Three Charts The Delta Variant Scaremongers Don’t Want You To See
By: I&I Editorial Board
It’s time for reality to replace the sky is falling fear mongers out there trying to make the most of this pandemic and stretch it out as long as possible delaying a return to normal as long as possible. We reject mandates, diapers, passports, and lockdowns. We want our freedom, rights, and liberty restored.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Three Charts The Delta Variant Scaremongers Don’t Want You To See
August 11, 2021
While the sharp rise in Delta-variant COVID cases has sparked a renewed push for mask mandates, lockdowns, and vaccine “passports,” there’s been little attention paid to just how dangerous this variant is. Perhaps that’s because the evidence suggests it is far less of a public health concern than previous outbreaks.
Just how much less of a threat isn’t precisely known. But there are ways to gauge the risk. One is to look at the number of COVID cases and the number of deaths happening right now, compared with what happened a year ago.
What do you find? First of all, there are fewer cases than last year. From June to August this year, there have been more than 2 million recorded COVID cases in the U.S.
Over the same days last year, the total number of COVID cases was above 3.1 million.
How about deaths? From June 1 through Aug. 9, the total number of COVID fatalities was 20,149. Last year, the death count was 62,287.
In other words, cases are 41% lower than during this time last year, and deaths are 66% lower.
Source: CDC DataLooked at another way, the “case fatality rate” was 1% from June 1 through Aug. 9 this year. It was 2% over the same days last year.
Looking at a longer time frame, the case fatality rate all this year is 1.5%. And the case fatality rate for all of last year was 1.8%.
In other words, the fatality rate from COVID appears to be steadily declining.
Source: CDC DataThe lower lethality of the Delta variant makes sense.
Like any other infectious disease, COVID picked off the low-hanging fruit first – the very sick and elderly. So the case fatality rate plunged after its initial spike in early 2020 – when it was around 6%.
Doctors and hospitals also learned about better ways to treat the disease, no doubt saving lives.
And, the vaccines that unexpectedly appeared by last November have since created a vastly larger pool of people with immunity to the new virus. The vaccinated who are catching the Delta variant are experiencing far milder symptoms than they would have otherwise.
So far, in fact, there have been 36.8 million recorded cases of COVID, there are 167 million people fully vaccinated, and another 29 million partially vaccinated. That means roughly 60% of the nation has either had COVID or has been vaccinated. Even assuming there’s a lot of overlap between the two groups, that’s still a massive number of people with at least some immunity to the disease.
Here’s another way to look at it. Deaths from all causes so far this year are now lower in every age group than last year, especially among the elderly.
Source: CDCBut while the disease has become less fearsome, the public perception hasn’t changed, and so the fixation on case counts only feeds the public’s anxiety.
Yes, there are certain areas where hospital resources are being strained at the moment. But overall, hospital capacity is far from reaching its limit. Data from John Hopkins University of Medicine’s tracking center shows that 25% of intensive care unit beds in the country aren’t occupied. Even in hotspots such as Texas, 10% of ICU beds are available, as are 20% of inpatient beds. Ten percent of Florida’s ICU beds and 16% of inpatient beds are currently unoccupied.
So why isn’t this seemingly good news about COVID making headlines?
Here’s one possibility. The public health community and leftist politicians don’t want to give up their newfound powers.
If COVID goes away, Anthony Fauci suddenly becomes just another annoying bureaucrat that nobody pays attention to.
And leftists, who have been able to boss people around and spend taxpayer money at levels no one would have ever tolerated before COVID, are loathe for things to get back to normal.
There’s also the fact that the current outbreak provides another chance for Democrats to score political points against Republicans. Just as we saw in the initial outbreak, Republican governors are coming under vicious and constant attack for not being sufficiently authoritarian, despite the growing body of scientific evidence that lockdowns and mask mandates are largely ineffective.
Power doesn’t only corrupt. It is also highly addictive. And the fear of suffering painful withdrawal symptoms supersedes any other consideration.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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Bullshit. I'm happy to look at any chart you want to throw up there. The whole tactic of "they don't want you to see this" is a lie intended to keep people in the "they're out to get us" mindset. It's a kind of brainwashing.
So, let's look at the first graph. Yes, cases and deaths are both lower than last year. That's good. What's not good is that both numbers are trending upward from about the start of July. That's a bad thing if you really need that pointed out. It's especially frustrating because as of about May of this year, everyone over the age of 12 could be vaccinated. So, the numbers should be trending down. While they trend up, the virus goes on mutating, become more and more contagious, so that everyone becomes vulnerable again.
Now, let's look at the second graph - the bar graph that shows fatality. Again, the numbers are down from last year, which is good. But the fatality rate is still ten times what it would be for a typical flu, which already kills 40 or 50,000 Americans every year and that's bad. And AGAIN: the virus continues to mutate while conspiracy theorists whine about their rights.
You know what else is bad? Surviving Covid. For most people, when you get over the flu, you're done. There are no lasting effects. But there are people who have survived Covid who have lung scarring worse than is seen in smokers. They will be on oxygen possibly for the rest of their lives. They also spend weeks, even months, in the hospital. That alone, can be a financial catastrophe for individuals and families, not to mention the physical and emotional suffering. So death isn't the only measurement of how terrible this virus is.
Everything I just said applies to the third chart as well. Stop making excuses for this anti-vaccine campaign. We need everyone - or as close as we can get to everyone - to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Then this can all be over.
Agree completely. My response is simpler: The May-August '21 parts of the charts should be straight lines toward 0.
Precisely.
I couldn't have said it better, and I have a degree in biology. Thanks for breaking it down so eloquently.
LOL. That's damn funny.
On the subject of vaccines..
The CDC said.
"But what they can't do anymore is prevent transmission."
Vaccinated people spread the virus also.
But the virus does not last as long in a vaccinated person. Vaccinated people do not infect others as much as do the unvaccinated.
Ergo: get vaccinated, wear masks, social distance
That is common sense stuff (also supported by science) to prevent infection or transmission of disease, right?
I used to think so, but nowadays it seems common sense is not common.
I tend to think it's becoming quite rare, unfortunately.
Yeah, but it’s a lot harder. That’s why we need as many people as possible to get vaccinated.
Come to Florida, XX. 23,000 + new cases yesterday, over 14,000 hospitalized with COVID, 3,000 in ICU. I'm sure that everyone involved would tell you what to do with your charts/graphs.
At least he wouldn't be required to wear a mask.
First they would tell joe to stop sending covid infected illegals into our states.
Why won't the left mandate vaccines for illegals?
Why won't millions of Americans get the vaccine? When you figure that out let me know.
A commentator on Fox News says something and you merely accept it as fact??
BS
No you won't.
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When joe vaccinates illegals he sends to our states I will believe the left has our best interests at heart.
Until then.... all I hear is hot air.
Telling us to get vaccinated while sending infected illegals into our states makes every argument from the left complete bull shit.
Truth is..... Joe's illegals are the largest super spreader event yet.
When the left complains about the infected illegals being bused into our states, then and only then do they get to complain about me.
No surprise there. The left blaming us for the mess they cause is no surprise either. But thinking we will fall for their bs concern trolling is simply priceless 🤣
They are mad at citizens for not getting vaccinated... but they don't give one fuk about joe sending thousands of infected illegals to our states.
Their so called "concern" is a joke.
Obviously.
I really don't care what you believe, FortunateSon.
Your comments are simply the ranting of someone with no facts.
Of course you believe that Biden would deliberately work to sabotage his #1, most visible, most critical objective of ridding the nation of the COVID pandemic.
Biden naturally seeks a legacy of failing in the most important initiative of his presidency.
Why would Biden deliberately spread the infection? He is focused on ridding the nation of the virus. He is graded on ridding the nation of the virus. Hello?
It is easy for anyone with an understanding of national politics and the incompetence of government bureaucracy to see how this can happen. But to view this failure as a deliberate act by Biden rather than a frustrating and inexcusable consequence of partisan compromise + incompetent bureaucracy is naive and irrational.
Some people are aligned with a particular political party based on rational positions based largely on verifiable facts while others operate on beliefs derived by simply accepting as truth whatever their 'trusted' sources tell them to believe.
There is your difference.
You can see the key difference. The former often can defend their positions whereas the latter are clueless and 'defend' their positions by quoting words from other human beings in lieu of being able to form their own cogent argument.
Two facts.
1) My naturally acquired immunity to covid is stronger and will last much longer than the current so called "vaccines"
2) anyone who needs me to get that "vaccine" to save their lives had better bring their last will and testament up to date.
Especially considering that they're now indicating that those of us who got the "vaccines" (Moderna for the wife and me) will apparently need to get a "booster". But weren't vaccines going to be mankind's savior? Oop's, Faucci wrong again.
I cannot help you with that illusion.
If that's your reality, so be it,
just try not to include me in it.
No, Every flu vaccine needs to be repeated annually. COVID falls into the same group as SARS & H1N1 for annual shots.
Nope, but you were obviously exaggerating, right? The unproven vaccines were administered under Emergency orders by the FDA and were only expected to abate the high death rates of last year and relieve enough symptoms to keep people out of the hospitals.
But you knew that.
Why do you believe that? Here is one of many indications that you are mistaken:
This is a public service announcement
" Researchers studied Kentucky residents with a lab-confirmed coronavirus infection in 2020, the vast majority of them between October and December. They compared 246 people who got reinfected in May or June of this year with 492 similar survivors who stayed healthy. The survivors who never got vaccinated had a significantly higher risk of reinfection than those who were fully vaccinated, even though most had their first bout of COVID-19 just six to nine months ago."
"Scientists say infection does generally leave survivors protected against a serious reinfection at least with a similar version of the virus, but blood tests have signaled that protection drops against worrisome variants ."
" The amount of natural immunity can vary from person to person , possibly depending on how sick they were to begin with . The Rush University study found four of 29 previously infected people had no detectable antibodies before they were vaccinated — and the vaccines worked for them just like they work for people who never had COVID-19."
What forces you to seed extremist opinions from one questionable or religiously biased source day after day?
Well there's something else you assume but cannot prove.
You think that irreligious people hate religious people?? Maybe that is how you respond to the irreligious, but I assure you that not believing in a god does not in itself cause people to hate those who do believe in a god.
Case in point, most all of my friends and family have been and are religious. This has been true for my entire life. I do not hate them in any way simply because of their beliefs. My best friends are Catholic and do indeed believe in the Christian god. Also, plenty of people believe in spiritual entities (ghosts, etc.). I do not, but I have no emotional or judgmental views on those beliefs. We all have beliefs of some sort, hating or looking down on individuals simply because of a belief is irrational.
Finally, I despise Ken Ham and Kenneth Copeland. Not because of what they believe, but because of the damage they deliberately seek to inflict on others. Ken Ham seeks to dumb down his followers so that they reject established science in favor of religious beliefs (e.g. the Young Earth nonsense). That is damaging. Kenneth Copeland continues to exploit his flock to enrich himself while giving them false promises. Copeland is a grand liar and thief. I despise him because of that, not because he is religious (and, by they way, I do not believe he is actually religious).
You, once again, demonstrate that you simply do not comprehend the irreligious. In doing so, you have shown that you are the one who translates difference in religious beliefs into hatred and bigotry.