I have no doubt is karl can pull up these figures and results then they already have them. They are already behind…10’s of generations behind.15 days will do nothing but crater the economies from the nation, to the states, to counties, to cities all the way down to home based businesses. As i noted in an earlier post having those at high risk shelter in place…i can get behind…but to lock down everything and destroy our economy like this? There’s better ways which I have already elaborated on. Also instead of only testing for the virus presence we should also be testing for the presence of the antibodies…then we could start letting folks that have already been through it back up…and start restarting our economy.
From Karl’s site here’s an excerpt:
Quarantines on people who are positive and systematic contact tracing and testing of positive individuals is both constitutional and appropriate. Urging those at high risk, which includes anyone who has a history of nicotine use (no matter the form), lung or cardiac compromise, diabetes, hypertension and old age to stay away from other people is also wise. This is not because they won’t get the virus — it is because the epidemiology of viruses is that over time they mutate and they almost-always mutate to less-harmful forms. But for that to happen transmission and infection has to take place.
We learned this from the pandemic of 1918. There were places that went into near-complete lockdown in an attempt to do what you are promoting. Every single one of them got hammered at least as badly, and some worse, by subsequent waves of infection as a result of doing so. The epidemiological reason for this is known and is directly related to how viruses work.
There are 161 sequenced strains of this virus as of March 18th. With each transmission event the odds of dilution of potency goes up. The sooner those at lower risk build immunity and thus cannot be infected again the lower the risk of transmission of a nasty strain to high-risk individuals.
There are specific mitigating steps we can take for high-risk individuals. There are protocols that have worked in small studies in France and elsewhere. They’re not FDA approved but we don’t have and cannot acquire the year or two of time to do formal, double-blind studies. You cannot shut the state down for two years, which is what acquiring that study data would require. You can’t even get six months without every small business in this state being a smoking hole in the ground. You can provide those protocols to people at high risk right now, today, as a mitigating strategy. This is both sound science and sound medicine.
Further, there is some evidence that the “silent” attack rate of this virus is extremely high. If that is true we are not near the start of this outbreak we are near the end of it already. Suppressing the virus if that is the case is not only stupid it has no benefit to anyone whatsoever. Right now we do not know because antibody tests are not readily available to consumers, and in fact are not available even in a clinical setting. This is critical knowledge; if there is even 1% antibody coverage in the population then we are much closer to the end of this than the beginning. That’s the math and without antibody testing we do not know.
Consider the odds — we hear of dozens of celebrities, air traffic controllers and others who test positive. Yet the alleged official statistics, in which they are included, says that 1 in 19,000 people have been infected nationally as of today. Do you really believe that can possibly be correct — and isn’t off by perhaps as many as two orders of magnitude? What are the odds that all of these NBA players and others are positive for the virus given their percentage representation in the population as a whole?
Then add to this that there was a large spike in “flu-like” illness in all of the states, very uncharacteristic, in October and November of last year before this virus was on anyone’s radar. Run the time series backward and you find we’re in generation 19 or 20, not generation 10 with a catastrophe on deck as is being propounded. There was no test then and those recovered do not test positive on the existing test so this was and remains entirely uncaptured. This is also supported by the RNA sequencing data from Italy. These are facts.
IT IS STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE BEYOND RATIONAL BELIEF OR RELIANCE THAT THE REPORTED NUMBERS ARE NOT OFF BY AT LEAST A FACTOR OF TEN — OR EVEN ONE HUNDRED OR MORE!
Yet if that is correct then you are not only over-reacting you are acting as a irrational scared child instead of a competent political leader who has analyzed the data before you.
I recognize that this is an extremely serious matter. Nobody wants anyone to die, yet we all do eventually die. I am the last of my family line; my grandparents and parents have all preceded me and as I have only one daughter my family name will die with either myself or her. I am in my 50s, neither young or old, and thus could be at some elevated degree of risk. I accept this.