by Scott Boyd
It’s a miracle! After a sharp increase in Covid-19 cases starting the month before the 2020 election and continuing until a very specific date, there was a sudden and jolting plunge that immediately followed. That date was January 20, Inauguration Day, and people like Dave Rubin have questions.
Hmm, can someone remind me, was there any sort of big event, possibly a political one, on say January 20th, exactly the moment the cases began to drop? pic.twitter.com/GahMxNIDKn
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) March 5, 2021
Let’s cut straight to the lede. This is, with 100% certainty, a political move initiated by The Swamp and their cronies in mainstream media, Big Tech, and the CDC to pad their numbers. The goal: To bloat the numbers of coronavirus cases under President Trump while diminishing the number of coronavirus under President Biden. This is the setup for a sales pitch in which they prop up the Biden administration Covid-19 response and trash President Trump’s.
There are several takeaways from this. First and foremost, it shows that the pandemic is being used as a control mechanism. They adjust the numbers in whichever direction they want them to go in order to support their agenda. Some will say that this is a conspiracy theory, but there is ample evidence that the theory is absolutely correct. Like I said, I’m 100% certain and I don’t deal with absolutes very often. Only Sith do that.Hmmm… I wonder what that could be… https://t.co/KNfPxQ7HJo
— Jeff Dornik (@jeffdornik) March 5, 2021
The second big takeaway is that we should be extremely upset by the narrative they’re crafting. This is beyond just an election narrative designed to drag down sentiment towards President Trump. It’s an ideological narrative to make us believe in the efficacy of lockdowns, face masks, and other policies that allegedly mitigate the spread of Covid-19. We’ve seen evidence that it does and we’ve seen evidence that it doesn’t. With nothing concrete, we should examine it all much more closely.
With that said, the evidence that lockdowns are destroying the economy, killing jobs, and shuttering businesses is unquestionable. Perhaps worse is the fact that clinical depression, drug overdoses, and suicides have increased dramatically over the last year. Does Covid-19 kill? Yes. Is it the existential threat that it’s being billed as by those controlling the narrative? Not really. Are the side effects of lockdowns destroying lives and curtailing out prospects for prosperity? Without a doubt, yes.
The third and final takeaway is that mainstream media is using this to make Americans trust the Biden administration’s handling of the pandemic. A recent article by The Hill demonstrates not only how the narrative is being crafted, but also that it’s apparently working.
The poll shows that 70 percent of respondents back Biden’s response to the pandemic, with 97 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Republicans approving the president’s work on the issue.
The number of COVID-19 deaths and cases per day have fallen since Biden took office, though there are some signs they are now plateauing. New variants of the disease have also sparked concerns that cases could again rise.
Biden could also be benefiting from the distribution of vaccines across the country. Sixteen percent of the nation’s population has now had at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to statistics kept by The New York Times. Vaccinations across the country have also led to more optimism for the economy and a growing stock market.
In the poll, 60 percent overall approved of Biden’s performance as president so far. The results split along party lines, with 94 percent of Democrats approving of his work while only 22 percent of Republicans did.
As the graph shared by Dave Rubin shows, the numbers went up until it was time for them to go down.
70 years ago as a young conservative (I was young once!) my conservative Dem hero said, “…GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM!”! He said that over a thousand times from 1946 to 1988! He was my hero because :he was smart, he told the truth, he did what he said he would!
Best Cal Gov EVER!
CDC in government. It is the problem!
Let me think… Maybe it was the post-holiday-travel spike that every credible epidemiologist who was asked told us was going to happen?
Under Trump Covid polymerase chain reaction tests — known as PCR tests — were used.
They can detect extremely low viral presence in an individual even when he or she is not infectious.
The test’s threshold is so high (40 or 37 cycles) it detects people with the live virus and those with few genetic fragments that are leftovers from infection and no longer pose risk, like finding a hair in a room after a person left it.
After Jan 21, 2021 an adjustment was made to prevent the tests from being too sensitive.
Fewer cycles are now run.
All of a sudden no more false positives!
Back in Sept 2020 this problem was pointed out:
Up to 90 percent of people tested for COVID-19 in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada in July carried barely any traces of the virus and it could be because today’s tests are ‘too sensitive’, experts say.
No one in Deep State wanted them changed as long as it might make Trump look good.
But, as soon as he was gone…..
Kind of like Joe’s Cash for Clunkers program to kick-start the economy……it looks good on paper but nothing changed.
@Greg:
The CDC claims that between March 1 and December 31 of 2020 the mask mandates, which were executed in the vast majority of United States counties, stopped COVID case growth rates by one half of one percent after 20 days and by less than 2 percent after 100 days.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm
An entire nation was shut down, Americans lost their jobs and their businesses that they will never get back, children have been banned from school for over a year that they will never get back and the results from those shutdowns have been disaster in itself.
When are you going to realize that we have all been had just so a senile old man could be put in the office of President while the former Obama administration is really pulling the strings.
@retire05, #4:
You somehow forgot to mention the fact that 525 thousand Americans have died of COVID-19 over a period of 12 months. As of March 7, 2020 the total of all U.S. COVID-19 fatalities was only 17.
How many died unnecessarily because of the right’s infantile bullshit about masks being being useless, and Trump’s idiotic assertions that we should all go about our business and COVID-19 would just go away?
if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means, technically even if you died of [a] clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death.
Even people who died in suicides and automobile accidents meet that definition.
New York has classified many cases as coronavirus deaths even when postmortem tests have been negative. The diagnosis can be based on symptoms, even though the symptoms are often similar to those of the seasonal flu.
The Centers for Disease Control guidance explicitly acknowledges the uncertainty that doctors can face when identifying the cause of death. When coronavirus cases are “suspected,” the agency counsels doctors that “it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate.”
Some doctors report feeling pressure from hospitals to list deaths as being due to the coronavirus, even when the doctors don’t believe that is the case “to make it look a little bit worse than it is.” That is pressure they say they never previously faced in reporting deaths from the seasonal flu.
There are financial incentives that might make a difference for hospitals and doctors. The CARES Act adds a 20% premium for COVID-19 Medicare patients.
The correct rate is just a little worse than the rate for the 2017-2018 flu.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pdf
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/04/08/dr_birx_unlike_some_countries_if_someone_dies_with_covid-19_we_are_counting_that_as_a_covid-19_death.html
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387
It may be that more people died as a result of hospitals closing down normal surgeries and tests than from covid itself. A lot of people died because of this.
@Greg: I guess you simply choose to ignore the CDC study @retire05: provided. Less that 2% benefit from shutting down the government and making everyone wear stupid, ineffective masks. We can’t know how many actually died of COVID because you leftists were so intent on manipulating the numbers to help the helpless idiot Biden. In addition to lying about COVID, it took massive fraud as well.
Now, suddenly, we see increases in cases in Texas… because of Abbot lifting the mask mandate… which doesn’t even take affect until tomorrow! I understand YOU people are that stupid, but most of us see clean through your manipulative, control-freak, totalitarian police state bullshit.
@Greg:
Just think how many millions would be dead if they installed Biden or some other Democrat before then. Soooo many more.
Good thing Trump was President, and we saved millions with quick action (better than what the CDC and Fauci predicted), and even millions more from getting a vaccine that no Democrat/Leftist thought we could get in such a record, incredible time.
Saving millions.
That’s Trump.
@Greg:
Trump saved millions, and got a vaccine quicker than any incompetent Democrat could.
That’s a fact.
The official CDC….OUR CDC….says masks “may” lower transmission.
Trump never said masks were “useless”. The CDC did say “may”.
Correct yourself, idiot.
We corrected the idiocy this past November.
I hear your manipulators have been passing out free “BIDEN PLEASE LET US IN” tee shirts to the 25,000 refugees Trump let accumulate across the southern border. Apparently that’s not considered too obvious for their target audience.
@Greg:
Those shirts are handed out by the Democrats that organize the caravans. And, Trump “let accumulate”? Democrats organized them and supported them coming up. Would it have been better to have them bring more COVID19 to us? Democrat policies draw the illegal immigrants up here.
You “elected” an idiot.
Who is Federico Klein?
March 9, 2021 – The Trump appointee charged over his participation in the Capitol riot will remain in jail until his trial, judge rules
@Greg: Unfortunately, no one can have confidence that the idiot Biden government is not carrying out a political vendetta. That’s just how they are. Trashy scum.
@Greg:
Hardly. Trump solved the border issues and non-elected Biden is opening them back up.
Installing a bumbling incompetent dictator has done nothing but show the majority of voters, Trump voters, were correct in their ideals, policies, and choices.
No history books will ever report Biden as a President. The Biden Occupation will be akin to the Civil War, where treasonous Democrats had to be excised and brought back under the Constitution, either by cultural conflict, or real conflict.
@Greg:
Maybe…
Then again, with an incubation period of 2-14 days following holiday travel (the busiest travel days run through Jan 5) simple math – although I do understand that expecting a correct answer is now considered racist – would seem to indicate that the supposedly newly infected folks (although common sense – not a trait of many leftists, I know – would indicate if you went to visit someone and they were sick, you might, you know, avoid them?) would have to travel home before they could re-transmit it, etc. Which would mean the ‘predicted’ [Hey, ready to respond to those NOAA predictions for Texas yet, Greg] sharp INCREASE in cases should actually be starting right about Jan 20th, rather than taking a nose dive.
Then again it’s not like lefties are above jiggering the numbers to their advantage – see Cuomo’s nursing home numbers, global whatever forecasts, the 2020 election, etc.
@Jay, #15:
That isn’t how a pandemic works. A spike doesn’t occur one incubation period following a super-spreader event, because it doesn’t consist only of those who became infected on the occasion itself. It builds over time as each of those initially infected pass the infection on to several others, each of whom then infect several more. The spike builds geometrically over a longer period of time consisting of multiplying incubation periods as that cycle is repeated.
The most recent national spike likely related to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s travel and social interaction.
@Greg: You *do* realize that your two paragraphs completely contradict each other don’t you?
If cases built geometrically after recent holiday travel, we would be in a major increase now…
But, like math and science, logic eludes most lefties.
Still nothing on the NOAA projections, huh?
@Greg: How are people traveling, forced to mask up, monitored a “super-spreader event” but none of your left wing riots, which occurred for 9 months, not? Picking and choosing?
No, more than likely, given the Democrats preference to LIE about everything, this is simply more of their manipulative bullshit.
@Jay, #17:
There’s no contradiction. There was a spike associated with the holiday period. The peak came on January 8th.
A majority of the nation’s scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are politically left of center. Many republicans seem to be temperamentally predisposed to reject consensus opinion, and drawn to contrarian ideas. They tend to selectively embrace that which reinforces what they already believe to be true, and to resist that which does not. Such a predisposition may be at the root of the conservative mindset. It isn’t particularly conducive to logical thinking or objective scientific inquiry.
Most of the “scientific” pronouncements coming from the right concerning the pandemic have been contrary to prevailing expert opinion. Generally they’ve been made to further specific political and economic objectives.
@Greg:
Another damning result of allowing the left to take control of our educational systems, especially at the university level.
Consensus opinion is nothing more than a bunch of intellectuals, who cannot prove a thesis, joining together to shout “WE ARE RIGHT.” The consensus was that the earth was flat, until it wasn’t.
As a left wing Gramscite, you’re projecting again, Comrade Greggie.
IOW, you, being the Commie you are, think conservatives are stupid.
You mean unlike Dr. Faux Xi who made calls that have proven to be wrong? No mask, one mask, two masks? Or when asked recently by CNN’s John Berman to explain the “science” behind the CDC latest decisions Dr. Faux Xi responded:
“They’re being careful, understandably. They want to get science, they want to get data, and then when you don’t have the data and you don’t have the actual evidence, then you’ve got to make a judgment call.”
Yeah, Comrade Greggie, that’s the guy you should be listening to since we have had a year of two weeks to bend the curve.
You’re an idiot.
@Greg: The left has gotten absolutely NOTHING right on COVID. You opposed Trump’s initial response, then tried to spread fear by claiming he was doing nothing, while your Democrats recommended gathering in groups and partying as usual. Initially knowing very little about the virus (exacerbated by the CCP and WHO LYING about it and hiding data), the shutdowns were a logical step. Once we were past the point of hospitals being overwhelmed (much of Trump’s provisions for the worst not even utilized), and thanks to nations that did NOT shut down, we now know shutdowns are of little use, but Democrats still insist on them.
Democrats want to claim any group of more than one is a “super spreader, though they routinely violate their own inviolable rules. Yet not only did the ignore and excuse massive riots and looting, but they actually did all they could to encourage it, all the while claiming it had no impact on the spread of the virus.
When the cheap and available effective treatment, HCQ, was revealed, Democrats denounced it and banned it wherever they could, simply because Trump spoke in favor of it. No telling how many died because of their stupidity.
Because Trump was showing great success in having vaccines developed quickly, Democrats denounced them and spread the lies that they would be dangerous. Once the election was behind them, the vaccines became vital and every effort was made to take credit for Trump’s monumental and life-saving accomplishment.
Leftists put too much politics into science and their are simply too many leftist scientists. As a result, we don’t even know how many actually contracted the virus or how many died of it.
@retire05, #20:
What exactly is your problem with Dr. Fauci’s statement? He has provided an entirely honest answer.
Often decisions must be made without knowing everything there is to know. Those having the responsibility to make them—assuming they’re competent—learn everything they can, make the fullest evaluation possible given all that they know, and then make a judgement call. The world doesn’t pause in its turning to give us time to achieve certainty in all things before decisions are made. The world doesn’t work that way.
That’s one of the reasons I could never trust Donald Trump. He seemed incapable of acknowledging uncertainty and error.
@Greg:
Because if you don’t have the data, or the science, to give an honest answer that affects over 335,000,000 people, you should be up front and admit you don’t know the answer/solution and have people make the best decisions they can on their own. He could have said “Well, we shouldn’t be releasing Covid-19 test positive illegals into the interior of the U.S. not knowing where they are going.” But…………
You have yet to realize that Faux Xi crossed the Rubicon a long time ago and ceased being a “scientist” and is nothing more than another fame seeking political hack.
Like Beijing Biden when it comes to the southern border?
You just can’t let Trump move out of your head. It’s all you lefties have. “TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, but hey, let’s move on” is your mantra.
@retire05, #23:
They have a helluva lot more data and scientific expertise at their disposal than the average individual does or ever will. Not to mention the fact that a collective threat like a deadly pandemic requires coordinate collective action to be dealt with effectively. You can’t leave that up to individuals, because many individuals are stupid or indifferent, and some idiot’s personal decision to behave irresponsibly or dangerously doesn’t only affect the idiot in question.
@Greg:
So what? So let’s examine exactly what it was that Faux Xi said again, shall we?
“when you don’t have the data and you don’t have the actual evidence, then you’ve got to make a judgment call.”
So really, it all boils down to your Communist mindset about the “collective.” How normal for you.
Let me see if I can present this to you gently.
Give me the data and evidence you do have and as an adult in a nation that allows me the right to make decisions for myself (at least for the time being) I will make those “judgement calls” and you can shove your collective bullshit up your rectal orifice.
@Greg:
It means they’re guessing and they more often than not “guess” based on politics instead of facts or science. Masks are a perfect example.
True. But they suppress it and then spread lies that best serve their agenda. Hydroxychloroquine was not harmful in any case when properly prescribed by a doctor, but the left didn’t want there to be hope of a simple, readily available, inexpensive and effective treatment; they wanted FEAR and CONTROL. So, they lied about HCQ.
Yeah, like inciting a riot. Or looting. Or crossing our border illegally. Or wearing a mask… in a car… by yourself. Or voting for the idiot Biden. Or believing a majority voted for the idiot Biden.
@Greg #19
We’ll get to the actual math proving the contradiction in a bit, but I guess reading comprehension is evidently difficult for lefties as well.
Did you actually bother to read the link you provided to support your claim about a supposed ‘holiday spike’ arriving on ‘January 8th’?
I did and I hate to break it to you, but nowhere in that article is there a single word referencing any spike related to the holiday period; OR a single word referencing a peak on Jan 8th.
Oops.
What it actually does is explain why what you are claiming is a holiday travel spike actually has more to do with reporting issues, NOT actual cases spiking… (lots of dates, I picked out only the ones between Thanksgiving and New Years)
So, for the period beginning at Thanksgiving, results are low because no new data had been submitted, followed by more non-reporting through Jan 1 (coincidentally the end of the holiday season), followed by – wait for it – ”artificially high” numbers starting Jan 2.
And that’s from the freaking NYT!
Greg #16
Do you just make up word salad from phrases the lefty news sites spew?
First, an explanation of ‘geometric progression’ in an article about the pandemic.
Alrighty then…The incubation period for COVID-19 is said to be between 2 and 14 days, let’s use a median of 7, a nice round week. Thanksgiving fell on Nov 26 (note the NYT ‘no new data’ for that date), if we use that date for the beginning of the ‘holiday spike’, there would be 8 cycles (weeks) between travel exposure and Jan 20.
If you use Christmas, there are only 4 cycles between exposure and Jan 20.
In your own words Greg, the spike builds ‘over a longer period of time’ consisting of ‘multiplying incubation periods’.
Is 4 cycles a ‘long period of time’? 8? And then what? After how many cycles in a deadly pandemic does it magically stop infecting new people?
That’s the operative question – and why the article is suspicious of the numbers being reported.
Why does your vaunted ‘geometric’ increase of a deadly disease that has locked the country (well, at least the Dem controlled portions of it…) down for a year, said to be due to ‘holiday travel’ disappear after just a few weeks?
Just coincidentally occurring the day a Dem president was inaugurated?
If it actually worked that way, the ‘two weeks to flatten the curve’ last March would have accomplished its goal…
@Jay: During that time period, the CDC also decided that cycling the results of the rapid tests almost twice as much as is recommended might lead to bad data, as might counting every positive as a “case”. Look for that to revert back if and when (well… when) the Democrats need a new excuse to frighten the frightenable back into their shelter in place centers.
@Deplorable Me: It’s going to be interesting to see their mental gymnastics trying to justify continued lock-downs when all of their previous claims were that the growth was only due to Trump’s mis-management of the response.
Hell, even Dem mayors and governors are starting to open up.
Weird how once a Dem was in charge the ‘crisis’ (or at least the ‘need’ for a crisis) disappeared…
@Jay: Well, now they have all us radical white supremacist terrorists to use as an excuse to suppress civil liberties so maybe they can begin their victory lap thanks to Trump’s vaccines.