Personally, I avoid flying. Planes are cramped uncomfortable, and 25 years of disaster recovery planning has made me all too aware of everything that can go wrong at 36,000 feet. I'll take bus, a train, or a cab before I get on another plane.
Don't the hospitals still get paid a bounty by the Feds for every covid case from the CARES act here in the US? I doubt the hospital bean counters would let those positive cases not be submitted for payment, leading me to think, that even if there are more covid cases, it is a cold, not life threatening.
Yes. There is no doubt that the Feds put their thumb on the hospitalization scale through the CARES Act.
However, this gets back to the point I was making with Stephanie about the impacts of such sources of error on the overall data set. While the CARES Act incentivizes hospitals to maximize their recorded COVID cases, there have to be "cases" first. Which is to say that, even with the corruption of the level of hospitalizations, upward and downward trends in hospitalizations are still meaningful.
In fact, given the incentive to maximize hospitalizations, a relative comparison of hospitalization trends and broader case trends arguably becomes even more meaningful than it would otherwise, as the reported hospitalizations represent an "upper bound" to the underlying real-world situation. Thus, if hospitalizations are not keeping pace with rising case counts, or are even declining, the presence of a skew towards more hospitalizations means the level of virulence one can assess from that metric is in actuality lower than the data first suggests; if the hospitalization data as-is indicates low virulence, the probability of hospitalization over-statement suggests the actual virulence is even lower.
Which is why the recent promotion of anecdotal information over the empirical data is absolutely a flawed argument, and ultimately demonstrates the degree to which the Pandemic Panic Narrative is running on fumes. The "experts" are, it would seem, running out of ideas for pumping the fear factor.
Interesting. Oddly enough, I tend to agree with them here - the data is wrong - because the CDC simply doesn't want a record of how many vaccinated people are getting reinfected multiple times.
It is one of the more fascinating paradoxes of empirical data sets for any phenomenon is that they are invariably "wrong" while the phenomenon is occurring. Simple measurement error sources such as reporting lags, clerical mistakes, and, particularly in the case of infectious disease, reporting gaps, makes every empirical data set less than 100% accurate.
Yet even tainted, empirical data remains the best broad depiction of the phenomenon that we have. This is mainly because the sources of error--including willful manipulation of the data--appear primarily in the absolute numbers: case counts and occupied hospital beds will be over- or under-stated, distributions between inoculated and non-inoculated patients will be skewed, et cetera. However, as the Boston Public Health dashboard illustrates with their threshold markers, decision making is done less on absolute numbers and more on trends and magnitudes of change. Actual case numbers are less probative than whether cases are rising or falling, and likewise for hospital bed occupancy.
Trend analysis, and examination of the magnitude of the deltas within the data set, frequently cancel out many sources of error. For example: even if the PCR testing flaws lead to positive cases being overstated by as much as 90% (meaning only 1 in 10 positive tests indicates actual infection), a 20% rise in cases is still a 20% rise in cases, because the 90% error rate will be consistent throughout. Similarly, 20% rise in cases is indicative of less impact than a doubling of cases, regardless of the extent of the false positives within the data set.
Moreover, effective decision making requires consideration of ALL the data at hand. Thus one looks at case counts, hospital bed occupancy, ER visits, and other available metrics in conjunction with one another. A doubling of case counts means one thing when there is a doubling of hospital bed occupancy rates vs when there is a decline in hospital bed occupancy rates.
By its very nature, anecdotal information is exclusionary. It ignores trends and magnitudes of change, as well as the broad array of metrics necessary to make informed decisions. This is the reason why even expert opinion is considered to be among the lowest quality evidence for any phenomenon.
Yes, the data is wrong, and yes much of it is being fudged (or errors willfully overlooked, which is substantially the same thing). And yet it remains a more rational foundation for decision making and policy debate than the anecdotal information that the "experts" are now seriously putting forward as evidence to support their opinions.
When someone says they "know" the reality is different from what the empirical data indicates, the first question to ask is HOW do they know? And until that is answered satisfactorily their assertion is worth exactly nothing.
PLEASE, SHARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dr Paul Marik......"No.2 ICU Doctor in the World breaks down over Adverse Reactions from the Covid jabs being ignored & calls it a Humanitarian Crisis." (2 mins) https://twitter.com/i/status/1529342458030481408
The video of Dr. Marik is from the May 4 panel at the Ohio State House sponsored by the Ohio Chapter of Children's Health Defense and Creative Destruction Media to promote medical freedom to Ohio legislators.
CDMedia has the full session available here: (6 hours+)
There is a good argument to be made for that interpretation, certainly.
The data shows that there is a real pathogen causing real illness, and that it has spread around the globe. The data also shows that the virulence of the pathogen is rather less than has been claimed, and certainly the mortality data indicates there is much less of an health crisis than the media would lead one to believe.
Using the criteria applied to the H1N1 swine flu "pandemic" in 2009, the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 technically can be deemed a pandemic under the WHO 6-stage model. The caveat for that, however, is that by the same criteria, every cycle of seasonal influenza is a pandemic as well.
This goes back to a point Sage Hana makes repeatedly on her Substack: the power of language. What do we mean when we say "pandemic"? It rather depends on who's doing the saying.
Let me rephrase that. Someone knowingly abused the pandemic emergency and used that for their own political goals. There is pandemic of obesity but we don't see anyone closing fast food's or McDonald's.
On opposite, all of these restrictions who someone publicly, willingly and front of everyone eyes claimed should protect people, lives and health had opposite effect. From beginning, they were designed not to protect the people but, and I am not afraid to say that, to willingly harm them. They were used for economical and political reasons and not for protection or improvement of health of people.
Paxlovid, judging by the rebound infection cases, does little more than press an immunological "pause" button. Judging by Pfizer's own comments about the need for the body's own immune system to clear the virus even when on a regimen of Paxlovid, it would appear even they realize that Paxlovid has little to do with recovery--in much the same fashion that the mRNA shots have little to do with either disease prevention or symptom mitigation!
I am asking seriously, because severity of symptoms is every bit as important--arguably more important from a public health perspective--as the incidence of symptoms.
A crucial distinction is frequently glossed over in the Pandemic Panic Narrative: the pathogenicity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus vs its virulence.
Pathogenicity is a measure of the virus' ability to cause disease. Virulence is a measure of how severe that disease is.
For example, the viruses which lead to the common cold during cold and flu season have relatively high pathogenicity (because "everyone" literally gets a cold now and then) yet relatively low virulence (mild fever, body aches, congestion and cough for a few days).
Influenza virus, on the other hand, tends to be much more virulent--higher fever, greater aches, longer duration.
SARS-CoV-2 virus, based on the totality of described symptoms and severity that I have seen, appears to be either as virulent or somewhat more virulent than influenza.
This is where one has to be cautious with anecdotal evidence and testimony: a person might plausibly describe symptoms using severe language (the most colorful expression of the experience of COVID I have seen is "felt like hammered dog sh*t!"), yet not feel the need for medical attention or hospitalization, with symptoms resolving naturally within a few days or perhaps a couple of weeks.
If a person has symptoms but does not need medical attention is that a public health crisis or concern? If "everyone" comes down with a mild cold or the equivalent, does that warrant public health interventions such as quarantine of exposed individuals?
If "everyone" is spending several days in the hospital after developing symptoms, does that warrant public health interventions?
That you have not had a history of influenza like illness personally is reflective of the novel nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Even people with robust immune systems are likely, all things being equal, to experience at least some symptoms, because their bodies have no information on how to fight it off--at least some exposure is necessary for the body to develop antibodies and otherwise "program" the immune system to fight this new pathogen.
How serious an individual case of COVID-19 is will always be a matter of individual assessment. That is as it should be. Yet the impact of COVID-19 on the community, just like the impact of any infectious pathogen, will always be driven not by individual appraisals of individual cases, but by the broad changes in the utilizations of public health resources brought on by the illness.
Understanding those changes requires data, not anecdotes.
Peter, I don't know if you saw my conversation with a patient about blood pressure, but the hospital which sent them back home with no warnings about BP falling under severe covid infection why they waited to see if they should come back to the hospital when "they could no longer breathe" despite the fact that the hospital knows they have to use pressers for certain patients, more than others, depending on the BP meds they were taking.
For instance, calcium channel blockers (CCBs), not much need for Bp increasing drugs.
But Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE) and particularly ACE II inhibitors are known to be affected by the SARS-CoV-19 virus and require frequent presser use.
From a recent article (7-13-2020):
Conclusions
"The RAS and ACE2/angiotensin-(1–7)/MAS axis play important roles in various physiological and pathophysiological contexts. Both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV use ACE2 as the receptor for entry into host cells. Because ACE2 is highly expressed in various organs and tissues, SARS-CoV-2 not only invades the lungs but also attacks other organs with high ACE2 expression. The pathogenesis of COVID-19 is highly complex, with multiple factors involved. In addition to the direct viral effects and inflammatory and immune factors, the downregulation of ACE2 and imbalance between the RAS and ACE2/angiotensin-(1–7)/MAS axis may also contribute to the multiple organ injuries in COVID-19. The spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is a potential target for the development of specific drugs, antibodies, and vaccines. Restoring the balance between the RAS and ACE2/angiotensin-(1–7)/MAS may help attenuate organ injuries in COVID-19."
The hospital data is wrong because home tests? 😆
I suspect the data indicates a new pandemic. One of people awakening to, & refusing to engage with, the covid regime.
Just call it "The Woke Up & Smelled The Coffee" pandemic. The New Woke for short. Or TWUSTC
Clearly you are not giving the "experts" the reverence and genuflection that is their due....
How could you possibly presume to challenge their anecdotal information with reason and logic?
Such independent thinking will land you on a terrorist watch list or worse!
(how much of that last is sarcasm and how much of that is frightening possibility is an ongoing question of the moment)
Face it, Peter, we are already on several 'watch lists.'
I haven't tried to fly even remotely recently, except for my brother's private plane, I mean decades. How about you?
Personally, I avoid flying. Planes are cramped uncomfortable, and 25 years of disaster recovery planning has made me all too aware of everything that can go wrong at 36,000 feet. I'll take bus, a train, or a cab before I get on another plane.
Don't the hospitals still get paid a bounty by the Feds for every covid case from the CARES act here in the US? I doubt the hospital bean counters would let those positive cases not be submitted for payment, leading me to think, that even if there are more covid cases, it is a cold, not life threatening.
Yes. There is no doubt that the Feds put their thumb on the hospitalization scale through the CARES Act.
However, this gets back to the point I was making with Stephanie about the impacts of such sources of error on the overall data set. While the CARES Act incentivizes hospitals to maximize their recorded COVID cases, there have to be "cases" first. Which is to say that, even with the corruption of the level of hospitalizations, upward and downward trends in hospitalizations are still meaningful.
In fact, given the incentive to maximize hospitalizations, a relative comparison of hospitalization trends and broader case trends arguably becomes even more meaningful than it would otherwise, as the reported hospitalizations represent an "upper bound" to the underlying real-world situation. Thus, if hospitalizations are not keeping pace with rising case counts, or are even declining, the presence of a skew towards more hospitalizations means the level of virulence one can assess from that metric is in actuality lower than the data first suggests; if the hospitalization data as-is indicates low virulence, the probability of hospitalization over-statement suggests the actual virulence is even lower.
Which is why the recent promotion of anecdotal information over the empirical data is absolutely a flawed argument, and ultimately demonstrates the degree to which the Pandemic Panic Narrative is running on fumes. The "experts" are, it would seem, running out of ideas for pumping the fear factor.
Interesting. Oddly enough, I tend to agree with them here - the data is wrong - because the CDC simply doesn't want a record of how many vaccinated people are getting reinfected multiple times.
It is one of the more fascinating paradoxes of empirical data sets for any phenomenon is that they are invariably "wrong" while the phenomenon is occurring. Simple measurement error sources such as reporting lags, clerical mistakes, and, particularly in the case of infectious disease, reporting gaps, makes every empirical data set less than 100% accurate.
Yet even tainted, empirical data remains the best broad depiction of the phenomenon that we have. This is mainly because the sources of error--including willful manipulation of the data--appear primarily in the absolute numbers: case counts and occupied hospital beds will be over- or under-stated, distributions between inoculated and non-inoculated patients will be skewed, et cetera. However, as the Boston Public Health dashboard illustrates with their threshold markers, decision making is done less on absolute numbers and more on trends and magnitudes of change. Actual case numbers are less probative than whether cases are rising or falling, and likewise for hospital bed occupancy.
Trend analysis, and examination of the magnitude of the deltas within the data set, frequently cancel out many sources of error. For example: even if the PCR testing flaws lead to positive cases being overstated by as much as 90% (meaning only 1 in 10 positive tests indicates actual infection), a 20% rise in cases is still a 20% rise in cases, because the 90% error rate will be consistent throughout. Similarly, 20% rise in cases is indicative of less impact than a doubling of cases, regardless of the extent of the false positives within the data set.
Moreover, effective decision making requires consideration of ALL the data at hand. Thus one looks at case counts, hospital bed occupancy, ER visits, and other available metrics in conjunction with one another. A doubling of case counts means one thing when there is a doubling of hospital bed occupancy rates vs when there is a decline in hospital bed occupancy rates.
By its very nature, anecdotal information is exclusionary. It ignores trends and magnitudes of change, as well as the broad array of metrics necessary to make informed decisions. This is the reason why even expert opinion is considered to be among the lowest quality evidence for any phenomenon.
Yes, the data is wrong, and yes much of it is being fudged (or errors willfully overlooked, which is substantially the same thing). And yet it remains a more rational foundation for decision making and policy debate than the anecdotal information that the "experts" are now seriously putting forward as evidence to support their opinions.
When someone says they "know" the reality is different from what the empirical data indicates, the first question to ask is HOW do they know? And until that is answered satisfactorily their assertion is worth exactly nothing.
PLEASE, SHARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dr Paul Marik......"No.2 ICU Doctor in the World breaks down over Adverse Reactions from the Covid jabs being ignored & calls it a Humanitarian Crisis." (2 mins) https://twitter.com/i/status/1529342458030481408
Definitely worth the listen.
The video of Dr. Marik is from the May 4 panel at the Ohio State House sponsored by the Ohio Chapter of Children's Health Defense and Creative Destruction Media to promote medical freedom to Ohio legislators.
CDMedia has the full session available here: (6 hours+)
https://creativedestructionmedia.com/video/2022/05/04/livestream-ohio-state-house-5-4-22-childrens-health-defense-and-cdmedia/
Thank you....I was wondering and hoping someone would know where to find the full session.... :)
I got skillz.... :D
That's an understatement! So, grateful we have you on our side!! 🤗
There was never really pandemic, it was only media and politicians who claimed this. Every other voice was silenced and heavily censored.
There is a good argument to be made for that interpretation, certainly.
The data shows that there is a real pathogen causing real illness, and that it has spread around the globe. The data also shows that the virulence of the pathogen is rather less than has been claimed, and certainly the mortality data indicates there is much less of an health crisis than the media would lead one to believe.
Using the criteria applied to the H1N1 swine flu "pandemic" in 2009, the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 technically can be deemed a pandemic under the WHO 6-stage model. The caveat for that, however, is that by the same criteria, every cycle of seasonal influenza is a pandemic as well.
This goes back to a point Sage Hana makes repeatedly on her Substack: the power of language. What do we mean when we say "pandemic"? It rather depends on who's doing the saying.
Let me rephrase that. Someone knowingly abused the pandemic emergency and used that for their own political goals. There is pandemic of obesity but we don't see anyone closing fast food's or McDonald's.
On opposite, all of these restrictions who someone publicly, willingly and front of everyone eyes claimed should protect people, lives and health had opposite effect. From beginning, they were designed not to protect the people but, and I am not afraid to say that, to willingly harm them. They were used for economical and political reasons and not for protection or improvement of health of people.
Abused both the declared pandemic and the terminology involved.
Communists always control language.
ALWAYS
It's part of authoritarianism 101. Every good tyrant aims to control language.
Its all those dirty immoral nonreporting noninjected people surely.
Ah, yes, I forgot. The pandemic is only among the non-inoculated. Silly me!
Yes, glad we got that 'cleared up.'
LOL
Paxlovid, judging by the rebound infection cases, does little more than press an immunological "pause" button. Judging by Pfizer's own comments about the need for the body's own immune system to clear the virus even when on a regimen of Paxlovid, it would appear even they realize that Paxlovid has little to do with recovery--in much the same fashion that the mRNA shots have little to do with either disease prevention or symptom mitigation!
At the risk of sounding snarky, define "sick".
Sick enough to go to the doctor?
Sick enough to require hospitalization?
Or sick enough to crawl into bed for 7-10 days?
I am asking seriously, because severity of symptoms is every bit as important--arguably more important from a public health perspective--as the incidence of symptoms.
A crucial distinction is frequently glossed over in the Pandemic Panic Narrative: the pathogenicity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus vs its virulence.
Pathogenicity is a measure of the virus' ability to cause disease. Virulence is a measure of how severe that disease is.
https://www2.tulane.edu/~wiser/protozoology/notes/Path.html
For example, the viruses which lead to the common cold during cold and flu season have relatively high pathogenicity (because "everyone" literally gets a cold now and then) yet relatively low virulence (mild fever, body aches, congestion and cough for a few days).
Influenza virus, on the other hand, tends to be much more virulent--higher fever, greater aches, longer duration.
SARS-CoV-2 virus, based on the totality of described symptoms and severity that I have seen, appears to be either as virulent or somewhat more virulent than influenza.
This is where one has to be cautious with anecdotal evidence and testimony: a person might plausibly describe symptoms using severe language (the most colorful expression of the experience of COVID I have seen is "felt like hammered dog sh*t!"), yet not feel the need for medical attention or hospitalization, with symptoms resolving naturally within a few days or perhaps a couple of weeks.
If a person has symptoms but does not need medical attention is that a public health crisis or concern? If "everyone" comes down with a mild cold or the equivalent, does that warrant public health interventions such as quarantine of exposed individuals?
If "everyone" is spending several days in the hospital after developing symptoms, does that warrant public health interventions?
That you have not had a history of influenza like illness personally is reflective of the novel nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Even people with robust immune systems are likely, all things being equal, to experience at least some symptoms, because their bodies have no information on how to fight it off--at least some exposure is necessary for the body to develop antibodies and otherwise "program" the immune system to fight this new pathogen.
How serious an individual case of COVID-19 is will always be a matter of individual assessment. That is as it should be. Yet the impact of COVID-19 on the community, just like the impact of any infectious pathogen, will always be driven not by individual appraisals of individual cases, but by the broad changes in the utilizations of public health resources brought on by the illness.
Understanding those changes requires data, not anecdotes.
Peter, I don't know if you saw my conversation with a patient about blood pressure, but the hospital which sent them back home with no warnings about BP falling under severe covid infection why they waited to see if they should come back to the hospital when "they could no longer breathe" despite the fact that the hospital knows they have to use pressers for certain patients, more than others, depending on the BP meds they were taking.
For instance, calcium channel blockers (CCBs), not much need for Bp increasing drugs.
But Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE) and particularly ACE II inhibitors are known to be affected by the SARS-CoV-19 virus and require frequent presser use.
From a recent article (7-13-2020):
Conclusions
"The RAS and ACE2/angiotensin-(1–7)/MAS axis play important roles in various physiological and pathophysiological contexts. Both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV use ACE2 as the receptor for entry into host cells. Because ACE2 is highly expressed in various organs and tissues, SARS-CoV-2 not only invades the lungs but also attacks other organs with high ACE2 expression. The pathogenesis of COVID-19 is highly complex, with multiple factors involved. In addition to the direct viral effects and inflammatory and immune factors, the downregulation of ACE2 and imbalance between the RAS and ACE2/angiotensin-(1–7)/MAS axis may also contribute to the multiple organ injuries in COVID-19. The spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is a potential target for the development of specific drugs, antibodies, and vaccines. Restoring the balance between the RAS and ACE2/angiotensin-(1–7)/MAS may help attenuate organ injuries in COVID-19."
https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s13054-020-03120-0.pdf