I've been torn on what to write here given the times. My gosh, we get all this information but which parts do we trust? How can we know whether we can shut down for months or even a year? If it's not until a vaccine is ready, can we still pick back up a viable economic culture-- one that families can support themselves with? If we don't shut down that long, could the disease claim millions of us? What to do what to do???
Herding is something most my age remember well. The parents would just as soon we got the measles, chicken pox and mumps. The idea was get it and you'd be done with it. Did not work that way for everybody, and now we know chicken pox can lead to later getting shingles.
Other diseases though like whooping cough, strep and scarlet fever were taken more seriously. Polio was something people tried to avoid for their children as it was deadly or crippling at the least. My husband's aunt had it, survived, but walked with a limp the rest of her life.
How do we decide what would work for our country but also ourselves. This idea of keeping shut businesses that are not deemed essential has had appeal for many. The thing is what is essential? For instance car repair might be deemed that (at a time they want to ban people from even going for pleasure drives). So if car repair is, how about those who manufacture the parts needed for it?
My son-in-law has a doctorate in virology. Years back he described a virus that would prove deadly and the way this one attacks is it. One that doesn't show its symptoms right away, doesn't kill fast and is very contagious. Here we are and all the uncertainty still here for us.
I've done social distancing for years during the flu season because although I do other vaccinations, the flu shots made me sick, left me with a lump in my arm for months and I decided I couldn't risk another as they'd been getting worse each year. Yet, I can do the
This year, we have self-quarantined here, felt lucky to do it other than being way apart from our family. Still, they are better off as it is. Turns out that a lot, who call themselves snow-birds or sun-chasers, have found their plans also disrupted. But then life has a way of doing that anyway with little predictability and often equally little control.
So I debated sharing the article below. It's by a guy known as a bit of a bomb-thrower in terms of dire predictions and also in making money for his own enterprises. Still he has some interesting ideas especially that we are not all in this together given our differing circumstances. Until I looked him up, I had never heard his name. His opinions are controversial, culturally scary for where we are heading, but are they also true? Who do you believe?
THE BIG LIE.
'How long do you think this can go on?'...The heart of every mass delusion... THE BIG LIE.
The 'big lie' behind COVID-19...It's far too late for the strategy we're using... The effects of the
media and political leaders... A precedent that will be exploited for
years to come...
...
As longtime subscribers know, our founder Porter Stansberry wrote every Friday Digest for years. Those essays represent a huge body of work and remain among the most popular content we've ever published. Although Porter has focused his attention on other aspects of the business in recent years... he has returned with a new message today. And he has some explosive things to say about our current COVID-19 situation...
Recently, an old friend said to me (Porter)...
Porter, I'm almost afraid to ask... but what do you think about all of this madness, about the government telling everyone they have to sit in their houses? How long do you think this can go on?
What do I think? You probably won't like it...
We are going through the greatest mass delusion in history. Never in my life have I ever been more ashamed of our elected officials. And never in my wildest dreams did I think our entire country would fall for such complete nonsense on such an enormous scale.
In today's Digest, I'll show you why virtually everything we've done so far has made the impact of this virus worse than it would have been if we had done nothing at all. And I'll also show you how simple doing the right thing could have (and should have) been.
I can also predict what will (eventually) happen next – the only steps that can actually protect those most at risk from this virus.
But before I get to the facts that inform my view...
I would like to review how completely inane and idiotic our political leaders have become in the midst of this health problem.
My favorite example so far? The thousands of outdoor recreational activities that have been closed or forbidden – including those that involve individual pursuits, like surfing. And what did CBS News publish as a headline above the story documenting a surfer being chased down by patrol boats? It read: "Scientist Says Beaches Are Dangerous Right Now."
How does anyone read this stuff and not laugh out loud? It's impossible to watch the video of a surfer being chased down by patrol boats in the name of public health and not think something has gone terribly wrong in America.
But what's the root of the problem today? What's the foundation of all of these bad ideas?
At the heart of every mass delusion, there's a 'big lie'... The big lie is a falsehood so outrageous and so obviously wrong, in retrospect people can hardly believe that anyone took it seriously.
The most famous example of the "big lie" is the Salem Witch Trials, where four bored teenage girls convinced their pastor they were possessed by the devil and that dozens of people in their community were agents of Satan. The pastor, in turn, convinced most of Massachusetts that the colony was inundated with witches.
Even though it's hard to imagine today, some 200 people were arrested over the next year. One poor man, Giles Corey, was crushed to death under a pile of giant rocks because he wouldn't confess to being a witch.
And what happened to those who did confess? They were forced to name more witches. Then they were hanged. Before anyone came to their senses, 30 people were put to death.
We "modern" Americans look back at these events and wonder how anyone could have taken seriously a bunch of teenagers prattling on about witches and devils.
But don't be too proud... A court in Arkansas sent three teenage boys to prison in 1994 for murders they couldn't have possibly committed, mostly because the jury firmly believed they were devil worshippers and thought they'd used black magic to pull off the crime. And with COVID-19, Americans have become just as irrational as those Salem witch hunters or that Arkansas jury.
What's the big lie today?
The big lie today is that "we" are all in "this" together.
It's utter nonsense... "We" – the people of the world, the people of our country, of my state, of this city (Baltimore), and even the people in my neighborhood – do not share the same values, ideals, or circumstances. We do not have anything like the same immune systems or face the same risks of this virus.
While it might sound friendly to say "we're all in this together" – the reality is that we are not. And enforcing policies that treat all of us the same is the very worst approach we could take to dealing with this health crisis.
Some of us are at much greater risk of serious harm by this virus. Some of us are much more susceptible to infection. Some of us own businesses or work for companies that haven't been impacted at all. Others have seen their livelihoods, their careers, or even their life savings wiped out.
We are NOT in this together. As with everything else in our lives, our abilities and our priorities and the risks we're willing to take all differ. We are individuals – not a monolithic polity. Saying "we're all in this together" sounds like Mao's China, where people abandoned the cities to die from starvation on communal farms. It seems like a disaster in the making... because it is.
Rather than assessing our own risks and our own priorities and then making our own decisions, we have decided to allow the government – really just a handful of governors and the president – to make one decision for all of us. And we're told not following the rules means we're putting other peoples' lives in jeopardy.
It's complete and utter nonsense. What's putting all of us in jeopardy is the idea that Washington D.C. knows best and we could follow directions – because "we're all in this together."
Adolf Hitler, in his book Mein Kampf, explained why such "big lies" are at the foundation of all tyranny. If you want to understand how despots operate, you should consider how one of the worst in history manipulated large groups of people...
In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie...
Not only are 'we' not in 'this' together, we shouldn't strive to be either...
The strength and resilience of a free society is NOT based on the idea that we are all the same or should share the same goals – but upon precisely the opposite.
A free society recognizes a fundamental truth of nature: We are not the same. We do not have the same strengths, the same ideas, the same histories, or the same goals. There's no such thing as "The Public Good." There's a myriad of competing interests, as Adam Smith explained in The Wealth of Nations more than 200 years ago.
What we do share, however, is a common philosophy that champions the rights of the individual and limits the power of the State. We do not exist to serve the State. The State exists to serve us. That distinction lies at the very heart of what it means to be an American, and I think our leaders have completely forgotten this fact.
Why is this idea so important, not merely for philosophical reasons, but for the best possible outcomes? Why do free societies produce so much more wealth and happiness than countries led by tyrannical governments?
America has proven, again and again, that the "spontaneous order" of free people and free markets evolve far superior solutions to every human need and want. If you want to botch something up, just ask the government to take over. If you want efficient solutions that work, allow people to compete in a free market.
That's why America has long led the world in the creation of wealth and innovation. That's why we produce the highest-quality creative art, entertainment, design, and technology.
But... what about when we fail?
Look back at all of our country's biggest blunders and you won't find freedom or free markets. You'll find a government that has far overstepped its constitutional limits.
It happens every single time: When we allow our liberty to be taken from us in the name of a political theory, disaster will follow.
Consider the Vietnam War, for example. Did Congress declare war as the Constitution requires? Nope.
Instead, the country was sold on yet another "big lie"... And it was a whopper. We were told that propping up a corrupt dictatorship in a tiny Asian nation was the key to stopping communism from spreading around the world. Meanwhile, without our involvement in that country's internal politics, no one in America would have ever known who Ho Chi Minh was... or cared.
And ironically, all we had to do to stop the spread of communism was simply leave it alone. Empty grocery store shelves and hopeless lives were the only bane needed to wipe out that stain virtually everywhere.
Yes, some folks still seem determined to adopt those ideas and destroy their societies (Venezuela), but we seem to have finally wised up to the fact that the only thing we have to do to make sure it fails is simply wait a decade or two. It's certainly nothing worth sending our kids to die over.
And that brings me back to today...
Should we all sit in our home prisons, with our freedom to work, to associate, and to speak taken away from us – all to universally support "flattening" a curve, because "we" are all in "this" together?
Or is this the public health service's Vietnam?
I have a prediction for you... By the time this virus is thoroughly understood, what will become extremely clear is that these shutdown orders did virtually nothing to stop the spread of the disease or to reduce its lethality in the population.
Why do I believe that? Because it's apparent already that at least 5 times more people have been infected than are reflected in the number of "confirmed cases"... and the real number may be much, much greater than that.
In a town in Germany, one of the only places where a reliable statistical sampling has been done, 14% of the population has antibodies for the virus, which means they have already been infected. Germany has a population of 83 million... so that's more than 10 million people who have potentially already had this virus. And that's only in one country.
Germany has also tested twice as many people per capita as we have, so they know far more about the actual spread of the virus and its real lethality.
So... how dangerous is this virus?
The official confirmed infected count in Germany is only 135,000. And almost 4,000 Germans have died because of this virus. That's a 3% "case rate" mortality – that is, out of the population that has been proven to be infected, about 3% have died. That sounds really bad and scary. After all, the average annual flu has a mortality rate of between 0.1% and 0.2%, depending on the year. So, for example, in 2015 to 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 30 million people got the flu and around 60,000 people died, or 0.2%.
But, wait... we know for sure that far more people have gotten this coronavirus than have been tested for it. As I just noted, the statistical sampling of antibodies in Germany suggests a much, much lower lethality rate. The real mortality rate is probably somewhere closer to the regular flu.
So what do you want to bet that we eventually figure out that the population-wide mortality rate for this virus is about the same as all of the other coronaviruses?
But what if I'm wrong? I might be. Nobody knows how widespread the virus is already in the U.S. But since we don't know for sure, why in the world are we ordering everyone to stay in their homes? Why don't we find out and then decide?
Knowing the real lethality of the virus (which can only be calculated if you know how many people are infected) informs us how dangerous the virus is for most people.
We already know that this virus isn't a significant killer for people under the age of 50. Virtually no one without serious existing conditions has died from this virus under the age of 50.
And we also know from places that have actual data that this coronavirus is no more dangerous than the other viruses that we know circulate around our country on a regular basis every year.
Knowing how many people are infected is also critical to figuring out which policies are needed to mitigate the impact of the disease on the hospital system.
After all, if tens of millions of people already have the virus, you're not going to stop it by making people stay in their homes... It's already too late. I strongly suspect that was the case here. I suspect we will eventually learn that this virus had been circulating undetected in the U.S. since at least December.
And what is certainly different about this virus, as compared with the regular flu, is that when it emerged, there was zero existing immunity to it... which meant it spread like wildfire.
But the good news is that super-contagious viruses also burn out quicker because herd immunity impacts the growth rate.
So... should we have shut down our entire economy for a month in March, long after the virus had spread to millions? No! What we're doing will not reduce the total infection rate or the mortality rates of this virus.
It's far too late for the strategy we're using...
How do I know? The best evidence of how widespread the virus has become comes from studies of fecal matter in wastewater treatment plants...
A group of researchers from Harvard, MIT, the Brigham and Women's Hospital, and medtech startup company Biobot Analytics has published research submitting that viral loads in the wastewater from an area in Boston suggests at least 2,300 people in the water treatment area are infected with COVID-19, roughly five times more than the official 446 confirmed cases. No one wants to go to a hospital or a doctor's office right now unless they absolutely have to, so it makes sense that the vast majority of these infections go unreported.
And that's not all we know about how fast this virus spreads...
Although nobody in Washington, D.C. wants to mention it, one group of people was thoroughly tested. This group offers a striking example of what happens when you lock people into their homes after this virus has been circulating amongst them.
We know exactly how many people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship were infected. We know when the virus appeared on the boat. And we know exactly how many people died.
There is no dispute about these facts, whatsoever.
There were 3,711 people on the boat (passengers and crew). We know that 712 people were infected, despite restricting everyone to their cabins as soon as the infection was discovered. That's an infection rate of almost 20% in a matter of days. This is a very, very contagious virus. Keep in mind, the lockdown on the boat began on February 5, which was only four days after the first case was discovered in Hong Kong. This virus spreads like wildfire.
On the other hand, even in a population that is much, much older than average and that featured substantial population-wide comorbidities like high blood pressure and obesity, only 12 people died. That's 1.7% of the people who got infected. Yes, that's much worse than the average flu – but not if you adjust for the age and relative health of the population.
Researchers who have studied the cruise ship outbreak in detail estimate that this virus will have 0.5% lethality in the general U.S. population – which is, again, comparable to the regular annual flu.
We have already seen that the initial forecasts of more than 2 million deaths are complete nonsense. When the president ordered the economy to shut down, he claimed that if we didn't take this step of cowering in our homes, then millions would die. "People will be dropping dead on the subway," Trump claimed, as though Ebola was on the loose.
All bullshit.
This virus is definitely dangerous to the old and the sick. To everyone else, it's going to be a nonevent... just like any other flu season.
Here's a prediction...
In a "bad year" for the flu, between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans die from the virus. I'm willing to bet that by the end of this year, roughly the same number of people will have died from this virus.
And I'm also willing to bet that there's zero difference in either the total per capita number who become infected and the mortality rate between our country (which ordered a shutdown) and Sweden's, which has refused to order anyone to shut down their business or stay in their homes.
If you accept that the virus had been circulating in our population for months by the time the lock down orders arrived (which is certainly the case) and if you know it's highly contagious, then ordering everyone into their homes in mid-March was closing the barn door when the horses were already long gone.
What does work to control the spread of a novel virus? Herd immunity. Humans have immune systems. They work great, especially in younger people. We can handle viruses.
What we should do is tell older and sicker people to put on a mask. Wear rubber gloves. Avoid crowds at all costs. Avoid hospitals. Stay home whenever you can.
We should have told everyone else: Go about your lives. Yes, we should also add that some of you – probably about 20% – are going to get this novel coronavirus this year. (Normally about 9% of the population gets the flu every year... so your chances of catching COVID-19 this year are about double what you'd normally face with the regular flu.)
And if you get it, it's probably going to suck. But the younger you are and the healthier you are, the more likely it is that you won't have any symptoms at all.
So, let's not cancel school. Let's let the kids go and get exposed to this virus when they are young, when they can handle it, and when they can quickly develop immunity.
That's the best way to build the herd immunity we need – allow everyone who can manage the virus to get exposed. As quickly as possible. After all, the sooner the herd immunity we need develops naturally, the safer we will all be.
If the media hadn't gotten hold of this story and if our political leaders hadn't panicked...
This year would have just been a really bad flu season – nothing more.
And whether you agree with me or not, one thing is certain... Hiding in our homes will not make us any safer – not for long. As soon as we leave our isolation, the virus will spread again. There's no way to stop a virus that's this contagious and this widespread in a population this large.
It will take at least a year to build a vaccine. And until then, what we desperately need is for people who aren't at risk of dying to expose themselves and build immunity.
And guess what... That's exactly what's going to happen – eventually. The only question is when. It can happen six months' from now if we want to cripple our economy and lose $10 trillion to $20 trillion (plus all of our liberties). Or it can happen in about six weeks if we all just go back to work and deal with it like adults.
So what should we do?
If you're over 60 or if you're in poor health, by all means, do everything you can to avoid catching the flu this year. The hospital isn't going to be able to help you. You have to make sure you don't get sick!
But if you're in good health, and especially if you're under 50, simply ignore everything and live a normal life. It's no big deal.
Interestingly, if we had respected people's civil liberties, that's almost certainly what would have happened. A lot of people would have gotten sick at first because nobody knew a new virus was circulating. But as soon as people saw what was happening, the old and the sick would have taken much greater precautions. The rest of us would have gotten exposed – probably about 20% of the population in 60 to 90 days. And then it would have burned out as immunity in the population grew – just like the regular flu. Meanwhile, there are tens of millions more people who have far more to fear from the economic consequences of these policies than they have of the virus.
And guess what?
There's no way to develop immunity from the State...
This situation sets a precedent that will surely be exploited for years to come. The government's getting used to ordering us all around. It isn't going to stop.
Meanwhile, God gave us the ability to reason – to judge for ourselves what risks to take and which to avoid. God also gave all of us the liberty to live our lives as we see fit. Our leaders don't have the right to make these choices for us. When we let them, we doom our country to the worst possible outcomes.
Just imagine what John Hancock, John Henry, or Paul Revere would say to themselves in our current situation. Do you have any idea what our Founding Fathers were up against?
They took on the greatest army in the world with little more than a bunch of starving farmers. They had no navy... against the greatest navy in the world. They didn't even have the support of all Americans. And if they lost... they would all been hanged for treason.
Why take on those terrible odds? For liberty... to establish the greatest society the world had ever seen – a grand experiment to find out how much better our world could become with civil rights for the common man and free markets.
And what do you think these men would say today, watching a governor ordering millions of people to stay locked up in their apartments while their businesses fail? Can you imagine what our founders would say looking at us cowering in our homes like whipped dogs?
I guess we've all forgotten about Valley Forge, where two-thirds of our soldiers died because of the flu! Trust me, they didn't have ventilators either. But did George Washington go home? Hell no.
If our country's willingness to kowtow to the most blatantly unconstitutional orders in the history of our nation doesn't bother you because you still believe in the "common good"... or because you buy into the big lie that we're all in this together... I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
First, because you're naïve to have any faith at all in our leaders' ability or willingness to make good decisions. They don't even know how many people have the virus already and they never bothered to find out!
They've completely ignored the Diamond Princess cruise ship case study, the German data, and the wastewater studies. They're doing the only thing they can with their very limited understanding of this virus: Ordering everyone to stay home. Meanwhile, plenty of hard evidence shows why this strategy won't work and isn't necessary.
But beyond all of the facts and the medicine...
There's another reason I believe every American ought to be ashamed of the way our government has behaved...
We've acted just like the communists in China behaved – ordering everyone around, telling them they can't travel, telling them they can't work.
That ain't what we do here.
By all means, if you want to wear a mask, be my guest. And if you are older or if you have health problems, please, take sensible precautions. But those decisions are rightfully yours to make...
We aren't in this together. You have your health and your priorities... And I've got mine.
I hope you'll join me in calling out anyone who supports these tyrannical and unconstitutional new laws. I believe every American should willingly risk death before surrendering an iota of his liberty.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive... those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis
...
As longtime subscribers know, our founder Porter Stansberry wrote every Friday Digest for years. Those essays represent a huge body of work and remain among the most popular content we've ever published. Although Porter has focused his attention on other aspects of the business in recent years... he has returned with a new message today. And he has some explosive things to say about our current COVID-19 situation...
Recently, an old friend said to me (Porter)...
Porter, I'm almost afraid to ask... but what do you think about all of this madness, about the government telling everyone they have to sit in their houses? How long do you think this can go on?
What do I think? You probably won't like it...
We are going through the greatest mass delusion in history. Never in my life have I ever been more ashamed of our elected officials. And never in my wildest dreams did I think our entire country would fall for such complete nonsense on such an enormous scale.
In today's Digest, I'll show you why virtually everything we've done so far has made the impact of this virus worse than it would have been if we had done nothing at all. And I'll also show you how simple doing the right thing could have (and should have) been.
I can also predict what will (eventually) happen next – the only steps that can actually protect those most at risk from this virus.
But before I get to the facts that inform my view...
I would like to review how completely inane and idiotic our political leaders have become in the midst of this health problem.
My favorite example so far? The thousands of outdoor recreational activities that have been closed or forbidden – including those that involve individual pursuits, like surfing. And what did CBS News publish as a headline above the story documenting a surfer being chased down by patrol boats? It read: "Scientist Says Beaches Are Dangerous Right Now."
How does anyone read this stuff and not laugh out loud? It's impossible to watch the video of a surfer being chased down by patrol boats in the name of public health and not think something has gone terribly wrong in America.
But what's the root of the problem today? What's the foundation of all of these bad ideas?
At the heart of every mass delusion, there's a 'big lie'... The big lie is a falsehood so outrageous and so obviously wrong, in retrospect people can hardly believe that anyone took it seriously.
The most famous example of the "big lie" is the Salem Witch Trials, where four bored teenage girls convinced their pastor they were possessed by the devil and that dozens of people in their community were agents of Satan. The pastor, in turn, convinced most of Massachusetts that the colony was inundated with witches.
Even though it's hard to imagine today, some 200 people were arrested over the next year. One poor man, Giles Corey, was crushed to death under a pile of giant rocks because he wouldn't confess to being a witch.
And what happened to those who did confess? They were forced to name more witches. Then they were hanged. Before anyone came to their senses, 30 people were put to death.
We "modern" Americans look back at these events and wonder how anyone could have taken seriously a bunch of teenagers prattling on about witches and devils.
But don't be too proud... A court in Arkansas sent three teenage boys to prison in 1994 for murders they couldn't have possibly committed, mostly because the jury firmly believed they were devil worshippers and thought they'd used black magic to pull off the crime. And with COVID-19, Americans have become just as irrational as those Salem witch hunters or that Arkansas jury.
What's the big lie today?
The big lie today is that "we" are all in "this" together.
It's utter nonsense... "We" – the people of the world, the people of our country, of my state, of this city (Baltimore), and even the people in my neighborhood – do not share the same values, ideals, or circumstances. We do not have anything like the same immune systems or face the same risks of this virus.
While it might sound friendly to say "we're all in this together" – the reality is that we are not. And enforcing policies that treat all of us the same is the very worst approach we could take to dealing with this health crisis.
Some of us are at much greater risk of serious harm by this virus. Some of us are much more susceptible to infection. Some of us own businesses or work for companies that haven't been impacted at all. Others have seen their livelihoods, their careers, or even their life savings wiped out.
We are NOT in this together. As with everything else in our lives, our abilities and our priorities and the risks we're willing to take all differ. We are individuals – not a monolithic polity. Saying "we're all in this together" sounds like Mao's China, where people abandoned the cities to die from starvation on communal farms. It seems like a disaster in the making... because it is.
Rather than assessing our own risks and our own priorities and then making our own decisions, we have decided to allow the government – really just a handful of governors and the president – to make one decision for all of us. And we're told not following the rules means we're putting other peoples' lives in jeopardy.
It's complete and utter nonsense. What's putting all of us in jeopardy is the idea that Washington D.C. knows best and we could follow directions – because "we're all in this together."
Adolf Hitler, in his book Mein Kampf, explained why such "big lies" are at the foundation of all tyranny. If you want to understand how despots operate, you should consider how one of the worst in history manipulated large groups of people...
In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie...
Not only are 'we' not in 'this' together, we shouldn't strive to be either...
The strength and resilience of a free society is NOT based on the idea that we are all the same or should share the same goals – but upon precisely the opposite.
A free society recognizes a fundamental truth of nature: We are not the same. We do not have the same strengths, the same ideas, the same histories, or the same goals. There's no such thing as "The Public Good." There's a myriad of competing interests, as Adam Smith explained in The Wealth of Nations more than 200 years ago.
What we do share, however, is a common philosophy that champions the rights of the individual and limits the power of the State. We do not exist to serve the State. The State exists to serve us. That distinction lies at the very heart of what it means to be an American, and I think our leaders have completely forgotten this fact.
Why is this idea so important, not merely for philosophical reasons, but for the best possible outcomes? Why do free societies produce so much more wealth and happiness than countries led by tyrannical governments?
America has proven, again and again, that the "spontaneous order" of free people and free markets evolve far superior solutions to every human need and want. If you want to botch something up, just ask the government to take over. If you want efficient solutions that work, allow people to compete in a free market.
That's why America has long led the world in the creation of wealth and innovation. That's why we produce the highest-quality creative art, entertainment, design, and technology.
But... what about when we fail?
Look back at all of our country's biggest blunders and you won't find freedom or free markets. You'll find a government that has far overstepped its constitutional limits.
It happens every single time: When we allow our liberty to be taken from us in the name of a political theory, disaster will follow.
Consider the Vietnam War, for example. Did Congress declare war as the Constitution requires? Nope.
Instead, the country was sold on yet another "big lie"... And it was a whopper. We were told that propping up a corrupt dictatorship in a tiny Asian nation was the key to stopping communism from spreading around the world. Meanwhile, without our involvement in that country's internal politics, no one in America would have ever known who Ho Chi Minh was... or cared.
And ironically, all we had to do to stop the spread of communism was simply leave it alone. Empty grocery store shelves and hopeless lives were the only bane needed to wipe out that stain virtually everywhere.
Yes, some folks still seem determined to adopt those ideas and destroy their societies (Venezuela), but we seem to have finally wised up to the fact that the only thing we have to do to make sure it fails is simply wait a decade or two. It's certainly nothing worth sending our kids to die over.
And that brings me back to today...
Should we all sit in our home prisons, with our freedom to work, to associate, and to speak taken away from us – all to universally support "flattening" a curve, because "we" are all in "this" together?
Or is this the public health service's Vietnam?
I have a prediction for you... By the time this virus is thoroughly understood, what will become extremely clear is that these shutdown orders did virtually nothing to stop the spread of the disease or to reduce its lethality in the population.
Why do I believe that? Because it's apparent already that at least 5 times more people have been infected than are reflected in the number of "confirmed cases"... and the real number may be much, much greater than that.
In a town in Germany, one of the only places where a reliable statistical sampling has been done, 14% of the population has antibodies for the virus, which means they have already been infected. Germany has a population of 83 million... so that's more than 10 million people who have potentially already had this virus. And that's only in one country.
Germany has also tested twice as many people per capita as we have, so they know far more about the actual spread of the virus and its real lethality.
So... how dangerous is this virus?
The official confirmed infected count in Germany is only 135,000. And almost 4,000 Germans have died because of this virus. That's a 3% "case rate" mortality – that is, out of the population that has been proven to be infected, about 3% have died. That sounds really bad and scary. After all, the average annual flu has a mortality rate of between 0.1% and 0.2%, depending on the year. So, for example, in 2015 to 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 30 million people got the flu and around 60,000 people died, or 0.2%.
But, wait... we know for sure that far more people have gotten this coronavirus than have been tested for it. As I just noted, the statistical sampling of antibodies in Germany suggests a much, much lower lethality rate. The real mortality rate is probably somewhere closer to the regular flu.
So what do you want to bet that we eventually figure out that the population-wide mortality rate for this virus is about the same as all of the other coronaviruses?
But what if I'm wrong? I might be. Nobody knows how widespread the virus is already in the U.S. But since we don't know for sure, why in the world are we ordering everyone to stay in their homes? Why don't we find out and then decide?
Knowing the real lethality of the virus (which can only be calculated if you know how many people are infected) informs us how dangerous the virus is for most people.
We already know that this virus isn't a significant killer for people under the age of 50. Virtually no one without serious existing conditions has died from this virus under the age of 50.
And we also know from places that have actual data that this coronavirus is no more dangerous than the other viruses that we know circulate around our country on a regular basis every year.
Knowing how many people are infected is also critical to figuring out which policies are needed to mitigate the impact of the disease on the hospital system.
After all, if tens of millions of people already have the virus, you're not going to stop it by making people stay in their homes... It's already too late. I strongly suspect that was the case here. I suspect we will eventually learn that this virus had been circulating undetected in the U.S. since at least December.
And what is certainly different about this virus, as compared with the regular flu, is that when it emerged, there was zero existing immunity to it... which meant it spread like wildfire.
But the good news is that super-contagious viruses also burn out quicker because herd immunity impacts the growth rate.
So... should we have shut down our entire economy for a month in March, long after the virus had spread to millions? No! What we're doing will not reduce the total infection rate or the mortality rates of this virus.
It's far too late for the strategy we're using...
How do I know? The best evidence of how widespread the virus has become comes from studies of fecal matter in wastewater treatment plants...
A group of researchers from Harvard, MIT, the Brigham and Women's Hospital, and medtech startup company Biobot Analytics has published research submitting that viral loads in the wastewater from an area in Boston suggests at least 2,300 people in the water treatment area are infected with COVID-19, roughly five times more than the official 446 confirmed cases. No one wants to go to a hospital or a doctor's office right now unless they absolutely have to, so it makes sense that the vast majority of these infections go unreported.
And that's not all we know about how fast this virus spreads...
Although nobody in Washington, D.C. wants to mention it, one group of people was thoroughly tested. This group offers a striking example of what happens when you lock people into their homes after this virus has been circulating amongst them.
We know exactly how many people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship were infected. We know when the virus appeared on the boat. And we know exactly how many people died.
There is no dispute about these facts, whatsoever.
There were 3,711 people on the boat (passengers and crew). We know that 712 people were infected, despite restricting everyone to their cabins as soon as the infection was discovered. That's an infection rate of almost 20% in a matter of days. This is a very, very contagious virus. Keep in mind, the lockdown on the boat began on February 5, which was only four days after the first case was discovered in Hong Kong. This virus spreads like wildfire.
On the other hand, even in a population that is much, much older than average and that featured substantial population-wide comorbidities like high blood pressure and obesity, only 12 people died. That's 1.7% of the people who got infected. Yes, that's much worse than the average flu – but not if you adjust for the age and relative health of the population.
Researchers who have studied the cruise ship outbreak in detail estimate that this virus will have 0.5% lethality in the general U.S. population – which is, again, comparable to the regular annual flu.
We have already seen that the initial forecasts of more than 2 million deaths are complete nonsense. When the president ordered the economy to shut down, he claimed that if we didn't take this step of cowering in our homes, then millions would die. "People will be dropping dead on the subway," Trump claimed, as though Ebola was on the loose.
All bullshit.
This virus is definitely dangerous to the old and the sick. To everyone else, it's going to be a nonevent... just like any other flu season.
Here's a prediction...
In a "bad year" for the flu, between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans die from the virus. I'm willing to bet that by the end of this year, roughly the same number of people will have died from this virus.
And I'm also willing to bet that there's zero difference in either the total per capita number who become infected and the mortality rate between our country (which ordered a shutdown) and Sweden's, which has refused to order anyone to shut down their business or stay in their homes.
If you accept that the virus had been circulating in our population for months by the time the lock down orders arrived (which is certainly the case) and if you know it's highly contagious, then ordering everyone into their homes in mid-March was closing the barn door when the horses were already long gone.
What does work to control the spread of a novel virus? Herd immunity. Humans have immune systems. They work great, especially in younger people. We can handle viruses.
What we should do is tell older and sicker people to put on a mask. Wear rubber gloves. Avoid crowds at all costs. Avoid hospitals. Stay home whenever you can.
We should have told everyone else: Go about your lives. Yes, we should also add that some of you – probably about 20% – are going to get this novel coronavirus this year. (Normally about 9% of the population gets the flu every year... so your chances of catching COVID-19 this year are about double what you'd normally face with the regular flu.)
And if you get it, it's probably going to suck. But the younger you are and the healthier you are, the more likely it is that you won't have any symptoms at all.
So, let's not cancel school. Let's let the kids go and get exposed to this virus when they are young, when they can handle it, and when they can quickly develop immunity.
That's the best way to build the herd immunity we need – allow everyone who can manage the virus to get exposed. As quickly as possible. After all, the sooner the herd immunity we need develops naturally, the safer we will all be.
If the media hadn't gotten hold of this story and if our political leaders hadn't panicked...
This year would have just been a really bad flu season – nothing more.
And whether you agree with me or not, one thing is certain... Hiding in our homes will not make us any safer – not for long. As soon as we leave our isolation, the virus will spread again. There's no way to stop a virus that's this contagious and this widespread in a population this large.
It will take at least a year to build a vaccine. And until then, what we desperately need is for people who aren't at risk of dying to expose themselves and build immunity.
And guess what... That's exactly what's going to happen – eventually. The only question is when. It can happen six months' from now if we want to cripple our economy and lose $10 trillion to $20 trillion (plus all of our liberties). Or it can happen in about six weeks if we all just go back to work and deal with it like adults.
So what should we do?
If you're over 60 or if you're in poor health, by all means, do everything you can to avoid catching the flu this year. The hospital isn't going to be able to help you. You have to make sure you don't get sick!
But if you're in good health, and especially if you're under 50, simply ignore everything and live a normal life. It's no big deal.
Interestingly, if we had respected people's civil liberties, that's almost certainly what would have happened. A lot of people would have gotten sick at first because nobody knew a new virus was circulating. But as soon as people saw what was happening, the old and the sick would have taken much greater precautions. The rest of us would have gotten exposed – probably about 20% of the population in 60 to 90 days. And then it would have burned out as immunity in the population grew – just like the regular flu. Meanwhile, there are tens of millions more people who have far more to fear from the economic consequences of these policies than they have of the virus.
And guess what?
There's no way to develop immunity from the State...
This situation sets a precedent that will surely be exploited for years to come. The government's getting used to ordering us all around. It isn't going to stop.
Meanwhile, God gave us the ability to reason – to judge for ourselves what risks to take and which to avoid. God also gave all of us the liberty to live our lives as we see fit. Our leaders don't have the right to make these choices for us. When we let them, we doom our country to the worst possible outcomes.
Just imagine what John Hancock, John Henry, or Paul Revere would say to themselves in our current situation. Do you have any idea what our Founding Fathers were up against?
They took on the greatest army in the world with little more than a bunch of starving farmers. They had no navy... against the greatest navy in the world. They didn't even have the support of all Americans. And if they lost... they would all been hanged for treason.
Why take on those terrible odds? For liberty... to establish the greatest society the world had ever seen – a grand experiment to find out how much better our world could become with civil rights for the common man and free markets.
And what do you think these men would say today, watching a governor ordering millions of people to stay locked up in their apartments while their businesses fail? Can you imagine what our founders would say looking at us cowering in our homes like whipped dogs?
I guess we've all forgotten about Valley Forge, where two-thirds of our soldiers died because of the flu! Trust me, they didn't have ventilators either. But did George Washington go home? Hell no.
If our country's willingness to kowtow to the most blatantly unconstitutional orders in the history of our nation doesn't bother you because you still believe in the "common good"... or because you buy into the big lie that we're all in this together... I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
First, because you're naïve to have any faith at all in our leaders' ability or willingness to make good decisions. They don't even know how many people have the virus already and they never bothered to find out!
They've completely ignored the Diamond Princess cruise ship case study, the German data, and the wastewater studies. They're doing the only thing they can with their very limited understanding of this virus: Ordering everyone to stay home. Meanwhile, plenty of hard evidence shows why this strategy won't work and isn't necessary.
But beyond all of the facts and the medicine...
There's another reason I believe every American ought to be ashamed of the way our government has behaved...
We've acted just like the communists in China behaved – ordering everyone around, telling them they can't travel, telling them they can't work.
That ain't what we do here.
By all means, if you want to wear a mask, be my guest. And if you are older or if you have health problems, please, take sensible precautions. But those decisions are rightfully yours to make...
We aren't in this together. You have your health and your priorities... And I've got mine.
I hope you'll join me in calling out anyone who supports these tyrannical and unconstitutional new laws. I believe every American should willingly risk death before surrendering an iota of his liberty.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive... those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis
15 comments:
I'm pretty sure I disagree with almost everything that guy says. Right now China is looking pretty good, their extreme measures worked for them, as they did for South Korea and Taiwan. The US has the highest level of infection and numbers of dead, with a very high rate of mortality (not the highest in the world but pretty high). The US was slow to get off the ground with testing and it shows.
Here in Canada the provinces in the best shape are the ones that are relatively isolated anyway: far north, islands, 'drive-thru' provinces. Isolation doesn't end the pandemic or kill the virus, it stretches it out so that hospitals can handle the influx of patients. Healthcare workers are too damn busy caring for the sick and dying to march in protests or write cogent criticisms.
The best strategy is widespread testing and tracing of contacts, but the ability to test widely is tragically missing. In my province of just under a million people we only have the ability to test 800 people a day, which we are doing, but it is not nearly enough. Tracing of contacts using high tech is a serious infringement of privacy and human rights, so it is very controversial. Tracing contacts the old-fashioned way is slow, time-consuming and laborious.
On the face of it allowing kids to go back to school sounds like a reasonable idea in theory, but when you look at the practice of it, all those kids end up being carriers spreading a disease that they themselves will probably survive handily but their teachers, parents, grandparents will not.
The UK tried to go the herd immunity way but when their PM got sick they quickly turned away from it. The statistics coming out of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark make it clear that Sweden has probably made a mistake.
Some of our provinces have been very successful in walling themselves off from the rest of the world, practicing physical distancing and shutting down everything not deemed 'essential'. They have small populations and are able to shut their borders to outsiders.
Some of the closures don't appear to make sense (your surfing incident) so yes, some authorities don't get it absolutely right. We have a few anomalies like that too. Our local and federal governments have been tweaking the rules as they go along. For example, our provincial government closed all parks and trails, our municipal government found a loophole and reopened one trail to the public. That trail is now heavily used because it's all we've got, and sometimes physically distancing is a problem there.
So far our local hospitals have been able to handle the influx of covid-19 patients but only because they have called a halt to almost every other kind of hospital care. Nursing homes have become hotbeds of infection and death because they barely coped with the care of the elderly to begin with and now are utterly overwhelmed due to underpaid staff who work in multiple homes and/or just quit due to the danger and lack of compensation. In Canada we have called in the military to help in nursing homes, an utterly wrong solution in good times but grasping at straws now. Not just the covid-19 patients are dying but other residents as well of starvation and dehydration because the staff simply don't have time to deal with them. It is horrible.
In some societies the elderly are deemed expendable, but in others how we care for the most vulnerable is a mark of how civilized we are.
Sorry for long comment, I guess your quote hit a nerve for me.
A long comment on a complicated subject is a good thing. Thank you.
The thing that rang most true to me on what he said was that we are not being hurt by this equally. We all can get it and once we get it there is no guarantee how it will impact our bodies. But I am living on an acre of desert where I can be outside and still isolate. We have enough money for food and are not working age; so haven't gone without income through this. For us, it's inconvenient and very stressful for what it's doing on both the economic and health side. I read that it's predicted Wall Street will recover before Main Street and that's scary.
the hate this is inspiring between groups is making our US divide worse than it was.
As for us having more cases. We also have more people. It'd be more accurate to compare one state to Sweden than the whole country. And I've read varying articles on whether Sweden has benefited from herding or not. Seems it's that way with a lot of things. First smoking makes more people die and then smoking has less people getting it. For now, the articles can drive a person nuts with the different way info is interpreted with one expert contradicting another. The more I read, the more I wonder if stopping reading about it would be healthier-- while continuing to isolate, of course.
I don't know that testing would help unless literally you did everyone at the same time and then isolate those with it. But even then, since it can linger on surfaces (some variations out there on how long or virulent it would then be), someone could be clear today and get it tomorrow. Testing for antibodies seemed to have more promise as to who already had it and might be immune; but they aren't sure they would be immune. Some thought that blood plasma has promise from those who got over it. BUT that might vary with the patient.
It's very upsetting and the unknown part is the worst. I wake up thinking about it because will it ever be gone or will another come along just as deadly again with no protection other than hiding away and government cannot go on forever without tax revenue. Printing money will make our dollars worthless someday. It's a vicious circle from a vicious virus that doesn't treat all people equally. :(
We read stories of the plagues of old but never thought we'd have one again as we were so advanced in medicine. Turned out to be wrong-- sad to say.
Another opinion piece to consider-- We cannot reopen America. I heard Mark Cuban say America will come back better than ever but different. Maybe so Maybe no
For another opinion from two Kern County doctors, who work with corona patients. It's a video but worth listening to what they are saying. YouTube Video....
I have mentioned that I've had to self isolate for years to avoid getting the regular flu due to not being able to take the shots. I had it once in the over 40 years and it was miserable. The regular flu kills and probably in a lot of the same ways as Covid-19. It's scary to read what happens to some people, some of the younger ones who have the corona virus and have a heart attack or stroke from the attack. None of us know how our body will respond to it. But for someone to act as though the flu is not bad too hasn't had it or hasn't read the stories about it.
It makes sense to self-distance until there is a vaccine-- if there is one-- for those of us most at risk. And maybe to some degree everyone will, as Sweden encouraged. It may change some businesses forever with that need in a new era.
I agree with Porter, but then you knew that, right!
Went grocery shopping the other day, and found it interesting that the majority of people my age and older were not wearing masks. Now the youngsters 20-40 age group where all wearing masks, and most had been embellished to the point of uselessness. So it appeared it was more about the "look at me" than about prevention... sigh
Paul said most were wearing masks when he went to the store this morning and many looked like his which is a painting mask from years back when he'd been doing some spray painting on the house. He had 5 in the set.
"We do not exist to serve the State. The State exists to serve us." To quote the above, individualism and freedom of expression is the main thrust of his argument. Of course if the state says something he will agree with he won't argue.
Britain has though seen its government turn round and support the economy all of which the above wanted. People have expressed their solidarity for the NHS and support for the measures being taken - the state rules;) often through social media.
It was interesting to watch how it unfolded, the catastrophe of the virus. One moment they were talking about 'herd immunity' (Dominic Cummings thoughts probably) and after the righteous outcry against it they realised you could not throw the weak and defenceless to the wolves.
Morality and ethics came into the arguments; our prime minister became ill and disappeared though it has been noted he was definitely not on the job before his illness, and Cummings was seen running from 10 Downing Street, he had caught it as well. Such visual imagery does not portend well.
The people in the country have drawn together despite the government, they stand behind the workers, the police on the whole give fines to those who are straying too far from home. Strict measures have halted a second wave of pandemic happening too quickly.
The issue will be-- when can it start again? China evidently is being hit by their second wave after their extremely strict measures. The virus is still there with those who come in and boom. IF governments can exist without tax money for a year until there is a vaccine, that'd be ideal with handing out money to people. But how many governments have that much back there? The US was $20+ trillion in debt before this. Many of us elders depend on pensions or social security payments; with no revenue coming in how long will that last? If they stop, what then? Economics cannot be left out of it. After the cloistering time, if people are not prevented from traveling, what stops it from returning with the same virulence? I do not think there are simple answers in a pandemic.
In the States, our federal government can print money to hand out without the tax revenue. You know what happens there if you have followed socialist countries who did that and ended up with saved dollars worth pennies if anything. It's all very well to say it's for the old, but without money to buy food, how long will they last either. A vaccine that works seems the only answer but a year away? And will it work? We've never had one that worked for colds and this year's flu vaccine in the US was 45% effective (and this was a more effective than usual vaccine). Social distancing can work but it won't allow all business to open and make a profit.
i hear a lot who say economics should not be considered-- just the lives of people. Dollars are not important. They'll say that until their cupboard is bare.
I hope you listened to the YouTube video from those doctors and what they are seeing, you know as they work with the sick.
One other thing that came up since I wrote this the wife of CNN commentator, Chris Cuomo. When she had it, she said she took baths with 1/2C of bleach and used vitamin drips to beat it. She has been torn apart by the media and experts particularly on the clorox baths. Even my husband said that's too much. I said, she's a wealthy woman and probably her tub is a lot bigger than you're thinking. Here's a possible plus to what she did that they are ignoring. Clorox kills the virus in minutes. They also say that we exhale it all the time once we have it, which is why it's so infectious. What if killing it on your skin prevents it from doing some of the other weird things it can do, like strokes, blood clots, and heart attacks, maybe it enters through the nose but for some people it can enter other ways. Other than too much bleach and drying out her skin, I don't really see where it hurt her.
What medicine is doing now for the virus, without a cure, is trying to subdue it enough for the body to do its thing. Things like Vit D are being encouraged as a way to get your immune system stronger to not get it at all. Same with Zinc, which we have taken with colds to shorten their duration. This is all experimental for now and the medical profession doesn't agree on a lot of it any more than they do on what we need to eat or not eat. It's just worse in a pandemic. Here, when some claim they know it all, it can lead to death when they are wrong.
A long post. I also disagree because he fails to take into account the huge wave of really sick people that would hit emergency rooms (already too much demand in ICUs). The beginning of his article covers lots of false equivalencies and he needs to stick to viruses and pandemics and history. I do think that choosing between bankruptcy and death of a family member is not a fair choice, but it may be a choice we are being asked to make. The police chasing a water sport enthusiast is stupid but also an exception. My next worry is the shortage of food as crops are being thrown out. This disfunctional administration could have forseen this and used the National Guard or military to ensure less food is destroyed and reaches the many in need in our country. They could have set up freezers and refrigerators from other warehouse to slow the spoilage as well. There is much that could have been done if we had a normal human being leading.
States and counties could have done this also. It's tidy to blame the feds especially when it's an unpopular president and his minions in charge. But governors also had power to call up the National Guard and have. It hit us all so fast and if you think about it, this is only the end of April with so much info contradicting itself. It coulda shoulda been done-- and in hindsight, it's easy to say. It wasn't and now what?
Maybe we also should have stopped cruises and tours to foreign lands as after all, we knew SARS had been there. But we didn't and we didn't know. Will we now and change any of that considering how popular it has been. I read that those cruises brought back a lot and maybe people with no symptoms but part of what has spread this around the world. I saw the massive travel lines from China for commerce, products many of us buy or even depend on. We are totally interdependent in many ways with no control when one country decides to hide a disease exploding to humans.
That link above about whether we can ever bring a lot back is worth reading. A lot has changed but will it be enough in changing times,which with climate change and increasing populations make for a new world?
I've said it before and where a lot of experts did know we could have a pandemic, most of our experiences had been in narrow quarters like SARS or Swine flu at least in the US.
If Hanta Virus, which you get from rodents in rural areas, comes along, hurts rural areas and campers but then is gone. I think we thought we had the tools to deal with anything after beating back so many diseases.
We could blame anybody for this but my guess is it was beyond what most believed would develop with how it took down the economy and killed and sickened around the world. If China had been more open early on, who knows if it would have changed things. Limiting total travel might've helped but that's against the human desire to move around and how many jobs are involved with travel.
That one link above, We cannot reopen America, suggested some changes that might help for the future but will we want to do them? It's like the beauty and nail salons. I had no idea how many people depended on them until I began reading them at FB. I hadn't been in s salon in years and never for nails, but I am apparently not the average for sure.
Jobs are economically important for tax revenue, which provide services as well as pensions etc. The uncertainty is part of what has made this so bad.
There’s a lot that is problematic in what this man says. One very important issue has to do with his statement no children have died. CDC reports indicate 3 children have died not to mention all the infants who develop severe illness. Does make one wonder how many more statements he makes are factually accurate. The medical effects on all ages are only now beginning to be determined which has included dangerous heart issues, strokes for example in ages other than the older population. Asserting this virus is comparable to the flu is not borne out by the facts and there is even much we don’t even know about this virus yet, making such a comparison with only partial data unrealistic presently, to say the least. Had the perceived onset of this virus been handled properly when first learned about, then how it was determined my some officials to address the issue might have been differently.
I am pretty sure he wrote it before those things happened. It's also proving to have some difficult results for people in the middle years including strokes and heart attacks.
Thanks to all for the comments. I get an amazing amount of info from friends, which often contradicts itself, of course :) A new video round table was out there and I won't share it here though I don't know that it's wrong
Censorship is an interesting thing. I posted a YouTube link above of two doctors discussing their view of the virus and what needed to be done now. I went to FB this morning, someone has posted it. Others said it had been removed. Sure enough, when you go to the link, it says YouTube removed it as violated community standards-- whatever that is supposed to mean.
Anyway a group site local to them put it up on a different site. If you want to know what was wrong with it, and hadn't seen it already, it's at Bakersfield Now
It is apparent that it's only safe for Americans to see one side of an issue... the correct side, of course. Might confuse our poor little brains to get another view.
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