COVID: October Surprise

The numbers often tell the story of COVID, a story that often differs widely from what our political leaders, public health experts, and media tell us. There are a few simple and obvious conclusions to draw from the current numbers.

COVID Transmission Rates and Vaccines

First, the numbers tell us vaccines are not stopping the spread of COVID at all. The unvaccinated and the vaccinated are contracting this disease at similar rates.

About 117 million, roughly a third of the U.S. population, live in states with a vax rate of 61% or better, including 8 states with two-third or more of their population vaccinated. Another 133 million live in states with a vax rate between 53% and 61%. Finally, 62 million, about 1/6 of the U.S. population, live in the lowest vax’d states with rates of 52% or below. The chart below speaks for itself (focus on the last column):

Vaccination Rate (fully vax’d)	Total Population	Average Daily COVID Cases (10/30 – 11/05)	Cases per Million people
61%+ (15 states, DC)	117,668,180	23,029	195.71
53-61% (18 states)	133,457,898	32,105	240.56
41-52% (17 states)	62,448,196	11,031	176.64

It doesn’t take someone with a PHD in mathematics to see that the states with the lowest vaccination rates have the fewest incidents of COVID. The differences among the three tiers are not actually very significant, so the real conclusion I draw is that your chances of contracting COVID are just as good if you are vaccinated than if you are unvaccinated (kind of like playing the lottery; your chances of winning are just as good if you buy ticket than if you don’t buy a ticket, so what are you wasting your money for?).

For example, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, with vax rates below 50% are currently among the ten states with the lowest incident rates. Colorado, New Hampshire, Oregon, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, with rates above 60% are in the top fifteen. Granted, the case rates in states go up and down over time, and case rates in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama were high earlier in the year, but the point is that if the vaccination rates were making a difference, we should be able to measure these numbers at any point in time and see a strong correlation between COVID incidents and vaccination rates. There is no correlation between a state’s vaccination rate and it’s COVID case rate. The bottom line is that the rates are going up and down all the time, but there are factors other than vaccination rates that drive the changes.

When I was in elementary school I was taught that a vaccine was to prevent me from contracting a disease: measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, etc. However, this one does not appear to be preventing disease. Maybe this is why the CDC changed its definition of a vaccine just a few months ago.

• CDC’s pre-September 2021 definitions: Vaccine: A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease. Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.
• CDC’s September 2021 definitions: Vaccine: A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. Vaccination: The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease.

It also doesn’t take someone with a PHD to realize why this definition was changed. I’ll give you three multiple choice answers to determine why:

• a) Science
• b) Politics
• c) Seasonal allergies

COVID Death Rates and Vaccines

Although the vaccines are not slowing the spread of COVID, the vaccines are still having an impact in lessening symptoms and preventing death. I analyzed the same three tiers as above and found there is a significant increase in deaths per million as vaccination rates decline. I have done this same analysis multiple times the last six months and the conclusion has always been the same.

Vaccination Rate (fully vax’d)	Total Population	Average Daily COVID Deaths (10/30 – 11/05)	Deaths per Million people
61%+ (15 states, DC)	117,668,180	292	2.48
53-61% (18 states)	133,457,898	386	2.89
41-52% (17 states)	62,448,196	303	4.85

There is a clear correlation here. A state’s vaccination rate is a (relatively) good predictor of its COVID death rate. The two numbers generally move in opposite directions. However, it does appear that as states get to around a 55% vaccination rate, there are diminishing returns. There are already 5 states (Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts) with vax rates above 70% and their death rates are not much better than those of states in the 55-60% range.

Someone should tell the current administration that the vaccines have done about as much good as they are going to do. Maybe getting the rates up in the few states that are lagging behind in vaccinations would make a bit of a difference, but trying to get the nation as a whole to a 70% or more vaccination rate is going to cause far more pain than good.

Also: in the last month or so, the U.S. is now also administering booster shots (recommend by the FDA for those 65 and above), but the numbers are still low, so I have not included them in the analysis.

Overall COVID Rates Continue to Decline

We are well into the cold and flu season, the time of the year when viruses like COVID spread more easily, yet we have not yet seen another COVID spike this late into the Fall. The story of COVID this year is this: COVID peaked in January, declined for the next six months, flared up again during the summer with the introduction of the Delta variant, and has been in decline the last two months plus. This chart tells the story:

Date	Average U.S. COVID Case Rate (7-day moving average)	% change
11-Jan	256,210
1-Feb	148,626	-42
1-Mar	69,010	-53.6
1-Apr	66,903	-3.1
1-May	52,604	-21.4
1-June	17,481	-66.8
1-July	14,211	-18.7
1-Aug	86,238	506.8
1-Sep	166,231	92.8
1-Oct	109,091	-34.4
1-Nov	71,591	-34.4
5-Nov	70,562	-1.4

Notice the case rate fell dramatically just as the vaccination effort was in its earliest stages and yet this summer the rates rose dramatically despite having a large percentage vaccinated. Again, this tells us it is something other than the vaccination rates that are driving cases up and down.

Also, notice the case rate is leveling off, an indication that we may be on the verge of another COVID wave as we head into late Fall and Winter. I don’t want to play the COVID prediction game because it is too unpredictable; I just know that we are beyond the time of the year when rates would normally rise, but they haven’t yet. Last November 5, the U.S. was averaging 100K COVID cases per day and the numbers were rapidly increasing; by last November 15, they were at 150K per day. This November 5, the U.S. is averaging just 70K per day and the numbers are not yet increasing. That’s a bit surprising, but also very good news, a pleasant surprise. Hopefully, we can hold out a little longer and we won’t hit high levels again this Winter. Time for the vaccines to shine and keep us out of another mess.

Also, COVID deaths in the U.S. are currently around 1,000 per day, still a high number, but far less than 3,500 per day peak this past January. Those numbers should continue to decline for the next few weeks since the death numbers lag behind the case numbers.

Vaccine Mandates aren’t Needed and Won’t Help

The most surprising and hopeful sign I’ve found is that people are adapting to COVID. This past weekend, my son competed in the NC state cross country championship. There were more than 1,000 kids competing and a ton of parents and other spectators milling about all day long. There was nary a mask to be found and hardly anyone appeared to care. Our media would have told you six months ago that this was a potential super-spreader event, but they have given up that hollow mantra because nobody will listen to that nonsense anymore. It heartens me to see that people have returned to living their normal lives and have put COVID in the proper perspective–at least they have in my state.

This same event was held in January 2021, the start of the 2020 season having been delayed for two months because of COVID. For last year’s race, the atmosphere was markedly different. Masks were mandatory; spectators were told they had to stay in one designated area and couldn’t mingle with spectators in other cordoned off areas. God forbid you came within 100 feet of any of the kids as they zoomed past you. Who knows what disaster a chance encounter might have set off? Kids had to wear masks to the starting line. They could remove them while running, but they were hectored by coaches and race organizers to put them back on as soon they finished. The whole scheme was ludicrous; I refused to wear a mask and I wandered around the park into non-authorized areas, but noticed that most people complied and appeared afraid to take off the mask. This weekend, it seemed nobody remembered how important all these precautions were just ten months ago. I received no nasty glances for not wearing a mask.

My kids’ high school still has a mask mandate, but there are several other local schools who have lifted this mandate recently. We will keep pushing on our school to quit this silly policy for kids who are the least impacted by COVID. Do you remember last year when playgrounds were closed down because it was just too dangerous to let kids play outside with other kids? I remember vividly the yellow crime scene tape stretched across the swing sets and slides. That silliness too has passed. I remember the Super Bowl this past February and all the empty seats and the poster board people. That too has passed. It goes to show that it takes time, but we can get our leaders to relent if we continue to apply the pressure. We’ve proven that COVID is no worse with playgrounds open and sporting events filled to capacity. Lockdowns and curfews didn’t get us out of this mess, masks didn’t either, vaccines are helping, but are not the ultimate solution. When is the government going to stop meddling?

The CDC still recommends masking indoors and locales like DC and New York still have mask mandates. Interestingly enough, our politicians continue to ignore the rules which they believe don’t apply to privileged folks like themselves. The Bidens were recently caught mask-less in a DC restaurant and NY Governor Hokul who wants to mask pre-K kids ( can’t imagine how that might go awry) was also caught mask-less. More rules for us but not for the privileged class.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/18/maskless-bidens-violate-dcs-indoor-mask-mandate/

https://eminetra.co.uk/new-york-governor-kathy-hokul-attacked-for-maskless-photos-while-making-a-mask-for-a-2-year-old-man/767259/

But now there is a new scheme designed to frighten folks yet again: vaccine mandates. The nation as a whole has already fully vaccinated more than 58% of the population. More than two-thirds of all Americans and 80% of all adults have received at least one dose, yet we need one more government intervention to fix what they couldn’t fully fix the last two years.

As I stated above, we are reaching a point of diminishing returns with vaccines. First of all, the largest group of unvaccinated among us are kids under eighteen. Boosting our vaccination rates among this demographic is not going to move the needle on COVID death rates in the least.

We may be able lower death rates in the lowest vax’d states by vaccinating a few more, but as the highest vax’d states march towards ever higher rates, we are not seeing death rates inch towards zero (with the exception of Florida which I discuss in the last section below). Maine and Vermont have vaccination rates in the 70’s, but even they are still seeing occasional spikes in their death rates. For the last week, Maine and Vermont have higher per capita death rates than Mississippi with its 46% vaccination rate. These are anomalies because overall the correlation holds, but they show that no matter how much we increase the vaccination rate, we are not going to end COVID.

COVID is endemic; we are going to have to live with some low level of COVID deaths and we need to quit pretending that we can end it forever. Humanity throughout all of civilization has managed to eradicate one disease, smallpox. It may be a while yet before we recreate that feat, and we certainly won’t eradicate COVID the way we are going about trying to defeat it.

I mentioned in my last post about the negative impact of vaccine mandates, which far outweigh any positive impact we may obtain from having a few more people vaccinated https://seek-the-truth.com/2021/10/29/youre-fired-because-we-care-so-much-about-you/.

Let’s threaten to fire people in key industries, like medical staff, airline employees, law enforcement, truck drivers, and everyone else who works in a business employing more than 100 people. Can we afford to lose 5 or 10% of our highly skilled people in positions like these? 

A staggering percentage of our military is still unvaccinated. Are we going to let physically fit and highly skilled Seals, Rangers, and Special Forces walk out the door because of this policy? Is our national security to be risked for a few more jabs for people who probably need it the least?

The federal agency I work for appears resigned to losing thousands of employees who refuse to comply with vaccine mandates. They told us this week to plan for the losses and to ask folks to provide knowledge articles and job aids before they are forced out (but, of course, as they constantly tell us, we care so much about our employees, although not enough to stand up for them in this instance). Multiply my agency’s problem by hundreds of government agencies and the impact and decline of government services is far worse than any of the government shutdowns we’ve experienced.

As I also mentioned in the last post, we also have supply chain problems in the economy, government officials are telling us to order for Christmas now, and employers across the country are having difficulty filling jobs or meeting demand, and yet we are threatening the jobs of even more people. How is this going to turn out? On the other hand, the White House Deputy Press Secretary is telling us that vaccine mandates work.

source: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/principal-deputy-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-white-house-press-conference-transcript-november-4

First of all, vaccine requirements work. We have talked about that. We’ve given examples. Like early adopters have seen strong compliance, 99% at United Airlines, 99% at Houston Methodist, 99.5% at Rutgers University. Recently, Tyson’s Food announced that 96% of its workers got vaccinated ahead of its deadline. So the emergency temporary standard is an even playing field across all employers with hundred or more workers. So as to vaccination requirements for federal workers and contractors, we still have weeks to go as I just mentioned, and it’s important to remember the deadline, it’s just, it’s not a cliff.

This makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Fire or force into retirement everyone who is not vaccinated and then claim the mandate is a success because everyone who remains on the job is vaccinated. This week, we also heard from the White House that calling the vaccine mandate a mandate is misinformation, just like everything else they don’t like is “misinformation”. https://nypost.com/2021/11/05/white-house-calling-vaccine-policy-mandate-is-misinformation/

Folks in my organization who may lose their jobs over all this don’t care if it is called a mandate or a requirement. We just believe it is immoral, unjust, unethical, and unconstitutional no matter what you call it (in my next post I will cover more in detail the latest going on inside our own federal agency).

Another of our government so-called experts, CDC Directory Wallensky, damaged her credibility (yet again!) when she couldn’t answer how many in her own organization have been vaccinated. Perhaps, she is angling for the CDC to be exempted like Congress and their staffs already are. https://patriotalerts.com/2021/11/cdc-director-walensky-stumbles-when-asked-how-many-cdc-employees-are-vaccinated/

Why does anyone listen or trust the folks in charge these days? They lie, dissemble, mislead, and continue to ignore the science. Is our government going to solve any COVID problems with this miserable assortment of misfits leading the response?

Treatments Do Help

I have talked quite extensively about the value of COVID treatments and the lack of serious attention paid to them by our government officials. I will go into this even more in an interview with Dr. Pierre Kory in my next post. There are so many questions to be asked as to why more has not been done to promote early treatments. Joe Biden actually highlighted the positive impact of one early treatment, monoclonal antibodies, during his September speech to the nation on COVID, but since then Biden, Fauci, Wallensky, and the rest of our public health establishment have ignored COVID treatments.

I wonder if Biden spoke about monoclonal antibodies only as a means for regulating them and limiting the supply? Why has the administration ignored them since then?

I wonder too if Dr. Fauci will finally support early treatments when new medications from Big Pharma receive patents? Will he tout their new products as better than the less profitable, but equally effective, treatments we currently have? We already have hints from Pfizer and Merck of such a drug on the horizon. Is Dr. Fauci downplaying the impact of the current (non-profitable) early treatments to buy the drug companies time to come up with their new miracle drug that will make them billions? I don’t know, but his behavior is suspect. This next clip is less than a minute. Please listen to this and ask yourself: what shenanigans are going on here? Is our government, in conjunction with our one-channel media, downplaying early treatments in favor of vaccines and new soon-to-be-patented, ever-so-profitable medicines? All this has been hidden in plain sight, but it is shocking to hear: https://grabien.com/file.php?id=1357833

The one state that has been outspoken in pushing monoclonal antibodies as an early treatment is Florida. It is another shocker to see how they have reduced their death rate since making this announcement in mid-August.

What a beautiful and remarkable graph! COVID deaths in Florida were at 389 per day on September 1. As of November 5, they are at 4 per day. Can I get a witness? Delaware, a state with 5% of the population of Florida, has the exact same death rate of 4 per day (and the exact same vaccination rate of 60%). How is that? Can someone please ask Dr. Fauci and Dr. Wallensky to comment on this? The fact that they continue to ignore this remarkable result when such success could be replicated across the nation is criminal. The fact that our media also ignores Florida when anything positive occurs while trumpeting even the slightest negative news regarding Florida and DeSantis from the rooftops is also criminal.

Florida is a state of more than 21 million with just 4 deaths a day from COVID! If this could be replicated throughout the nation as a whole, we would have a nationwide daily COVID death of just 64 per day rather than the current rate of more than 1,000 per day. How many lives could we save? How many lives have been sacrificed already? Why are so many silent regarding this?