I & I Editorial BoardI&I Editorial
The media and many politicians inside the Democratic Party continue to shriek over the recent jump in the number of recorded coronavirus cases, seeking to keep the economy closed at all costs — and we mean that literally. Don’t fall for the argument. The data show that, in fact, our pandemic nightmare might well be coming to an end.
OK, you say, Issues & Insights, how can you say such a thing with so little to back it up?
Well, firstly, it’s not actually us saying this. It’s the Centers for Disease Control, which reported that the death rate has fallen so far it’s now roughly equal to the threshold for even qualifying as an epidemic, which isn’t as severe as a pandemic.
“Based on death certificate data, the percentage of (total U.S.) deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 9% during week 25 to 5.9% during week 26,” the CDC noted, adding that this was the 10th-straight week of declining deaths.
While the “percentage is currently at the epidemic threshold,” additional data in coming weeks could change that, says the CDC.
As a piece on the informative Just The News web site explains, “That threshold for (deaths per week for) pneumonia, influenza and COVID-19 fluctuates slightly depending on the time of year, ranging from around 7% at the height of flu season to around 5% during less virulent months.”
So the decline to 5.9% is truly great news, if the trend holds. We’ve reported this decline in COVID-19’s raw death rate before, by the way. The current CDC data compare favorably to the 5.7% average rate for the final 13 weeks of 2019.
And yet, here are some of the headlines we’ve read in just the past couple days in the Big Media:
“As Trump gaslights America about coronavirus, Republicans face a critical choice ” — CNN
“Despite Rising Coronavirus Cases, Trump’s Focus Appears To Be Elsewhere” — NPR
“The Economy Is Not Going Back to Normal” — Slate
“Coronavirus: FDA chief refuses to back Trump’s vaccine prediction” — BBC
“U.S. is still ‘knee-deep’ in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci says” — CNN
“How America Lost the War on Covid-19” — New York Times
You get the idea? Not a hint of optimism, just relentless pessimism about COVID-19, politicized to the Nth degree to make Donald Trump look like a fool or sociopath.
And this is just a handful of examples which underscore that the media, with few exceptions steeped in hatred of all things Trump, have never been more negligent in performing their basic duty to inform their readers about COVID-19. And they’ve never been more politicized or biased.
We hope Americans remember this as the Trump-hating press continues its suicidal shift toward the far left of the political spectrum. To any serious consumer of fact-based news, our Big Media sadly have lost all credibility.
As far as coronavirus is concerned, it’s true that total cases continue to rise. But that’s a function of vastly increased testing, not of surging actual cases, as we’ve noted before.
It’s likely that the only real increase in cases in recent weeks has come from the largely unprotected masses of youngish people taking part in the George Floyd demonstrations, which began in late May and continued through June and into July.
This can be seen in the fact that new cases lean more heavily now toward the young, rather than the old, a strong sign that the youth-dominated demonstrations boosted infections. Not surprisingly, the media now blame Trump for this.
While we’re at it, we’d like to remind you that these are the same “peaceful demonstrators” who have trashed cities across the country for weeks. Just last weekend two people were killed at protests, which “progressive” Democrats supported and defended. Particularly tragic was the death of Secoreia Turner, an 8-year-old African American girl shot by anti-police demonstrators in Atlanta.
Yet, even while encouraging riots and violent demonstrations, irresponsible Democratic politicians have ordered average Americans to remain locked down in their homes and forced many businesses to stay closed, doing massive damage to the U.S. economy.
Why do this? COVID-19 is another tool for the left to gain social, economic and political control.
“It was never about the virus but instead the election,” Brian C. Joondeph, a medical doctor practicing in Denver, recently wrote at the American Thinker. “The so-called surge in cases is more fake news pushed by media cheerleaders eager to destroy the U.S. economy and culture if it makes Trump a one-term president.”
As we noted, the really major development is the continued decline in deaths. The virus’ spread is still “an epidemic to be sure, but an entirely manageable one,” as the PowerLine blog described it this week. We agree.
In the next few weeks, we’ll see whether the outbreak is truly finished. In the meantime, the political fear stampede over “soaring new coronarvirus cases” has to end. And when it does, we hope Americans call the left to account for its attempt to use a pandemic to destroy our republic.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Armando Simón
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Of course the virus is coming to an end. But the Democrats and media will keep shoveling heaps of BS on us until November. They NEED a resurgence to ruin Trump’s economy but more importantly, to ensure a vote-by-mail election. Then it’s all over for America…starting with the death of the Constitution.
Independents will be the main body of swing voters to effect the election. Whichever way they vote will indicate their susceptibility to the info/disinfo war being waged. Although individuals will find anonymity behind the veil of a secret ballot, a gauge of their influence as a voting bloc will be readily apparent.
Yeah, Trump and Senate and House Republicans are going to get slaughtered 18 weeks from today, but keep spewing your “it’s no big deal” propaganda right until the bitter end.
Well the data speaks for itself. Maybe you need someone to translate it for you?
If you did a physical audit of all Covid deaths you would find about only 20% were actually due to the virus itself. Takeaway the nursing home and long term care deaths…which is a borderline criminal act….and you have a IFR of a bad flu….maybe.
One issue nobody seems to want to talk about was the improper use of ventilators. If you went on a ventilator almost 80% died. Most were not in a critical condition when placed on a ventilator….it basically killed them.
Jack Johnson, please explain about the ventilator comment. Are you saying the only time one should go on one is when the patient is critical?
i want hydroxychloroquine
Very biased and misleading article. It’s sad seeing articles like this knowing that it’ll cause more people to needlessly die, and hurt the economy by drawing out the pandemic even longer. But whatever gets you that ad revenue I guess.
In what way is the article biased? Looking at death rates is a perfectly legitimate way to see if COVID is getting better or worse.
What will draw out the pandemic is keeping people from being infected so that we can achieve herd immunity. (Though the other component of this approach is protecting at-risk groups like the elderly.) The Swedes are doing this and getting on just fine. Belarus took virtually NO measures and their deaths per million is 47 compared to 406 in America. This is a single-stranded RNA virus, and though more contagious than flu, it is proving to be no more deadly, as Stanford’s recent antibody study confirmed.
Democrats are awful
George Floyd died on March 25. The riots, looting and “peaceful” protests began a couple days after. So they’ve been at it for 6 weeks now, with a virus that has a 2-14 day incubation period and up to about 2 weeks to resolve (death or recovery). So we are now at least 2 weeks past the so-called “death is a lagging indicator” period. If it was going to happen we would already have been seeing it for at least the past two weeks. Yet deaths are continuing to decline significantly.
Scamdemic is over, people. The cries of “lagging indicator” are well past their use-by date.
The reason the deaths are going down is because it’s now summer and the flu goes dormant. A large percentage of those ‘COVID deaths’ were actually the flu. Notice they’re now actually reporting COVID/Flu combined? What a great way to make sure the number stays higher! Every year the CDC puclishes it =guesses= about how many people died from the flu or ‘other respiratory issues’. They have no f’ing idea how many people actually die from what, and so their figures are sel-admittedly based on ‘models’. They’re range for deaths in 2019 30-60 K. A range that big means they have no idea.
And what are the scientific/medical qualifications of the anonymous editors who wrote this?
Refer to the “About Us” page to read about the I&I team. The editors are not anonymous. I am going to posit that the scientific/medical expertise that you question is on par with the average NYT reporter. The analysis presented herein is one from an economics/analytics perspective and never claims to offer brilliant medical insight. That said, data-driven analysis points to the conclusion that the crisis period is over. Even the CDC is reporting that the death rate has fallen so far it’s now barely at the threshold for even qualifying as an epidemic, a step below a pandemic.
Nothing is said in this article about the surge in hospitalization rates. Hospitals in Texas, Arizona etc are out of beds the healthcare system is screaming for people to take this seriously and yes they have learned what works and are getting better at saving people but when there are no more beds available the death rates go up. Many people are dying everyday and hospitals cannot keep up. This is not a Democrat lie, it is a fact. You might think it is OK to over run your healthcare system and have people die needlessly. But if the healthcare workers are figuring out ways to save them then just keep spreading it because the death rate is better? This virus has lasting affects and in some cases comes back. How you can make a pandemic political says a lot about you.
Thanks for the note. We would only say that the “surge” in hospitalization rates is largely due to deferred surgery and other care that went by the wayside during the first two months of the pandemic. That includes tumors, hernias, chronic injuries, and other things deemed “elective.” Fewer people are dying by the day, largely because the virus appears to be petering out. If that doesn’t pan out, then policies should change, including the ones that encouraged mass protests in city streets that no doubt led to higher infection rates. By the way, the number of tests is soaring, so the number of people “contracting” the disease naturally has too. Meanwhile, please remember that New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts account for more than 40% of all the deaths, but just 10% of the population, largely due to poor public policies that needlessly endangered people — mainly, elderly in nursing homes. Subtract those three states from the totals, and the rest of us are doing pretty well.