The hospitalization curve has been the most useful and reliable curve for spotting trends – and is far more accurate than the daily new positive test cases curve or death curves.

Positive test cases is dependent on how many tests were run – thus at the start of college semesters, for example, the daily positive test case numbers shoot up because of testing all staff and students, biasing the results for a week or two. Second, WHO acknowledged this week that there is a false positive problem when the RT-PCR test is used not as a diagnostic test but to screen mass populations (WHO has revised procedures to address this). Consequently, the daily new cases trend is not a reliable indicator of the direction of the disease.

Deaths are also a surprisingly unreliable indicator. This is because the curves are based on “daily body count reports” which have nothing to do with the actual days of death. First, you can see that no one collates death data on weekends – rather obvious from this chart.

But the larger problem is the daily body count is a measure of data collection efficiency – not actual deaths by date.

To illustrate, in my state, each daily report lists the actual date of death. On a peak day in December, 54 deaths were listed. However, 38 of those occurred the prior months – in fact, that report include deaths occurring across 5 months. In fact, the most deaths to occur in a 24 hour period was 33 on December 9th. Yet 7 “daily body count” reports exceeded 33 as they caught up with past deaths, often long ago.

Continue reading It kinda looks like its ending →

To put it mildly:

Progress has been slow.

Source: Coronavirus vaccine equity group whittles recommendations to about half of Oregonians amid first signs of tension – oregonlive.com

The meeting degenerated into calling other members racist. Ultimately, the group’s recommendations are likely to be ignored as being (a) way too late, (b) unworkable, (c) partially illegal.

It seems likely the pandemic will be over with before we have access to a vaccine anyway. Based on their current directions, 91% of the state will be eligible before me, and it is likely that last 9% will have its own sub-priorities. Thus, looks like I will be the last person in the state eligible to wait in line for a vacation, perhaps by 2023 or 2024 at the pace this is going!

Oregon’s clown show marches on.

The clown show continues: People in other priority groups skipping vaccination line at Salem clinic | kgw.com

Good grief. I noted this last April – over the span of 3 days the public health quacks went from face masks do not work when used by the public to everyone should wear a home made mask, made of random bits of cloth, using unproven random designs and assembled by persons of unknown skill. And this, in spite of overwhelming number of papers finding that N95 masks appear to work, certified surgical masks are helpful, and zero evidence that home made cloth masks reduced the spread of the disease. Zero and is none.

To anyone with a functioning brain cell (which means not public health experts) this was to be expected:

PARIS (Reuters) – The French government is now recommending that people wear surgical masks in public because they offer better protection from COVID-19 transmission than fabric face coverings, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Thursday.

Source: France tells its citizens: Fabric masks not enough to protect from COVID | Reuters

And once again, miraculously this comes out on January 21st, 2021. Beats us as to why all the common knowledge has changed overnight.

The use of ineffective masks is likely what explains this. I have repeatedly asked “experts” for a unified theory to explain this and they do not answer. Now we may know why.

Not sure what this means in a practical sense. As noted several times, my expectation is that once the “elite” of the U.S. are vaccinated, the U.S. will then divert part of our vaccine supply to other nations.

As of today, California says they are tracking to vaccinate all 65+ year olds by June, and then move on to the next prioritized groups (1c) after that. That means 1c starts in summer and Phase 2 after that.

My state’s public health Director said 2 weeks ago that the general public is not likely to be able to wait in line until the Fall of 2021. Based on California’s announcement, that now seems likely. Several official are not pointing out the obvious – logistics. Unless we can vaccinate many millions per day, it will indeed take until the end of the year.

The U.S. has not announced details of what joining Covax means. Does this mean providing funding? Or does it mean the U.S. will divert its doses once the “elite” and “essential” people are vaccinated? We do not know.

“15 days to flatten the curve” was a public health lie. We are now looking at 18-21 months based on their latest updates – although I no longer believe anything they say.

Update

And just like that … a global alliance of well known non-profits says

“Most importantly,” he added, “the Biden administration must lead international efforts to prioritize vaccine distribution for those most at risk, regardless of the country they live in. We urge the administration to implement a human rights-centered approach to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Once the elites are vaccinated in the U.S. the pressure will be intense to move doses destined for the U.S. to other countries, while forcing the rest of us to the back of the line (even when our tax money paid for the development, manufacture and distribution of those vaccines).

Of interest, the richer nations have the highest per capita mortality – thus, if this scheme to prioritize by risk were to be implemented, the vaccines will still go mostly to the richer nations. Watch for creative new definitions of “risk” in order to avoid that.

Well, that didn’t take long. Distribution, say academics, should prioritize by mortality risk, then by socioeconomic factors including gross national income and poverty levels. (All of the authors work in teaching positions or health care positions or high level government positions, which are prioritized for early vaccinations – once the elites are vaccinated they will urge redistribution of vaccines to elsewhere. This is rather obvious.)

You can see where this pressure is going. It will also be tied into the public pressure from the vaccine privileged to get on with life through vaccine passports. In fact, one vaccine passport consortia suggests vaccine passports could be required in some situations – in just a manner of weeks from now.

What I have been saying but you know the routine by now – I am an idiot who knows nothing:

The state is receiving about 300,000 to 500,000 COVID-19 doses each week, a pace that would take months for priority list residents to get vaccinated.

Source: Vaccinating Californians 65 and older may last till June, pushing back timetable for others – Los Angeles Times

My state’s public health Director said that the general public should not expect to be vaccinated until the Fall of 2021.

They acknowledge certified surgical masks are inadequate and will now require use of N95 respirators.

Instructing caregivers in direct patient care roles to use N95 respirators and eye protection throughout their shift while the outbreak is ongoing

Source: St. Charles Redmond reports COVID-19 outbreak; 31 caregivers affected – KTVZ

Remember, a random bit of cloth, using a random mask designed, and assembled by a person of unknown skill is an effective way to stop the spread of Covid-19.

We have no idea why there are these large outbreaks in hospitals by PPE using, face mask wearing health care workers. Droplet spread has to be ruled out. It is a mystery.

(Also refers to recent 90 person outbreak at a Kaiser hospital in San Jose, and a big outbreak at a Providence hospital in the Portland, OR area.)

The findings of the preprint report come shortly after the U.K. recorded another all-time high of coronavirus deaths.

Source: Covid: England’s third lockdown sees ‘no evidence of decline’ in cases

The study was published on January 21, 2021.