By Khairil Azhar Junos @ Shutterstock.com
Pandemic Report No. 11:
We have been inundated, 24/7, with TV, print, and online warnings that the United States is entering a disastrous “second wave” of the Covid-19 pandemic. And the people responsible for this are those bad Americans who won’t listen to the experts and their shills in the media. You know, those know-nothings who won’t wear masks, who don’t practice social distancing, who want their children to go to school again…who have no regard for the safety of their fellow citizens.
What we’re really witnessing, however, is a second wave of the relentless fear campaign to keep the American people obedient to their state and local dictators, and to keep the economy prostate so the Democrats can win the trifecta—the White House, Senate, and House—in November.
Nothing in this article is meant to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic for those who succumb to it. But the danger to the nation is exaggerated all out of proportion, so consistently, that I cannot come to any other conclusion.
To get a sense of reality, let’s start with the assertions that the United States is the world’s leader in succumbing to the pandemic, with the Sunbelt states of Texas, Florida, and Arizona leading the way. Let’s see what the truth is.
As I’ve demonstrated in previous reports, all the statistics are highly unreliable because of the endless ways of compiling them, with no uniform standard. But the statistics of “cases” of infection are the most inaccurate because they depend on the amount of testing. As the number of tests increase, of course the number of “cases” will increase. The only way the “case” statistics would be of value is if everyone were tested, with uniform standards of identification as to what constitutes a case of Covid-19. That is nowhere near the situation.
Death statistics are a little more reliable, but only relatively so. We know when someone dies, but there is no uniform standard of when that should be attributed to Covid-19 or when it should be attributed to one of the comorbidities that are common to Covid-19 patients. Still, since the death statistics are the best we have, let’s go with them for a general picture of what is going on.
On July 19, I consulted country death statistics as reported on Worldometer and state death statistics as compiled by the New York Times. These are generally accepted sources by the media.
To come as close as possible to comparing apples with apples, I compare the United States only with the nations of western Europe, which come closest to us in sociology and also in how we record statistics. And in western Europe, I eliminate the tiny countries with less than 1 million population because such small samples can distort the statistical results.
Here is how the United States ranks among those western European nations, and—as an added bonus—how our three “worst” Sunbelt second-wave states rank among those nations. The media love to tout raw totals because by their nature they are only going to rise, not decrease (people aren’t returning from their graves), and this has the desired effect of inducing fear. But the only fair way to compare different localities is to compare deaths per 1 million population, again so we are comparing apples with apples. This is what we find:
Covid-19 Deaths per 1 Million Population
| Norway | 47 |
| Finland | 59 |
| Austria | 79 |
| Denmark | 105 |
| Germany | 109 |
| Texas | 138 |
| Portugal | 166 |
| Switzerland | 227 |
| Florida | 232 |
| Ireland | 355 |
| Netherlands | 358 |
| Arizona | 379 |
| United States | 433 |
| France | 462 |
| Sweden | 556 |
| Italy | 580 |
| Spain | 608 |
| UK | 667 |
| Belgium | 845 |
As you can see, the Nordic nations (outside of Sweden) and the Germanic nations (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) have exceptionally low Covid-19 death rates. We would do well to study why this is so, but that will take years, probably decades, to decipher. You certainly won’t find the answers in today’s hyperventilated press releases and media reports.
What is significant is that the United States has a lower Covid-19 death rate than the major nations of France, Italy, Spain, England, and Belgium. And for all the hoopla about the “out of control” virus in Texas, Florida, and Arizona, those states are also doing better than those major West European nations, and better than the United States as a whole.
Again, the pandemic is a serious problem, but let’s keep it in perspective. And health facilities are under great stress in epicenters—yesterday that was New York, today it’s Texas. But that’s a problem with our health care system that goes beyond this pandemic.
The state of our nursing homes, and the impact of factory animal processing plants, are two aspects that call for special attention. They contribute a significant portion of our Covid-19 cases and deaths—perhaps as much as half. If we made progress on those two specific problems, the United States would rank much higher in that list of major countries.
And while we’re at it, let’s not forget that Covid-19 feeds on immune-suppressing underlying medical conditions. The response should be to boost the immune systems of the general population and especially those who are most vulnerable. But this is hardly ever done. Instead, our “experts” rely on counterproductive technology such as ventilators or tell us there will be no answer until we have a vaccine.
Covid-19 is mutating so fast, any vaccine will be obsolete by the time it comes on line, but never mind—always rely on “solutions” that benefit Big Pharma and the technology industries rather than much cheaper and much more effective immune boosters.
Yes, Covid-19 has revealed deadly serious flaws in the American health care system, but those flaws are being foisted on us by our public health “experts,” the supine politicians, and the corrupt corporatist media.
And see all my articles in this pandemic series.
