Worldometer graphic
On the other side of the world, a masked-up Italy is locking down again in the face of a March 2021 wave of COVID-19 infections looking like the deadly wave of 2020 on steroids.
“Bars and restaurants are also shut but people can exercise near their homes if they wear masks and hairdressers can remain open.”
The number of infections in 2020 was no doubt underreported. Testing rates are much higher now, and the Italians are blessed in that their case-fatality-rate, the number of people dying from COVID-19, has fallen steadily over the past 12 months.
At the peak of the pandemic in Italy last year, the Worldometer tracker shows more than 40 percent of Italians who caught COVID-19 died. That rate is now down to 3.78 percent. But still 2,300 people died of the disease in the week ending March 8, according to the WHO dashboard, an 11 percent increase over the week before.
The state remains one of the safest in the country, but the rate of infection is now more than 11 times greater than when Alaska was shutdown about this time last year. There is no shutdown in the works at the moment, and the success to date of vaccines offers hope for the months ahead,
But those most suceptible to serious COVID-19 – the old, the obese, people already suffering from chronic illnesses – would be well advised to double down on personal protection: primarily in the form of social distancing or outright isolation.
Unmasking protection
In the global data now is a clear warning for those who worship at the Church of the Mask. It is fine to believe in Gods, but when they actually influence anything on earth it is so rare the event is called a “miracle” – “an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment” as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
University of Vermont researchers warned of worship at the Church of the Mask months ago, but in this country, their findings got lost in the fog of the ongoing skirmishes in the culture war.
In that war, the good guys wear masks and the bad guys go without. Whether or not this makes a difference in saving anyone’s life is secondary, which might explain why the Vermont study attracted almost no attention from a Trump-fixated mainstream media:
“Trump (now former President Donald Trump) doesn’t much like masks, thus masks must be bad.”
The study didn’t really surface until after the University of Vermont promoted it in January and even then it was largely restricted to the medical and science press and couched in a politically correct way.
A better headline would have said, “If You Think Masks Will Protect Us, You’re A Fool,” which is pretty much what the Vermont study said. It tied the number of infections not to who wore or did not wear a mask, but to who had the most contacts with other people.
The warning about “messaging” appears to have come from the University’s public relations office when it started trying to attract some attention to the study.
Feeding the media
“Wearing masks may create a false sense of security,” the study’s authors wrote. “It is plausible that mandating masks could be counterproductive if the increased risk associated with an increase in contacts is larger than the decrease in risk associated with the mask itself. That is, it is possible masks may provide a false sense of security that leads to people letting their guard down and trusting the mask more than is warranted. Further research into the effectiveness of marks and behavioral responses to mask mandates is urgently needed.”
Nowhere was there a direct mention of the overwhelming focus on masking as a cure-all then flooding U.S. airwaves. The state of California, the National Basketball Association, Sesame Street, Nurses Everywhere, and many others were out there with public service advertisements pushing one thing and one thing only:
Wear a mask.
The government of Norway took a different view, a view in more in line with the researchers in Vermont.
Norway today has one of the lowest death rates for COVID-19 among Western countries. With Norwegians dying of COVID-19 at a rate of just less 12 per 100,000, the rate is almost three times lower than the global average of 34.6 per 100,000, according to Worldometer figures, and almost 14 times better than the U.S. rate of 166 per 100,000.
Norwegian deaths due to COVID-19 are less than a twentieth the rate of the two hardest-hit U.S. states – New Jersey and New York. Norway’s success in dealing with the disease is tied to policies that sharply restrict travel into the country to prevent introduction of the virus, and aggressive tracking and tracing of people who might have had contact with those discovered to have caught the disease.
The latter policy allows the country to track down and quarantine possible carriers of SARS-Co-V 2 before they can infect others. Norway is by no means anti-mask, but it understands the limitations and is honest with its citizens about them.
The Norwegian government has spelled out situations in which masks might help, how to properly use masks if they are to be used and why they might even be required in some places in the country in the belief that they could help. But it didn’t try to wholly mislead the citizenry.
“The documentation on the effect of face masks for the protection against a respiratory infection is ambiguous and points to different conclusions,” the Norwegians said. “The overall assessment is that public use of face masks/cloth face coverings can reduce the risk of transmission by approximately 40 percent. The effect will vary with the quality of the face masks/cloth face coverings and whether the masks are worn correctly. The risk of infection when we keep a distance of at least one meter to others is reduced by approximately 80 percent. Hence the risk of transmission could increase if we wear a face mask instead of keeping a distance to others of at least one meter.
“The use of face mask/cloth face covering cannot replace but be a supplement to the standard measures for infection control: Stay at home if you are ill, get tested if you show symptoms, keep a distance to others and maintain good hand-and cough hygiene.”
Candian researchers have pegged mask effectiveness even lower, suggesting about a 10 percent reduction in infections. A University of Oxford study out of England that sought to provide an interactive model for governments imposing various sorts of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to halt the spread of the disease concluded that “mandating mask wearing in (some) public places” increased infections by 1 percent, but that was a confidence point drawn from various studies that found a range of effectiveness from making things 13 percent worse to 8 percent better.
Then, foreshadowing in some ways what the Vermont latter found, the English scientists wrote that “while there is an emerging body of literature indicating that mask-wearing can be effective in reducing transmission, the bulk of evidence comes from healthcare settings. In non-healthcare settings, risk compensation may play a larger role, potentially reducing effectiveness.”
After a year of life with COVID-19, risk compensation likely plays a bigger role now than ever. People want to get back to “normal,” making some less likely to treat SARS-CoV-2 as a serious threat despite its increased prevalence in the community and a year of government officials and the media trying to scare the public into taking the pathogen seriously.
If you were nervous about the virus in March 2020, you should be more than 10 times as worried now. But most of us aren’t.
The good news is that vaccinations are becoming increasingly available and have, so far, proven very effective. And the seasons are shifting toward those days of warmth, abundant sunshine and fresh air that appeared to drive SARS-CoV-2 infections down in Alaska in April and May of last year.
Then, too, there is the state’s inexplicably low case fatality rate (CFR) of about 0.5 percent, according to Worldometer data. New Jersey is at about 2.8 percent. California is 1.6 percent. Worldometer puts the global rate at 3 percent.
Alaska’s unusually low death rate is something of a mystery. Hawaii, which has the lowest per capita rate of infections in the U.S. and the lowest per capita number of deaths, has a CFR of about 1.5 percent.
Vermont, the only other state with fewer COVID-19 deaths per capita than Alaska, has a CFR of 1.3 percent.
Categories: Commentary
All I know is the Biden/Harris Admin is creating a disaster on our borders, (where there was none), while releasing thousands of Covid positive illegals throughout our country. Not to mention spending at a minimum $86 million of the taxpayers money to put them up in hotels.
Guess all that concern for frontline health workers was feigned huh? Of course they will blame it all on Trump, Abbott, and De Santis.. Pathetic anti-Americans. Guess the Chinese and Russians will straighten them out. Oh wait, they already did….
I don’t even think this thing is a death sentence for the elderly. Several elderly people in town out my way have had this, and every last one of them are still alive and thriving today. None of them except for one went to hospital and that one person was only in there for a day.
I’ve heard stories from people who have had family down in lower 48 hospitals, with doctors drugging up the elderly so much while they’re on ventilator and then when they pull the ventilator with being so drugged up, there is no way they would be able to come back and breath on their own, so they die. In other cases ventilators were administered way too soon, without extra testing. Testing was so flawed, and inaccurate, that a false positive test would then allow for an uninfected person to be housed with the infected, which in return would make them infected.
Then you have the morons in some of the states, who decided it was a good idea to move and house an infected younger or older person into the nursing homes. Common sense would tell you not to introduce and house an infected person into a nursing home full of our elderly.
I call all this their legal form of euthanasia, and these people are murderers by their actions.
The data from the diamond princess cruise ship shows this disease is a danger for the elderly. For the rest of us this is no more dangerous than the flu. For children covid 19 is far less dangerous than the flu. OH NO. The sky is falling the sky is falling. OBEY the senile in chief.
The data since the diamond princess cruise ship shows that this is more dangerous than the flu, how much more dangerous is a matter of degrees. A simple look at the excess deaths numbers over the past year illustrates this fact. A review of the various other conditions besides death that covid leaves in it’s wake illustrates this fact. Covid is without a doubt more dangerous than the flu, full stop.
Steve -O, we got past our other severe viruses by herd immunity along with vaccines.. None of this other nonsense. According to Fauci we need to wear 2 masks for the next few years even after being vaccinated..Huh, now why is that? Is it because Fauci worked in the Wuhan WBio-Weapons Lab? Is it because if Covid goes away, so does Fauci and his 15 minutes of fame?
Why is Fauci and Team Democrat still trying to control the masses while preventing herd immunity? Funny how the states that are 100% open and unmasked have lower rates than those that are LOCKED DOWN.. Also, news came out yesterday that way more kids have had Covid than previously thought and didn’t even know it..Imagine that..
Funny how when H1NI was targeting kids by a huge margin Team Obama/Biden just stopped testing to the amazement of the medical community and the “media” went into blackout mode. Nature took its course and we have a vaccine along with herd immunity. A well known doctor from Hopkin’s says by April we should have developed herd immunity. No thanks to Dem govenors.
I’d say 50% of this whole Covid charade is a sham.
“… the various other conditions besides death that covid leaves in it’s wake …”
Permanent damage to various organs and dna. Which may be as nothing when compared with the damage the rna vaccine may do!
And, it is not impossible that this virus was planned, and not necessarily by China alone.
‘nuf gibberish and pity parties. Archie Bunker for pres..
Steve steve come on man . Are you so obsessed with your narrative that you forgot how to research or remember? Full stop ? Does that proove something when the facts are not in your favor? You say covid more dangerous than flu no doubt. Uh back off the weed man . “ full stop” so does Spanish flu count which killed about 1/10 of those infected? Compared to covid- generally less than 1/100 ? Factor of how much less dangerous is the flu? Come on dude you are loosing credibility. When you take a concept an narrow it to a small tunnel to create an inverted reality you are contributing to a lie . Take the mask off and breathe deep steve. It helps get oxygen to the brain. Smoking pot with your mask on going to have side effects 😉
Good Dread Pirate Roberts,
All speaking bipeds are liars. You and I are speaking bipeds, therefore we are liars, but of course we mustn’t speak for anyone else as they could be fake speaking bipeds. Of course, we are only bipeds because we “call” our forefeet “hands”, and we “call” our sounds “speaking” because quadrupeds make sounds foreign to our understanding, and because we are so very special, so actually all mammals, or what we are pleased to “call” mammals, are liars, but um, well, I don’t know anything else ..
Good Dread Pirate Roberts,
All speaking bipeds are liars. You and I are speaking bipeds, therefore we are liars, but of course we mustn’t speak for anyone else as they could be fake speaking bipeds. Of course, we are only bipeds because we “call” our forefeet “hands”, and we “call” our sounds “speaking” because quadrupeds make sounds foreign to our understanding, and because we are so very special, so actually all mammals, or what we are pleased to call mammals, are liars, but um, well, I don’t know anything else ..
DPR,
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, seriously? The Spanish Flu, you think that’s what I was talking about, hahahahahahahahahahaha. Is that really what you’re going with? Hahahahahahahahahahaha, thanks for the laugh! And, yeah, I’m the one losing credibility, hahahahahahahahaha!
DPR,
You might want to look up the size of an oxygen molecule and the size of particles masks filter.
Spanish flu, hahahahahahahaha! Seriously, good one DPR, good one.
Steve o , which flu did you speak of ? Are there not many and will there not be many more ? Are they not one and the same yet diverse? Your mind is closed and your soul blind. Name the flu you consider not dangerous in compare to covid. Is the flu not in constant mutation one long piece of genetic material all one yet ever changing? Ever different? Be a man and recognize your mistake . You pretend to know much but show your ignorance by trying to dominate and prematurely end a discussion with “ full stop” — known facts are a inconvenience to your narrative and fear mongering. Your attempt to create a distorted reality does not further wisdom. Your attempt to stifle others ideas does not further learning. You have closed your mind through a false sense of superiority. Saying covid is more dangerous than the flu without clarification and supporting facts just misleads yourself and others around you . Have we not battled disease for a millennia? Would our for fathers give up their right of self determination for a little more safety. Reliance on a false method such as cheap masks over prooven methods for disease deterance while throwing our freedoms in the mud is just plain foolishness. Steve o , do not partake in lies , foolishness or the theft and justification of liberty removal. Dread Pirate Roberts at your service.
DPR,
Hahahahahaha, really, seriously, really, which flu? Hahahahaha, you are turning yourself into a joke of your former self, friend. When was the last time you caught the Spanish Flu, and when was the last time you referred to the flu you caught as the Spanish Flu? Sure the influenza variant that was first identified as the Spanish Flu has become a part of the common flu (also known as the flu). Again, when was the last time you referred to the flu as the Spanish Flu?
For what it’s worth, I was responding to Kevin and in his comment he said the covid is no more dangerous than the flu, maybe you need to ask him what brand of flu he was talking about, but EVERYONE knows he was talking about the flu, as in the common flu. The flu, as in the common flu, is much less dangerous than covid-19. The flu, as in the common flu, is made up of many influenza viruses…all of which are much less dangerous than covid-19 is. And covid-19 is real, it is happening and has been happening. As has been mentioned literally countless times in the last year plus, covid-19 is a novel disease. It is brand new, we haven’t been battling this disease for millenia, but just barely over a year.
Which flu hahahaha, my mind is closed and my soul is blind, what kind of nonsense is that? Open your eyes DPR, the facts overwhelm your nonsense. Open your mind DPR, the facts overwhelm your nonsense. Open your soul DPR, the facts overwhelm your nonsense. Peace out brother. Work on yourself, stop attacking others you disagree with, it does you no favors…
Oh yeah, and covid (the covid we are currently talking about, not covid 37 or covid 93, but the covid that everyone knows the word covid for) is still without a doubt more dangerous than the flu, full stop.
Steve o, heres an example of your short sightedness. A man goes to the circus and sees a trained bear ( similar to the “flu” you are trying to pigeon hole ) the man says all bears are friendlyand safe . He says I saw one jumping through hoops and it was safer than a wild muskrat that had bitten me yesterday. . So the question to you is -is that man correct? Are bears safer than muskrats which currently equal covid 19 compared to a millennium of deaths by flu or even when compared to flu at its temporary worst – we have no permanent vaccine for it . So was the man correct in a broad world veiw or had he narrowed the discussion to an inverted sense of his own small experience? What if he told his neighbor who said but bears can be more dangerous than muskrats what if he told his neighbor – muskrats are most dangerous because one bit me yesterday therefore im right end of discussion full stop !!! How would you personally veiw that from a tall angle? Especially if there were no quanyifiers ? Perhaps someone is being nearsighted and stuck in personal experience? Though i do understand what you meant . Last year’s model of the specific flu virus was not comparable in deaths to covid -19. ( a very short sighted understanding of what the flu virus is , what it can do to us and our long battle with it ) Your answer is your own and you choose what to think . So be it as you wish 😉have a good day !
DPR,
Bears and muskrats, bro? Hahahahaha. Seriously, just stop with the nonsense. EVERYONE knows what the flu is, EVERYONE. EVERYONE knows what was meant in my response to Kevin, EVERYONE. You are trying to deflect and somehow walk away with an internet win for the day, your own shortsightedness has led you down this path where you are comparing the flu and covid to muskrats and bears to try and prove some point that only exists in your head.
The conversation in this thread isn’t about bear and muskrats, or about some long ago strain of the flu, or about the cumulative dangers of every flu virus that has ever been in existence. It’s about covid and the flu and in this conversation my response to someone incorrectly saying that data from one of the initial outbreaks of covid on the diamond princess cruise ship shows that the flu is much less dangerous than covid. Take the blinders off DPR, join the conversation at hand stop waxing poetic about bears and muskrats.
Here are some clues about what this conversation is about, just for future reference.
Diamond Princess cruise ship = covid-19 infested cruise ship from the early days of the covid-19 pandemic
Flu = the common flu or annual flu, it happens every year and is so common that people just call it the flu
Covid = the common term for covid-19 that’s kinda what this whole current pandemic deal is about it is so widespread people refer to covid-19 as simply covid
Muskrat = a small semiaquatic rodent, the muskrat has nothing to do with covid or the flu or this conversation
Bear = a large short tail carnivorous mammal, the bear has nothing to do with covid or the flu or this conversation
Covid is without a doubt more dangerous than the flu, full stop.
Steve o , thinking is a proactive action. You can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink. Anyone can come up with minutae of arguments to distract from the base truth in an attempt to save face such as you are . Dismissal of comparisons reduces your mental tool box. Since you are unable to extend your mind for comparisons then look at some graphs of the relative danger of the flu, bubonic plague, ect . Historically speaking covid is barely a blip . The technical flu makes covid look like a wanna be virus . The Black Plague killed 50% of the population. The flu killed around 10-20% of those infected and a fair number ofvthe total and has killed for thousands of years. So far covid has killed less than 1% . Anyone who trumps up fear around covid even compared to the 2019 flu is contributing to a fear mongering lie . They become a liar by association. ( covid is worse than the flu is a lie except in very limited outlook- one or two years – out if thousands ) especially if they use it to justify government control. we don’t even know how many flu cases are classified as covid ! Yes covid 2019 deaths outnumber flu deaths 2019 if you assume classification is accurate. Which its not . Stop the bullshit steve o . Take off the blinders and relize you are contributing to the enslavement of humanity through fear . You are using spoon fed data to distort reality or rather create a very narrow understanding of reality because you are to stubborn to realize there are other legitimate ways to look at the situation and full stop does not apply unless intellectual stifling is your prerogative. Pretending excess death numbers illustrate your point is just fantasy. There are innumerable reasons for excess deaths attributable to innumerable factors. Your oversimplification of our world situation causes the truth to be lost in your sauce . Again you are free to form your own opinions but at least recognize its opinion and not full stop. You are far to smart to limit yourself into such a narrow narrative.
DPR,
Thanks for the reminder of why I rarely respond to you. You seem incapable of having a discussion without attacking those you disagree with. I understand you don’t believe the patently obvious, you discount facts for your own opinion, and you attempt to distract by attacking others all in an effort to get away from dealing with the matter at hand. In the future I will do my best to not reply to you since it’s clear all you want to do is argue and attack me instead of what I wrote.
Covid is without a doubt more dangerous than the flu, full stop. Since you aren’t able to counter that one simple statement with anything resembling a cogent argument, I will bid you a good day.
Steve o , you forgot to install full stop after asserting your final opinion as fact . Here you go “ Full Stop” By steve o 😉 the man who’s opinions count as facts in his own eyes and statements hold the only water . Steve o says covid is more dangerous than the flu . Even though covid has only killed a minuscule fraction of the flu numbers. In Steve os eyes 18 months out of thousands hold the only legitimate weight. He can freely ignore inaccurate data to classify his opinion as fact by using the discussion ending statement full stop . I like it . It truly simplifies life and all conversations. What a great tool to enhance knowledge 😉
DPR,
It’s OK to admit when you are wrong, it’s easy and refreshing as well. I will admit I was wrong in an effort to show you how easy and refreshing it can be.
I was wrong in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu when I very specifically pointed to the timeframe after the diamond princess cruise ship outbreak, I was wrong when I very specifically point to the excess death numbers over the last year (in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu), I was wrong when I pointed out in a very specific matter that covid is more dangerous than the flu (in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu)…what was I wrong about you might be asking yourself? I was wrong to assume that in a discussion about covid-19 and the flu that even though EVERYONE knows when I said covid (in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu) that I was referring to Covid-19 and when I said flu (in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu) I was talking about the common annual influenza. I was also wrong to assume that specifying the time period directly after the diamond cruise ship outbreak (in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu) and using the very specific timeframe of the last year (in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu) wasn’t specific enough. I was wrong to assume that someone who knows how to read could actually process and understand the information they read, I was wrong to assume that if someone disagreed with me that they would be able to formulate a cogent argument against what I said and express their viewpoint by attacking my viewpoint instead of my person. In short I was wrong to assume that all people who read and comment here are capable of reading, understanding, forming their own views, and that those who chose to share their views are capable of actually doing so. For all that I was wrong about in my response to Kevin’s post about covid and the flu, I apologize directly to you since I have obviously failed you in so, so many ways.
Steve o , you are the man . Nicely and interestingly said. I bow to you .
Whelp, here ya go.. Covid a thing of the past. Quick, delete the link, can’t have this…ruins the whole “narrative”.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-vaccines-makary
“… vaccinations … have, so far, proven very effective.”
I know that you are honest and sincere (hard to find in journalists and what we need most right now) but I don’t believe that. I believe we are drowning in a sea of propaganda.
Also, I think Alaska’s “inexplicably” low fatality rate, is due to our younger population.
And something else: I can’t count the times that passing happenings have distracted my efforts to avoid close human contact. Proof that this is a universal problem is that the person I’m interacting with has also invariably! forgotten. I don’t think this can be helped outside of observers with cattle prods or complete isolation which is impossible. For the young and healthy among us with strong immune systems maybe it’s a good thing –creating antibodies *NATURALLY*.
Also, if you’re worried, consider not vacuuming for a couple days after going out or having strangers in. Carpet/floor vibrations can send settled SARS-CoV-2 particles into airborne particles. I hope Brian is right, and it’s all a hoax, but this is over most of our heads, not our fault, we’re Americans, we been enstupidated..
Good piece! Thanks for reporting the facts.
But, according to John’s Hopkins the USA will have herd immunity by April. Huh, imagine that!!! Seems Florida and Texas have it figured out, unlike blue states which always require billions upon billions of taxpayer bailout $$$ due to their failed policies as usual. I mean, I am always told they are the “educated” ones right?
Bryan,correction is due:re j hopkins.
According to a j hopkins medical doctors opinion,printed in thewallstreet journals
Op Ed page.”Herd immunity,etc….”
Quite different from what you posted.
And he could be right,if the variants dont twist off and party like rock stars.
We are very close to having things under some meadure of control
Facebook’s fact-checkers have come for the Wall Street Journal, causing the mainstream newspaper to be censored on the world’s largest social network, after the Journal published an op-ed from a Johns Hopkins surgeon who argued that the United States is likely to achieve herd immunity to the COVID-19 virus by April.
The surgeon, Dr. Marty Makary, argued that a failure to take natural immunity as well as vaccine immunity into account was leading some to underestimate when herd immunity could be achieved. Citing a 77 percent decline in cases over the past six weeks, Makary called for “contingency planning for an open economy by April.”