The irresponsible reporting of the Covid-19 pandemic is getting ridiculous. If there are any of you out there that don't believe the reporting is no more than a way to generate panic and sow distrust of the government's handling of the crisis- here are some charts for you from the CDC. (taken from screenshots of the site today 7/24/20)
First, the figures that all the reports are fixated on: (the growth in cases)
You can see that the number of cases is growing quite a bit of late! The reporting on that number is correct.
Now the one that matters: (deaths)
I do my best not to participate in hyperbole, so I will mention that the deaths are not immediately reported and/or recorded. So, the figures after 7/4 on the chart will go up some for sure over the next weeks as these numbers come in. However, you can see the deaths are dropping almost exactly inversely to the cases! Even if the death rate was remaining the same, the overall number would be rising! (a percentage of a large number is going to be higher than the same percentage of a smaller one)
One last chart. If you are following you have heard how the hospitals are filling up! In some cases they are - but it is NOT necessarily the Covid-19 patients. Hospitals run at over 70% occupied at most times and try to do more. Just like a hotel, they make no money off of empty beds. Covid-19 patients are @8% of the overall load.
Now, Covid-19 is real. Covid-19 is serious. Any deaths are terrible and a severe blow to the families and communities affected. However, there are facts that are being distorted or totally ignored to make the impact seem much more deadly than it is! (I think these charts show this). This is a novel virus. That means that except for some very rare instances people have no immunity to it. The only way for a virus to "go away" or at least for people to achieve some sort of "control" over it is for it to "burn through" the population. You cannot hide from a virus and still go about your life. Social distancing (as it has been presented - out, but 6 ft between people), and masks will not prevent the spread, just slow it.
Experts already have evidence that the numbers infected are from 10 to 20 times higher than the confirmed cases. Even using the lower number that means that over 95% of all infections are asymptomatic or at least mild enough that people continue on and do not seek medical care or a test. Even among the tested @85% of the positives have no symptoms and require no medical intervention. As I just mentioned above, the way to "stop" or at least control the virus's impact is to have it go through the population. Even with a virus like influenza, or almost all others, if they cannot be stopped the effects and spread are mitigated by the antibodies or immune system response by those that have been infected previously or have gotten an effective vaccine.
The shutting down of society and our economy has done and will continue to do more damage than this virus if we don't wake up. Suicides, drug abuse, spousal/partner abuse, severe depression and other psychological effects are already taking a tremendous toll on the population. The entire wealth and income of families are being wiped out as businesses are failing. Students are falling behind in their school work and building of knowledge, not to mention the social aspects of their lives. We have to do better and the news media has to lead the charge.
For the death graph:
For the cases graph:
For the hospital bed occupancy rate chart:
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