22
Aug
2020
Potpourri
==> BMS ep. 140, in which I do some highlights of my latest chapter on the theory and history of the gold standard in the U.S.
==> Barry Eichengreen as Austrian?!
==> A negative review of my review of Stephanie Kelton’s new MMT book.
==> Check out the new Call of Duty trailer!
I keep thinking of Stephanie Kelton and Judy Shelton, interchangeably, in my head.
Oops.
By the way, it would seem that Judy Shelton is “anti Fed” in the same kind of sense that Ellen Brown is “anti Fed”, in that, apparently, they’re just not doing it right:
Sound Money Advocates Should Be Very Concerned If Trump Nominates Judy Shelton for a Federal Reserve Spot
[www]https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2019/06/sound-money-advocates-should-be-very.html
“She has occasionally said positive things about gold but sound money advocates shouldn’t think she is a hard money advocate. Her monetary policy thinking appears schizophrenic.
“She is a gold supporter (?) that wants to take interest rates down to zero!”
—
Call of Duty.
Oh good. I ran out of zombies in the last one.
Something tells me they’re going to find a way to blame free markets and the supposedly free market Trump for all the inroads of totalitarianism in America.
Glenn Beck pegged Trump before he got elected – he has always been a Lefty:
Donald Trump, 4-Part Series
[www]https://www.glennbeck.com/SERIAL/donald-trump
The things Trump does right are an accidental consequence of the silver linings of his crony agenda; That is, to the extent that the profit motive is in play, there happen to be some non-anti-business effects to cronyism, cronyism being a bad thing.
For example, building a wall on the southern border helps keep out more socialist votes (given the government’s refusal to defend the constitutionally established republican form of government). But it is entirely a Left-wing, pro worker and/or pro “we as a collective” mentality (as opposed to pro individual) that allows one to see foreign competition for jobs and production as a bad thing for America.
COD:
I have seen that interview already a long time ago. Great use for COD now. Certainly looks like the playbook is on target. Though I do think that this thing can happen also without intentional grand plan. People just are that stupid. They hold a sign saying “Violence is not the answer” and then go smash a brick through a window to prove the point…
Found this recently.
“Lockdown Deaths, Not Covid Deaths”
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/lockdown-deaths-not-covid-deaths
It seems to corroborate what a previous article I found was saying about how the mortality spikes in the all cause mortality data were correlating with lockdowns, government action, and nursing home events, not normal disease patterns. This one adds, among other things, that COVID-19 was apparently circulating around the world for at least a year before there were any lockdowns, but failed to cause any statistically significant spikes in all-cause mortality until the lockdowns started.
For a link to the other article, and some discussion on it between Harold and I, see here.
https://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2020/07/potpourri-419.html#comment-1985292
I did not see your reply there. Quick response here.
The article you cited made the claim that the excess deaths were caused by lockdown rather than Covid-19 per se. The author failed utterly to demonstrate his point because his reasoning was flawed.
Did the lockdown cause some deaths? Almost certainly yes.
Was the handling of care homes done well? Absolutely not. I don’t think that was due to the lock down. Had people been able and willing to move around more freely it would not have prevented the care home fiasco.
Take Hong Kong, where care homes had been badly affected by SARS-CoV-1 in 2003. It had reported no deaths in care homes from Covid-19 as of July 6th. Rather than less Govt. intervention, there were more rules. Care homes had to have a designated infection control officer and to maintain at least 1 month supply of PPE.
As soon as the Covid-19 occurred, back in January, the care homes stopped non urgent hospital and family visits. Staff wore masks and infected patients were care for in hospital infection wards, not in the care home, until they had tested negative twice.
There was a cost, some residents deteriorated without family visits, but the overall picture was much better than in USA and Europe. There have been few deaths overall in Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore. This is to a large extent down to keeping infection out of care homes.
They did this because they had experienced a previous outbreak and took it seriously. The US (and the UK) did not do so.
Discharging infected patients from hospital to care homes in particular was reckless and possibly negligent. Failure to advocate masks also seems a big mistake now. Whilst there may have been insufficient evidence to justify Govt. mandating masks, there was enough information to justify recommending masks. Tel was right! This seems to be at least in part because there was a shortage due to lack of preparedness. This also led to tragic shortages of PPE in care homes, which had to compete on an individual basis for dwindling supplies.
There was a woeful lack of testing at the crucial times as well. Care homes did not know who was infected.
Access to sick pay and staff not working more than one job are also important factors to limit infection. US does not score well on that basis.
Here is an interesting study on excess mortality in the UK
https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/charts-and-infographics/understanding-changes-to-all-mortality-during-the-pandemic
Hospital deaths are now well below average. Death at home has risen significantly. This may be due to people not getting medical help when it would have helped them. This is due to personal preference rather than direct Government action because the official message is to go to hospital if you need to. People are preferring not to, although no rule prevents it. I doubt the Govt. was consistent and balanced on the messages given.
I summary, there is no evidence that the lockdown directly caused the majority of excess deaths. The biggest problem was not taking it seriously at the start combined with a lack of general preparedness for a pandemic. We all knew it was coming sometime but had a false sense of security because previous scares were controlled.
You probably didn’t see my reply because I was late in making it, due to having less free time to engage in politics than I would like, lately.
I agree that looking at all-cause mortality data is, by itself at least, insufficient to differentiate between directly caused deaths and indirectly caused deaths, but considering the propaganda power and censorship power of those instituting the lockdowns, I don’t think that’s much of a defense. If I, without a medical license and without even examining a person, recommended a person take an excess dose of Tylenol or some other medicine, and as a result they were harmed, I could be charged with practicing medicine without a license, even if I didn’t actually force them to take the Tylenol, but merely recommended it, particularly if I failed to include appropriate disclaimers about how I don’t have a medical license. The argument could be made that if I merely recommended and not forced, this would be a violation of my free speech, depending on your views on free speech, nevertheless, I believe it is the law. Government officials should be held accountable under the same laws they enforce. Thus, even in cases where a person stayed home not because they were forced to, but because they believed in certain propaganda messages about staying home to save the NHS or whatever, the government officials in question should still be judged under the same practicing medicine laws without a license laws that they enforce against the rest of us. Certainly, if those laws are enforced against the rest of us but not against government officials, it creates a speech environment where someone may have a much harder time finding good advice to counter whatever bad advice government officials may give.
Will write more later if I can, but I recommend reading the “Targeting The Most Vulnerable” section of this article:
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/lockdown-deaths-not-covid-deaths
Harold wrote,
Even setting aside issues of government responsibility for bad propaganda and health advice, it still was not always due to personal preference, where the elderly are concerned.
For example, read this passage by Iain Davis.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/lockdown-deaths-not-covid-deaths
Funny business relating to people with DNR orders not being taken to hospitals has also been reported in Florida, see for example this article. The article also clarifies that a DNR (Do not resuscitate) is not the same as a DNH (Do not hospitalize), and that the patient in question had a DNR but not a DNH, and that the DNR was only supposed to apply if his heart stopped beating, not if he still needed care before his heart stopped beating.
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/investigations/10-investigates/family-speaks-out-after-father-dies-from-covid-19-in-nursing-home/67-40fa9ca3-307a-4010-b5c6-16b3c0825c90
“The mortality spike in England and Wales peaked between 9 – 12 April. It was at this time that NHS England withdrew their “do not convey to hospital” guidance.”
I did specify that hospital deaths are down and home deaths are up *now*.
The detection of virus in sewage is important. The la Rosa study finding Sars-cov-2 in Milan in December 18 has now been published after peer review. The study finding virus in March 2019 is not peer reviewed and the authors themselves were not very confident about the March 2019 result. It only tested positive in 2 of 5 tests and at the extremes of detection. I do not have much confidence in this result. nevertheless it seems the virus was present in Milan as early as December 2019. That is about 40 days before the first recognized cases.
“This suggests that taking it seriously is actually the problem,”
Your position seems so bizarre that I want to make sure I have it right.
We have two hypotheses.
1) Covid-19 is not a serious illness, it does not kill many people. The reason for the excess deaths is mainly due to Government policies, largely restricting movement.
2) Covid-19 is a serious illness that kills about 1% of infected people. The reason for the excess deaths is mainly people dying from Covid-19.
You propose hypothesis 1.
Do I have this right?
Harold wrote,
Mostly but not completely. It is possible for an illness that is not ordinarily serious under conditions under which people experience reasonable levels of freedom, food, and sanitation, may become much more deadly when freedom and/or food and/or sanitation and/or other factors that ordinarily provide protection are removed. (Or vice versa… a previously deadly illness can become less deadly when freedom, food, sanitation, and/or other protective factors are improved.)
An example is cholera. Cholera can be much more deadly to people living in refugee camps, than to people living in better conditions. According to stopcholera.org,
The deadliness of an illness is not static and immutable. Human choices and other factors can change how deadly an illness is. Sometimes humans do stupid things and cause the very problem they are trying to avoid. Furthermore, people who have evil intent and are very smart can trick other people into hurting themselves.
On top of that, the fear itself of COVID-19 may increase people’s chances of dying if they have COVID-19, or, more to the point, if they believe they have COVID-19.
Medical literature contains a number of examples of psychosomatic death, aka voodoo death.
For example, from Nigel Barber on Psychology Today,
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-human-beast/201209/voodoo-death-i
So, in other words, a person’s belief that they are going to die can be a self-fulfilling prophecy in some cases.
It may be unfair to completely blame government policies, and government is an abstract concept anyway. Some individuals who would not ordinarily be counted as members of the government, for example nursing home staff, may have also played a big role. However, we can at least say that people’s reactions to the belief that COVID-19 is deadly, including but not limited to government officials and nursing home staff, has caused an increased number of deaths, including but not limited to possibly reducing people’s ability to survive COVID-19 itself. Additionally, it is possible that some people may be taking advantage of the panic to achieve their own nefarious goals.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.16.20130278v2
Increasing food prices, decreasing availability of nutritious food, decrease in dietary diversity, reduced exercise, and increased stress, are all thinks that might increase people’s vulnerability to any number of illnesses and health problems, including COVID-19.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/world/europe/Spain-coronavirus-nursing-homes.html
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/spanish-army-dead-bodies-coronavirus-infection-nursing-homes-a4396456.html
One way fear can lead to increased death is making people afraid to help each other. (Even ones who have paid to be helped.)
Given that it sounds like the staff elected to follow advice to “stay home”, I don’t think government propaganda is blameless here.
Just to get an indication of what you think are the contributing factors, say for the sake of argument that SARS-CoV-2 was actually less deadly than other corona-viruses that cause the common cold. That is, not very deadly at all.
How many deaths would we have experience given the same responses we had to coronavirus? Thinking about USA and Europe only for now.
Obviously I don’t expect an exact figure, but something like nearly as many, or nowhere near as many.
Harold, I’m not sure I understand your question. Do you mean, what if we reacted with lockdowns and funny business in nursing homes against the common cold, or what if we reacted to COVID-19 the same way we do the common cold?
If we reacted to the common could with lockdowns and funny business in nursing homes, I think it would increase deaths.
If we reacted to COVID-19 the same way we do the common cold, I think it would reduce deaths.
One of the statisticians did say that at least some of the people who died in these mortality spikes would have died soon anyway, but they would’ve died slower, rather than in a spike. In those cases, the argument is that the lockdown accelerated their deaths, killing them a little bit before their time.
“If we reacted to the common could with lockdowns and funny business in nursing homes, I think it would increase deaths.”
Yes, but by how much? Would we see the number of deaths we have with Covid, or anywhere near it?
Harold wrote,
If we (we being humanity as a whole) reacted to the common cold the way we are reacting to COVID-19, with lockdowns, funny business in nursing homes, excessive fear, etc etc, I think about as many people would die as have been dying from COVID-19. You know, approximately.
Of course, history being how it is, it’s very unlikely that all the variables will ever be exactly the same in two different situations.
I wrote hastily and made an error. I meant to say, “as have allegedly been dying from COVID-19” or “as have been dying according to the all-cause mortality data” rather than “as have been dying from COVID-19”. Probably “as have been dying according to the all-cause mortality data” is the most accurate, since that isn’t subject to attribution bias.
Apologies for the typo.
“A Closer Look at the States that Stayed Open” by Ethan Yang
https://www.aier.org/article/a-closer-look-at-the-states-that-stayed-open/
This article looks at the official number of COVID-19 deaths, rather than the all-cause mortality data, so it is subject to the attribution bias, but even those numbers do not appear to support lockdowns for reducing deaths-attributed-to-COVID.
For example, Utah, which never locked down, apparently had the lowest case fatality rate in the nation, which supports my hypothesis that a) case fatality rate is a measure of quality of care and not an innate, immutable feature of any disease, cholera or otherwise and b) lockdowns reduce quality of care, thereby increasing deaths.
Also note the very low deathrate in South Dakota. So far as I can tell, South Dakota had the least government response to COVID-19 in the United States, and not only didn’t issue a lockdown, but didn’t even order any businesses to close. (States that ordered some businesses to close, but didn’t issue a stay-at-home order, are apparently counted as not having locked down.)
” “as have allegedly been dying from COVID-19” or “as have been dying according to the all-cause mortality data””
I get what you mean is that the excess deaths would be about the same as we have now.
This means you believe the infection fatality rate (as opposed to the case fatality rate) of Covid-19 is about the same as the common cold.
Do I have this correct?
The article from Yang claims that the USA had some of the most draconian restrictions in the entire world and links to page that shows the opposite. The USA never had a national lockdown, in contrast to many of the other countries shown.
How does he justify such a blatant error? Does he just assume people will not check his link and take his claim for granted?
It does not make sense that USA has so many deaths if Govt measures are the cause of the deaths. It simply does not fit the facts.
Sweden vs Norway and Finland. It is fine to argue that Sweden will be better off overall through less Govt restrictions, but it makes no sense at all to say that the deaths were caused by the restrictions because Sweden had fewer restrictions and many more deaths.
Honestly, if you look at all the evidence rather than cherry picking some of it your hypothesis is busted.
Not a complete response but only have a few minutes right now.
Regarding Sweden vs. Norway and Finland, what Sweden did have was funny business in nursing homes.
Of course any disease would be far more fatal if treated with a combination of morphine and midazolam.
I posted this link below, but here it is again.
https://mercatornet.com/did-covid-19-open-the-door-to-euthanasia-in-sweden/63962/
Will try to answer you more later.
This seems a bit special pleading. Lockdowns cause the deaths, except in the country where thay didn’t have lockdown, and in that case it was due to some sort of euthanasia policy in care homes,that had nothing to do with a new virus, but was presumably becuase the Swedes were looking for an opportunity to off their old folk.
It does not make sense.
Well, I specifically wrote “If we (we being humanity as a whole) reacted to the common cold the way we are reacting to COVID-19, with lockdowns, funny business in nursing homes, excessive fear, etc etc” rather than just “if the governments of the world reacted to the common cold the way they are reacted to COVID-19, with lockdowns”, because I realize that the overreaction to COVID-19 cannot be blamed entirely on either the governments or on lockdowns. There have been other actors and actions at play. Such as funny business in nursing homes.
Also, while Sweden did not have a full fledged lockdown, they did have a lockdown on their nursing homes.
“Sweden extends ban on visits to elderly care homes due to pandemic”
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-sweden/sweden-extends-ban-on-visits-to-elderly-care-homes-due-to-pandemic-idUSS3N27Z024
While this does not make the government officials who banned visits to the elderly care homes *directly* responsible for the use of morphine and other drugs to kill off elderly patients, it did create an environment where staff could more easily give those elderly patients morphine and other drugs without family or other visiting witnesses to see what was happening.
However, the Swedish government did more than just prohibit people from visiting. (Unless I’m mistaken and “the National Board of Health and Welfare” isn’t a government organization.)
See “Sweden discriminates against elderly with COVID-19; ‘active euthanasia,’ critics say”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/sweden-discriminates-against-elderly-with-covid-19-active-euthanasia-critics-say.html
According to the article, Sweden’s strategy (which many Swedes disagreed with… I use “Sweden” in the abstract sense) was,
So, people freaked out and thought the COVID-19 would be worse than it was. There was not a surge in young people needing hospital facilities, but because those in power thought there would be (and because they valued young life over elderly life), elderly people were denied access to those facilities.
Well, I specifically wrote “If we (we being humanity as a whole) reacted to the common cold the way we are reacting to COVID-19, with lockdowns, funny business in nursing homes, excessive fear, etc etc” rather than just “if the governments of the world reacted to the common cold the way they are reacted to COVID-19, with lockdowns”, because I realize that the overreaction to COVID-19 cannot be blamed entirely on either the governments or on lockdowns. There have been other actors and actions at play. Such as funny business in nursing homes.
Also, while Sweden did not have a full fledged lockdown, they did have a lockdown on their nursing homes.
“Sweden extends ban on visits to elderly care homes due to pandemic”
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-sweden/sweden-extends-ban-on-visits-to-elderly-care-homes-due-to-pandemic-idUSS3N27Z024
While this does not make the government officials who banned visits to the elderly care homes *directly* responsible for the use of morphine and other drugs to kill off elderly patients, it did create an environment where staff could more easily give those elderly patients morphine and other drugs without family or other visiting witnesses to see what was happening.
[to be continued]
However, the Swedish government did more than just prohibit people from visiting. (Unless I’m mistaken and “the National Board of Health and Welfare” isn’t a government organization.)
See “Sweden discriminates against elderly with COVID-19; ‘active euthanasia,’ critics say”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/sweden-discriminates-against-elderly-with-covid-19-active-euthanasia-critics-say.html
According to the article, Sweden’s strategy (which many Swedes disagreed with… I use “Sweden” in the abstract sense) was,
So, people freaked out and thought the COVID-19 would be worse than it was. There was not a surge in young people needing hospital facilities, but because those in power thought there would be (and because they valued young life over elderly life), elderly people were denied access to those facilities.
Harold wrote,
Except, apparently, according to data collected from sewage samples, SARS-CoV-2 was actually circulating around the world long before anyone noticed, and yet failed to cause mortality spikes before people started taking it seriously. This suggests that taking it seriously is actually the problem, though of course there’s still plenty of room to debate which particular ways of taking it seriously were the most deadly and where the responsibility for that lies.
See this passage by Iain Davis.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/lockdown-deaths-not-covid-deaths
The links below about so-called “euthanasia” in Sweden provide a good example of how taking a disease seriously in the wrong way can increase deaths.
If your goal is to stop the spread of a disease, and you throw ethics to the wind, then, from the perspective of trying to achieve that particular goal without worrying about ethics, killing patients makes sense. A dead person has a much harder time spreading disease, in so far as the disease’s viability is probably limited in dead bodies, and even to the extent that it may be viable for some time, a dead person can’t really resist efforts to isolate their body by, for example, cremating it or whatever.
However, while killing patients may indeed be effective at slowing the spread, it has serious ethical problems, such as being murder and increasing the deathrate.
Interestingly, Swedish nursing homes are not the first in history to use that particular method of disease containment.
See for example the story of David Newman.
https://sites.utm.utoronto.ca/historyinternships/blog/10302018-1155/realization-typhus-holocaust-challenges-faced-victims-disease-and-three-tales
And according to this one, some of the alleged COVID-19 deaths in Sweden may actually be morphine deaths (and other forms of so-called “euthanasia”).
According to the article,
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/after-months-of-condemnation-swedens-covid-deaths-drop-to-near-zero
More on so-called “euthanasia” in Sweden
https://mercatornet.com/did-covid-19-open-the-door-to-euthanasia-in-sweden/63962/
“Found this recently.”
Oh, yeah? Check it – mail-in voting fraud (Yes, what follows is the title):
THE ELECTION FRAUDS.; THE PROCEEDINGS AT BALTIMORE. THE PARTIES ON TRIAL. The Frauds Deliberate and Unblushing. Evidence Entirely Conclusive. Forgery Admitted by the Prisoners. How Votes were Manufactured for McClellan and Seymour. Implication of Democratic Politicians The Voting Fraud on the New-York Soldiers. Card from Gen. Farrell.
[www]https://www.nytimes.com/1864/10/29/archives/the-election-frauds-the-proceedings-at-baltimore-the-parties-on.html
“Thus the persons around this table, in the coarse of Sunday afternoon, filled up the number of nearly a hundred, and if three persons could, in one afternoon, manufacture some one or two hundred such fraudulent votes, what could not twenty men similarly employed for two weeks effect?”
[Edit: Line space inserted]
“The enormity of the fraud is appalling. Here is a fraud that may well call for the infliction of the severest penalty known to the court. The most sacred rights of the brave men who are absent from their homes periling their lives in the face of the enemy to uphold our liberties, are imperiled, and fraudulent votes art sought to be given against the cause for which they have been periling their lives.”
[Edit: Line space inserted]
“While they are absent in the field, these plotters at home seek to cast the ballots of these brave men without their consent, and while they cannot be present to speak for themselves, or defend their rights. This prisoner, who, though one of a numerous family of children, cannot show that he has even one brother in the field, upholding the flag of the country, is here proven to have conspired with others to defraud our brave soldiers of the exercise of the sacred elective franchise. A crime so enormous as this calls for a vigorous punishment, and I do not hesitate to say merits the extreme penalty of death.”
HT to the Washington Post:
Mail-in ballots were part of a plot to deny Lincoln reelection in 1864
[www]https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/08/22/mail-in-voting-civil-war-election-conspiracy-lincoln/
Archive these and share.
Mic drop, son.
😀
Good find.
Lockdown measures have apparently had a negative impact on efforts to fight tuberculosis.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/health/tuberculosis-deaths-lockdown-scli-intl/index.html