The Covid-19 Grand Schism: Skeptics vs. True Believers
INTRO NOTE BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
The existence of a longstanding regime of massive lies—the real fake news problem—dispensed by the US ruling class and its allies via their billionaire controlled media and bought politicos, and the emergence of the internet and its largely uncontrolled tsunami of individual opinion via blogs, social media, etc., have aggravated the chaos. (Despite its unruliness a truly uncontrolled Internet is also our best chance to arrive at the truth and expose officialdom's lies.) At this point, however, as the US and the world brace for a long season of unprecedented changes, many unpleasant no doubt (although what preceded them was surely nasty enough and often criminal), and for a limping of economic activity into the indefinite future, no one knows for sure what this is, who precisely created it, whence it came, nor where it is really going. One thing seems certain, however: the "Lords of Capital" —always exquisitely well positioned to tip the scales of fortune—are as usual trying to manipulate the crisis to their greedy advantage, and from what we have been able to see, succeeding extravagantly. They have succeeded because they have, over decades, gradually eviscerated all significant traces of democracy, never as strong or real in the US as its numerous hagiographers constantly proclaim, eventually converting Western governance into a grand, transnational capitalist kakistocracy. This in turn has given rise to an obscene and accelerating concentration of wealth in ever fewer hands, matched by widespread misery and economic insecurity for the billions, not to mention a growing realization that an ecocide of terrifying dimensions is now almost certainly upon us. Yea, we inhabit now the worst of all possible worlds: a modernized version of war-prone feudalism—capitalo-feudalism—sitting on an environmental ticking bomb.
As the principal and direct cause of such global calamities, the capitalist system, and its demonic spawn, imperialism, both deeply entrenched like a monstrous parasite at the core of the American nation (whose governing institutions and culture they long ago hijacked) now faces perhaps the final challenge to its rule, the social turmoil unleashed by unstoppable automation. But capitalism—as its most aggressive agents in London and Washington continually show— has no answers to any of this. What's more, their self-delusion —inherent in every ruling class ever studied—is also worsened considerably by the hubris emanating from US exceptionalism. In this context, it comes as no surprise that the fully and bipartisanly corrupt political class in charge of running this rotting empire can't possibly offer any tangible solutions to our predicament. How could it? The words of an old Russian revolutionist (perhaps apocryphal) seem to apply: "We are not the cure, sire. We are the disease."
Against such a backdrop, with social anxiety reaching explosive levels, it is perfectly understandable that people should seek answers. Urgency, however, cannot justify voluntaristic thinking, especially given a climate of highly deficient and intentionally misleading information. The editors of this publication are therefore deeply divided; some are clearly in the skeptics' camp, others in the true believers' contingent, and still others, including myself, listening to both sides and waiting for firmer data to crop up. Till then, I think it is prudent to remain eclectic in the face of highly persuasive calls from each side. The information about Covid-19—its biologic, social, political, national, cultural, an economic aspects— is still painfully short; there are still alarming voids in our knowledge about this epochal phenomenon. As a matter of personal policy, embracing a particular explanation loaded with mutual exclusivity of directly competing criteria seems premature and perhaps foolish. In time, some sort of synthesis is liable to emerge, even if this still appears remote. In view of this, we are presenting here two interpretations of this issue. In both cases the arguments are fielded by people of proven intellectual caliber and integrity. Read carefully, ponder, and tell us what you think. We will momentarily open our comments window (held largely shut due to frequent hostile hack attacks). Meantime, whatever you decide to do, good luck! We'll all need it.—PG
Trump very belatedly admitting Covid-19 is dangerous, but still more worried about the pr of the disease than its actual containment.
By Moon of Alabama
The U.S. Has Surrendered To The Pandemic. Protect Yourself.
Yesterday the United States registered more than 60,000 new Covid-19 cases. As the number of new cases continues to increase unabated about two weeks from now it is likely to reach hundred thousand new cases per day.
Source: 91-divoc
The increase of testing is not the cause of higher new case numbers. The rate of people among those who were tested and were found positive has also increased. In Florida, which yesterday had nearly 10,000 new cases, the positive test rate has reached nearly 20%. That means that the epidemic is still accelerating.
This did not need to happen. Yesterday Germany, at a quarter the size of the U.S., had 279 new cases. It does 1 million tests per week and the positive rate is decreasing. China has defeated a new local outbreak in Beijing by testing more than 10 million people. The last two days it reported zero new cases.
Many of those who test positive, especially the younger ones, will not fall ill with severe symptoms. But some 10-15% are estimated to need medical support. How many of them will die depends on the quality of care that can be given to them. Some thirty hospitals in Florida have already run out of space in their intensive care units. That is the point where the real emergency begins.
Six months after the disease was discovered more is known of how to care for Covid-19 cases. The death rate per cases has therefore decreased. But this only holds when there are sufficient beds, doctors and staff available. At the current U.S. rate that will soon no longer be the case.
We do know that the hospitalization curve follows the testing/symptoms curve by some 10-14 days while ICU admittance follows the above curve with some 15 to 20 days delay. The eventual recovery in an ICU bed takes up to four weeks. A bed once occupied will not be available for quite some time.
Trump's new policy is to ignore the epidemic. He hopes that the people will get used to the carnage it causes:
Trump’s advisers [..] are seeking ways to reframe his response to the coronavirus — even as the president himself largely seeks to avoid the topic because he views it as a political loser. They are sending health officials to swing states, putting doctors on TV in regional markets where the virus is surging, crafting messages on an economic recovery and writing talking points for allies to deliver to potential voters.
The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus — that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve.
White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official.
“They’re of the belief that people will get over it or if we stop highlighting it, the base will move on and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day,” said a former administration official in touch with the campaign.
That may, to some extent, be possible. But 100,000 new cases per day also means that there will soon be 1,000 or so new deaths per day. The hospitals will fill up and the death rate will increase. More and more people will know someone who died of Covid-19. The economy will continue to only limp along as long as people fear getting infected.
My take is that Trump's calculation is simply wrong. The epidemic will continue to get wide media coverage. The hot spots will change but without local lockdown measures each of them will lead to the overflow of local hospitals. This will increase the death rate.
It is now too late to stop the epidemic in the United States. That makes it even more important for its citizens to take personal safety measures.
All spreading events that affected multiple people took place in enclosed spaces. The virus prefers it cool and dry. Places with unfiltered air conditioning should therefore be avoided. Open a window to create airflow if possible. Stay at a distance from other persons. Wear a mask.
Masks significantly reduce the chance of catching Covid-19. Your mask also protects the people around you should you unknowingly have caught the disease. This week high quality N95 masks (FFP-2 in Europe) were again available in my local pharmacy. The price (€6.80) was ridiculous but I bought two to use them in turn. I put one on whenever I leave the house. (It is not required to wear one outside but I am simply too lazy to put it on and off whenever I enter or leave some place.)
These masks (see pic below) are quite comfortable, tight enough to not fog my glasses and there is no problem breathing through them. The masks are officially one time use only but there are safe and simple ways to steam sterilize them for reuse.
My FFP-2 masks are similar to the one below but white and without a brand name printed on them.
Get used to wearing a mask. It is the new normal that is likely to stay with us for at least another year.
Posted by b on July 8, 2020 at 17:55 UTC | Permalink
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The official response of the entire US government to the virus was to steal as much money as they could carry and lie about absolutely everything as loudly as they could. It seems that they have accomplished just about as much of that objective as was possible.
We, the American People, humbly await their next offering of catastrophy, or barring that, their cutting all of that bullshit out.
Common sense. No longer in vogue in the USA.
The scientists have been a big part of the problem. They have had to change their messaging every month.
Masks. Disinfect. Wash hands. Disinfect. . . . . . . . . . . . Social Distance.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Jul 8 2020 18:02 utc | 2
Aren't they counting now everyone who doesn't say "No, I don't have the virus"? It's strange to me that they shift the narrative every time - even including all the tricks they use - it looks like it's finally over.
Posted by: Dirk | Jul 8 2020 18:11 utc | 3
So why have the absolute number of covid-19 deaths been in decline since mid-April? Where are all the stories of overloaded hospitals?
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 18:12 utc | 4
If masks are effective, why was it necessary to release prison inmates to prevent them from getting covid-19?
Posted by: Kevin | Jul 8 2020 18:14 utc | 5
Yesterday in the US reported daily deaths reached 993, the highest daily total since June 10th at 998. The downward trend has reversed and there will be an inexorable and deadly climb from here on out. It didn't have be this way. The US is failing on many levels, including failing its own citizens in controlling a controllable disease as demonstrated by other countries. It's a stunning spectacle of mendacity, greed, incompetence, ignorance, evil, religious freakery, etc.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Meanwhile there's growing concern for survivors, even for those with relatively mild symptoms. Add this to the costs of this experiment.
Warning of serious brain disorders in people with mild coronavirus symptoms
And the myth of herd immunity is beginning to crumble.
Coronavirus: Spanish study casts doubt on herd immunity feasibility
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53315983
The US is a pariah state. This is an extremely dangerous time with a mentally crippled and flailing leader of a super power constantly lashing out with increasingly violent rhetoric. Catastrophic actions may soon follow with the support of 40% of the population.
Posted by: snow_watcher | Jul 8 2020 18:20 utc | 6
Posted by: KD | Jul 8 2020 18:33 utc | 7
Much as I love MofA's work I am getting rather fed up with the horror stories with no sense of scale over Covid.
What proportion have been infected to date? 5% 15% 25%. No comment from MofA.
Is there a proportion of the pop that is simply immune (like most kids seem to be)? No comment from MofA.
Assume everyone caught it how many would that kill? No estimate from MofA.
Of course it is fair to say that no scare mongers talk about these things, not governments, not the mainstream media that is terrified of challenging the Fear factor. But I have learnt to expect proper analysis from MofA.
6 months in, we are still debating Public policy and personal policy without even discussing the potential scale.
My guess is that if nothing is done to prevent everyone being exposed to Covid, then on average we will have our lives reduced by 2 months per person. Which sounds pretty awful for someone in the last 2 years of their life, but frankly is nothing given the big gains in life expectancy in the last couple of decades (excluding US).
I'll happily debate that 2 month estimate with anyone who dares to discuss estimates of the crucial scale factors above.
But recall the CDC implied estimate of death rates per infection is 0.26% - and I haven't seen one scare monger accept a 1% number yet.
Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 8 2020 18:37 utc | 8
It's called CULLING! There are no jobs, it's Marx's 'reserve army of the unemployed', surplus to requirement (by capitalism). Once more, it's NOT THE VIRUS that's killing Americans, it's CAPITALISM!
Posted by: barovsky | Jul 8 2020 18:38 utc | 9
@1 - Indeed. Hit the nail on the head. More than any previous (corrupt) administration, the Trump administration is a kleptocratic enterprise designed, in part, to enrich himself and his business cronies. They have, and will, use any event positive or negative to that end.
@Kevin (multiple) - 1) Use any search engine. USA Today is reporting that 56 Florida hospitals have hit peak ICU capacity. That's just in Florida. 2) You clearly know nothing about the American system of jails/prisons. You're lucky to get a meal that consists of more than 6oz. of week-old Frito pie (look it up if you're not American). Furthermore, masks were incredibly hard to come by and the Trump administration had, in fact, shipped a buttload of them over to China in secret while they were in short supply in the USA. And finally do you think that they'd give masks to prisoners even if they had them? LOL if so.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Jul 8 2020 18:40 utc | 10
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Josh Mitteldorf
Politics Influences the Science of COVID-19
Many of us are still shell-shocked by the changes in our lives that have been imposed this spring. We’re reacting to each unexpected event as it comes. But to anyone who has stepped back to make sense of this web of contradictory messages that pour out of our newsfeeds, it is clear that the government agencies and corporate news media are slanting their message toward fear. I am particularly concerned when they do this at the expense of honesty. This is a moment for the scientific community to be engaging in spirited dialog among diverse voices. Only with open debatei can we hope to shed light to guide the momentous public policy decisions that are being made, directing our culture and global economy into unexplored territory. But instead of robust debate, what I see is a monolithic message, and censorship of the few brave scientists who dissent from that message. I’m ashamed to say that the scientific community has been part of the problem.
I’m writing here about two issues:
(1) Numbers reported by CDC have been gamed to make it appear that America is in the second wave of a pandemic. Instead of reporting COVID deaths, they began reported COVID cases. Then they conflated recovered individuals (who test positive for antibodies) with current cases (who test positive for the active virus). No wonder numbers are rising!
(2) A new report featured prominently in Nature purports to show that lockdowns have stemmed the spread of the virus and have saved lives. The article is by the same team whose flawed models produced apocalyptic predictions last March that justified lockdowns in Europe and the US. The new computer model assumes from the start that the number of COVID deaths would have expanded exponentially from their March levels, and that social distancing is the only factor responsible for lower death rates. That is, it assumes exactly what it purports to prove. Where is accountability? Why is this perspective promoted in the world’s most prestigious journal, while reasonable doubts are swept aside?
Part One—CDC reporting
The global death rate from COVID-19 is down to about 4,000 per day. It is not even among the top ten causes. COVID is lower than traffic deaths, lower than diarrhea. Even compared to other respiratory infections, COVID is now a minority.
In the US, daily COVID deaths peaked in April, and are now down to 1/10 the peak rate, at about 400/day. COVID is now the sixth leading cause of death in America, but it no longer registers as a bump in total mortality.
But the headlines claim we are in the midst of a “second wave”, based on reported numbers of cases.
Deaths from COVID are being over-reported. Hospitals are incentivized to diagnose COVID with Medicare reimbursement rates that are higher than other diseases, and guaranteed coverage from every major insurer. Doctors are being instructed to report COVID as a cause of death when no testing is done, and when chronic illnesses contributed to the outcome. And with all this, the number of deaths continues to fall, even as the reported number of cases is rising. Why is this?
In part, the lower fatality rate is real. Doctors are learning from experience how to treat the disease. More chloroquine and zinc, less intubation. Like all viruses, this one is evolving toward greater contagion and lower lethality. But the most important explanation is an artifact in the way COVID cases are being reported. Before May 18, the “case count” was based on tests for the live virus, and counted only sick people. Then the definition was changed to count both people who tested positive for the virus and for antibodies to the virus. The latter group is mostly people who have recovered from COVID, or who developed antibodies with exposure. As the number of recovered patients increases, of course the rate of positive tests will increase.
Part Two—Models that “prove” lockdown has saved lives
In the past, Neil Ferguson’s group at Imperial College of London has produced scary computer models that overestimated the epidemics of Mad Cow Disease, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, and the 2003 SARS outbreak. In March, his group’s computer model was justification for England, Europe and America to shut down economies, prevent people talking and meeting, prohibit concerts and theater and church and every kind of public gathering, throw tens of millions of people out of work, deny the rights to freedom of assembly that are fundamental to democratic governance. His manuscript was not even peer reviewed, but only posted on a university server. Even before its details and assumptions were made known, the integrity of the model was assailed by other experts, including Stephen Eubank (UVA Biocomplexity Institute) and Yaneer Bar-Yam (New England Complex Systems Inst). After details of the assumptions were revealed at the end of April, the model was widely scorned by real experts (e.g. Andrew Gelman) and self-appointed pundits (Elon Musk).
I have enough experience with computer models to know that results are often highly leveraged with respect to details of the input. Sensitivity analysis is essential for interpreting results, but is almost never done. Too often, the output is reported without the qualification that small changes to the input produce very different results.
Against this background, the high-profile publication in Nature of Ferguson’s recent work is suspicious. I would have thought he had no credibility left among serious modelers of epidemiology, but I have ceased to be surprised when politics trumps competence for access to the most prestigious publication venues.
The Ferguson Article Vindicating Lockdown
They analyze spread of COVID in 11 Eurpoean countries this Spring, averaging over different countries but not contrasting the different local strategies. They take death counts as surrogate for case counts because reports of case counts are even more unreliable than death counts. But (one of several crucial failures) they don’t apply a time lag between death counts and case counts.
They take as input for each country the dates on which each of three different isolation strategies was implemented. They assume that the virus would have spread exponentially but for these measures, and credit the isolation measures with the entire difference between reported death rates and the theoretical exponential curve.
They conclude that Europe has dodged a bullet, that less than 4% of people had been infected, and by implication the lockdown has saved the other 96%. They imply but don’t state explicitly that there would have been about 4 million deaths in Europe instead of ~150,000 reported when the paper was written.
It is obvious that lockdown and social isolation slow the spread of the disease, but not obvious that they affect the eventual reach of the disease. Thus it is an open question whether the public policy prevented or only delayed deaths from COVID. This question can be addressed most directly by comparing regions that were locked down with regions that remained open. Instead of doing this, the Ferguson group lumped all regions together and compared their results with an unrealistic scenario in which the exponential curve would have expanded to infect every susceptible person in Europe.
Two schools of thought
There are fundamentally two hypotheses about the epidemiological events of this spring: Either the number of people exposed has been high and the fatality rate low, or else the number of people exposed has been low and the fatality rate higher. People in the first camp argue that the exposed population is over 50% in Europe and America, approaching or exceeding herd immunity, and the population death rate is in the range 0.0005. In the second camp, people estimate the population exposure about ten times lower (5%) and the fatality rate correspondingly higher (0.005).
The story told by people in the first camp is that social distancing slowed but did not prevent transmission of the disease through the population. By now, the presence of the virus is waning because people in many places have already been exposed.
The story of Ferguson and others in the second camp is that social distancing actually stopped spread of the virus, so that most people in Europe and American have never been exposed. It follows that if we ease restrictions, there is another wave of infections ahead, potentially 20 times larger than the first wave.
The deep flaw of the recent Ferguson paper is that his team does not consider the first scenario at all. Built into their model, they assume that population level immunity is negligible, and the only thing that has slowed spread of the virus has been social distancing. This is where they put the rabbit in the hat.
If they had considered the alternative hypothesis, how would it have compared?
To choose between the two hypotheses, we might compare a region before and after lockdown, or we might compare regions that locked down with regions that didn’t.
In a preprint response to Ferguson, Homburg and Kuhbandner do a good job with the first approach. They take Ferguson to task for not considering the immunity that spreads through the population along with the disease. They show that exponential expansion had already slowed in England before the effect of the lockdown on mortality data could have been felt.
Lockdown went into effect in Britain on March 23. If lockdown had a benefit, it would be in preventing new cases, and its effect on the death rate would show up about 23 days later (April 14), because 23 days is the median time to fatality for those patients who die of COVID. In the graph, we see that the death rate had already leveled off by April 14.
On this log graph, an exponential increase would appear as a straight line sloping upward. It’s clear that the exponential expansion phase ended long before the lockdown could have had any effect. Not only weren’t the numbers expanding exponentially, but the death rate had already started to decline before April 14, when the effect of lockdown was expected to kick in. The authors state they performed the same analysis for 10 other countries in the Ferguson study with similar results, though they show the graph for Great Britain alone.
“We demonstrate that the United Kingdom’s lockdown was both superfluous and ineffective.”
— [Homburg and Kuhbandner]
Here in the US, there was a natural experiment when people emerged into the streets to protest racism and police brutality at the end of May. Social distancing in this environment has been impossible. Allowing for a 23-day lag, we should have seen a surge in US mortality starting mid-June. In the plot below, there appears to be a leveling off of the death rate since mid-June, but no new disaster. This alone is strong evidence that US has substantial herd immunity, and that most of the population has already been exposed to the virus.
A second way to distinguish between the two hypotheses is to compare regions that locked down with regions that didn’t. One of their 11 European countries was Sweden, where the economy was kept open and quarantine was limited to people who were symptomatic with COVID. It is a glaring defect in the Nature paper that Sweden is lumped in with the other ten countries when it should have been contrasted. In fact, the mortality curve for Sweden was typical for the other ten countries, even as commercial and cultural institutions in Sweden continued normal operations. Sweden has had a higher death rate than Austria, Germany, France, and Denmark, but lower than Belgium, Italy, Spain, or UK. There is no evidence that Sweden’s COVID mortality was higher for having bucked the trend to remain open, but some indication that Germany and Austria had particularly effective containment policies.
We can ask the same question of the different states in the USA. Comparing death rates from COVID in the 42 states that locked down with 8 states that did not lock down, this article finds that the death rates in locked down states was 4 times higher. (Caveat: there was no correction for urban vs rural or for demographic differences.) The author concludes, “With the evidence coming in that the lockdowns were neither economically nor medically effective, it is going to be increasingly difficult for lockdown partisans to marshal the evidence to convince the public that isolating people, destroying businesses, and destroying social institutions was worth it.”
I’ve prepared a comparison of all states ranked by COVID mortality which you can view here.
The Politics of COVID
In 1933, Roosevelt told America we had nothing to fear but fear itself. It is common for government leaders to dispel panic because they know that a nation can better thrive when people feel confident and secure. Even G.W. Bush responded to the terror attacks of 9/11 by telling the American people, “keep shopping.” On the other side, despots sow fear in their subjects when they want to consolidate autocratic power, and when they want to stir up fervor for war.
It is clear from messaging in the corporate media that the COVID pandemic is being hyped to create more fear than is warranted.
- The fatality rate was vastly overestimated initially, and even now is probably overestimated at 0.002 to 0.005
- Doctors were told to report deaths from COVID without proof that COVID was the cause
- Reimbursement incentives for hospitals to diagnose COVID
- Repeated warnings of a second wave, etc, which has not materialized.
- Suppression of tests for well-studied, cheap treatments (chloroquine) while jumping into large-scale tests of vaccines that have not yet been tested on animals.
- No mention of vitamin D, which is a simple, cheap, and effective way people can lower their risk. [ref, ref, ref]. Our own CDC is silent, while the British equivalent agency actively discourages vitamin D for COVID prevention.
- The biggest scandal of all is that lockdown has been authorized in the US and elsewhere based on hypothetical safety benefits with no consideration of costs. Our health is affected by our communities, our cultural lives, our social lives, and our livelihoods. [Yale epidemiologist David Katz politely makes this point.]
Shamefully, the scientific community has been complicit in the campaign of fear. A handful of courageous doctors and epidemiologists have been outspoken. In addition to Katz, John Ioannidis and Knut Wittkowski are best known to me. But the most trusted journals continue to publish articles that are based on politics rather than sound science.
Who is benefiting from the international panic? Who is behind the media campaign and the distortion of science, and what is their intention?
I invite people who are more politically astute than I to speculate on these questions.
35 THOUGHTS ON “POLITICS INFLUENCES THE SCIENCE OF COVID-19”
Click on orange button below for select comments to J. Mitteldorf's article.
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Joshua Mitteldorf, Ph.D. is coauthor of Cracking the Aging Code: The New Science of Growing Old — And What It Means for Staying Young and author of the blog Playing the Game for a Longer Life. Josh’s primary occupation these days is evolutionary biology. He is a theorist, specializing in computer simulations that demonstrate how natural selection can act on groups and communities. He is affiliated with the EAPS at MIT, but he works on his own. He’s recently completed a book on aging from an evolutionary perspective, and in it he explores the conundrum: if aging destroys our fitness, then why does evolution put up with it?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Josh,
In my opinion there are many who might benefit from the doom:
Vaccine and drug makers
Politicians trying to get or keep power
The media is compensated based on clicks
Fear by those in positions of power to be shown as “not doing enough” or “you didn’t warn us”
“One death is too many” overreaction without considering excessive caution causes harm too
China benefits most from a weakened US
Business overcautiousness due to fear of potential future litigation
Corrupt scientists and doctors
Anyone who benefits from chaos or reduced economic activity
Anyone who benefits from a consolidation of businesses. Big retailers remained open while the mom and pops got killed.
By Jeff T. Bowles
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My Censorship Problem with Amazon
“There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking” ……Sir John Reynolds
This is my third and final attempt to self-publish this book about Covid-19 through Amazon. Even though I have written and published all my books through Amazon and enrolled every one of them exclusively in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited book Club, even a best seller that sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide, Amazon still bans my latest book on Covid-19:
I doubt Amazon has the stones to finally allow my book to be published, it just makes them look so bad and petty and thoughtless, but I am giving it this one last try….This will likely be my first book published elsewhere unless Amazon finally musters up some courage. I’m pretty sure this won’t happen. I will probably just give it away for free to everyone who wants it. I have already given away 200+ free pdf copies to readers all over the world which I am sure will start to spread to bigger numbers.
So how did Amazon, which used to be a bastion of free speech, get to the point where they are now banning all new Covid-19 books and referring information-hungry people to the CDC website?
I think there is someone there at Amazon in a decision-making capacity who thought they were acting virtuously by preventing misinformation about a deadly pandemic getting out to the public through Amazon’s self-publishing arm.
But this person, rather than having Amazon employees attempt to judge each book submitted about Covid-19 based on its arguments, facts presented, and logic, did what many do in this busy and complex world and took that age-old shortcut, and decided to just rely on the “experts” and censor information coming from anyone else. And in this Amazon employee’s mind who were the experts? Of course, those smart looking doctors that we saw on the TV every night during the nightly Covid-19 briefing – the esteemed Drs. Fauci and Birx at the CDC!
This well-meaning employee apparently was unfamiliar with the article in Smithsonian Magazine titled…
Why Experts are Almost Always Wrong
No one, not even the experts, really knows what’s about to happen By Rose Eveleth SMITHSONIANMAG.COM JULY 31, 2012
“Every time there’s a national disaster, a gigantic event, a shooting, a breakthrough, really any news at all, you can rely on television news to find an expert. Some of them know quite a lot about what happened, what will happen, and why. But when it comes to a lot of experts, they really have no idea what they’re talking about.
When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it, either. They insist that they were just off on timing, or blindsided by an improbable event, or almost right, or wrong for the right reasons. They have the same repertoire of self-justifications that everyone has, and are no more inclined than anyone else to revise their beliefs about the way the world works, or ought to work, just because they made a mistake.”
So some Amazon employee at a relatively high level decided to hitch Amazon’s wagon to the star of the CDC when it came to Covid-19 and to hell with everyone else, even their most faithful, best-selling, health /science authors- CENSORED!! I will soon show you how inept and dishonest the CDC has been. It’s the government for crying out loud! The government almost never does anything right! Amazon it’s time for some other voices to be heard!!
Currently, there are very few books and almost no serious books about Covid-19 available for sale at Amazon.com. But on June 4th,, 2020, Elon Musk tweeted that Amazon is a monopoly that needs to be broken up!
Why? Because he felt they unfairly BANNED a book about Covid-19 by a former New York Times reporter, Alex Berenson, that was critical of the CDC’s accuracy for its reporting of deaths attributed to Covid-19.
“This is insane” Elon tweeted.
Within hours, the first serious book to question what the CDC has been feeding the public about Covid-19 was allowed to break through Amazon’s censorship filter and make it out to the information hungry public. How does this happen? I hear it occurs when Jeff Bezos emails an (?) to the person in charge of the gaffe….It immediately shot up to #1 on the best sellers list of ALL Amazon books for sale- showing just how hungry the people were for alternative information about Covid-19 than what was coming out of the CDC.
Can you blame them? What has the CDC been saying? They started off with “do not wear masks they only help health care professionals and actually could increase your risk of getting Covid-19”! And then about a month later changed it to “everyone should wear a mask “.
And now a number of State and County and City governments require, BY LAW, everyone to wear a mask when in public! States such as Pennsylvania, Hawaii (where there is almost no virus problem, so it is especially ridiculous), Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey require masks in public. Also, many counties throughout California require masks by law: Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, Alameda, Sacramento, Contra Costa, San Francisco, and San Mateo, require mask wearing in public. While California is one of the states with the least problems with the virus as you shall soon see.
And now, the World Health Organization (an ally of the CDC) has just warned that people should NOT wear masks while exercising!
So, pardon anyone who might be a little skeptical about anything coming out of the CDC.
But someone at Amazon puts the CDC way up on a pedestal!? Does this CDC worship come from an intimate knowledge of how efficient and smart the CDC is or js it just a lazy reliance upon “experts” because it negates the need for one to spend time reading and thinking for one’s self? Is someone at Amazon so lazy that they would prefer to deny the information-hungry public alternative but excellent information about Coivid-19 by deferring to the “experts” just so they can save some time reviewing and thinking about the various books being submitted to Amazon on the topic? Maybe someone at Amazon is not doing their job!
Also, it was late February during the early days of the outbreak in the US the CDC told us “Americans don’t need to change their behavior patterns, but this might change depending on the course of the outbreak”. At the same time as this statement was made China was busy stacking bodies up in make-shift morgues, had been running crematoriums day and night for a whole month, and was building dozens of new hospitals around the country. It was all over the news even in early February. So eventually the CDC had to do an about face, but not just a 180 degree about face, more like an 1,800 degree change in policy!
The CDC then panicked and relied upon the ridiculous models from the epidemic alarmist, and notoriously, wildly, inaccurate epidemic “expert” Neal Ferguson to predict that Americans would suffer 2.2 million deaths unless draconian actions were not taken like a legally enforced nationwide lockdown!
Why did the CDC trust Ferguson’s apocalyptic death projections when he had cried wolf twice previously about Ebola and the Avian flu? The CDC bought his outrageous estimates hook, line and sinker and began quoting them with Donald Trump at their daily Covid-19 briefings on the national news. Then week by week the estimates started coming down, down, down, and down, eventually dropping to as low as 60,000 overall deaths. 60,000? That is less than the death total from the 2017 flu season which most people hardly even noticed!
These panic driven numbers were unnecessary! It would have been a simple matter to look south of the equator and see that where they were just done with their hot summer in March they only had 50 Covid-19 deaths total, while the Northern Hemisphere had 11,500 and climbing during its winter. It was obviously a seasonal virus like the flu!
And Amazon wants to silence everyone but the CDC about Covid-19! Isn’t that amazing???
And unfortunately for Trump, he fell for it too! He was probably an easy mark given that the first patriarch of the Trump business dynasty, his grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was one of the very first people to succumb to the Spanish Flu in Queens New York in 1918. It is said he suddenly felt sick while walking down the street with his son and died the very next day. Surely this made a deep impression on Trump at an early age.
Trump had a lot of company in imposing nationwide lockdowns as almost all European governments locked down their people as well. This was a huge mistake in the short run, but because the US economy had record low unemployment when the lockdown occurred, it led to many marginal businesses closing permanently. The longer-term silver lining of this dark cloud could be that it just might have freed up workers and resources to be used more efficiently when the economy recovers.
All this is occurring while the country of Sweden had no lockdown ever, and today is no worse off than many European nations with a death per million rate of 499. For comparison deaths per million in the US are 363, France 453, Italy 570, Spain 580, and the UK 621.
The CDC now counts the deaths from Covid-19 and wants us to believe that although the US has only 4% of the world’s population and the world’s best health care, we somehow have incurred 28% of the world’s deaths from Covid-19! If we were like the rest of the world our deaths from Covid-19 would be less than 20,000! And that might be closer to the truth than the current death number of about 120,000 being bandied about by the CDC.
So Amazon wants to silence anyone pointing these things out and simply refer people to the CDC’s website to get more of this crazy information!?
Even Dr. Birx one of the top two doctors at the CDC says she cannot trust any numbers coming out of the CDC!
• The White House’s coronavirus task force response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, said in a recent meeting that “there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust,” The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
• Birx and others reportedly feared that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data-tracking system was inflating coronavirus statistics like death rates and case numbers.
Acting from CDC guidelines doctors around the country are attributing Covid-19 as cause of death to huge numbers of deaths. The CDC directive basically tells doctors that when in doubt for any reason about cause of death, attribute it to Covid-19 even without any test for the virus. Now we even have gunshot deaths in Washington state being counted as Covid-19 deaths!
And Amazon wants you to get your information only from this outfit!!?? Yes, like Elon Musk says, “this is insane”!!
Why does that person at Amazon trust the CDC so much?
Every article in Wikipedia and every Google search is plastered with a message that tells us to trust the CDC. The head of Youtube goes on the air to explain why anyone who disagrees with the WHO must have their videos removed!
THIS IS INSANE!!!!
And as of the date of this writing, June 23, 2020, the CDC is giving us more alarming information about the increase in the number of Covid-19 cases popping up in various states that have lifted the lockdowns and suggesting that we might be headed for 200,000+ deaths by September!? What they are neglecting to tell us is that anyone who tests positive, even if they are not sick, and never will get sick, are counted as cases. They also leave out the vital information that can be easily gleaned from the World Meter Covid-19 website- the number of new deaths in the US. Which if you extend the downward trajectory of the following chart you will see it is suggesting the US will hit ZERO new Covid-19 deaths sometime around July 22nd! The solution to the 16 mysteries in this book explains why this is likely to be the case.
And one more thing, the CDC is omitting from its news briefings the fact that in younger people the rate of asymptomatic carriers can be quite high. In fact, an excellent example of how high infection without illness can be, can be seen in the case of Triumph Foods of Missouri. It is a pork processing plant where 412 of its workers tested positive for the virus, which would add 412 cases to the state’s case total of around 18,000. How many of them were asymptomatic? It was originally 100%, (but now they are saying 90%)! Any deaths? One, a man in his 40’s who had underlying health conditions died. The “case” number from Triumph has since been bumped up to 490, almost all asymptomatic, after additional testing.
And what is so bad about asymptomatic infections? Every asymptomatic infection results in basically one more person immune for life (usually) from the virus. This brings us one step closer to achieving herd immunity. Once herd immunity is achieved, there will be no more epidemics of this virus. Also, the immunity provided from actual infection is better than that from vaccination. The only downside of this would be there might be a week or so where the asymptomatic carrier can unknowingly spread the virus. And a downside for mainstream medicine is that Big Pharma might sell fewer vaccines and have fewer profits with which to conduct research!
Okay, now the book you are about to read is a significantly diminished version of the original version of the book that I uploaded to Amazon KDP self-publishing in May of 2020. After working night and day for months on the book I uploaded it and immediately got a notice back from Amazon that my book was BANNED for no other reason that it did not meet their “guidelines”. And the book isn’t even about the scandals at the CDC it is actually a journey through 16 fascinating current and historical Covid-19 and Spanish Flu mysteries
One email from a nameless, faceless Censor at Amazon suggested I not use the term COVID-19 anywhere in the book- that was the only advice they would give me. I wrote back email after email to the nameless faceless Censor explaining why it would be a good idea to allow my book to be published and to please give me a reason why they would not. And their advice was even more unenlightening, they would reply “we have reviewed your book again and have come to the same conclusion that it does not meet our guidelines.”
They would then refer me to their guidelines page which discussed books they found objectionable like those dealing with child pornography, or glorifying real life murderers. Nothing about health or disease books. NOTHING!!
Then I realized that if you were searching under books and you typed in Covid-19 you would get almost nothing in the way of books and just a little link that pops up at the top of the page that says if you are looking for Covid-19 information please refer to the CDC’s website!!
Amazon is the major eBook publisher in the US with a monopolistic 83% of the market share that makes them more like a public utility for authors than a small publishing house that can pick and choose books they want to publish and censor what they don’t like.
When Amazon is censoring anyone who argues against the US government’s line about such an important topic as Covid-19 it really does seem to argue for some sort of break up or regulation of the company. Courts have ruled that Amazon is not liable for things published by its self-published authors. Under the Communications Decency Act Amazon is deemed to be a provider of interactive computer services only, and not a publisher, because Amazon is not the information content provider.
By becoming an active and unreasonable Censor of content – Amazon is now one BIG step closer to losing that valuable exemption.