{"id":38352,"date":"2020-03-09T12:10:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T16:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=38352"},"modified":"2020-03-09T12:10:40","modified_gmt":"2020-03-09T16:10:40","slug":"a-different-take-on-the-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=38352","title":{"rendered":"A Different Take On The Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Fumento posted an article at The New York Post<\/a> yesterday about the coronavirus. He believes, based on the behavior of viruses in the past, that the number of cases of the virus will peak quickly and then subside.<\/p>\n

The article notes:<\/p>\n

More than 18,000 Americans have died from this season\u2019s generic flu so far, according to the latest\u00a0data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2018, the CDC estimated, there were 80,000 flu deaths. That\u2019s against 19 coronavirus deaths<\/a> so far, from about 470 cases.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Worldwide, there have been about 3,400 coronavirus deaths, out of about 100,000 identified cases. Flu, by comparison, grimly reaps about 291,000 to 646,000\u00a0annually.<\/strong><\/p>\n

China is the origin of the virus and still accounts for over 80 percent of cases and deaths. But its cases peaked and began \u00addeclining more than a month ago, according to data presented by the Canadian epidemiologist who spearheaded the World Health Organization\u2019s coronavirus mission to China. Fewer than 200 new cases are reported daily, down from a peak of 4,000.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Subsequent countries will follow this same pattern, in what\u2019s called Farr\u2019s Law. First formulated in 1840 and ignored in \u00adevery epidemic hysteria since, the law\u00a0states that epidemics tend to rise and fall in a roughly symmetrical pattern or bell-shaped curve. AIDS, SARS, Ebola \u2014 they all followed that pattern. So does seasonal flu each year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clearly, flu is vastly more contagious than the new coronavirus, as the WHO has noted. Consider that the first known coronavirus cases date back to early December, and since then, the virus has \u00adafflicted fewer people in total than flu does in a few days. Oh, and why are there no flu quarantines? Because it\u2019s so contagious, it would be impossible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As for death rates, as I first noted in these pages on Jan. 24, you can\u2019t employ simple math<\/a> \u2014 as everyone is doing \u2014 and look at deaths versus cases because those are \u00adreported cases. With both flu and assuredly with coronavirus, the great majority of those infected have symptoms so mild \u2014 if any \u2014 that they don\u2019t seek medical attention and don\u2019t get counted in the caseload.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Furthermore, those calculating rates \u00adignore the importance of good health care. Given that the vast majority of cases have occurred in a country with poor health care, that\u2019s going to dramatically exaggerate the death rate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article adds:<\/p>\n

Like the flu, the coronavirus is afflicting high-risk groups: the elderly, those with \u00adunderlying health conditions like diabetes or heart disease and those with compromised immune systems. Are there exceptions? Sure. But that\u2019s the case with almost every complex biological phenomenon of the kind.<\/strong><\/p>\n

More good news. This month, the Northern Hemisphere, which includes the countries with the most cases, starts heating up. Almost all respiratory viruses hate warm and moist weather. That\u2019s why flu dies out in America every year by May at the latest and probably why Latin America has reported only 25 coronavirus cases. The Philippines, where I live, has about a third of the US population, but it\u2019s so damned hot and humid here, so far we have had no confirmed cases of internal transmission.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pray for warm weather soon. Meanwhile, keep washing your hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Fumento posted an article at The New York Post yesterday about the coronavirus. He believes, based on the behavior of viruses in the past, that the number of cases of the virus will peak quickly and then subside. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1393,1389,253,12501,4950,12532,657,10177,8311,8321,2213],"class_list":["post-38352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-centers-for-disease-control","tag-centers-for-disease-control-and-prevention","tag-china","tag-coronavirus","tag-epidemic","tag-michael-fumento","tag-new-york-post","tag-northern-hemisphere","tag-quarantine","tag-the-new-york-post","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38353,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38352\/revisions\/38353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}