Reflections on a Century
of Junk Science
American Thinker,
by
Jack Cashill
Original Article
Posted By: Magnante,
3/24/2020 8:45:31 AM
On Saturday evening I drove to a local pizza joint to pick up a pizza. (snip)
A TV at the pizza place, however, was tuned to CNN. It showed the Coronavirus death toll: 12,000-plus worldwide and 285 in the United States.
The numbers stunned me. Not following the news closely, I presumed, based on the hysteria in the air, that the numbers had to be at least ten times that high both nationally and internationally.
285? According to the Center for Disease Control 185 Americans died of drug overdoses every day in 2018.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Jebediah 3/24/2020 9:07:29 AM (No. 356204)
First of all, I would never go back to THAT pizza place.
12 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Jebediah 3/24/2020 9:14:13 AM (No. 356213)
Second of all, get ahold of today's Wall Street Journal Opinion Page and see the DEVASTATION this is wreaking on our economy.....Pelosi and company (she who flies private and has become very very rich while in office) going after "big business", the same big business that is providing the JOBS that elevated the economy, is the big business she and AOC and Bernie are out to destroy. Think about THAT next time you vote, unless, of course, you LIKE living on Govt. welfare rather than having a good job and possibilities.
12 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
pebbles03 3/24/2020 9:20:16 AM (No. 356219)
As I read this death till has topped 500.
3 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
marbles 3/24/2020 9:31:50 AM (No. 356241)
The dems have no interest in governing, they are focused on ruling.
16 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
ARKfamily 3/24/2020 9:42:03 AM (No. 356255)
I actually think there are a lot of attitudes that contributed to this problem and many Americans bought into it. Cleanliness, sanitation, diet, exercise come to mind. Even the aspect that we have to be more social plays into this, too. How many shortcuts have been taken when it comes to cleanliness, sanitation, diet, or exercise? I have to say I am evaluating many things right now and I don't think I will be staying silent any longer.
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
mc squared 3/24/2020 9:44:35 AM (No. 356256)
The fatalities from CV19 will pale when compared those if the' extraordinary measures' continue for a long time.
14 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
MattMusson 3/24/2020 9:48:45 AM (No. 356258)
Would he feel better if the death toll reached 200k? Based upon my own estimates, 200K is the least number of deaths we would have in the USA if nothing was done. But, 200K could easily become 1 million.
2 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
MDConservative 3/24/2020 10:14:42 AM (No. 356287)
I'm sure this is coincidental...that the economy is effectively wrecked in an election year. Some have been predicting for a long while that kitchen sinks will fly because the #1 threat to the "elite" is PDT, who must be removed lest he destroys their little UNIPARTY game.
Folks write this off as partisan conflict. It's not. It's partisan kabuki theatre. And already we have agreed to a TRILLION DOLLAR rescue expenditure...with more going to be larded on. Who gets it will all be quietly worked out, from the American Hospital Association to Planned Parenthood to the oil and transportation industries. Yes, conservatives oppose "socialism" and "nationalization" unless it was their idea supporting their favorites.
Americans just never learn.
9 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Urgent Fury 3/24/2020 10:16:20 AM (No. 356289)
If you're so scared of the FLU, hide in your house and let the rest of us get back to living.
25 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Golden Goose 3/24/2020 10:50:12 AM (No. 356340)
I think you're entirely missing the point, #7. If it's all about the noble goal of sacrificing to save lives, why have we not taken such draconian measures to combat equally infectious/deadly diseases? We have every reason to look askance at the 'experts' and their timing and motives, in this case, along with the execrable coverage from the media. The government/bureacrat cure has been far more damaging than the disease itself.
18 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
DVC 3/24/2020 11:15:13 AM (No. 356368)
I tend to agree with Jack, to a degree. The problem is the nature of exponential growth. If something is doubling each day, and you have 500 things on Day 1. When will you have over 1 million of them?
Answer: in 11 more days.
Does this mean we will have 1 million dead in 11 days? NO, it DOES NOT. I am not saying that.
But, with reasonable assumptions, eleven "doubling periods" can go from 500 to 1 million if you have exponential growth.
There are real world reasons why this is at least somewhat unlikely, and the doubling period of Wuhan cases in the USA is clearly not one day. But it is "the thing in the back of the mind" of all these scientists, because some version of that could actually happen under worst circumstances. The key is to as they say "flatten the curve" by breaking the transmission chain so it doesn't double freely.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 3/24/2020 11:20:36 AM (No. 356377)
For those who think that 500 to 1 million in 11 doublings is just some kind of BS story.
DAY 0 --- 500
1 --- 1,000
2 --- 2,000
3 --- 4,000
4 --- 8,000
5 --- 16,000
6 --- 32,000
7 --- 64,000
8 --- 128,000
9 --- 256,000
10 --- 512,000
11 --- 1,024,000
2 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Clinger 3/24/2020 11:28:16 AM (No. 356392)
We have been lied to, manipulated, and robbed so much that there is a dangerous probability that when a major threat does come along we will simply presume we are being bs'd and fleeced again. Could this be the time?
Somebody should write a short story to describe this phenomenon using a little boy as the political / media elite's and a wild dog......, no wait make that a wolf as the first alleged then real threat. I think I may be on to something here.
11 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 3/24/2020 12:00:59 PM (No. 356424)
The number of new deaths today is 1764. Let's round that up to 2000. Times a generous 400 days a year is 800,000 deaths in a year. Seasonal flu kills roughly 300,000 to 650,000 worldwide every year and besides vaccines and awareness campaigns, we don't do much about it.
Yes, exponential growth could explode the numbers. Yet, in most countries the growth seems to level off and decline after a while. Is that information accurate? Who knows?
Could we accept an additional million deaths a year? 2 million? 4 million? At what point would the public, right or wrong, be screaming for action? The hard reality of politics is that governments are demanded to address crisis, even when there is absolutely nothing they can do. In this case, there ARE things that can be done and are being done. The "correct" amount is a discussion of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. There are thousands of variants of "answers" to this. Even after the Chinese virus long fades to an historical reference there will be no right answer, just opinions.
In another month or so, we should more accurately see the typical trajectory of the disease. Right now, the abundance of caution needed to prevent a potential explosion of cases that would overwhelm hospitals and supplies is a REAL concern. Can you imagine the levels of panic unleashed if we were trying to ignore this? It could easily exceed what is already happening.
Trump is trying to navigate a minefield and I believe he is doing a pretty decent job so far. Because of the good things he has done over the last 3 years, I give him the benefit of the doubt. People who hate him will not.
8 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
BarryNo 3/24/2020 12:07:18 PM (No. 356436)
So true. Had a brief conversation with my sister and she just about went into a ballistic rant on how dangerous Covid is. Meanwhil friends are noting in passing neighbors who have their cars in the drive and their garage stuffed to the rafters with toilet paper. Strangely, in our area, some people are even hording meat and lunchmeats which, even frozen, only have a limited shelf life.
Absolutely insane.
The crisis is caused by the media seeking the most lurid, worst case scenarios and then screaming at the politicians that 'blood will be on their hands...'
I'm really beginning to believe that martial law must be declared to silence these moronic propagandists. Talk about yelling "Fire" or "He's got a gun!" in a crowded movie theater? And the Democrat reactions... Chilling. They are obviously unconcerned about the sufferings of regular Americans. Everything must be sacrificed in their quest for power!!
4 people like this.
We have far more to fear from Big Government tyranny than we do from any virus.
Every problem the government touches only gets worse. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now.
You may think all of this is a benevolent effort of a well-intentioned government and news media to help stave off a crisis. I don’t buy it.
Corona is merely the latest election-year medical scare to sweep America.
In 2004, it was SARS.
In 2008, it was AVIAN flu.
In 2010, it was Swine flu.
In 2012, it was MERS.
In 2014, it was Ebola.
In 2016, it was Zika.
In 2018, it was Ebola again.
Now in 2020, it’s Corona.
It was also Franklin D. Roosevelt who said, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
12 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
franq 3/24/2020 12:20:36 PM (No. 356450)
Agree, #16. This all feels so familiar.
6 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
MDConservative 3/24/2020 12:35:12 PM (No. 356468)
Martial law...whatever the death toll, among those to be listed as victims of COVID-19 are sure to be the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution. The precedents here ought to chill every American, from the various "executive orders" at all levels of government to the mis-invocation of the Defense Production Act, and now these various $Trillions aid packages. What may be "for our own good" may as likely lead to our own detriment.
5 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 3/24/2020 1:18:01 PM (No. 356504)
I've been avoiding the grocery store because of all the crazies hoarding supplies. It has truly gotten insane. I can't meet friends for breakfast/lunch/dinner because all the restaurants are closed except for carryout. Some are truly "at risk" individuals - health conditions, over 70 and so on. This craziness has to stop.
7 people like this.
#11-12:
Nothing in nature doubles forever, though. What happens is called a logistic curve—you should look it up. Yes indeed, at first it looks like an exponential curve. (In this case with a growth rate of around 10% per day, not 100%—that’s doubling in 6.9 days, not daily)
But then it looks kind of linear. Then it looks like a log curve, and is in the end asymptotic to a horizontal that is called the carrying capacity. Then it doesn’t grow any more.
What’s the carrying capacity in the US? A quarter of that in China?
3 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
DVC 3/24/2020 5:07:16 PM (No. 356651)
I absolutely agree #20. Math is NOT any kind of a guarantee when applied to real systems. Sometimes it can accurately describe certain real process or more frequently PORTIONS of certain processes, be sometimes useful in predictions, if your real system has the right conditions.
My primary point is why scientists get worried when the deaths are "only 500". IF (huge if) it were to follow an exponential path (which it CAN, under certain conditions) then it gets bad faster than "linear thinkers" would imagine.
But, it absolutely will bend over, and not remain exponential very long, will go flat, then steeply downward, they ALWAYS do. The question is WHEN, and at what numerical level. It's just that non-math folks generally think in linear terms.
1 person likes this.
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