Over the last 18 months, I have spoken to many of you about the tyrannical controls that school boards have placed upon your grandchildren, and the impact those mandates have had on their parents, your adult children. “Our daughter hasn’t been able to return to work, because she’s at home supervising remote learning—even as private schools and the public schools in Florida have been fully open all year…”, one client pleaded, echoing the frustrations that I’ve heard from dozens of you.
Two weeks ago, frustrated parents and skeptical local public health officials demanded that the CDC “show us the data” to justify their recommendation that 56 million public school children of all ages be masked for the entirety of the upcoming school year, regardless of transmission levels from one state to the other. When the CDC finally released that data, many observers were even more perplexed.
The centerpiece of the CDC’s case involved an outbreak of the Delta variant in the resort town of Provincetown, Massachusetts, the tip of Cape Cod where I grew up, over the July 4th holiday weekend. Over the course of that 3-day period (and the four weeks that followed), “Of 469 cases, 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated people, and almost 80% of those cases were symptomatic. There were five hospitalizations, four among fully vaccinated people, and no deaths. Of the cases with sequence information available, 89% were from the Delta variant…moreover, vaccination coverage in Massachusetts was reported to be 69% as of July 3rd…”
So let’s analyze: If 346 of the 469 cases were among fully vaccinated individuals, that leaves 122 who were not vaccinated. The unvaccinated group had one hospitalization, while the vaccinated group had four, ratios that are almost perfectly proportional to the size of each group. The symptoms were also equally mild for both groups, and no one in either group died. Let’s conclude with what my High School Trigonometry teacher referred to as deducible truths that are “intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer”.
- The vaccines were useless in stopping transmission. Even though nearly 70% of the local population was vaccinated, 74% of the infected had been vaccinated. The Delta variant blew through the illusory protection of the vaccine like it wasn’t even there.
- The Delta variant is highly transmissible, but its effects are far milder.
- The Delta variant is far less deadly than the original virus—even to the 122 unvaccinated people! When CDC Director Walensky says that the Provincetown experience “proves that the vaccines are working to lessen the severity of the symptoms”, this is simply untrue of this sample, or Israel or the UK at present. Had the unvaccinated experienced more severe symptoms, more hospital admissions, or any deaths at all, she might have a case, but none of those things occurred.
- The CDC is basing their upcoming restrictions on an outbreak that no longer exists. By month’s end, according to the town manager, “of the nearly 900 cases, there have been no deaths, 7 hospitalizations, and the symptoms are largely mild. Our positivity peaked at 15% on July 15th and was only 4.8% yesterday (July 30th). The outbreak is contained and Provincetown is safe…”
- Children under 18 are overwhelmingly unaffected by the virus already, and masking them has far more severe consequences—including depression, anxiety, and suicide, along with decreased academic performance and socialization—than the virus itself. Indeed, since the inception of the pandemic only 335 U.S. children under the age of 18 have died nationally, many with previously undiagnosed comorbidities, representing 58/1000ths of 1% of all “Covid-related” deaths.
So P-town is safe, transmissibility peaks in about 2 weeks and drops rapidly thereafter, but the CDC is saying we need to re-mask across most of the country, mask school children for the entire school year, even as the Pentagon is mandating still-experimental, not-yet-FDA-approved vaccinations for every soldier/officer in the U.S. military. This may be political science, but it certainly isn’t biomedical science.
When 637,439 Is Really 31,872
As I’ve shared on prior occasions (and monthly in our client-only Economic/Market videos), the following quote can still be found here on the CDC’s website. It refers to all 637,439 U.S. “Covid-related” deaths to date:
“…For over 5% of these deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 4.0 additional conditions or causes per death…”
This remains a stunning admission. It means that, in truth, fewer than 32,000 Americans have died solely from the virus, while the other 95% died with an average of four other causes. Per the CDC data, deaths occurring among those over age 75 represented 57% of all “Covid-related” deaths, and over 94% of all decedents also suffered from some combination of heart disease, respiratory ailment, diabetes, or obesity. Simply put, the typical 82-year-old died of a heart attack, with COPD, as an overweight diabetic, and when the autopsy was performed, they found antibodies for Covid in the decedent’s bloodwork. Is it possible that he might have lived another few months or years had he not contracted the virus? Of course, but it is also possible if not probable that he would have succumbed to his other comorbidities within a few months anyway. And, sure, most of us can probably cite several anecdotal instances of exceptions to this example, but according to the CDC’s own data, this decedent is representative of 94% of the 95% of “Covid-related” U.S. deaths of the last 20 months.
Our indecisive authoritarian public health officials in government are devaluing their own currency, first by telling us that once we’re vaccinated, we won’t need to wear a mask, and then by telling us that we need to wear a mask outdoors, even if vaccinated, to protect us from the unvaccinated. Dr. Peter Weiss just echoed the sentiments of tens of thousands of Covid-fatigued doctors (including my own) here:
“…We’re beset by misinformation and confusing recommendations from our government. Don’t wear masks, now wear masks. Wear two masks, since two is better than one. Vaccines will set you free, until they don’t. Therapeutics that can treat COVID-19 are frowned upon, and you must be evil if you even suggest the possibility. This isn’t a reliable information environment…”
Welcome to The Permanent Pandemic—504 days after Dr. Fauci first asked us for “15 days to slow the spread”—endless theatrical posturing that says if you’re not wearing a mask, I might forget to be scared, and that the superior natural immunity of over 35% of the population is insufficient protection for the rest of us—even though another 51% has been vaccinated. And if your doctor recommends against your getting the vaccine, you may not be able to dine out, go to the theater, travel by air, or return to the job you’ve worked at for 20 years, were you to adhere to that advice.
Time will tell whether we tolerate the societal transformation of our free republic into a biomedical oligarchy, wherein we allow unelected, oft-wrong “experts” to control every aspect of our lives “for our own good and the good of our communities.” There is far more at stake in the loss of our freedoms (free speech, assembly, rights of private property, protest, and medical autonomy) given the way our leaders are mismanaging this crisis—than the adverse consequences of a virus that is 99.91% survivable. We don’t suspend the Constitution because some of us are scared; we stand up to the fear-mongers, correct the misinformed, encourage the fearful, protect the vulnerable, and go on living free and fruitful lives.
Now would be good.
