Many of us have relatives or friends in nursing homes or long-term care facilities, but do you have any idea how many Americans live in those places? According to the CDC, there are 5.1 million. That’s a substantial number, but it is 1.6% of the US population. But, according to the states that provide breakdowns, 42% of the reported Wuhan coronavirus victims reside in long-term care facilities. That is what the statisticians might call “disproportionate.” And so, any Governor who ordered, relegated, sent or retained known Covid patients in those places – for instance, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, to name a few – might feel some regret over those decisions. Or at least one would hope. But no, the nice thing about being a progressive politician who listens to experts is that you can never be wrong. Well, at least the mother of Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health was able to escape from the nursing facility she had been living in. Too bad few others were able to do so.
New York State’s allegedly capable Governor Andrew Cuomo actually ordered patients who were recovering from Covid to be accepted by the nursing homes, even as home administrators begged him not to, the US government recommended against it, and while there were thousands of empty hospital beds in the Javits Center and the Billie Jean King center in New York and a nearly empty hospital ship “Comfort” in New York harbor, all perfectly able and willing to take on those patients.
Here’s something else to remember: The World Health Organization is the United Nations agency charged with guarding the world’s health. They estimated the fatality rate for coronavirus to be 3.4% and that number shocked everyone and led to the panic. However, according to the CDC, the actual death rate is – pay attention – 0.4%. In public statements, Dr. Fauci of the CDC said that coronavirus would be ten times more fatal than the flu. But in an article likely written in February but not published until March 26 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Fauci wrote: “The overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).” The article was correct; his public statements were not. Sort of reminds us of the public statements of the Trump Russia collusion witnesses from the Obama administration, even though in private sworn testimony they swore the opposite.
How about this: Of the nearly 100,000 deaths attributed to coronavirus in the USA, about 67,000 are from – not the states that have let ‘er rip for a few weeks, with crowded beaches and legal haircuts, but in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Connecticut, California, Louisiana, and Maryland. A sparrow cannot fall dead in Georgia without it making a national headline, but the Covid-petri dish Governors in America’s progressive urban areas continue to get favorable publicity for the wonderful way they have responded to this crisis. The states that have reopened still have far lower fatalities and cases than the New York metropolitan area and the urban hotspots – and even in those top ten states, most of the victims are very elderly, with co-morbidities, in long-term care facilities.
The CDC estimates the overall Covid death rate to be 0.26%, with a 0.4% fatality rate for those showing symptoms and a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases, who likely were not even aware they had Covid at all. For this we closed arenas, ballparks, theatres, and small businesses, forbade elective surgeries and put 22 million people out of work?
Here’s another quote from Dr. Fauci, delivered on CNBC last Friday: “Stay-at-home orders intended to curb the spread of coronavirus would cause ‘irreparable damage’ if imposed for too long. I don’t want people to think that any of us feel that staying locked down for a prolonged period of time is the way to go.”
European countries are reopening who have experienced far greater deaths per million than has the United States, and they have not seen outbreaks or spikes.
North Carolina is among the states who have trimmed estimates of the projected deaths, and of the 852 deaths in Minnesota, all but about 160 were in long-term care facilities.
Of course, each death is a tragedy, and this is a serious disease. It can and does kill people. But, given that the collateral damage to the economy and to public health has greatly exceeded the worst-case predictions, we apparently would have been wiser to have quarantined the sick, isolated the vulnerable (in safe facilities equipped to handle them), taken wise precautions about hand-washing and masks, etc., and let the rest of the country carry on as normal.
Oh – here’s the mortality rate by age: Ages 0 to 49: 0.05%. Ages 50 to 64: 0.2%. Ages 65 and over: 1.3%. Overall death rate: 0.4%. And this is by age only and does not consider co-morbidities or residence in long-term care facilities.
Oh, and let’s not forget Joe Biden’s healthcare advisor Ezekiel Emmanuel, who predicted 100 million cases by April 27 and wanted the US to shut down until there was a vaccine? We have 1.6 million reported cases, as this is being written on May 24. How about Dr. Brian Monahan, Doctor to Congress, who predicted 75 million to 150 million people in the US would contract coronavirus? The Daily Mail printed an article stating that 15 million people would die of coronavirus in the BEST CASE scenario. And for some reason,these experts are still valued for their opinions, even though their original forecasts were so wrong.
In Pennsylvania there apparently are more people over the age of 100 whose deaths are attributed to coronaviurus than there are people under the age of 45. That also should be considered disproportionate.