Great Article on the Virus Hysteria

Read it all.

"First off, the models that drove most of the reaction (and, let’s be honest, the panic) were created by Neil Ferguson, a “mathematical epidemiologist” who had previously made such predictions as (https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/08/so-the-real-scandal-is-why-did-anyone-ever-listen-to-this-guy/) …

– 2002: Predicted up to 50,000 in the UK would die form Bovine Spongeaform Encephalitis (“Mad Cow Disease”). To date, there have been 177 deaths from that cause.
– 2005: Predicted that up to 150 million people would die from that year’s Avian Flu. In the end, only 282 people died from that strain.
– 2009: Swine flu this time. Based on Ferguson’s advice a UK government estimate was 65,000 deaths in Great Britain. Actual deaths? 457.

So, given this stellar track record, the real question is: why did anybody give this idiot any credence at all when he admitted using undocumented 13 year old code intended for a then feared flu epidemic and not for coronavirus?

But, governments around the world, including those of the US and its component states, saw those dire predictions and panicked."

And then there's this:

"COVID19 is largely harmless to people who do not have serious co-morbidities, to people who aren’t the very old, or with significant heart and lung problems. So, nursing homes are filled with the most vulnerable people. So why require nursing homes to accept COVID19 patients? Yet that was exactly what Cuomo ordered.

There is absolutely no sense to the restrictions being imposed on the American People in the name of COVID19. They range from the useless to the deadly. This does not mean that there are not things that can be done that would actually help the situation:

– Wash your hands.
– If you’re sick, stay home (unless you’re sick enough to need to go to the hospital).
– Isolate those who are most at risk (the elderly, those with significant heart or breathing problems).

Really, you should be doing all of that anyway. If COVID19 gets people actually doing that then that’s a win. Not worth the other nonsense but, “it’s an ill wind” and all that.

But the rest? Not only useless but actively harmful. First, from the way diseases work, you wantthe low risk people to get the disease. Get it, get over it, and stop being a risk to everyone else. You want it to spread quickly and thoroughly through the low-risk population. By slowing that, you delay when “herd immunity” is able to protect the higher risk people. And then there’s the other effects of all the restrictions, the effects on the economy. People keep trying to dismiss that as “millionaires profits” but economic damage extends far beyond some millionaire having to find a less expensive brand of champagne. It causes suffering and death for real people."

It will be interesting, in the end, when this is all over, to compare the results the US got with the results in Sweden, where they've encouraged herd immunity and kept their economy going.  That comparison will certainly be enlightening.

Meanwhile, we should be investigating and prosecuting those who in the medical field who listed the cause of death for those who have passed as the virus, so as to get the extra federal money, instead of the real, more prosaic reasons.

And add the people responsible for intentionally ordering virus positive people to be sent to old folks homes.  Those people who did that should be shot, publicly (OK, an overreaction, but come on, who could possibly be that stupid or that evil, or both?).