Asymptomatic

The rank stupidity of the Team Apocalypse approach to COVID-19 is absolutely astounding. From the beginning, common sense (and a thorough review of emerging statistics) told us that the virus was a dangerous threat to those who are very old and very sick but is otherwise not statistically dangerous for anyone under, say, 60 years old. 

A corrupt and dishonest media, however, decided that deaths and "cases" were the lever that would allow them to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) among the population. These  two FUD metrics were never presented with any context or granularity. No matter that the majority of deaths occur among the very old and the majority of cases are asymptomatic, the implication that the media fosters while emphasizing edge cases is that we're all gonna die! That's nonsense. And when stupid or venal politicians set policy based on media hype, we're all in trouble.

Now, we learn that asymptomatic cases aren't what the media would have us believe. Meiling Lee reports:

An asymptomatic carrier is someone who has not displayed symptoms after being infected, but may spread the virus to others. This is different from someone who is presymptomatic, meaning the person doesn’t feel or look sick, but eventually shows symptoms later, and does transmit the virus during that presymptomatic phase.

The study, published in Nature, identified 300 asymptomatic positive cases through a massive screening program of more than nine million Chinese citizens post-lockdown in Wuhan—where the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus originated—from May 4 to June 1, using PCR tests.

Samples of all the asymptomatic cases were also cultured in the lab and “no viable virus” was found, meaning it cannot transmit a virus. The authors also found that 190 of the 300 asymptomatic samples tested positive for antibodies (IgG and/or IgM), indicating a possible recent COVID-19 infection or the PCR test resulted in a false positive.

The scientists identified and followed 1,174 close contacts of the asymptomatic cases and found that none of the contacts tested positive for COVID-19. They noted, “Compared with symptomatic patients, asymptomatic infected persons generally have low quantity of viral loads and a short duration of viral shedding, which decrease the transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2.”

“This study confirms what physicians have known and non-scientists have suspected for millennia: namely, that asymptomatic transmission has never been the primary cause of outbreaks,” Dr. Simone Gold, MD, and founder of America’s Frontline Doctors told The Epoch Times in an email.

Have you ever wondered why the media never, ever provides granularity when it reports case numbers. The reason is that granularity provides insight while gross numbers are intended to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt. What do I mean by granularity? Here's the data that should be reported for a given number of cases each week:

• What percentage of cases are asymptomic?
• What percentage of cases exhibit mild symptoms? 
• What percentage of cases require medical treatment where the infected person does NOT require hospitalization?
• What percentage of cases require hospitalization? 
• What percentage of cases require extreme medical measures (e.g., the use of ventilators)? 
• What percentage of cases result in death?

I suspect that the numbers would ease the fear of many and that's exactly why the media refuses to report them. 

So ... all of the media blather about "millions and millions of cases" is meaningless. A majority are asymptomatic and represent no substantial threat to anyone. Consequently, lockdowns and to a lesser extent, mandatory mask mandates (Joe Biden's magical "amulet") are meaningless gestures that do far more harm than good.

UPDATE-1:

The Editors of Issues and Insights discuss another consequence of the actions of the media's FUD strategy and the petty tyrants who create policy based on it:

While public officials are busy cracking down on freedom using a viral pandemic as their justification, another pandemic comes chopping and reaping, this one caused by the extreme measures that have produced no beneficial results. Both the elected and unelected who have brought this on need to be held accountable.

“Americans’ Mental Health Ratings Sink to New Low,” says the headline of a report from a recent Gallup poll.

“Americans’ latest assessment of their mental health is worse than it has been at any point in the last two decades. Seventy-six percent of U.S. adults rate their mental health positively,” that is, “excellent/good,” while 85% did in 2019. Those who said their mental health or emotional well-being is “excellent” fell from 43% to 34%.

The poll was conducted between Nov. 5 and Nov. 19, before, we must point out, before holiday-spoiling lockdowns were ramped up in much of the country.

In what we would classify as almost an understatement, Gallup said the decline in mental health is “undoubtedly influenced by the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to profoundly disrupt people’s lives.” Yes, it might “also reflect views of the election and the state of race relations.” But we’ve had elections – just four years ago the political left fell into a deep funk over the results – and race relation troubles before. Never have we had our liberties sacked as they have been since March.

Thanks to power-mad, narcissistic, risk-averse, cowardly me-too public officials, America and other nations under lockdowns are suffering emotionally.

Gosh ... "power-mad, narcissistic, risk-averse, cowardly me-too public officials" is a perfect description for the Democrat governors and mayors who have created COVID-19 policies that solve little and do great harm.

UPDATE-2:

Public resistance to 'covidiocy' on the part of mostly Democrat Governors and Mayors in blue states and cities has been building for the past few months. Daniel Henninger notes that it's growing, even as we await the release of effective vaccines developed under the leadership of the Trump administration. Henninger notes that even with draconian lockdowns and re-lockdowns, mandatory mask mandates and the complicity of local hamsters in the media, the COVID-19 numbers in blue states don't look very good, while the numbers in states that opted for more freedom aren't any worse and in some instances are considerably better.

Henninger concludes with this comment:

The National Governors Association and AARP, the retirees’ group, have compiled state-by-state tables of coronavirus restrictions. Put it this way: There are exceptions, but if you want to live in a state without authoritarian impulses, your best bet is to move red.

Beyond California and New York, Democratic governors who have imposed total bans on indoor dining include Michigan’s Ms. Whitmer (as night follows day), Minnesota’s Tim Walz, Washington’s Jay Inslee, New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan Grisham and Illinois’s Jay Pritzker.

Let it also be noted that while the minimally restrictive policies of GOP Govs. Ron DeSantis in Florida and Kristi Noem in South Dakota are familiar, most states, including Kansas under Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, have tried to strike a balance between protecting public health and ensuring economic survival.

The new resistance to Covid mitigation policies isn’t rising in those states. It is emerging almost entirely in the bluest states. These are the states in which acts of civil disobedience and defiance are occurring among people who don’t wear MAGA hats.

Their governors are called liberals. But perhaps liberalism’s meaning and its political support are undergoing a transition, as Covid redefines the everyday understanding of individual freedom.

But don't worry, Joe Biden has a "plan" that will vanquish COVID-19. As they piggyback on the hard work of their predecessors, I just hope that his emerging Team of 2s won't screw up the Trump administration's impressive planning, government-private enterprise coordination, and broad-based logistics that a corrupt and dishonest media refused to report in the run-up to the "election." But I'm sure Biden's team will exhibit more "empathy," and that's all that matters. Right?