This will be my attempt to gather facts from logical thinkers with regard to Covid-19. It is my feeling that something is amiss about the reaction most countries are taking. There are two factors that are important for evaluating a virus. 1.) Is how easy does it spread, called the R-naught (R0). 2.) How deadly or damaging is the virus.
In the case of Covid-19 the R0 is estimated by the WHO to be about 2-2.2 as of March 30th, 2020. The seasonal flu in contrast is 1.3. So this suggest that Covid-19 is more contagious. However, this very interesting analysis of the actual USA data shows that using only existing data the R0 is actually equal to 1.4.
Comparing the RO of other known diseases you will see that most are higher then Covid-19:
Given that the R0 is somewhere between 1.4 and 2.2, we can say that Covid-19 is contagious. However, there is no indication that it possess some “extraordinary” features that make it behave unlike any other virus we have ever encountered in the 1 million years that virus’s and human’s have coexisted. Occam’s razor suggests that more likely Covid-19 spreads just like every other coronavirus, which is via symptomatic individuals. Much fuss has been made over the fact that the virus is present in the respiratory tract of asymptomatic individuals. However, just because the virus could possibly be spread asymptotically, does not mean this is how the vast majority of people are actually catching it.
In a sense, you can’t have it both ways. If the virus was in fact very contagious and was spreading asymptomaticly, then we would expect to see a huge number of cases. While we do see a large number of cases, the number is still smaller then seasonal flu numbers. So, you can’t have it both ways. If Covid-19 is so special and so contagious, then why have millions not been infected before the “lock-downs” were put into place?
Next is the mortality of Covid-19. Currently it stands at 3.4% per the WHO (3/30/20). But this number can only go down as more people get infected. For example, the seasonal flu kills 290,000 to 650,000 people per year, but its mortality rate is only 0.1%! How can that be? The reason is because we have an accurate measure of the total number of cases of the flu, which stands at about 65 million per year. So right now we only have 0.5 million cases of Covid-19. in actuality, there are probably many, many more people who have been infected, had very mild symptoms and never were tested and confirmed. So assuming that the number of actual infected is closer to 50 million, then the death rate of Covid-19 would be much, much lower.
Here Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a prominent German pulmonologist and respiratory disease specialist, explains why Covid-19 is likely similar to the seasonal flu in terms of mortality and not 34 times more deadly as is being touted by people who are not thinking logically or have an agenda that benefits from fear (more on that later).
The important point is not to downplay death. Any death is one too many, however, the absurdity is that up to 650,000 people die from the flu every year. Year in and year out and no one bats an eye. So far 33,000 people have died from Covid-19 and the world is frozen in panic. How is that in anyway logical?
Here is a 2010 article that indicates that Dr. Wodarg has a history of claiming “fake pandemics”. To Dr. Wodarg’s credit, while the Swine Flu was deadly, the worst of it came and went in fact it is still with us today. So perhaps history can teach us something after-all? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/facing-inquiry-who-strikes-back-fake-pandemic-swine-flu-criticism
Much of the hysteria seems to be fueled by media headlines such as this “COVID-19 spread is fueled by ‘stealth transmission’ “. And it seems most of these headlines can be traced back to a single research paper (1a) led by Jeffrey Shaman, PhD, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School, in a statement. “We find for COVID-19 in China these undetected infected individuals are numerous and contagious. These stealth transmissions will continue to present a major challenge to the containment of this outbreak going forward.” The paper uses documented cases from China, plus “travel restriction” data to extrapolate via a computer model that “Undocumented cases drove the transmission of the virus”in the early stages of the outbreak. Ok, so given that the virus was unknown to man prior to fall 2019, do we need a computer model to predict that the majority of cases would be undocumented? It seems to me this is another example where correlation does not imply causation. What is needed is more research on exactly how the virus is spread from person to person and in what numbers the virus must enter the body to truly take hold. Much like fertilization of a human egg it is a game of chance. One sperm can fertilize an egg, but under normal circumstances millions of sperm are needed to generate reasonable odds. The same is true of virus spreading. Several hundred virus particles on a doorknob, are not statistically likely to drive a pandemic.
Citation (1a) https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/24/science.abb3221
I found that there were very few studies to help answer the question, “Does Transmission Occur from Asymptomatic Infection”. The most recent study was published in 2019 (Citation 2a). ) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6518513/ The conclusion was ” Among respiratory viruses, the role of asymptomatic infection is poorly understood. For influenza alone, the prevalence of asymptomatic infection has been estimated to be as low as 9.4% and as high as 90% depending on the virus type, study, season and definition of asymptomatic infection [15, 16]. There is also some evidence that viral shedding correlates with symptom severity and that the contagiousness of asymptomatic individuals is less than for symptomatic persons [17,18]. The rationale is that respiratory symptoms (coughing, sneezing, runny nose) help spread pathogens through droplet transmission, either inhaled or settled [ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2894888/ ]. However, the absence of symptoms might bring asymptomatic infected individuals into greater contact with susceptible persons outside the home. This is particularly true for infants and toddlers whose behavior, hygiene habits and close physical contact typically favor the spread of germs, especially in childcare settings. Whether greater contact occurs and makes asymptomatic individuals effectively as contagious as symptomatic persons is not known. An additional difficulty is that a standard, accepted definition of symptomatic infection does not exist. Further, perception of symptoms is highly subjective, and it may be difficult to assess whether a symptom is caused by the pathogen. For example, chronic symptoms can occur – runny nose is a common sign in children that does not necessary imply viral infection – and allergies can cause sneezing. Fever, muscle pain and chills may also be caused by infections other than respiratory viruses. Our findings underscore the extremely high proportion of respiratory viral infections that are asymptomatic. Further analysis is required to capture the role played by asymptomatic individuals in outbreak transmission dynamics, specifically the relative infectiousness of asymptomatic vs. symptomatic infections. “
In other words, many respiratory virus infections are asymptomatic, but it is unclear as to their role in outbreak transmission dynamics.
Other Thinkers: Here is a collection of other thinkers who share a similar worldview as myself on Covid-19
Brian Rose – London Real
Here is a personal evaluation of Covid-19. Much of what this person says makes a lot of sense in that Covid-19 is never going to go away. Society has no effective treatments for any respiratory virus’s and vaccines do not appear to be effective as we are always behind the curve on the mutation of virus’s. So “Herd Immunity” has been the way humans have dealt with vius’s for 1 million years and likely developing herd immunity will be the only true way to deal with Covid-19 as well.
Olibur’s comment from Zerohedge is spot-on. ” I just observed as relatives of my neighbor came by the car so they all stood in front of the house at a distance of about 10 meters talking. They never approached each other holding up this distance. We are fucked!!! Covitiotism elevated the old concept of divide and rule to its new ultimate high by literally distancing each other in a physical sense and it will backfire to all of us for years to come.
More excellent work from Germany. Videos of hospitals showing that they are not overrun with seriously ill patients as the media claims is the “real reason” we have shutdown the economy. Also more video interviews of medical professionals explaining that even when Covid-19 deaths are added to other deaths, the total death rate for phenomena deaths is quite normal for this time of the year. So it is more of a testing and measurement issue as opposed to being a real increase in deaths. The bottom line is that 300,000 have died from all virus’s in the last 5 months and only 30,000 have died from Covid-19. https://www.bitchute.com/video/XxeGUIBPVleu/
Here is a religious analysis that argues that the “fear” based argument that is being used by the media is “evil”, the opposite of Godly. https://www.visionroot.org/podcast/the-emperor-has-no-clothes-on-stop-the-madness-and-lockdowns/
An insiders view of the Fireworks Industry and the impact of Covid-19. http://dominatorfireworks.com/Novel_Coronavirus(2019-nCoV)_Live_Update_From_China.html