Misleading Numbers
Mainstream media reports about coronavirus are full of frightening numbers which are used to convince people that a lockdown is necessary. These articles have never produced irrefutable scientific research proving that lockdowns save lives. Meanwhile, among the less reported coronavirus numbers, 51 million children are out of school across 50 states.
Twenty states have reported zero child deaths and, across the entire country, children have accounted for less than .08% of all deaths, putting the number at around 120 deaths. Nationwide, there have been roughly 161,000 covid deaths, while 30 million Americans are dependant on unemployment benefits to survive. Thirty-percent of Americans missed their June house payment. And by September, it has been projected that 20 million renters will be at risk of eviction.
The media and the pro-lockdown camp want you to focus your attention on the total deaths because this is a number that will never decrease. Obviously, even if the rate of deaths drops to one per month, the pro-lockdown camp can claim that the trend is up. The other fright-inducing number is the number of positive cases, which now stands at 4,973,741. This, again, is a number that will never decrease.
The pro-lockdown side is counting how many people have tested positive since the beginning of the American epidemic in February, but is not subtracting out people who have recovered or died. Similar to the deaths, if the number of new cases drops to one per month, they can still claim the trend is toward increasing. And since they are “alarmed” about this increase, they can claim that it is increasing “at an alarming rate.”
To Put This in Perspective
Increased positive cases of coronavirus are driven by increased testing of healthy people, the vast majority of whom will never become severely ill. To date, the US has done 63,537,614 tests, of which 9% have come back positive. While the number of tests increases, the number of ICU patients decreases, now standing at only 18,424 in a nation of about 330 million. This supports the notion that testing in the early part of the epidemic suggested a higher rate of symptomatic cases, ICU, and deaths, because the people being tested were largely people who were sick.
As testing expands to the healthy population, it will be discovered that many people have experienced a slight to severe flu or no symptoms at all, yet are being added to the count of positives cases. Yet, they will never be ICU patients and will not die from the coronavirus. A pro-lockdown argument says that even with only a 3% mortality rate, coronavirus will kill nearly 10 million Americans, a number which they find unacceptable. Mortality, however, does not mean that coronavirus kills 3% of the population, but rather 3% of people who catch it.
To put this in perspective, coronavirus tests in New York demonstrated that slightly more than 1% of the population tests positive. Assuming that 1% of all New Yorkers have it, that means that 194,000 New Yorkers have coronavirus and from that number, 3% or 5,835, will die. In 2018, 4,749 New Yorkers died of the flu. So, by this logic, we have crashed the economy, taken children out of school, and allowed rioting and looting in order to save just over 1,000 people (assuming that there was proof that a lockdown saves lives). Furthermore, the earlier presumed 3% mortality rate is actually much higher than the CDC Infection Fatality Ratio, which is estimated at .065%. If this number is correct, the expected deaths in New York would drop even further.
Unnecessary Lockdown
Bloomberg reported, “Australia’s first lockdown was one of the most successful in the world, bringing down cases to just a handful a day between March and when it ended in May.” This is an example of irresponsible journalism and fear-mongering to promote a certain narrative. No, we do not know that Australia’s first lockdown was successful! We know that Australia had low coronavirus deaths. We also know they have many kangaroos, and if you watch The Simpsons, you also know that water swirls the other way when it goes down the sink!
There are countless facts we know about Australia, but the fact that they are true does not suggest that they are causal. There is no proof that the correlation between low coronavirus deaths and the lockdown means lockdowns work. Australia, like the US, is driving their economy and their society into the ground, with no definitive proof that lockdowns save any lives at all.
The very fact that New York had one of the strictest lockdowns, but also highest death counts and that Australia had an allegedly successful lockdown but now is seeing a resurgence of cases, suggests that lockdowns do not work. A top German virologist claims the lockdown was unnecessary. Israeli Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy said that, in spite of rising cases, he felt a lockdown was unnecessary.
Sweden never had a lockdown and now infections and deaths are dropping off. Holland’s top scientists say that there may be no need of masks as their efficacy is questionable. Consequently, the Dutch were not ordered to wear masks in public and only did a limited “intelligent lockdown.” The Dutch experts believe that three simple rules have an effect on containing the spread of the disease: washing hands, social distancing, and staying at home if you are sick.
Past Pandemic Strategies and Comorbidity
Staying at home if you are sick or vulnerable sounds very much like the strategy Americans have taken for past pandemics, which they have successfully navigated without crashing the economy. Some researchers claim that lockdowns do not reduce the number of deaths and that death tolls were determined by the overall health of a nation before the pandemic. The examples they gave were the US and UK, which had high death rates but also had high rates of obesity.
Italy had a high death rate but also has a high average age of 45. The same study also said that a high number of tests was not correlated with low death rates. Far from saving lives, the economic stress the lockdown put on families and on the government’s ability to provide social services will drive up future death rates. The Times of India recently recognized that the economic damage wrought by lockdowns outweighed lives allegedly saved. “There can be no more excuses for continuing with lockdowns after experiencing the massive economic damage they have wrought.”
Within the US, the sunbelt states had little or no lockdown but were the least hard hit by coronavirus. New York had one of the strictest lockdowns but also had one of the worst death counts in the world. Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby of Leicester, UK said he was furious the government did not provide him with data, which he feels would have made the lockdown unnecessary. “It will be a political decision that will take us out, the same way it was a political decision that brought us into lockdown,“
Lockdown as a Political Tool
The Australian state of Victoria has had 147 covid deaths and has just imposed the strictest lock down yet. Victoria is also joined to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told Sky News he believed the Chinese government will bail out his state if the economy crashes. Even those who do not believe that the current Marxist-backed riots in the US are directly linked to China do admit that the lockdowns fueled the riots in several ways.
The lockdown made people stir-crazy, and after months of being trapped at home, they welcomed a chance to take to the streets and go wild. Additionally, the lack of a need to go to work or go to school gave them time to riot. And finally, the stimulus checks and unemployment served as financial sponsorship of the riots. If a political party thought they could benefit from the riots, they could perpetuate them by pushing the narrative that the lockdowns must be extended.
It is estimated that 26 million people have participated in the George Floyd protests. The protests are ongoing and attended by hundreds of thousands across the US each week. Meanwhile, in most states, people are not allowed to attend church. Children cannot go to school and parents cannot work to support their families. It seems the lockdown rules are not driven by medical facts. If they were, then protesting and church would both present similar health risks. Since protesting is allowed and church is not, then there must be some political reason for the support of both the protests and the lockdown.
Medical Facts Needed, Not Voter Fraud
The democrats are claiming that because of the 18,623 coronavirus ICU patients, the US will have to have mail-in voting for the 2020 election. Meanwhile, countless other countries have managed to have in-person voting during the pandemic. South Korea was one of the hardest hit countries in the early part of the pandemic and yet they held in-person voting. Other countries which held in-person elections included Singapore and Serbia.
France held in-person elections, as did Israel, Moldova, Zimbabwe, Guinea, and Shoal Lake in Canada. Germany held local elections in Bavaria. Mali, Australia Local Elections in Queensland, Benin, Burundi, Surinam, Mongolia, Poland, Malawi, Dominican Republic, Croatia Parliamentary Elections, and North Macedonia all had in-person voting. As the old saying goes, “If North Macedonia can do it, so can USA.”
The Heritage Foundation confirms the experience of the numerous countries which have held in-person ballots during the pandemic and that in-person voting can be carried out safely if proper protocols are followed. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has issued guidelines for safe voting which have already been followed by a number of states, such as Virginia. The Heritage Foundation also notes that “Mail-in ballots are the ballots most vulnerable to being altered, stolen, or forged.”
Mail-in ballots also have a higher rate of rejection than in-person ballots. “The U.S. Election Assistance Commission says that in the last four federal elections, 2.7 million mail-in ballots were misdelivered and 1.3 million were rejected by election officials.” Paterson, New Jersey’s mail-in balloting for a municipal election, for example, has resulted in a massive fraud investigation with four citizens, including a councilman and councilman-elect, being charged. In addition to potential fraud, there is a loss of anonymity as the mail-in ballots have the voters’ name and address on the envelope.
One must wonder whether the push for a continued lockdown results from a desire by some to promote mail-in ballots for the express purpose of manipulating the upcoming 2020 Presidential election process.
- The China Tariffs Must Stay - November 19, 2020
- Coronavirus: The Left’s Ministry of Truth - October 20, 2020
- Republicans Are The American Party - October 19, 2020
JOIN US @NewRightNetwork on our Telegram, Twitter, Facebook Page and Groups, and other social media for instant news updates!
New Right Network depends on your support as a patriot-ran American news network. Donate now