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Staying Home Does Not Save Lives

We are doing all of this for nothing. Seriously.

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ASTORIA, New York- I’m trying to play nice and just sit in my NYC apartment and finish up a book so that when this quarantine is over I’ll be ready to roll. I’m trying to make this into a good thing. I try to ignore the fearmongering MSM and I attempt to reports from “experts” with agendas. I do my best to avoid the moral mob on Twitter who are bullying people who express takes on the pandemic that are different than their own. I try not to react when I see the damage that’s being done by the lockdown far exceeding that of the virus itself … a virus that, according to Stanford University, is proving to not really be any more deadly than the seasonal flu.

But then I start writing … because that’s just what I do.

When we first began this lockdown in New York City it was touted to be for the purpose of giving the medical system time to prepare. That made sense — we’d shut down for a week or two and allow our hospitals to prepare. But then two weeks became a month. Then a month became two months … which became three months.

Meanwhile, hospitals were never overburdened, there were more than enough ICU beds, and more than enough ventilators. At the height of the crisis in NYC, thousands of ventilators were sitting unused in a warehouse. Some weeks ago Washington State, who had the most cases early on in the crisis, has returned 400 non-Covid-19 ventilators to the national stockpile as they were no longer needed. Covid-19 wards and emergency rooms in hospitals all over the country are reportedly sitting half-empty and doctors, nurses, and other medical staff are being laid off. Some hospitals are actually shutting down.

These are all ultimately good things. We engaged in draconian lockdown measures to buy ourselves time to organize and prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic, and it worked. The USA has WAY more ICU beds and ventilators per capita than any other country on the planet (3x that of Italy). We got this. Now let us get back to our lives.

But they said no.

And then they shifted the narrative.

I am not alone in stating that I am unwilling to sit inside for a year or two on the hope that some pharmaceutical company is going to produce a miracle.

All of a sudden we’re no longer being told to stay home so that the hospitals don’t get overburdened but to avoid transmitting the virus altogether. It’s as though we believe that if we tuck ourselves away in our rooms long enough with our blankets over our heads that the virus will magically just go away. But it doesn’t work like this. According to pretty much any epidemiologist there’s only three ways out of this:

1) We find a cure. This would probably mean new drugs, which means that it will take a long time.

2) We develop a vaccine. Scientists have been trying to come up with a vaccine for coronaviruses since the before first SARS outbreak in 2002. They haven’t been successful yet — and some have actually killed people — and, while over 90 vaccines are being rushed into developement around the world, we may have to conclude that an effective vaccine may never be available. But even if one is, the amount of time to get it approved and out to market is going to take more time than we can lockdown for.

3) We acquire herd immunity, which means that roughly 60% of the population acquires the infection and recovers, thus giving them a certain degree of protection from it and the ability to limit its transmission.

I am not alone in stating that I am unwilling to sit inside for a year or two on the hope that some pharmaceutical company is going to produce a miracle. It seems as if #3 is our only option.

Hiding inside your home doesn’t make a coronavirus outbreak go away. Whenever we re-emerge, Covid-19 will inevitably be there. The question is how long do we want this to last?

According to most epidemiologists, social distancing does not lower the number of cases, it just spreads them out over a longer period of time to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. When we say “stay home, save a life” what we mean is “stay home and reduce social contact so as not to send too many people to the hospital at once.” The lives that are saved are the ones that would have access to medical care who theoretically wouldn’t otherwise. But now that we’ve clearly seen that our hospitals in the USA are more than equipped to handle this pandemic, it’s not clear to me whose lives are being saved by staying home.

Read more: Covid-19 Isn’t The Black Death But From The Way We’re Acting It May As Well Be

Regardless if we re-open tomorrow or six months from now, there is going to be a resurgence in cases. We’re not looking at a situation where we can say, “If we just wait a little longer nobody will die from this.” Hiding inside your home doesn’t make a coronavirus outbreak go away. Whenever we re-emerge, Covid-19 will inevitably be there. The question is how long do we want this to last?

We took draconian action to curb the spread of a virus and harmed way more people than the virus ever could.

In the USA, most states made a decision to lockdown, destroying local businesses and livelihoods, violating the constitutional rights of its residents, mortgaging all of our futures. Governors said things about how their states were “paused,” denying millions their right to earn a living but oddly still permitting landlords to collect their dues. It was a scorched earth policy that put a virus that impacts a relatively small portion of the population above everything else.

In this fray, nobody gave a shit about the people living in discomfort or potentially dying for want of surgeries that they cannot receive because hospitals were ordered to make more room for Covid-19 patients. Nobody gave a shit about all of the people who will die sooner as a result of not being able to be properly screened for cancer or have tumors biopsied (we have already created a catastrophic cancer crisis due to all resources pivoting to Covid-19). Nobody gave a shit about the mentally ill, the physically handicap, the drug addicts, the homeless, or the poor who struggle to pay rent even in the best of times. Nobody gave a shit about all of the additional heart attacks, suicides, victims of domestic violence, families torn apart by divorce, and mass unemployment that a one size fits all lockdown would bring.

While we vilified millennials for going on spring break here in the USA, Sweden turned them into viral shields.

At that time it wasn’t completely clear how many people Covid was going to kill, but we knew very well that for every one percentage point that unemployment increases 37,000 people die, we knew that isolation, fear, and stress can compromise the immune system and lead to premature death, and since the 1800s we’ve known that a lack of sunlight increases our susceptibility to viral infections. We took draconian action to curb the spread of a virus and harmed way more people than the virus ever could.

Think about that for a moment: more people are going to die because of the lockdown than Covid-19. Your fathers, mothers, and grandparents are not receiving the medical care that they need because we’ve been brainwashed by coronavirus hysteria. The fallout from this will be magnitudes worse than anything this virus can do. Hospitals will be backed up for years and our loved ones will suffer tomorrow because of our stupidity today.

Meanwhile, Sweden took another route. They looked at the situation, did their own math, and decided not to play follow the leader — or, in this case, follow China (since when does Beijing inform how we do things in the West?). They came to terms with the reality that locking everyone down and tanking their economy would be more of a health threat than the virus itself and enacted a strategy to shelter and protect at risk individuals while allowing the virus to rapidly spread through the strong and healthy sects of their society.

While we vilified millennials for going on spring break here in the USA, Sweden turned them into viral shields. Perhaps we should have been applauding the young people on the beaches of Florida doing jello shots off each other’s stomachs rather than attacking them. They were spreading the virus fast and subsequently developing the immunities, rapidly moving us closer to the herd immunity that we inevitably need for everybody to be able to go out into society safely.

And it wasn’t as if Sweden was especially equipped to deal with a crisis like this, as the country has the second-lowest number of ICU beds per capita in Europe and six times less ICU beds per capita than the USA.

As of now, a little over 2,500 people have died of Covid-19 in Sweden, which is significantly higher than in other Scandinavian countries who chose to lockdown. However, we cannot yet make a like-for-like comparison, as Sweden opted to sprint through a pandemic that its neighbors decided to wallow in. While Norway, Finland, and Denmark have a fight ahead of them that’s going to last for months, if not years, Stockholm is mere weeks away from herd immunity:

“In major parts of Sweden, around Stockholm, we have reached a plateau (in new cases), and we already see the effect of herd immunity, and in a few weeks, we’ll see even more of the effects of that. And in the rest of the country, the situation is stable,” Dr. Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency, said in a statement.

In the end, the per-capital number of Covid-19 deaths in all of Scandinavia will more or less equal out, regardless of strategy, but Sweden’s economy will remain in-tact and the country won’t experience the collateral damage of lockdown-related illnesses and fatalities.

Most of us didn’t even know we had it because Covid-19 isn’t nearly the deadly disease that it was touted to be. Standford University’s recent antibody study showed that the actual infection fatality rate of Covid-19 is between 0.1 an 0.2%. That’s in the ballpark of the death rate of the seasonal flu.

While China claimed an early victory over Covid-19, they are now dealing with fresh outbreaks — such as the one that happened last month in Guangzhou and the one that is happening right now in Manzhouli — and will be long into the future. Their extreme lockdown methods didn’t allow the virus to adequately spread, and now most of the population is still susceptible. Don’t be fooled, China’s fight has just begun.

The countries that will emerge as the true early victors of this pandemic will be those like Sweden and Belarus, who didn’t lockdown and are getting close to being finished with the crisis. They will be able to maintain open borders without fear, their tourism industries can full function, and people can hang out and socialize with each other without hesitation. They will emerge from this mess far ahead of most of the planet who will eventually come to similar conclusions and concede to a herd immunity strategy … but only after the damage of this short-sighted, foolish lockdown has already been wrought.

However, I am hopeful that the USA is farther along than we think. We discovered from antibody tests that around 25% of the people in NYC have already been infected with Covid-19. That’s around two million people in this city alone who had it and have fully recovered and now have some degree of immunity. Most of us didn’t even know we had it.

Most of us didn’t even know we had it because Covid-19 isn’t nearly the deadly disease that it was touted to be. Standford University’s recent antibody study showed that the actual infection fatality rate of Covid-19 is between 0.1 an 0.2%. That’s in the ballpark of the death rate of the seasonal flu. What’s more is that in NYC the death rate for people between the ages of 18 and 45 who get infected is one in 10,000. For those under 18, the death rate is a statistical 0. If we dig deeper we will find that out of the 6,570 confirmed Covid-19 deaths in NYC that had been properly investigated, 99.2% had an underlying illness. This isn’t an illness that’s wiping out large amounts of young, healthy people.

However, it is an illness that is dangerous for the elderly, with people over 60 years old having a 4.25% infection fatality rate. Sweden realized this and took a targeted approach, understanding that isolating those who are at risk and allowing everybody else to rapidly spread and recover from the virus was key to actually protect vulnerable populations. We don’t get this concept in the USA. Instead, we purposefully stave off the natural process of herd immunity to the detriment of those who are vulnerable to this infection.

We are not saving lives here, we are risking them.

Filed under: Epidemics, New York City

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3694 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

Support VBJ’s writing on this blog:

VBJ is currently in: New York City

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  • Sarah BB May 5, 2020, 2:11 pm

    A temporary lock down I could understand and live with, draconic social distancing measures being in place for 6-18 months is just insane. Many of my favourite bars around the world can’t afford to reopen with the crazy restrictions currently being touted in countries like my own, overnight people have lost their livelihoods and businesses. The ‘new normal’ we’re being sold sucks. I’m definitely not going to live in a country where I can’t sit at the bar and have a drink for over a year. Fuck that.

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    • Trevor Warman May 6, 2020, 12:52 am

      Yeah Fuck that! @Sarah

      Am undecided about the right or wrong way to deal with it.
      But Wade et al, UK with their laisefaire attitude to get some sort of lockdown under way has a massive number of deaths.. did they start developing immunity?

      May be i had it too. I’ve had a lot of headaches since ive been here. Could have been too much sun. Or the electric mozzie killer in my room. I never get headaches.

      Am interested in the comparison to the fatality rates from HIV or Malaria etc etc.

      Here in Kenya, life carries on but with travel restrictions where as Uganda and Rwanda are on total lockdown. Here they are keeping the economy going for the sack of the peeps. They have re opened the flower farms here as the flower places in Europe re open. We can start exporting more. ;)) i say “we” .. well if the Uganda border remains shut i may have to shack up with an African beauty.
      @MRP is your mum ok? My dads 80. Bored at home!!

      Personally i think it could be 1000x worse. I am safe. Can go into town. Its cheap. 12 bucks a day to live. But other than being ‘stuck’ there is no view here. I miss gazing at the mountains. Well if they lift the travel ban will go to the coast for a change of scenery, and go somewhere where i can gaze at Kilimanjaro..

      Im mostly rambling here. Lol

      We all need to meet up at some point. !!!

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      • Sarah BB May 6, 2020, 1:19 am

        The UK clearly started out on a herd immunity strategy but then chickened out as couldn’t level with the public on what that actually entailed.

        Like all stunts Johnson/Cummings do, it’s all smoke and mirrors and bull shit. I’d have more respect for them if they could actually make bold decisions, even when I don’t like them, but be honest on the risks/outcomes and treat us like grown ups and allow us to make informed choices. It’s Brexit all over again. Sweden rolled the dice but was honest about what that meant and residents could chose to respond accordingly depending on their personal circumstances and attitude to risk.

        We’ve ended up with a herd immunity strategy by stealth, no significant track and trace strategy until far too late (which if you’re going for herd immunity I’d think you’d need) and we’ve frightened the life out of the general public and left us with stupid unworkable social distancing rules in place for potentially over a year destroying the hospitality sector and many other small businesses that can’t work to these guidelines. All that plus the highest death toll in Europe, so the worst all of worlds. I’m so over the UK if you haven’t guessed. Not going back if I can help it until I can sit at a bar and get a decent drink. Rant over.

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        • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:15 pm

          Right on, they totally got the worst of both strategies without the benefits by switching mid-way through the game. If anything good comes of this it should be an eroded trust in government and the mainstream media … although I think this was already eroded down to almost nothing even before this.

          It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when pockets of people begin rebelling against these restrictions. A bar in Maine in the USA has already done this and they are receiving nationwide support. I imagine more and more will follow suit the longer this goes on.

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      • MRP May 6, 2020, 11:34 am

        @ Trevor. Mum’s fine. My typing wasn’t clear; she’s old – but hasn’t contracted CV. And now, apparently, New Zealand has eradicated new CV infections. However
        many Kiwis say to me that the whole lockdown approach has been overkill.

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      • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:10 pm

        It sounds like everything is still going well for you there. Excellent. It seems as if it doesn’t spread as much in hot weather climates. As we develop more and more immunities this should fizzle out soon. However, rationale thought and decisions based on data hasn’t really been our M.O. with this pandemic.

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    • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 10:08 am

      Yes, if this was a situation where they asked us to give them couple weeks to get things straight that’s fine. But to carry this out for month after month is pretty disgusting — especially when the virus doesn’t really impact most people. Hopes and dreams and feelings of security have all been dashed so evil little men The ‘new normal’ is the ability for governments all over the world to do whatever they want with their populations without any sort of public discourse or vote while our mainstream medias grease the gears with an endless supply of fear. I think I read a bad novel about this once …

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      • Sarah BB May 6, 2020, 10:35 am

        Yeah this story has been told before and think we all know where it ends.

        I’m listening to Spanish radio atm where the autonomous regions are pushing back against what they see an abuse of the crisis to introduce what amounts to a constitutional dictatorship and demanding more local autonomy to relax lock down based on the local situation rather than it be centrally dictated – this is not a one size fits all situation. If Andalucia gets its way, beaches, and most importantly for me (sorry always bring it back to booze) the beach bars – chiringuitos – will be open by the time I get home, outdoor events will start again this summer and life can start to go on.

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        • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:25 pm

          It’s going to be interesting to watch the stresses that this puts on places like Spain who already have regions wanting to break away from Madrid. Our maps may get some changes out of this …

          Hopefully, they open up soon. What’s the point of a beach if you can’t drink beer on it?

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  • Lawrence May 5, 2020, 4:17 pm

    Where my family lives they shut all the mom and pop stores and kept Wal-Mart open. How is that not unfair competition? This whole thing is a massive gift to big business. Instead of enjoying the satisfaction of creating and establishing your own business, you are going end up working double shifts at Amazon.

    Everything you said in the article is spot on. The narrative has completely shifted and I really believe people are making decisions because :

    A) They have a vested interest in maintaining the narrative they’ve created
    B) Whatever Trump does I have to do the same or the exact opposite

    Instead of laying out logical arguments (like you’ve just done) it is just the “politics of scolding.” You are selfish or an asshole for wanting to work, not wanting a tracking app on your phone, or just simply wanting to live your life and not be afraid.

    I am hoping we get past this, but this whole thing is a new religion to many people. Emerge from you cocoon into a ‘new normal’ and purify yourself by washing your hands and covering yourself. Giorgio Agamben wrote a great essay called “Medicine as Religion” and is worth a read. COVID zealots.

    Although, if I am being honest, this lockdown has been great for me personally. Saved a bunch of cash and found a cheap place to live. I feel sorry for everybody stuck in limbo and I am not so sure the economy is just going to magically start back up in six months. Hopefully I am wrong, but this rocky road may just be getting started.

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    • Bob L May 6, 2020, 11:20 am

      I love this. “B) Whatever Trump does I have to do the same or the exact opposite” In one sentence you described the political and personal world as it currently is.
      The world, or at least the media driven US world, has become binary. I used to try to discuss actual (or probably) facts with people I know on both sides. For my own mental health I have decided to stop doing this.

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    • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 11:48 am

      Instead of laying out logical arguments (like you’ve just done) it is just the “politics of scolding.” You are selfish or an asshole for wanting to work, not wanting a tracking app on your phone, or just simply wanting to live your life and not be afraid.

      I am hoping we get past this, but this whole thing is a new religion to many people. Emerge from you cocoon into a ‘new normal’ and purify yourself by washing your hands and covering yourself. Giorgio Agamben wrote a great essay called “Medicine as Religion” and is worth a read. COVID zealots.

      It is very interesting how Covid-19 and outrage culture has intersected. This is exactly what those fascist pricks love — the opportunity to show themselves as morally superior and to impose their restrictions on society in the name of helping people. They are the new right. The liberals are making the conservatives appear progressive. What kind of upside down world has this become?

      Excellent that you’re making the most of it!

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  • MRP May 5, 2020, 9:48 pm

    Hi Wade.

    Right on! I’ve been expressing similar sentiments (privately via email, especially to family in NZ) since the lock-down begun here in China. And as we all now know, it’s a highly-contagious flu that – mostly – enjoys taking-down oldies (my Mum), and those already suffering.

    NOW: Just as I’m writing this in the van looking to a meadow below sharp snowy peaks – a police car has pulled over … They check our papers, we joke around, and they leave without issue.

    Anyway, back to this article.

    People seem to forget / remain in ignorance that hunger, the shits, malaria, cancer, conflict, etc, claim way more than the CV will each year. The WHO estimates something like 350,000 to 650,000 die globally each year from the flu, and that a billion are infected.

    But, this is not to say that it won’t mutate into something more deadly? (Then the panic, really begins!)

    Global economic wreckage – now, that has a good ring about it 😉

    Here in China, along with ubiquitous CCTV everywhere, wherever you go – public toilets, supermarkets, an entrance to an ancient town, etc, you must scan-in with your mobile. Basically, this is ushering a complete Big Brother system, faster.

    And all this – health – monitoring across the world … What next?

    National crypto-currencies imposed – cos paper money is deemed dirty; infectious. Digital health–status passports. Online-lottery, safe tourism zones. Conspiracy-theorists might start getting excited.

    Over the past months CV headlines have the dominated media – on BBC it was 10/10 for ‘most read’ or ‘latest’ articles. Sometimes on the front-page that was all the news was: C-fuckin’-V.

    So many spammy, dickhead articles like: How to manage stress during CV; best diet during CV; how to to tie your shoe-laces during CV (- actually, I made that last one up). But you get the idea. Hype and shit for the masses.

    And now I wonder when the media will run this headline: Coronavirus: Did the World Overreact?

    Regards – MRP ( Enjoying being free in China – while it lasts! )

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    • Trevor Warman May 6, 2020, 6:51 am

      Just looked at the stats. As i like data.

      Source cdc.gov for USA 2017

      HIV 5698
      Suicide 47,173
      Alcohol induced deaths 35823
      Diabetes 83564
      Heart disease 647457

      Thats a short list of largely avoidable deaths…

      And UNICEF states: Every two minutes, a child under 5 dies of malaria of c this is mostly in Africa as can be expected…

      They say that in Kenya, more people have died after police beatings from curfew violators due to heavy handed tactics deployed than the actual Covid itself.

      Wade, this is a post for u to write…..!!!

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      • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:21 pm

        Plus 90,000 in 2017 from flu-like illnesses.

        Compared to this, CV isn’t worth the hysteria … especially when we separate the real CV deaths from those that have been reported as CV but also had a more dominant form of co-morbidity. Right now in New York they are going back through their logs and changing death certificates to CV even when the person wasn’t tested and determining the cause of death as CV even when the person clearly died of something else. They are trying to do whatever they can to inflate the numbers to justify the lockdown.

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        • Trevor Warman May 6, 2020, 12:40 pm

          Am waiting for a week on saturday. President Kenyatta announces to Kenya on what he has decided the way forward is.

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    • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:01 pm

      It’s good to hear that you’re still on the road and doing well!

      But, this is not to say that it won’t mutate into something more deadly? (Then the panic, really begins!)

      This is a very interesting point. Under normal conditions, viruses will get less and less deadly as they spread due to the fact that healthier people go out in public and spread it more than really sick people who tend to stay inside. So less dangerous strains are naturally selected for. However, the reason why the Spanish flu was so potent was because during WWI only the really sick were transported, thus spreading a more deadly strain of the virus. I have to wonder if we are doing the exact same thing by locking down healthy people who would normally be out spreading less dangerous stains? That’s just conjecture, but is something to think about.

      Here in China, along with ubiquitous CCTV everywhere, wherever you go – public toilets, supermarkets, an entrance to an ancient town, etc, you must scan-in with your mobile. Basically, this is ushering a complete Big Brother system, faster.

      And all this – health – monitoring across the world … What next?

      National crypto-currencies imposed – cos paper money is deemed dirty; infectious. Digital health–status passports. Online-lottery, safe tourism zones. Conspiracy-theorists might start getting excited.

      That’s very true, man. What’s the prime calling card of authoritarianism? Protection. People will give up their rights, liberty, and self-autonomy for protection. And was with most authoritarian protocols, the people will enforce them themselves. We like to think that we are above this in the West — we read of people turning in their neighbors during the Cultural Revolution in China and during Nazi Germany and we think that we wouldn’t do the same. But we will … and have been with CV. People are calling the police on their neighbors because they saw them cough … people are cutting down trees and blocking cars with out of state plates in driveways … all for a virus that isn’t even that deadly. Our lizard brains have usurped rationale thought. This has brought out the disgusting side of our species.

      Enjoy the open road, man! We’re all traveling vicariously with you!

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    • Trevor Warman May 15, 2020, 9:21 am

      @ Wade and MRP

      un sure whether to run this, or re word it: https://www.nomadicbackpacker.com/coronavirus-covid-19-death-statistics.html

      @wade part 4 is on email. Word Doc from proton mail , pic from gmail

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      • Wade Shepard May 15, 2020, 10:16 am

        Run it, definitely. I’d give it an intro talking about the vibe on the ground and the reasons why you wanted to look into the statistics and your reaction when you realized that the entire country shut down over a virus that’s impacting an extremely small sample of the population … and also about how the lockdown is having a much more adverse impact than the virus itself.

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        • Trevor Warman May 15, 2020, 10:33 am

          Ok thanks for that. Ill give it a go…

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        • Trevor May 17, 2020, 4:31 am

          Ive written it into a more complete post. Going live on Twitter at around 11am NYC time

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          • Wade Shepard May 19, 2020, 8:48 pm

            Cool. I’ll check it out now.

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  • Trevor Warman May 6, 2020, 5:12 am Link Reply
    • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:15 pm

      Good share.

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  • Michael May 6, 2020, 10:04 am

    Interesting points Wade. Going to digest this a bit and mull it all over. What i worry about is how you put the thing back in the box. So for example, imagine the first Bills game at home after this is somewhat over. You’re going to be there of course ! what does that look like to you? How does that feel to you? and more importantly. Are you going to bring your wife and girls to that first game? and if so, how are they going to feel after all this? will they feel safe and carefree like they should at a Bills football game. and if not, how long before they feel safe to go and do the tailgate thing? however we got ourselves in all this mess. how do we start over?

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    • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 11:28 am

      Hello Michael, Good questions. To start, I don’t feel as if this virus presents only a nominally heightened risk for the demographics that myself and my family fall into. Early on, I looked at the numbers, combined a few data sets, and estimated that it has a 0.2-0.3% death rate, which is pretty low no matter what and mainly impacts being people who fall outside of my demographic set (read more here: https://www.vagabondjourney.com/covid-19-is-not-the-black-death-but-from-how-were-acting-it-may-as-well-be/). It turned out that I’d actually slightly overestimated the danger, with the Standford antibodies test showing a 0.1-0.2% death rate. When compared to many other diseases that’s not too high. Also, I don’t mean to sound crude here, but 250,000 people dying of something across the world over a six month span isn’t that high … especially when over 90% had some form of co-morbidity.

      I don’t believe that Covid-19 is a hoax but I do believe that it doesn’t really present much of a greater threat than we experience every day. The Chinese set the precedent by taking extreme measures to combat it and most of the planet just played follow the leader. I believe that Trump and Boris Johnson’s original plans were the best ones to have done, but there was just too much public pressure from the mass media fear mongering for them to continue. We could have been almost done with this by now …

      Anyway, I haven’t worried about it. I strongly believe that large public gatherings and the rapid spread of the virus among young and healthy individuals is the best way to combat this crisis and would lead to WAY less deaths in the long run. So tailgating at Bills games would be the perfect medicine, in my opinion. Of course, this would need to be done with a degree of intelligence and responsibility — i.e. not allowing at risk groups at the event and informing people that they could be infected and advising them to stay away from at risks groups for 2 weeks, etc… which in the USA, with our culture of single family housing, wouldn’t be too outrageous.

      It’s my opinion that longer this goes on for the more people will die. I believe we could have isolated at risk populations with government support for a month or two while the virus spread, but a year or two … I don’t think so. Social distancing kills people both from collateral causes and by allowing the virus to linger among a population that’s not developing immunities in the natural way that humans have done for hundreds of thousands of years.

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      • Bob L May 6, 2020, 11:45 am

        Although I agree with most of your conclusions, with your death rate, remember one thing. According to the CDC, someplace between 3 and 15% of the population gets the Flu every year. These are estimates, as they do not track the flu, and only track some of the reported cases with flu like symptoms, not those tested for it, so those estimates based on algorithms could be pretty far off. To get herd immunity, it is said that 60% of the people need to get it. That would mean that your 0.2% death rate per case becomes 0.8% to 4% of the population. Comparing CV to the Flu is not as easy as some like to suggest.

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        • G May 6, 2020, 12:14 pm

          Just a reminder that herd immunity is about as fuzzy and opaque as most other aspects of Covid-19. The percent of people who need to be exposed depends on the R0 or level of contagiousness. The 60% number thrown around is based on an early R0 that most likely is over-optimistic and too low. 85% exposure may be more realistic. Then again herd immunity may not even work for corona viruses, it never has for the common cold. Reality is, there may be no good options. No vaccine, no cure, no herd immunity. Sorry to debbie downer, but at least it isn’t smallpox. g.

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          • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:52 pm

            Hello G,

            Welcome back! It’s been a while!

            Then again herd immunity may not even work for corona viruses, it never has for the common cold. Reality is, there may be no good options. No vaccine, no cure, no herd immunity.

            That’s true. If that’s the case then there’s pretty much nothing we can do than go about our normal lives, I would say.

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            • G May 6, 2020, 2:54 pm

              Thank you Wade, its good to be back again.
              “If that’s the case then there’s pretty much nothing we can do than go about our normal lives, I would say.” –Absolutely Wade. If there turns out to be no real solution to this, then Sweden is going to look brilliant and the rest of the world will appear as cowardly dimwits. But if a vaccine is developed and rolled out by fall, S Korea and New Zealand will look smart and come across as technocratic masters of the universe. Either way its humiliating and painful for the USA.

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              • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 3:41 pm

                “Either way its humiliating and painful for the USA.”

                Haha, exactly. We didn’t go one way or the other. We did both … and nothing … and everything.

                This has become a battle of governance systems, and it’s going to be fascinating to watch which ones rise to the top.

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        • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:50 pm

          Hello Bob,

          Very true — especially when deaths from “flu like symptoms” include all pneumonia cases, etc.

          “That would mean that your 0.2% death rate per case becomes 0.8% to 4% of the population.”

          Hmm… I’m not following your math here. It would seem to me if it killed 0.2% of 60% of a population then the total amount of the population killed would be around 0.12%. But you know math better than me 🙂

          But I believe an important number to look at when we talk about the death toll is the 90+% comorbidity rate. A huge number of people dying from “CV” were actually on their way to dying / actually killed by something else. So when we attempt to do an actual impact assessment I believe we need to remove a lot of cases. In fact, some countries, like Italy (I believe) were intially not counting co-morbidity deaths as CV. I believe this way gives a more accurate picture.

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      • Jack May 6, 2020, 9:30 pm

        The Stanford antibody test results have been tossed by anyone with good statistics background. They recruited people for antibody testing via FB ads. These were people more likely to want to get tested to confirm if they really had it. This would actually cause the results to skew much higher. Then there is the problem of sensitivity and specificity of it and other antibody tests. The lower the prevalence, the less accurate the test results are. Basically with the tests done in the Stanford and even USC tests, you would be just as accurate flipping a coin.

        The much higher prevalence in the NYC makes the roughly 20% infection rate in NYC shown by the antibody tests more believable. They may be off, but not off tremendously. We can use that number. There are about 8.4 million people in NYC so 20% infection rate means 1.68 million infected people. How many people died from Covid-19 in NYC? 13398 confirmed deaths as I write this with 5359 probable deaths. I’ll calculate a death rate based on both of those:

        Confirmed: 13,398/1,680,000= 0.798% death rate (right in the middle of Gottlieb’s range back in February)

        Confirmed+Probable = 13,398+5,359=18,757/1,680,000=1.116% death rate.

        Pick your poison, BUT I believe the 1.116% rate for NYC but I think out here in rural Iowa, that death rate is much lower (maybe 0.2%) because of much lower exposure.

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        • Wade Shepard May 7, 2020, 8:18 am

          The Stanford antibody test results have been tossed by anyone with good statistics background. They recruited people for antibody testing via FB ads.

          I disagree with this. Or it at least seems better than the antibody testing methodologies used in New York, where they did the testing in supermarkets. I believe that pretty much everybody wants to get this test done, as a positive result is somewhat of a golden ticket out of this mess, at least on a personal level — or at least this is how it’s perceived.

          The reason why I didn’t cite the New York numbers was because the way the death count was calculated here is bunk. Going back and retroactively changing death certificates to Covid when the patients were never tested (especially when the illness looks like others / huge percentage of co-morbidity) renders the results statistically useless, in my opinion. Also, we’re getting reports from doctors and nurses who are claiming that officials at the department of health are changing the cause of death of patients they treated from whatever they felt they really died from to Covid. If someone got hit by a truck but also tested for CV he goes down as a CV death … well, maybe not that far but you get my point.

          It’s become too political here, and there is a lot at stake to convince people to continue buying into social distancing measures as well as to maintain the careers of the politicians and other officials who imposed the lockdock. (There also seems to be a squabble between the state of New York and the federal government for additional funds). If we all of a sudden realize it’s not that bad and that we’ve wasted out time, careers, and businesses for essentially nothing … well, that’s probably not going to go over too well.

          I believe the number of the antibody test is now up to 25% of the city’s population, which would be 2.1 million people. Even if we run the numbers on the “official” Covid deaths, which on its own seems to be an inflated number, that gives us a 0.6% death rate.

          Also, while I know that this isn’t the best indication to go off of, my apartment is in Queens right down the street from one of the reportedly hardest hit hospitals. In the beginning, people were being scared to death and were being taken away in ambulances for heart attacks, etc. But since then everything seems completely normal. The group of elderly Greek guys that hang out on the benches across the street from the hospital are still hanging out there. They don’t wear masks. The streets aren’t awash in ambulances and medics. If this was really such a crisis shouldn’t something from it be observable? Maybe. Maybe not.

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          • Jack May 16, 2020, 3:51 pm

            The Stanford Study was partly funded by founder of JetBlue according to a whistle blower complaint. Being that the study methodology was dubious at best…..
            https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-coronavirus-neeleman-ioannidis-whistleblower

            I don’t think there is anyone trustworthy around this…..on either side.

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            • Wade Shepard May 16, 2020, 8:12 pm

              Yes, it’s all pretty nuts. Nothing really makes any sense — especially the way state governments are acting. Some states are throwing people in jail for not quarantining and others are basically fully open. This is really making me reconsider maintaining my base of operations in NYC. Texas is looking pretty good right now.

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              • Jack May 18, 2020, 12:21 am

                Or Iowa. 🙂 I’m a 3 hour drive from Minneapolis St Paul airport and 4 1/2 from O’hare and I’m in the middle of podunk nowhere.

                I really think that a person’s opinion about all of this is dependent on where they were trapped when it all came down. In a way I envy Trevor. I don’t envy where you were locked down.

                As I said before, nothing changed for me except I’m still waiting on the damn passports to come. I feel more like a prisoner over that than anything else.

                Oh yeah and I get to ignore people without them thinking I’m rude. That’s a bonus but not enough a bonus to overcome not having those damn passports.

                Trump keeps claiming that he is for opening things but he won’t open his government agencies.

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                • Trevor Warman May 18, 2020, 12:53 am

                  Hi Jack. Just curious, where are you wanting to go with your passports? Where is open for you to go to.?

                  UK is still sort of under EU for now. But Germany for example, is only allowing in residents. Switzerland too. Taiwan is only for residents and spouse visa holders.
                  Thailand, a friend she works for the gov. No flights til June 30.

                  Evac flights? Most have gone. Air India is getting people out. Flights out of Delhi to recover stranded student. A friend is going home to Bishkek on one of these flights.

                  Yes Kenya has only a few cases (due to low testing numbers) but the death rates are negligible in comparison.

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                  • Jack May 18, 2020, 9:34 am

                    Dude! Don’t burst my bubble. 🙂

                    It’s not that I really need to go somewhere, but as someone who has been mostly outside the US for 25 years, passports are like a ticket out. No passport and you are locked down.

                    No, I probably wouldn’t go anywhere right now anyways. I am actually more tied down right now in one place than I have been in my entire life. But it’s thinking that I could that keeps me dealing with things, even if the reality is that I couldn’t go anywhere.

                    Or maybe I could just go to Mexico. My youngest baby is a Mexican citizen so there is always that.

                    And yes, I do envy you for getting out there and exploring but I also know it can be stressful.

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                    • Trevor Warman May 19, 2020, 1:21 am

                      Yeah man i get the ‘having the passport’ bit. Its like here. It aint a bad place and 10 weeks kinda sucks but i am not here on my own terms. Imagine lifers or even those locked up for short term, but they r on their own terms. Lockdown cos of some one who likes bats instead of tofu and rice. Wth

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                    • Wade Shepard May 20, 2020, 8:13 am

                      … or because some lab techs screwed up / intentionally release their science project like two out of the three SARS-1 outbreaks. Conspiracy theory that’s looking more probable by the day.

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                    • Wade Shepard May 20, 2020, 8:05 am

                      So all of this talk about your plight getting your kids’ passports renewed made me think of something: my youngest daughter turns five in August … yup.

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                • Wade Shepard May 19, 2020, 9:11 pm

                  “As I said before, nothing changed for me except I’m still waiting on the damn passports to come. I feel more like a prisoner over that than anything else.”

                  Yeah, that’s the interesting part. To sit in your room and work on your own volition feels a lot different than a government forcing you to do so. I’m basically just working on things that I want to work on. I can’t complain … but I do anyway.

                  “Trump keeps claiming that he is for opening things but he won’t open his government agencies.”

                  Yes, they should be the first things to open. They should have never been shut down to begin with.

                  That sucks, man. Hopefully they will come soon and this will all be over and we can look back an laugh about how we were all stuck in our homes for months in 2020 and our kid’s kids will think it’s a weird old person story.

                  That is if this isn’t our initial conditioning to something that will keep happening over and over again.

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    • Bob L May 6, 2020, 11:32 am

      One of your best posts yet Wade.

      Michael:
      This is a dilemma that we all face, and more so for the officials making decisions. Lets say Wade goes. He gets sick, so does his wife. They are fine, but the kids visit grandma, and she gets really sick. Should Wade have gone to the game? Probably yes, but will Wade feel guilty? Maybe.

      Now imagine you are a Governor. Your state closed based on earlier information. Probably was the right thing to do based on the info you had at the time. Now you want to open up. There is very little plus side here. Plenty of downside. You have to open up eventually, but no matter when you do it you will be vilified by both sides of the argument. One half will say you opened too soon and killed my granny. The other side will say you opened up too late and killed my livelihood.

      I am retired and an introvert. I don’t have to go anywhere. I have a few friends that I see and many that I communicate with. There seems to be two camps, each of which are absolutely sure of their opinion. One side is afraid, and do not want to go back to work, and think it is too soon. The other side feels there is no danger and are planning on going any place they can. It will be interesting times seeing how this all shakes out.

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  • Trevor Warman May 6, 2020, 11:55 am

    @MRP thats good new re your mum. In UK the oldies must stay at home. Sister gets his shopping. He sneaks to the ATM to get money.

    Am happier the last days. Finally cooked a meal that was yummi. Ive got something a little stronger (40%) in. Day 53 in Naivasha fun times. Was snow on mt Kenya the other day. Shame I can’t see it from here.

    Hoping the travel ban will be lifted. Who knows what Kenyatta will decide.

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  • sng May 6, 2020, 12:23 pm

    Wade-

    Good piece, another bit of data to back you up (NYTimes no less):

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html

    Except apparently a nationwide lockdown does save lives by stopping traffic accidents. Anyway, I agree with you, and am not looking forward to the long term political/social/economic fallout from that. That said, I have seen some rather troubling things about possible long term affects of Covid 19, even on those who had no outward symptoms (of which I believe I am one, though the shortage of antibody tests in my area makes this impossible to confirm currently).

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    • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 12:37 pm

      That’s an interesting article. What’s interesting is that it says that there are excess deaths not due to CV but won’t go as far as to call them lockdown-related (which they clearly are). It’s going to be interesting when the numbers come in about how many people were essentially killed by the state and their draconian measures.

      Re: long-term side effects from CV. It’s really difficult to cut through the noise in this topic, as it’s become essential to the MSM’s bottom line to promote the virus as being as dangerous as they can possibly make it seem. It seems as if every time a report comes out that says that the virus isn’t really that deadly another report comes out saying that it can do some other weird thing to people and that we should remain afraid.

      I guess I will have to wait until a peer reviewed report about it comes out that’s not funded by a pharmaceutical corporation comes out. But let’s hope this isn’t really too prevalent.

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  • Rob May 6, 2020, 1:00 pm

    I did the math for the virus death rate. The ‘official’ total (dead) divided by the population of the whole country. I used https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 to get the numbers for the victims.

    My main interest was comparing Sweden with other parts of Europe (France, Italy, GB). The Swedish numbers are way better that those of the European places I checked…

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    • Wade Shepard May 6, 2020, 1:23 pm

      “My main interest was comparing Sweden with other parts of Europe (France, Italy, GB). The Swedish numbers are way better that those of the European places I checked…”

      That is pretty interesting. I think the culture of multi-generational homes in Italy and Spain has a lot to do with it. It’s similar in NYC where cultures that tend to live in multi-generational family units were the ones most impacted.

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      • Jack May 6, 2020, 9:11 pm

        When someone would show symptoms, Chinese government would pull that person out of their house. They knew that if one got it, it would roll through the entire family and get worse as it went through the house. That’s because the outcome of this disease is dependent on the initial dosing of viral load(inoculum). If someone is exposed to a small amount, their body is able to quickly fight it off and you get either an asymptomatic case or mild symptoms, usually. If on the other hand, the person is exposed to a high amount then they get sicker and are more likely to die.

        This partially explains why the death rate is different in different places. In the early stages, everyone is getting a light initial load, but with each successive case, people get exposed to more and more viral load. this is why the death rate for otherwise young and healthy doctors and nurses is so high. Their exposures overwhelmed their system.

        And a lockdown of the elderly and those with health conditions is actually a bad idea unless they are in isolation. Why? Mary goes to shop at Walmart. Grandma is at home and not going to shop at Walmart. Mary gets an asymptomatic case after touching the cart. It’s a small viral and because she is healthy, it’s nothing. But she sees grandma and Grandma catches it from Mary. Grandma gets a lot more initial load than Mary did. Grandma dies. If grandma had gone shopping instead and got it from the cart, grandma might still be here.

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        • Sarah May 6, 2020, 9:43 pm

          This is viral load is interesting, explains the death rates in nursing homes

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        • Wade Shepard May 7, 2020, 8:00 am

          When someone would show symptoms, Chinese government would pull that person out of their house. They knew that if one got it, it would roll through the entire family and get worse as it went through the house.

          What’s funny is that any idiot knows this, and by the time it really reached the USA it was very clear that household transmissions was by far the main way that it spread and the most dangerous cases were caught in the home. But what did they do? They told everyone — especially the sick — to stay home! This was probably the worst thing we could have done if we were serious about lowering deaths.

          And a lockdown of the elderly and those with health conditions is actually a bad idea unless they are in isolation. Why? Mary goes to shop at Walmart. Grandma is at home and not going to shop at Walmart. Mary gets an asymptomatic case after touching the cart. It’s a small viral and because she is healthy, it’s nothing. But she sees grandma and Grandma catches it from Mary. Grandma gets a lot more initial load than Mary did. Grandma dies. If grandma had gone shopping instead and got it from the cart, grandma might still be here.

          Exactly.

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  • Jack May 6, 2020, 3:59 pm

    Everyone is cheering right on, right on, so I guess that means that I have to be the dissenter. Let me do my best with it. It’s gonna be tough.

    This disease is deadly. There is a lot we don’t know about it. How does that sound?

    More seriously, I suggest listening to Dr. Scott Gottlieb and what he has to say. I’ve been listening to his voice on CNBC and Twitter since January. I love the doom and gloomers because they are so much fun, but this guy has been right more than most and he should be making policy instead of Fauci….don’t get me started about him.

    Dr Gottlieb, in February, said that the likely true death rate for this virus was going to be between 0.5% and 1%. The recent NYC antibody study put the death rate right in the middle of that range. He advocates smart social distancing. He even said that if you take precautions then flying is safe. He also brought up the good point that there really are no confirmed cases of people catching it outside and that restaurant and bars should open up with outside seating.

    I am in favor of the social distancing measures, but I think it needs to be voluntary, but how can it be voluntary when rent needs to be paid and food needs to be bought?

    Anyways, you were on the cusp of this in your piece, let me take it all the way there: They lied to us. They got us all to think the shutdown was a good thing because it was to flatten the curve so that the serious cases wouldn’t overwhelm our system. We needed to keep the serious cases below what our health system could handle. Ok, that makes sense. I didn’t expect it to be 2 weeks, but I figured by my calculation that 6 weeks should just about do it.

    But they lied or they just changed course. They decided that they weren’t going to minimize the number of severe cases to a level below our health care system capacity. No, they changed the goalposts. They changed it to: Let’s reduce the case count to zero. That is f*cking impossible. Can’t be done.

    And they made a second error, and this one no one is talking about. In short, and sorry if there are women around, the politicians blew their load. They didn’t look at previous pandemics that started in the spring. What has happened in the past? The first wave consists of clusters here and there(look familar?). The second wave, the one in the fall, is the one that does the most damage. It is not clustered but widespread sickness.

    So they pull this crap in the Spring to try to cut things to zero, but that can’t work and come fall when it surges again, everyone is going to think it’s nothing and they are going to fight the measures needed because Fauci blew his load too early.

    And if those politicians really care about the health of the people they would give science back advice to mitigate the spread. (All of these are backed by research!)
    1) 2000 IU of Vitamin D daily (No most Americans dont get enough sunlight anyways)
    2) Eat green leafy vegetables daily(high in the flavonoid Quercetin which is a Zinc Ionophore)
    3) Take a good multivitamin with A, K, and Zinc
    4) Wear a mask in public
    5) Stay out of crowded places
    6) Wash your hands

    Just do those 6 things, there is no need to shutdown and lock everything down. If people did those 6 things, the curve would be flattened and we wouldn’t be having this crap at all. Heck, if people just did the first 3, there is evidence that the death rate could fall to the same level as the flu.

    But I guess there is no money in healthy people….

    and yes it sounds like a conspiracy theory so I will make a reply to this comment with some links. It might be automoderated since it has links.

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    • Jack May 6, 2020, 4:08 pm

      Here are the links:(they are all high quality links)

      Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe COVID-19
      https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075838v1

      Eastern Virginia Medical School Critical Care Covid19 Guidelines(Notice Quercetin is listed under Prophylaxis)
      https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/Marik-Covid-Protocol-Summary.pdf

      Coronavirus (COVID-19), First Indication of Efficacy of Gene-Eden-VIR/Novirin in SARS-CoV-2 Infections
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7146686/

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    • Wade Shepard May 7, 2020, 7:50 am

      I agree completely.

      They lied to us. They got us all to think the shutdown was a good thing because it was to flatten the curve so that the serious cases wouldn’t overwhelm our system. We needed to keep the serious cases below what our health system could handle. Ok, that makes sense. I didn’t expect it to be 2 weeks, but I figured by my calculation that 6 weeks should just about do it.

      But they lied or they just changed course. They decided that they weren’t going to minimize the number of severe cases to a level below our health care system capacity. No, they changed the goalposts. They changed it to: Let’s reduce the case count to zero. That is f*cking impossible. Can’t be done.

      Instead of being realistic and telling people how to properly prepare — change your diet, exercise, take vitamins — they sought to be our heroes. It didn’t work.

      Yes, while I’m not convinced that we will receive a second worst wave in the fall — I feel as if antibodies are building up faster than we believe — if it does it is going to be incredibly difficult to get public / commercial buy in. Once they let us go they know we’re gone for good. I too believe they should have done more of a managed, targeted strategy this time, as what we’re observing this time around really isn’t too bad. If a second wave comes and it is worse I highly doubt we will be willing to go and cower in our homes. All trust in gov institutions and media would probably be gone by then, as they are losing credibility by the day.

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      • Trevor Warman May 7, 2020, 8:39 am

        False figures. I AM NOT following UK stats re nursing home.but i see the reports.

        Its like HIV you die of Pneumonia or some other illness, not the actual AIDS.

        And when old people die, they gotta list a cause of death. They never write, “DIED SIMPLY COS THEY WERE OLD”

        Im getting cantankerous being cooped up in Naivasha..

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        • Wade Shepard May 7, 2020, 10:11 am

          Yeah, seriously, man. With so many different ways of counting — some countries don’t even count co-morbidity as Covid — it’s getting difficult to know what to believe. Some places have a vested interest in keeping the counts as low as possible and some want them as high as possible. It’s become all about politics at this point — who’s team you’re on and groupthink. What I know is that nobody — not a single person — that I know has been significantly impacted by the virus in the health sense. If this was so bad then shouldn’t someone I know somewhere in the world have had a hard time with it? While that’s not a very conclusive thing to go off of, personal experience does mean something when the state and media are fear mongering but you can’t observe any semblance of what we’re being told to fear anywhere — and I’m at the US epicenter of the pandemic. I’m not saying that it’s a hoax but I feel strongly that it’s not what it’s been made out to be.

          I mean, seriously — shouldn’t India — a place that’s completely unsanitary where people live in super close quarters be getting ravaged by now? Why didn’t Beijing and Shanghai get it? Why are the numbers in NYC so out of step with everywhere else in the USA? Why did only a few places in the world get hit hard while everywhere else seems to have hardly been impacted at all? This seems to be something that becomes whatever the politicians want it to be. This is no longer about health and science.

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          • Trevor Warman May 7, 2020, 10:41 am Link Reply
            • Wade Shepard May 7, 2020, 12:45 pm

              Haha case in point!

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          • Jack May 8, 2020, 12:08 am

            Funny! You are in NYC in the epicenter. I’m in small town Iowa far from anything and know very few people here. That said, I know people who have gotten this thing. A member of my small church died from it. I know people who had bad cases of it.

            I likely had it but we will never know because I self treated it (See above comment) and they weren’t testing people anyways. I was told that I’d only get tested if I was hospitalized. I was just about to the level of needing ER ( Pulse Oximeter read 91) But I avoided it. I actually made a video in the middle of it. At the time I thought I was ok but watching it now and I’m like wow, I was gasping for air.

            And the after effects caused the worst pain I have ever had in my life(I had to Go to the ER!). And I’m still in related pains right now 7 weeks from the first symptoms appeared!

            As you said, there are places where numbers are suppressed and others where it’s inflated. It’s definitely being suppressed here. At the point where I felt I had it and my wife had it and we knew of at least half a dozen people out sick with it, there were only 3 cases in the county.

            Oh yeah and to answer your question about why it hits some places worse than others? It’s sentient. 🙂

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            • Trevor Warman May 8, 2020, 3:46 am

              I dt know anyone who had died or is actually sick. Naivasha is case free as far as i know. If there was a case, theyd be controlling people more re wearing of masks in the street.

              I had lots of head aches since ive been here. Could be nothing. Could be not.

              Am not actually worried. More worried that if i died, they’d send my body home and send my dad bill, or the corrupt copper who pockets the USD i have in my pocket.

              The one Mzungu who died, they buried him here in Kenya.

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              • Jack May 8, 2020, 4:34 pm

                You probably don’t have it, but you might have already had it and that’s good because you are over it. It’s also very unlikely that at your age you would die from it so chill and enjoy.

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            • Wade Shepard May 8, 2020, 3:31 pm

              Yeah, it’s nuts man. It really shows us the importance of an understanding of statistics. It also shows how easily data can be manipulated by governments and the media. This isn’t something that’s worse over here than it is over there — it’s just a matter of how it’s being documented and perceived. Both sides are trying to manipulate the masses Right now, there are credentialed individuals saying that it’s going to kill everyone and others claiming it hardly even exists.

              I believe that the forced lockdown was unconstitutional, is dangerous, and went too far. But the movement against this is getting pretty nuts.

              Did you check out the report that said that 66% of NYC’s current Covid-19 hospitalizations were people who properly quarantined? It was like what you were saying yesterday about how homes are incubators for viral loads.

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              • Jack May 8, 2020, 4:56 pm

                I heard that data point and I wasn’t surprised about it all. Those staying at home have still gone out and done shopping or whatever and it just takes one member to bring it home. I also think they might be WAY OFF with the incubation times for low viral exposures. I have seen some evidence that the amount of viral exposure is related to time to onset of symptoms.

                I also know that bad counting is happening everywhere. The person who I know that died of Covid-19? He died a week ago and is not listed as a death in the county statistics. They still show no deaths and the local politicians tell us all how safe it is. And the Walmart and restaurants are packed.

                And yes they are manipulating people. Controlling people and getting them to do what they want them to do is the ultimate power play on both sides. They want certain narratives and are willing to do what it takes to keep those narratives.

                Heck, when I wanted a test and called the 211 number, I got an error. I called the 800 number for the state and it asked for me zip code. They transferred me to a hospital number in Wisconsin since it’s the closest big city hospital to our county…..and they said they didn’t know what to do because they are only doing Wisconsin. Back to Iowa DPH and they again sent me to the same number and the same runaround. It’s easy to say you don’t have a problem when no one is tested! lol

                I think what both sides need to realize is that they don’t know much about this disease so doing anything might be the right thing to do or could be the wrong thing to do entirely.

                The son of a Mormon plyg told me what his father always said and I think it’s some great advice: If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything!

                They shouldn’t be doing anything until they know what the hell they are doing. 2 weeks to try to figure out what to do? Maybe (they should have been trying to figure it out in January and February), but two months and they still don’t know what the hell they are doing or why they are doing it? There is no big conspiracy at play, just a bunch of idiots trying to act like they know what they are doing.

                And they don’t know what they are doing so they shouldn’t be doing anything.

                Oh yeah and my worst pain in my life? I had swollen and painful lymph nodes under my ear for 4 weeks. It continued for several days after my lung returned to normal. Finally, one day I woke up feeling wonderful. Best I’ve felt in months. 4 hours later, I was in the ER doubled over in pain and moaning at the top of my lungs. I was put in isolation while given prescriptions. The excruciating pain subsided with pain meds but was still bad. The problem? The swollen lymph nodes had caused some teeth to shift in my mouth. I had a wisdom tooth, that had stayed in my gums and never caused any problem, was pushed out and pushed against another tooth and moved a filling and exposed a nerve. I have a new tooth in my mouth that wasn’t there before mid March!

                Whether it was Covid or not, I have no idea. Whatever it was, it was the weirdest sickness I ever had.

                As I had said before, I am in a rare group: I believe this is a dangerous disease but I don’t believe we should be taking away rights and forcing people into any kind of situation. Let people choose.

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                • Wade Shepard May 12, 2020, 9:33 am

                  First off, man, that sounds horrible! Sorry to hear about that … but at least you ended up with an extra tooth 🙂

                  Very true, it seems as if there are so many competing interests that the gov keeps vacilating between their plans of action. They are doing one thing and then doubling back on it to do another. This means we’re getting all the nefarious aspects of their policies without the benefits. Our politicians need to fend for their sponsors and it seems as if their sponsors have conflicting interests…

                  Yes, “weird” is how a lot of people seem to describe it. You should get an antibody test.

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  • Jack May 10, 2020, 10:54 am

    One of the things that hit me rereading these comments is that we are all having a different experience depending on where we are and that peppers what we are seeing. I know I’d look at things differently if I was somewhere else than rural Iowa.

    Except for waiting on the damn passports, my life is pretty much unchanged. The only changes I can see are ones that personally benefit me and my family.

    One thing I like about traveling is to find interesting people and things but back in the US, I’m like a fish out of water and frankly I don’t like dealing with people. This pandemic has normalized that behavior. I can talk to the neighbors across the street from my own yard…and before that would have been distant but now it’s polite.

    I wonder if this attitude/feeling is driving many to want the lockdowns to continue?

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    • Sarah BB May 10, 2020, 11:28 am

      Agree our situations and personal preferences are most definitely colouring our attitudes towards extending/relaxing lock down and our interpretations of data. I have a good friend who is autistic, he said he’s spent the last 30 odd years preparing for social distancing, loves working from home and is excited about a future where social hugging/kissing/handshakes aren’t a thing. He is certainly championing an extension of lock down and will push to avoid commuting and continue WFH as long as he can. But equally, loves travel so would happily get on a plane again. People are complicated.

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    • Wade Shepard May 12, 2020, 9:25 am

      Haha yeah, we like each other better when we keep to ourselves.

      That’s sucks about your passports, man. You’re kind of stuck. Not a good feeling to have.

      I’m going to have to figure out a way to get to Sweden or something…

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