possible “strange radio signals” that are naturally occurring. In this case, we have a correlation, a rather straightforward cause found in the nature of infectious disease, and a claim of some unknown and unstated confounding factors. Demons? Your analogy doesn’t work.
DaveGinOly: Coincidence does not equal causality.
More particularly, correlation (not coincidence) does not equal causality.
DaveGinOly: Causality must be proven by ruling out all known potential explanations and by showing evidence to support a particular explanation for an event.
But you haven’t shown where they have ignored a “known potential explanation”. You’ve waved your hands in the general direction, that’s all.
The flaw in the study should be obvious.
250k cases in 4 weeks time would require an infection rate r7 to r10 vs the ny infection rate during march april of r2 to r2.5.
Someone with basic math skills would easily recognize the shoddiness of the study –
Joe-dallas: 250k cases in 4 weeks time would require an infection rate r7 to r10 vs the ny infection rate during march april of r2 to r2.5.
That’s rather the point. R0 is not just a factor of the pathogen, but varies due to population density and social organization. For instance, sixty-one people met for a choir practice in Mount Vernon, Washington, including someone infected with COVID-19 who thought it was just a cold. Fifty-three people who attended got sick and two died.
If everyone in the U.S. had worn a mask, as they did in South Korea, R0 would have dropped below one, and the virus would have been quickly contained. The U.S. chose the worst possible path. The U.S. shut down ineffectively, so Americans paid a huge social and economic price, but didn’t contain the disease (R0≈1). That means the economy will continue to suffer, and people will continue to die.
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of the paper. The primary problem is that disease spread is inherently very noisy, so the error bars are consequently going to be very high.
Talk to a liberal spoon-fed on CNN and MSNBC, the NY Times, LA Times, etc. and they will tell you this is fact.
They’ll have no clue as to any facts asserted by any other sources of information.
The German website was the “Superspreader.” And the information from the so-called study that was spread super fast and super wide was no doubt taken from a Russian Dossier funded by Hillary Clinton and hand carried by John McCain.
Superspreading is fairly common technique utilized by leftists and is already in the process of being implemented to help Joe Bide get elected via mail-in ballots in November.
It’s almost not worth the keystrokes but here’s a couple thoughts.
First, it’s true, big brother was able to trace cell phone signals. Think about that. It is so easy for big tech to know everything about us using those supercomputers in our pockets. In this case though, there was no way to extrapolate a trip to Sturgis to any Covid upticks. Also, as mentioned in the article, there were only 70 illnesses traced and one potential death. That means that these folks are healthier than the general population. Either that or it proves that alcohol (not bleach) when ingested in sufficient quantities creates immunity.
Second, even if there were a couple hundred K positive cases, only one in 20 is treated in hospital and of those only about 25% require ICU and only one in ten in hospital dies. Their numbers just don’t add up even if the study was a little bit credible.
“Either that or it proves that alcohol (not bleach) when ingested in sufficient quantities creates immunity.”
That would be a kick in the head if it turned out to be true!
The stupidity of people is beginning to drive me nuts.
First, in order for any COVID cases to be Sturgis events, patient 1 would have to be a Sturgis resident and the virus would have to be indigenous to Sturgis and subsequent visitors to Sturgis, who exhibit symptoms of the virus, would have to have no contact with any other human being between the visit to Sturgis and the onset of the symptoms. Otherwise, the claim that the virus was contracted in Sturgis from any particular gathering is mere speculation, not hard fact. That being said, why do we believe ANYTHING that the media says, anymore?
One more time. The media, and certain people with an agenda, created the mythos of COVID-19 out of whole cloth. Since this novel virus broke on the scene, we have seen the infection rate and mortality rate being reported at astronomical levels. We have seen credible evidence that the mortality rate has been artificially inflated. We have seen every person who tested positive for EXPOSURE to the virus as an active infection [not to mention the evidence that an unknown number of tests were inaccurate or even falsified’. The danger from COVID was a totally manufactured political hoax. And, yet, seemingly intelligent people continue to discuss COVID as if all the misinformation on it is fact. Instead of ASSUMING that the danger from COVID is real, use the gray matter to actually analyze what COVID-19 is.
Mac45: First, in order for any COVID cases to be Sturgis events, patient 1 would have to be a Sturgis resident and the virus would have to be indigenous to Sturgis and subsequent visitors to Sturgis, who exhibit symptoms of the virus, would have to have no contact with any other human being between the visit to Sturgis and the onset of the symptoms.
That’s clearly not the case. A visitor from Ohio to Sturgis could transmit the disease to any number of other visitors to Stugis, who then take to their homes around the country.
But, if the virus was imported from Ohio, then that makes it an Ohio virus not a South Dakota virus. This of course supposes that none of the people who showed symptoms of the disease did not have any contact with any other person either just before or after their visit to Sturgis. If they did, this reduces the assumption that the virus was contracted in Sturgis from a surety to a probability or even a simple possibility. It is all a big, fat guess.
The point is that parties, interested in ginning up the danger of COVID, are making unwarranted assumptions concerning the disease.
You’re trying to reason with an honest-to-God moron.
Mac45: But, if the virus was imported from Ohio, then that makes it an Ohio virus not a South Dakota virus.
The virus knows no political boundaries.
Mac45: This of course supposes that none of the people who showed symptoms of the disease did not have any contact with any other person either just before or after their visit to Sturgis.
They probably did have contact with other people both before and after the rally; however, the rally concentrated large numbers of people to allow a more rapid spread from those who had the virus.
“The virus knows no political boundaries.”
Quite possibly the most nonsensical response in history. The article above actually assigns a geographic location to the the origin of the virus to which certain people succumbed; Sturgis SD. However, your statement nicely illustrate my later point.
“They probably did have contact with other people both before and after the rally; however, the rally concentrated large numbers of people to allow a more rapid spread from those who had the virus.”
In this statement, you make a glaring assumption, without any factual basis. That is thaat simply because you have a large number of people in a small area, this automatically translates into increased transmission of a communicable disease. This is not correct. All such a setting does is make it more likely that a person at such a gathering, who later exhibits symptoms of a communicable disease, actually contracted that disease in that setting. And, the more contacts that patient has, outside of that setting, the more the chances that the disease was contracted there decline.
What the PTB did, in this report, is to arbitrarily decide that because a certain number of people, a very small fraction of the population which attended the event, exhibited symptoms of the disease, after they attended the event, the disease was contracted at that event. This was done solely to advance the narrative that any large gathering of people will spread the disease, without any decisive evidence being presented. Then, it makes the inference that any subsequent casual contact, outside the event, will spread the virus, while ignoring this as a viable option for contraction the virus in the first place.
See the problem? The investigators took a preconceived theory and built a case, albeit a weak one, to support that
theory. Bad, bad science. This is what gave us the theory of spontaneous generation of maggots on meat, prior to 1859.
Mac45: The article above actually assigns a geographic location to the the origin of the virus to which certain people succumbed; Sturgis SD.
The virus apparently jumped to humans from bats somewhere in China. The problem of crowds is the increase in transmission. If the attendees had stayed at home, the transmission rate would have been lower.
Mac45: That is that simply because you have a large number of people in a small area, this automatically translates into increased transmission of a communicable disease.
It depends on the disease, but COVID-19 is transmitted through the air, so crowds increase the chance of transmission.
Mac45: What the PTB did, in this report, is to arbitrarily decide that because a certain number of people, a very small fraction of the population which attended the event, exhibited symptoms of the disease, after they attended the event, the disease was contracted at that event.
It’s not arbitrary, but an observation that areas that had attendees at the rally had a higher incidence of cases after the attendees returned from the rally than areas that had few or no attendees. It’s an observation. It doesn’t go away because you wave your hands.
Thumbs up Marc45. With six degrees of separation, you can make any case you want. That is why the 100K of people using $2 B for contract tracing is BS.
Just like the Washington choirs, some members were at risk and died. Just like some that get the flu.
Did the large gathering case the spread. Maybe. So what. We better get use to the fact that we may get sick. If we are afraid or at risk, stay home.
In 1968 over 100 K of people died of the Hong Kong Flu (that number is probably on the low side) Supposedly 61 M got it worldwide. Did we shut down anything? No. Is it possible that if the HK Flu was just as contagious as the Wuhan Flu, that the restrictions reduced immunity and assisted in the spread? Is it forcing the small grouping of sick people to make spreading easier localized within a household.
The estimated number of deaths was 1 million worldwide and about 100,000 in the United States. Most excess deaths were in people 65 years and older. The H3N2 virus continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza A virus. Seasonal H3N2 viruses, which are associated with severe illness in older people, undergo regular antigenic drift.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html
Zachriel has been breathing in his face mask for too long. Keep trolling.
Currently Wuhan Flu is at 28 M total cases. In 68 Hong Kong it was like 61 M and there was not the testing we have today, so it was probably higher. It could make the case that the prevention we are doing today is keeping it from reaching the 68 levels, but then we did not kill our economy for it either. Maybe people are suppose to die. Life is terminal you know.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Coronavirus Cases:
28,428,426
view by country
Deaths:
915,329
Recovered:
20,432,051
Mark Smith: Supposedly 61 M got it worldwide.
It was about that many just in the U.S. Only a small fraction of that number have been infected by COVID-19, yet the number of deaths is already much higher.
If Zachriel would limber up his stiff neck so he could bring his nose down from altitude, he might find after a while that the rest of us take him a little more seriously. But he won’t, so we don’t.
There is no enjoyment in being scolded by such a self righteous, arrogant individual. Aspergers? Maybe so.
.
The attendance at sturgis was approx 365k. 250k getting infected with via sturgis would be an R infection rate of 15-20 vs 2.5 -2. which the rate that would get 70% of the US population infected.
Seems like the Left believe Wu Flu to be sentient. Non-Leftist events are a public health menace which need to be banned lest they spread the pandemic. By contrast left-wing riots are safe because the virus is too polite to affect them and thus Antifa et al. should be permitted to continue burning down towns and cities.
The only ‘superspreader’ is Kamala Harris. And we’re talking about her legs.
That is sick – just thinking about it
did you forget the 10 foot pole rule
The virus looks pathetic. 1/2 million bikers partied for ten days and no one got sick with symptoms of Covid-19. The median incubation period is 4-5 days.
Time to throw away the masks and demand answers
At this point I would feel safer if the virus held a news conference about how it would save us from our government.