I saw this on social media. It dates back at least to April of 2020 but is just as relevant now.
Surge in good news as study shows decline in graphs
Ouch: “People Have Stopped Going to the Doctor. Most Seem Just Fine”
Do Americans really need the amount of treatment that our health care system is used to providing?
….
Despite the complexity of disease today, ailments sometimes do get better by themselves. And in some cases, scheduled surgeries weren’t necessary in the first place.
Source: People have stopped going to the doctor. Most seem just fine.– The New York Times
It might also be too early to know the consequences.
Four separate doctors told me, using nearly identical wording: “Time heals most things, in spite of, not because of, what we inflict on our patients”. Unfortunately, there is no great algorithm to optimally determine when we need to visit a health care provider. While some visits per person per year went up in decades in the past, the US Census thinks they went down by 2010.
Retail sales set to explode
There will be growth but on the other hand, much retail has done fine so far. The services area, like restaurants, hotels, airlines and everything travel related has huge upside in 2H of 2021.
Retail sales are expected to grow in 2021 between 6.5% and 8.2%, amounting to more than $4.33 trillion, the National Retail Federation said Wednesday.
Source: U.S. retail sales to rise 6.5% to 8.2% in 2021, National Retail Federation says
U.S. could reach herd immunity by late spring –
Yet another crack forms in the epidemiological psy-ops terror campaign:
Based on the number of vaccinations that have already been administered, as well as findings from a recent study by Columbia University, Judd estimates the nation may reach herd immunity by May. The study by Columbia suggests that, as of the end of January, more than a third of the U.S. population had already been infected with coronavirus.
Source: U.S. could reach herd immunity by late spring – News | UAB
It seems our mitigation steps, at best, prolonged the disaster:
After factoring in vaccination data, Gottlieb estimated about 40% of U.S. residents right now have antibodies from prior infection or inoculation — a percentage that will rise as more people are vaccinated.
In December, a brain injured idiot wrote about this.
What does it say about the field of epidemiology when non-experts (brain injured idiots, no less) mentioned these things much earlier?
Oregon “experts” say end of 2021 before returning to normal life
Or, may be we get lucky and that moves to early fall. For now, the “experts” say the state is on track to return to normal near the end of 2021.
I think that means no events, festivals, getting together with our own families.
That 15-days to flatten the curve meme from the spring of 2020 was one hell of a lie. 15-days has become 21 months.
Source: Getting back to ‘normal’ in Oregon means getting to COVID-19 herd immunity – OPB
The “experts” year long psychological terror operation has caused widespread harm and had little effect on the pandemic. An estimated 30 to 40% of the population may have already been exposed to the disease in spite of, not because of, their mitigation measures. Yet they insist their measures worked. I am a brain injured idiot and I cannot make logical sense of their arguments.
Hyundai to replace battery packs in 82,000 EVs
After many EVs caught fire, a defect was identified inside the individual battery cells. The company will not replace the entire battery packs in their EVs made between Nov 2017 and March 2020.
Source: Hyundai Announces Massive Battery Recall For Roughly 82,000 BEVs
From an environmental standpoint, this large recall likely negates environmental gains from all EV sales. Yuck.
The immediate need for 82,000 new battery packs in an industry currently constrained by battery supply will hinder sales of many EVs for some time. Literally, this is 2 1/2 years production from a single large EV manufacturer (Hyundai).
Meanwhile, GM indicates they will have a fix for the Chevy Bolt EV fires in earlier models. They indicate a software update will be able to detect future battery problems, alert the driver, and then repair or replace the battery bank before it catches fire. The underlying problem on the Chevy Bolt is not the same as that on the Hyundai cars although both resulted in fires.
That was fast: Vermont launches vaccine privilege “passport”
Visitors to Vermont are required to self quarantine for 14-days upon arrival BUT – if you have vaccine privilege you need not quarantine.
CAN I COME TO VERMONT?
If you are fully vaccinated (it has been 14 days since your final vaccine dose), you may travel to Vermont without quarantine. Anyone else traveling to Vermont must quarantine.
….
To help slow the spread of COVID-19 in Vermont, you may not gather with anyone you don’t live with, unless you are fully vaccinated
https://www.healthvermont.gov/covid-19/travel-quarantine/visitors-vermont
For everyone else:
- 14-day quarantine
- If you visit any other household in the state, you should get Covid-19 tested (at your expense) at 2 days, and then again at 7-days.
Vaccine privilege is now live for domestic travel and visits in the United States.
Those without vaccine privilege are designated as second class citizens. Wonder if they will require those without vaccine privilege to wear an emblem on their arm sleeve? One County in the U.S. tried to do this in the spring of 2020.
And now they say globalization does not work
I’m so old, I remember a year ago when global supply chains were the future.
During the pandemic, the U.S. couldn’t import enough gloves. Recently, car makers ran out of semiconductors. So the White House wants to find ways to make more critical items in the United States.
Source: Biden To Sign Order Seeking Homegrown Fixes For Shortfalls Of Foreign-Made Items : NPR
Interesting: Cuba might offer home grown vaccine to tourists
Interesting idea – using vaccine opportunity as a tourism incentive. Good for their economy. Soberana 02: Cuba’s Covid vaccine could be made eligible for tourists
The purpose of “Covid-19” bail out package is to raise taxes?
“Stimulus checks” are the government borrowing from your future taxes to give you money now. It is not really free money:
For more than a decade, progressives have tried and failed to impose a financial transaction tax. But there is new momentum for such a levy as the national debt skyrockets during the pandemic and in the wake of the GameStop trading frenzy that shined a bright light on market structure concerns.
The White House told CNN Business on Sunday that a financial transaction tax on GameStop-like trading deserves additional study and can be part of a greater evaluation of such a tax for revenue and market stability. The leading proposal amounts to a $1 tax on every $1,000 of transactions.
Source: GameStop fiasco helps build momentum for a stock-trading tax — and Wall Street is furious – CNN
Traders already pay taxes on capital gains – they are hardly tax free today.
There will be more such tax proposals and they will get to all of us eventually.