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“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
-H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women
When H1N1(pdm09) struck in 2009, it shocked the world by causing serious illness in children and adults 18-65 years old. Thank God public health officials vanquished that terrible virus.
The United States mounted a complex, multi-faceted and long-term response to the pandemic…On August 10, 2010, WHO declared an end to the global 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. However, (H1N1)pdm09 virus continues to circulate as a seasonal flu virus, and cause illness, hospitalization, and deaths worldwide every year.1
Did you catch that last line? H1N1 continues to circulate as a seasonal virus to this very day. Would you be surprised to learn that during that pandemic, the CDC simply decided to stop counting the cases?
In the summer of 2009, the CDC reported 43,771 cases of H1N1 influenza had been officially confirmed, with 302 deaths.
“But ... that’s really just the tip of the iceberg,” Schuchat said. “We believe there have been well over 1 million cases of the new H1N1 virus so far in the United States.”2
Schucat stated the CDC would no longer report cases and was working on better ways to estimate how many people had been infected.
In 2012 the CDC re-evaluated the 2009 pandemic and gave an update on how many lives the pandemic actually claimed.
Though the virus was deadly, the swine flu pandemic is still considered to have been a fairly mild one. The CDC calculates that up to 575,000 people may have died from H1N1 in 2009. The WHO estimates that the seasonal flu kills up to 500,000 people each year. Both pale in comparison to the flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.3
I'm guessing the case and fatality numbers for H1N1 may have come as a shock to you, especially when the CDC portrays 575,000 deaths as a “fairly mild pandemic.” Here are the numbers for Sars-coV-2 (USA) as of today.
Cases: 40,330,712
Deaths: 659,9274
We didn't hear much about H1N1 influenza during the 2019-2020 flu season; however, the CDC was tracking it.
Overall, influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses were the most commonly reported influenza viruses this season. Activity began to decline in March, perhaps associated with community prevention measures for COVID-19. The 2019-20 season is described as having moderate severity; however, the effect of influenza differed by age group and the severity of the season in some age groups was higher. Hospitalization rates among children 0-4 years old and adults 18-49 years old were higher than observed during the2009 H1N1 pandemic… More than 52,000 hospitalizations occurred in children aged <18 years and 86,000 hospitalizations among adults aged 18-49 years. Forty-three percent of hospitalizations occurred in older adults aged ≥65 years. Older adults also accounted for 62% of deaths…An estimated 7,800 deaths (36% of all deaths) occurred among working age adults (aged 18–64 years)…We estimate that at least 434 deaths associated with influenza occurred during the 2019-2020 season among children aged <18 years.5
An estimated 434 children died of H1N1 influenza in the six month period from October 1, 2019-April 4, 2020. By comparison, in the past 19 months,
…a total of 361 children, ages 0-17, have died of COVID-involved disease, based on death certificates submitted so far to CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
I find it troubling that the CDC didn't educate the public on the risk of H1N1 infections or alert parents to the death toll in children. Over a six month flu season there were an estimated 434 pediatric deaths from H1N1, vs 114 pediatric deaths from covid19 during the same period. (The CDC uses a formula to estimate flu deaths citing “under-reporting.”)
Many of us question the case and death counts from covid19 (sars-cov-2.) The CDC and FDA refused to provide guidance on what cycle threshold cutoff to use for determining positives cases with PCR tests. Each lab or test manufacturer chose their own cutoff, and some were set as high as 40. In 2020, The New York Times reported;
Officials at the Wadsworth Center, New York’s state lab, have access to C.T. values from tests they have processed, and analyzed their numbers at The Times’s request. In July, the lab identified 872 positive tests, based on a threshold of 40 cycles. With a cutoff of 35, about 43 percent of those tests would no longer qualify as positive. About 63 percent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30. In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. “I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,” he said.6
Math Time!
Dr. Fauci recently gave guidance on reporting breakthrough cases in vaccinated patients. He indicated that a PCR cycle threshold of 28 or less would be considered a positive test. If the real percentage of actual positives from the New York Times report is accurate, let's recalculate our total cases using that data. If labs had used a cycle threshold of 35, 43% of the positives would be deemed negative.
43% of 40,330,712= 17,342,206
40,330,712 - 17,342,206 = 22,988,506 true positives.
If cycles had been set at 30 (remember, Dr Fauci has now set the cycles at 28, so I'm being generous here), 63% of positives become negative.
63% of 40,330,712= 25,408,348
40,330,712 - 25,408,348=
14,922,364 true positive cases.
The original number of cases was 40,330,712. If the 659,927 death rate is accurate, that would yield a 1.63% mortality rate. However, we know that the way deaths were counted in 2020, came under much scrutiny. Medical examiners and doctors complained of being instructed to count patients who clearly did not die from viral respiratory illness, as covid19 deaths, simply by virtue of a “positive” PCR test.
Let's give Dr Fauci the benefit of the doubt and take the higher calculation of adjusted positive cases based on a cycle threshold of 35. That gives us 22,988,506 adjusted cases.
22,988,506 (adjusted cases) x 1.63% (mortality rate) = 374,712 deaths vs CDC 659,927 reported deaths.
Also when comparing covid numbers to influenza numbers, keep in mind that influenza season is from October to April. That's six months each year. Sars-cov-2 numbers are from 19 months…essentially 3 flu seasons. During the 2017-2018 flu season, the CDC reported 61,000 deaths over 6 months.7 (10,166 deaths per month.) Had that flu season lasted 19 months, the death toll rises to 193,154. Covid has definitely been worse than a bad flu season….even with recalculation; however, the mortality rate could have been far less if the CDC and FDA had made early treatment available, or at least stayed out of the way of doctors who were willing to treat patients early. Even advising people to have their vitamin D levels tested and to maintain a level between 50-80 could have reduced deaths. I'm sure some will say that it may not have made a difference in mortality…perhaps not, but it wouldn't have caused any harm either.
The sad fact is, we have no meaningful information going forward because the CDC has made such a mess of the data. I grant them high marks for keeping Americans frenzied with panic and clamoring for increasing governmental overreach. A medical crisis that could have been mitigated, at least to some degree, has instead been amplified. We must ask ourselves, “Why?” This virus isn't any more complex in structure or in action than other pandemic respiratory viruses. Yet Dr. Fauci seems unable to understand that. Perhaps focusing decades of research on developing HIV vaccines in a lab, has found Dr. Fauci lacking in the skills needed to effectively treat patients. It's clear from his inability to give the same advice from one day to the next on issues as basic as mask wearing, that it might be time for Dr. Fauci to resign and focus on enjoying his golden years. His failures are clear to anyone willing to look at his track record. His only success in this pandemic has been in keeping everyone chronically confused, anxious, and engaged in what seems a perverse game of “Simon Says.” On the bright side, his advice is much like the weather. If you don’t like the latest rules, give it a day or so…it’s bound to change because, you know…..”SCIENCE.”
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1pandemic.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-SwineFlu/idUSTRE56N3PQ20090724
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/swine-flu-h1n1-pandemic-deaths-15-times-higher/story?id=16646281
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2019-2020.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm
I'm not sure I get the point of this blog. It's similar to the logic of algorithms behind social media that manipulate viewers to return based on emotionally charged teasers. Human brains are highly susceptible to that and for social media, it's getting people to return to capture more views, like ratings in television and done so by presenting choices that come across as threats and emotionally compelling. Why put up manipulated pictures of Fauci - to create something emotionally charged. But secondly, what are common folks like me supposed to do with this information? Really, what would you have us do? Where are your solutions? This comes across as nothing more something to get people revved up and we know where that can lead. Loved your video presentation about your NDE, but this feels more political, even far-right, something which you espouse that you steer away from. It's an "R" rated world for sure, but presentation, manipulation, authenticity all play a part in making or breaking a readers faith in the writer/presenter and certainly affect the perceived credibility. Ultimately, I would like to understand the end goal of this article. Every epidemiologist, infectious disease expert in an official capacity would have a different approach as to how to handle a novel situation, especially during early days navigate through uncharted waters. Really easy to point the finder later, which you also state that you are against. Many independent, educated veteran doctors in infectious disease affirmed Fauci, so what do we do? Really, those of us who are not educated in the field have to follow someone and misinformation (from All sides) is getting extreme and clouding the waters more and more, which is really the aim of misinformation in the first place.