With news of a Coronavirus resurgence in southern states, a report suggesting that health officials in Florida may have inflated the numbers of those newly infected is deeply troubling. Important policy decisions ranging from the reopening of schools and businesses to gubernatorial authorization for the general public to congregate outdoors are based on this crucial data, so any false reporting, manipulation, underreporting, or errors made are cause for genuine concern.
After over ten straight weeks of declining Coronavirus mortality in the USA, mainstream news began sounding the alarm about a second wave of infections in the American sunbelt – including throughout Texas and Florida. These escalating numbers were music to the Fourth Estate’s ears, which blithely ignored the social distancing rules flouted by protesters nationwide but seemed eager to report that a red state, which had opened up before the left found it acceptable, was suffering a virus backlash.
Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), it could be argued, is directly responsible for the deaths of as many as 7,200 elderly New Yorkers based on his disastrous directive compelling nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients. It is startling, then, that he mocked the state of Texas, which faced an uptick in cases. Cuomo smugly claimed there were no ICU beds available in Texas, which caused Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) to fire back, calling him a “fraud” and debunking the falsehood.
Hoping For the Worst
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), another independent-minded leader in defiance of lockstep leftist groupthink, opened up his state earlier than many. The media’s apparent hope that the state would suffer as a result was palpable. In short order, those crossed fingers turned to thumbs-ups as Florida had to pause its Phase Two reopening because of increased infections, along with other states including Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico.
Now, however, a report suggests that the record-breaking surge in Florida’s Coronavirus numbers may have been inflated by as much as 30%. According to an analysis of records released by the Florida Department of Health, the record keepers may have played fast and loose with the data. At issue is the fact that the state appears to be posting backlogged cases on the days they are processed, rather than when they were first detected. As reported by Daniel Payne:
“Data show that the state was apparently undercounting thousands of cases between early and mid-June, after which, through the end of June and into early July, it began posting what were presumably the backlogged cases it had missed in the prior weeks…”
Payne goes on to point out that, on July 4, the state posted around 11,400 cases, but that “the ‘event date’ metric indicates a little over 8,000 cases on that day, about 30% less than the figure posted on the dashboard and cited in nationwide media outlets.”
Whether intentional or not, this statistical sleight of hand has had the effect of inflating the number of new infections by adding them to and conflating them with older backlogged cases. The media was emboldened to trumpet the Corona catastrophe in a disobedient state that surely deserves its COVID karma.
The Not-So-Deadly Virus
We have known for months how virulent COVID-19 is. A USC study from May of this year confirmed that the virus spread much more widely in LA county than was known. With dramatically increased testing, the fact that Americans all over the country are testing positive for it is no surprise whatsoever as it has long been clear how highly infectious the Coronavirus is. Amid the hue and cry over “skyrocketing” cases, however, some critical information is being omitted by the media.
Because infection rates are so high, the associated rate of mortality as a matter of simple arithmetic has been driven very low. How low? By many estimates, the COVID-19 fatality rate is around one-quarter of one percent, with a recovery rate of approximately 99.74%. This means the vast majority of people who contract the virus are either asymptomatic or have mild cases with few symptoms from which they are swift to rebound.
Emerging data strongly suggests that the almost punitive quarantines did next to nothing to impede the spread of the virus and may have hastened it by exposing families to each other in close quarters. Wildly inconvenient for some, the extreme virulence of COVID-19 will soon bring herd immunity to everyone – which will make a vaccine moot as more than 60% of people will have naturally acquired antibodies against the virus.
Ancillary deaths from suicide, alcoholism, child, spousal, and drug abuse have the potential to dwarf the numbers of COVID-19 deaths. The toll of the virus is now more or less comparable with that of a severe seasonal flu – something Anthony Fauci noted in a New England Journal of Medicine article back in March.
As former New York Times journalist and bestselling author Alex Berenson said recently:
“By early April, it was very clear to anybody who was paying close attention that we were going to be able to get through this and navigate to the other side of it without societal collapse [and] the real risk came from the efforts to stop anybody from getting this rather than the risk of the virus itself.”
So why don’t most people in Florida, America, and around the world know these things? Why are they unaware that there is little to fear from a virus that has side-stepped children everywhere and is almost exclusively deadly to only the immuno-compromised and the elderly?
The answer to that is many-layered. If the media continues to foment fear among the public about COVID-19 successfully, something that serves its Big Pharma masters, which are responsible for anywhere between 50-70% of media advertising dollars, then many desired effects are achieved at once.
Trepidation and anxiety about reopening the United States, rebooting the economy, and sending children back to school all work in concert to keep the country hobbled. A wounded America is not a resurgent America – something Trump’s enemies hope reflects poorly on him and hinders his chances at a second term. In an election year, absolutely everything is about the election, so fear is kept at a high simmer, ready to boil over any moment. And those with a vested interest in controlling world health, such as Bill Gates and the WHO, continue to promise the Vaccine Holy Grail to a public browbeaten by mainstream media propaganda into believing, behaving, and waiting for deliverance.
In Florida, in America and the world at large – controlling the message is everything. The narrative is all.
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Read more from Pennel Bird.
