Sunday, November 29, 2020



Johns Hopkins Study Saying COVID-19 Has 'Relatively No Effect on Deaths' in U.S.

Conventional wisdom is that COVID-19 has caused thousands of deaths in the United States and nearly 1.5 million worldwide. This perception has been directly challenged by a study published by Johns Hopkins University on Sunday, November 22.

Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Johns Hopkins University, critically analyzed the impact that COVID-19 had on U.S. deaths. According to her, the impact of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States can be fully understood by comparing it to the number of total deaths in the country.

According to study, “in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”

Wait, what? Really?

That’s what it says. And, it should come as no surprise that not long after the study was published it was deleted within days.

Luckily, a back-up copy remains on The Wayback Machine, and we can still read the study.

So, how exactly did the study conclude that COVID-19 has had “relatively no effect on deaths”? Here’s how the study made this determination:

After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared.

Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.

According to Briand, “The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals.”

Briand’s analysis found that the range of deaths amongst the older population has remained within the range of past years.

So, if COVID-19 has actually had no significant impact on U.S. deaths, why does it not appear that way?

To answer that question, Briand shifted her focus to the deaths per causes ranging from 2014 to 2020. There is a sudden increase in deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19. This is no surprise because COVID-19 emerged in the U.S. in early 2020, and thus COVID-19-related deaths increased drastically afterward.

Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.

“This is true every year,” explained Briand. “Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes.”

Here’s where things get interesting.

When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.

The study found that “This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years.” In fact, “the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19.”

Briand concludes that the COVID-19 death toll in the United States is misleading and that deaths from other diseases are being categorized as COVID-19 deaths.

There have reports of inflated COVID-19 deaths numbers for months. Patients who never tested positive for the disease had COVID-19 as their cause of death on their death certificates. In May, Jared Polis, the Democrat governor of Colorado, disputed official coronavirus death counts, saying even those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were inflated from including people who tested positive for the coronavirus but died of other causes. In July, a fatal motorcycle accident victim was listed as a COVID-19 death.

On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University explained that they deleted the article on the study because it “was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic.”

They did not, however, challenge the accuracy of the data or its conclusions. In other words, the article was deleted because it didn’t fit the proper narrative.

This determination to put theory before the facts is truly malign -- JR

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This Thanksgiving, I Choose the Safety of Freedom

Let’s have a little fun thinking about serious things. How about this? The public health aristocracy is advocating lockdowns for the holidays. Don’t travel, don’t associate in groups larger than six. And, don’t have fun.

For months leading up to the holiday season, many Americans have been flying. The flights have been fewer, but the planes have been full. The airports have been moderately crowded. Are the public health orthodocs telling us we shouldn’t be flying at all? Have they discovered that loaded planes are 'superspreaders'?

The short answer is, no.

Further, the mask mandators, who don’t want us flying or traveling, must have forgotten that the most compliant mask wearers are the flying public. In the dozens of flights that I have taken over the past months, I have observed that there is almost 100% compliance in the airport and on the planes.

Virtually everyone slaps a mask on their face from the moment they are dropped off on the airport curb, and continues to wear it until they have reached their destination and climbed into their cars heading away from the airport.

The airlines are strict enforcers of mask wearing.

The question then becomes, if mask wearing is so effective, then why would the public health cabalists insist that travel be verboten. Especially since traveling by plane will result in mask wearing by all on the plane. One would suggest that traveling by plane might be super safe.

Riding in an auto for hours with close friends and family may be the target of the autocrats, but aren’t those the same people who would be together at home for hours on end during the holiday lockdown?

And, how does all of this square with the shackles placed on free America by political leaders who believe they are too elite to live by the rules they make for others? All on the same day, New York Gov. Cuomo tearfully told the world that his out-of-state daughter cannot join his family for Thanksgiving. The world thinks, at last a Democrat leader who applies the same rules to himself that he imposes, by force, on others.

Oops. By mid-afternoon, Cuomo let the cat out of the bag: his 89-year-old mother and two of his other daughters are traveling to join in the holiday fete.

Goodness gracious. By early evening, the feckless one canceled the invitation to his mom and daughters. Illinois Governor Pritzker vacillates even more than Cuomo. He announced that he hasn’t decided if he or family and friends will travel while he locks down the state.

The Barrington Manifesto has more than 49,000 signers who are medical doctors, scientists, and professionals. They decry lockdowns. And, yet the pinnacle of public health pushes that we be locked away, against our will, in homes, apartments, etc., to avoid potentially catching the coronavirus. Yet, the studies are pretty determinative that one is more likely to catch the virus while in the closed settings that accompany lockdowns.

And, that’s not even counting the mental and physical health devastation that accompanies lockdowns. A recent report suggested that more than 50 percent of adolescents and young adults are suffering serious mental health issues, with a substantial increase of suicide ideations. And, seniors are also experiencing similar difficulties.

Isolation, which is the remedy most frequently advocated by our public health gurus, has brought to pass incredibly serious ramifications that many experts believe exceeds the real and serious impacts of the virus.

So, the experts insist that we lockdown and miss Thanksgiving. Miss out on our associations; shut down a brief moment of familial and friendly associations that bring some peace and joy in a season that has brought unprecedented discord in our nation.

I do not advocate that we take unnecessary risks. I am simply saying that each American should assess their risks and act as free, American adults. Make your decisions responsibly. We’ve been told for months that masks are the ultimate security. So, if I’m flying, I wear a mask. I’ll make the determination, with my loved ones, what risk we are willing to take.

If you want to stay locked down, isolated, and avoid whatever risks that associations with friends and family may pose, I support your decision. You, too, are free to make your choices.

I wish you all the best, and a Happy Thanksgiving, whatever your choice may be. If you choose the security of your homes and self-imposed lockdowns, I wish you well.

I, however, choose the safety of freedom, the joy of family associations, and the emotional wellbeing of friends, good food, fine conversations, and the peace of expressing gratitude.

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Shocking MRC Study Shows Media Prevented Trump Landslide

A new report from the Media Research Center (MRC) shows the media’s role in thwarting what should have been a landslide win for President Trump in the 2020 Presidential race. The MRC surveyed Biden voters in seven swing states (AZ, GA, MI, WI, PA, NV and NC) and tested their knowledge of popular news topics about Trump’s successes and Biden’s corruption.

MRC found a whopping 82 percent of the voters were completely unaware of Trump’s successes, Biden’s corruption and the far left politics of his running mate, Kamala Harris. One in six, 17 percent, Biden voters said they would NOT have voted for Joe if they had known about one or more of these stories.

Voters were asked if they were aware of Biden’s sexual assault allegations, Hunter Biden scandal, how Harris is the most far-Left Senator, 33.1% economic growth, job creation, Middle East Peace Deals, U.S. Energy Independence, and Operation Warp Speed.

This latest report builds on an earlier post-election poll from MRC and McLaughlin & Associates that found 36 percent of Biden voters were unaware of recent evidence linking the Biden family to corrupt financial deals with China. If they had known these key facts, 4.6% of Biden’s total voters would not have voted for him in the 2020 Presidential race.

In the critical weeks before Election Day, from Oct. 14th – 27th, Media Research Center analysts found out of a total of 113 hours of news programming, ABC, CBS, NBC, these three networks combined spent a grand total of less than 22 minutes talking about the Hunter Biden scandal. God forbid they take a break from insulting President Trump to report the facts and hold a clearly corrupt politician accountable.

The left-wing media will stop at nothing to defend their beloved Biden family. When Biden allegedly interfered in Ukrainian politics last year, they insisted there was “no evidence” and he’d “done nothing wrong.” Then leading up to the election, they claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal was nothing more than a Russian disinformation campaign. I wonder, is the media simply stupid or are they really that slimy to spread such a blatant lie? Someone, let me know.

Twitter of course also helped hide the Hunter Biden scandal. Although Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey eventually admitted they were “wrong” and corrected the issue, their actions are despicable and inexcusable. Too little, too late!

Biden’s B.S. aside, Google manipulated its basic search results to favor the Left. Last night researcher and psychologist, Dr. Robert Epstein was on Tucker Carlson Tonight and explained, “Google’s search results were strongly biased in favor of liberals and Democrats…the bias was being shown to pretty much every demographic group including conservatives. In fact, Conservatives got slightly more liberal bias in their search results than liberals did.”

He further claimed Big Tech’s manipulations, at the bare minimum, “could easily have shifted at least 6 million votes in just one direction.” President Trump tweeted a video of Tucker’s opening monologue and the full interview with Dr. Epstein.

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