In the end Darwin wins.
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It astounds me how may people I meet, who ought to know better, do not take Coronavirus seriously.
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Am reading stories on local and national news that many states are requiring quarantine upon returning from a named problem state for whatever reason their travel was neccessary. Quite a few cancellations in the Outer Banks and Virginia Beach vacationers recently due to that. The surge in both areas is beyond ridiculous. Dare County (a small community) went from 26 cases to 345 after they allowed the tourists in. Many more cases from young people than before gathering in groups and not being smart.
Maine requires quarantine for anyone from all but 5 states NH, VT, CT, NY, NJ), or have a negative test within 72 hours of arrival in Maine. I’m trying to find and coordinate testing and getting results for taking my daughter to college in a few weeks. Maine’s numbers have been low throughout, so it seems to be working for them.
I hear that Maine has a 14 day self-quarantine requirement for those other states, but enforcement is lax. I hadn’t heard about the testing option. I hear that there are lots of summer residents, but a lot less tourists than usual.
Another terrible milestone, surprising in many ways. One of those awful statistics which has as its sole benefit the ability to put many things in perspective…
From today’s WAPO:
…As of Sept. 2, on-the-job coronavirus infections were responsible for a least 100 officer deaths, more than gun violence, car accidents and all other causes combined, according to the Officer Down group. NLEOMF reported a nearly identical number of covid-related law enforcement deaths.
NLEOMF reported a nearly identical number of covid-related law enforcement deaths. It also noted that fatalities due to non-covid causes are actually down year-over-year, undermining President Trump’s claims that “law enforcement has become the target of a dangerous assault by the radical left.”
Both organizations only count covid deaths “if it is determined that the officer died as a result of exposure to the virus while performing official duties,” as the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund put it. “Substantive evidence will be required to show the death was more than likely due to the direct and proximate result of a duty-related incident.”
In addition to the 100 confirmed coronavirus fatalities listed on the Officer Down website, the nonprofit said it is in the process of verifying an additional 150 officer deaths due to covid-19 and presumed to have been contracted in the line of duty, said Chris Cosgriff, executive director of ODMP, in an email.
“By the end of this pandemic, it is very likely that COVID will surpass 9/11 as the single largest incident cause of death for law enforcement officers,” he wrote. Seventy-one officers were killed in the attacks on the twin towers, one officer was killed on United Flight 93, and more than 300 have passed away since then as a result of cancer contracted in the wake of the attacks, according to ODMP…
200,000 dead of C19 in the U.S.A. as of today. Epidemiologists estimate the actual number of deaths is larger than this number.
C19 is now the third leading cause of death in the USA. #1: Heart disease; 655,000/year. #2: Cancer; 606,520/year.
University of Washington health institute estimates 410,000 American dead by year-end.
Comparisons:
Lung cancer kills 135,720/year.
Cigarette smoking related deaths are about 480,000/year.
The 55 to 64 age group makes up about 13% of total American C19 deaths. About 40,000 deaths so far, or an estimated 53,000 by year-end.
In the USA annually: About 38,000 people die from car accidents. Flu kills 12,000 to 61,000. AIDS kills about 13,000.
Comparison to Deaths from Wars:
WW1 116,516 (0.11% of the population then. C19 will have killed 0.125% of present population by year-end).
Vietnam 58,209
Korea 36,516
Civil War (Union) 364,511
An old acquaintance,an intelligent, educated man, was railing about it today on you guessed it, Facebook. He thinks the numbers of dead are grossly inflated by the CDC, Johns Hopkins, etc to make a certain politician look bad. Are the rest of world’s fatalities in on the plot, too? Did all these Brazilians or Indians die to make that politician look bad? Now cases are spiking. It is going to be an ugly winter in the US, as people have holiday gatherings in their homes.
Vacationers did cause a big spike in cases there. Lots of them young people who had large house parties.
Every once and awhile someone will say that a lot of people recorded as dying from C19 would have died anyway of something else. Statistics argue differently. Deaths in the USA are tracked every year, and have been for over a century. They have been decreasing on a per capita rate since the last pandemic in 1918, until last year.
FROM NYT:
The U.S. death rate in 2020 was the highest above normal ever recorded in the country — even surpassing the calamity of the 1918 flu pandemic…
Since the 1918 pandemic, the country’s death rate has fallen steadily. But last year, the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted that trend, in spite of a century of improvements in medicine and public health.
One has to wonder why reason has disappeared in this pandemic, Disease has no political affiliation. I have listened to people I used to think of as rational espouse the same BS. I suggest they not go to the hospital if they contract this fake disease.
Exactly, “Disease has no political affiliation.”
However, some political affiliations (especially of the tax and waste agenda) are a disease.
Tax, waste, bailing out and supporting billionaires thru QE are economic decisions driven by politicians. A pandemic is a life or death decision. I had red measles as a child, almost died. My parents never consulted a politician about the best thing to do to save me. Rather, they took me to a doctor and I was subjected to cold baths and all manner of other things which in my young mind was considered torture to reduce my fever. Obviously I survived. My younger brothers got red measles vaccines as soon as it was available Not once did my mother or father consider the politics of the matter. During that time politics was something one thought about maybe once every 4 years, it was not something that ruled your every day thinking or life,.