Thursday, April 16, 2020

Some Thursday Thoughts

Greetings:






















This is the first Thursday I've had off in some time.  After sleeping late and then grabbing a nap, I decided I'd crunch some numbers that had nothing to do with income tax returns.  The results are below:



Nation Population Cases Pct of Deaths Pct of Tests Pct of Mortality
World World Population Rate
Total Total Tested
USA 331,002,651 653,825 30.73% 30,998 21.91% 3,278,488 0.99% 4.74%
Spain 46,754,758 182,216 8.56% 19,130 13.52% 600,000 1.28% 10.50%
Italy 60,461,826 168,941 7.94% 22,170 15.67% 1,178,403 1.95% 13.12%
France 65,273,511 141,900 6.67% 17,941 12.68% 333,807 0.51% 12.64%
Germany 83,783,942 135,843 6.38% 3,943 2.79% 1,728,357 2.06% 2.90%
UK 67,886,011 104,135 4.89% 13,759 9.73% 327,608 0.48% 13.21%
Iran 83,992,949 77,995 3.67% 4,869 3.44% 275,427 0.33% 6.24%
Turkey 84,339,067 74,193 3.49% 1,643 1.16% 518,143 0.61% 2.21%
Belgium 11,589,623 34,809 1.64% 4,857 3.43% 112,613 0.97% 13.95%
Canada 37,742,154 30,440 1.43% 1,229 0.87% 487,060 1.29% 4.04%
South Korea 51,269,815 10,613 0.50% 229 0.16% 527,438 1.03% 2.16%
Denmark 5,792,202 7,074 0.33% 321 0.23% 89,123 1.54% 4.54%
Taiwan 23,816,755 395 0.02% 6 0.00% 51,603 0.22% 1.52%
Iceland 341,243 1,739 0.08% 6 0.00% 38,204 11.20% 0.35%
New Zealand 4,822,233 1,491 0.07% 9 0.01% 70,160 1.45% 0.60%
Finland 5,540,720 3,369 0.16% 75 0.05% 46,000 0.83% 2.23%
Norway 5,421,241 6,848 0.32% 152 0.11% 124,279 2.29% 2.22%
India 1,380,004,385 12,759 0.60% 423 0.30% 286,714 0.02% 3.32%
Indonesia 273,563,615 5,516 0.26% 496 0.35% 33,001 0.01% 8.99%

I did not include the numbers from China because I do not believe they are even remotely accurate. The numbers for the mortality rate among the confirmed cases are misleading as hell because they do not represent just how many people have contracted Covid-19 without having been tested.  The nations that have had the most success in keeping the number of cases down; and concordantly the number of deaths down, are those that reacted at the outset of this pandemic.

We cannot begin moving in the direction of normalcy until the testing numbers grow.  A lot.  Trump trumpets just how many tests are now being done, but we still have tested less than 2% of our nation's population.  While the comparisons of Covid-19 and the flu are stupid, there is one flu fact worthy of consideration at the moment.  A survey conducted last fall by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases revealed that only 52% of American adults planned to get a flu shot.

That's right.  We keep hearing that the flu kills X amount of people annually as people who should know better try to minimize the risks of Covid-19.  That is in spite of a vaccine being available for the flu.

CDC data shows that during the 2018-19 influenza season that 34,157 Americans died from the flu.  In spite of millions of Americans getting flu shots.  Meanwhile, at this moment there have been over 30,000 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S.  That number is rising.  Over 2,400 in that total died just yesterday.

This is NOT the flu.

Ivanka Trump posted this tweet:




The problem is that just 4 days earlier she traveled from her D.C. home to her New Jersey home for Passover.  With her husband and 3 kids.  With their Secret Service detail.



❣️ pic.twitter.com/Rg017sRT8f
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) March 30, 2020
Then there's this tweet from March 30th from Ms Trump

The height of hypocrisy.






posted by me at 3:16 PM