Re: Corona Virus: is it the beginning of the end?
There is probably some massaging of numbers going on in both directions. Now, as to how great a difference either type makes, I'm not a hundred percent sure.
Some states and countries may be too quick to report a death as Covid when it cannot be demonstrably proven, though as I've reported in a prior post, the actual amount to which this has been done seems to vary wildly from theorist to theorist, and the severity usually coincides directly to how far along the left-right axis you tend to identify. Generally, the further right you are, the more stock you put in the inflation of death statistics, because it supports the narrative that leftists are freaking out and trying to use it as a tool of control. We've seen evidence of that mentality right here in this thread, and not so very long ago, either. Extensive research on my part seems to indicate that while this practice has occurred at times, it has probably not resulted in a statistically significant increase in the death total. As such, it is not relevant, and it does not change how we should be dealing with the virus. Whether, for instance, there are 127000 dead or 125600 dead, that's still a pretty significant number.
On the other hand, there are probably a lot of people who have died of Covid where it was never reported, and given the research I've done, it's apparent that in some places, suppression of numbers was definitely involved. My understanding is that the falsely low numbers might not be terribly significant either, but they are probably well in excess of the inflated numbers claimed by others. For instance, I would suspect that if the CDC says that the United States has had a hundred and twenty-eight thousand deaths, we're not looking at, say, four hundred thousand instead. But it's important to remember, for any of you who want to pretend that this isn't as bad as it looks, that for every person who claims that Covid numbers have been inflated, there are three or more saying that the estimates are actually quite low, all things considered, due to underreporting, inadequate testing and deliberate desire to minimize the damage. I'm sorry, but facts don't lie. The Trump administration - namely, the man himself - tried extremely hard to pretend that this virus wasn't a big deal, right up until it became impossible. More recently, he has tried making the claim that Covid-19 is under control in America; I wonder what folks in Arizona think of that? So it stands to reason, then, that lack of preparation and deliberate resistance to the measures necessary to contain the pandemic, as well as an unwillingness to take action or make statements tantamount to conceding that the virus is, in fact, a bigger deal than you first claimed...yeah, it's a pretty grim picture IMO.
I'll put this baldly. Folks who have tried to politicize this virus have cost lives. The virus doesn't care who you are or what you believe. If you present as an infection vector, and you get sick, you might die. And if you take action - or fail to take action - which increases your risk of infection, and you do so on political grounds, then you are, in essence, weaponizing this pandemic for your own agenda.
Regarding physical distancing, mask-wearing, my stance on it is that it's better to be safe than sorry, but I'm also not going to shame folks for not doing absolutely every single tiny thing they can possibly do. For instance, I know people who are attending small gatherings from time to time, usually with friends and usually either outdoors or with easy access to the outdoors. I've done this myself a couple of times, and given that numbers in Canada largely seem to be coming under control, I think this is reasonable. If stuff starts going badly again, maybe we have to scale back, but for now, tentatively I'd say it's okay to reopen things slowly and in a controlled manner. If you're going to be in public, particularly in places like stores, I do suggest you wear a mask, as annoying as that is. Also, let's not forget herd immunity, which is something we will end up experiencing eventually. Know why SARS isn't killing hundreds of thousands every year, even though we weren't wearing masks? Because we got resistant to it. The same will eventually happen with Covid, even if a straight-up vaccine is never entirely effective in treating it. Masks, physical distancing and all the rest is absolutely not a permanent state of affairs.
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