The bad news just keeps rolling in regarding the Covid pandemic, or perhaps we should now refer to it as endemic. It’s beginning to look like there’s not a whole lot we can do to stop or even slow the pandemic. We continue to see reports showing horrible side effects of the economic and social shutdown.
For your consideration:
- There have now been more deaths coded to a Covid cause in 2021 than in 2020. Keep in mind this is with widespread vaccinations.
- An actual scientist with experience developing vaccines points out that it is almost expected that we will see situations like in Gibraltar there there is an extraordinarily high vaccination rate and simultaneously an extraordinarily high infection rate.
- The number of deaths from drug overdoses has skyrocketed since early 2020. Hmm. What could have caused that? Is there something that happened in, oh, say March 2020 that might have led increasing number of people to abuse drugs?
There have now been more Covid deaths in 2021 with widespread vaccination than in 2020 without any vaccinations.
On 11/22/22 the John Hopkins database reports 771,118 deaths from coronavirus.
On 11/22/21 the CDC reports the following death tally of “all deaths involving Covid-19.” This category is defined as “Deaths with confirmed or presumed Covid 19, coded to ICD-10 code U07.1.” Their account:
- 384,760 – 2021
- 385,343 – 2020
By the CDC tally, there were about 600 less deaths in 2021 than 2020 with data through 11/22/21. That is a one week butcher bill for week ending 11/20/21 or two days for week ending 11/13/21 or earlier.
News reports and coverage on twitter is laughable. Low vaccination rate is the attributed reason that we are losing more people in ‘21 than ‘20. Keep in mind during ‘20 there was no vaccine.
Were honest reporting possible (please humor me and let me assume that is a conceptual possibility), the coverage would be along the lines of “in spite of widespread vaccination, death tally from Covid is higher in 2021 than 2020.”
Here’s the calculation that so many media outlets are looking at:
- 771,118 – cumulative deaths reported by John Hopkins
- 385,343 – 2020 deaths reported by CDC
- 385,775 – 2021 deaths based on the above data
If you happen to disagree with the exact cut off, then wait a week and the losses in 2021 will be accelerating past the losses in 2020.
Our friends and acquaintances who are skeptical of the risks of side effects from vaccination or its effectiveness will not be reassured when they look at this data and realize that even with massive, widespread vaccinations across the country the death tally is increasing.
Our public health officials need to come up with a far better way to communicate why it is a good idea to get a vaccination.
It is clearly in the best interest of each individual for said individual to get a vaccination, but our public health officials don’t seem to have the capacity to explain such a simple idea. And our politicians…good grief. Our politicians don’t have a clue how to persuade the public other than to whine and threaten and punish.
The Last Refuge – 11/16/21 – Geert Vanden Bossche Was Right, The World’s Most Vaccinated Country Cancels Christmas Due to Massive Rise in Covid-19 Infections – In the British Commonwealth of Gibraltar the vaccination rate sits at 2.79 shots per person.
That means on average, all people in the Commonwealth have full round of two vaccination shots and eight out of 10 have a booster. Let me rephrase that – on average only two out of 10 people have not received their booster shot.
Essentially everyone there has their booster shot.
That is an astounding vaccination rate.
Simultaneously, the area is facing a massive wave of Covid infections.
Ponder for a moment – an area with exquisitely high vaccination rate is going through an exquisitely high infection rate.
As a result, the government of Gibraltar is canceling Christmas. All official celebrations will be canceled.
Individuals are encouraged to skip Christmas gatherings.
Article points out that Geert Vanden Bossche, an actual scientist, who also develops vaccines, has previously pointed out that a population without widespread natural immunity will lead to a situation where the vaccinated population suffers from an uncontrolled spread of a variant.
The issue, apparently, is the immunity provided by vaccination doesn’t stimulate the immune system to respond to variants. This is, by implication from a scientist who develops vaccines, not the case with a natural immunity.
CNN – 11/17/21 – Drug overdose deaths top 100,000 annually for the first time, driven by fentanyl, CDC data show – For the 12 months ended April 2021, 100,306 people died in the United States from a drug overdose. This is up from 78,056 for the 12 months ended April 2020.
From the graph in the article the number of deaths was running at an annual rate of 70,000 from 2017 through the start of 2020. That puts the deaths in the 12 months ending April 2021 about 30,000 higher than had been 2017, 2018, 2019.
Wow.
30,000 excess deaths from drug overdose. That’s 30,000 parents, children, friends, co-workers we lost due to ODs.
(!! Sarcasm alert!!)
What could have possibly been going on between, oh, say March 2020 and April 2021 that could have caused people who were somewhat inclined to use drugs to begin abusing them? What, oh what, could have caused people who were already using drugs to increase their consumption?
What could have happened?
Gee, do you suppose the deadly increase in drug usage could maybe, possibly, perhaps, have been caused by a harsh lockdown of the economy, widespread and sustained unemployment, mandated stay-at-home orders, social isolation, disruption of education, or drop in income for poor folk?
Nah. Can’t be. That’s not remotely a possibility.
Setting aside the dripping sarcasm, it sure does look like approximately 30,000 excess deaths from drug overdoses in the 12 months ending April 2021 are because of reactions to the economic and social shutdown we suffered.
I predict that at such time as honest research is performed most, if not all, of those 30,000 excess deaths will be attributed as side effects from the shutdown which was ordered by federal and state governments,