Here are more thoughts regarding the possibility of a Covid floor in Colorado. First, as a reminder, both positivity and hospitalizations seem to have found a steady-state floor and have been at the same levels for weeks.
STEADY-STATE LEVELS ARE NOT NATURAL!
1/8
Here's a chart showing last 10 years of visits for Influenza-like illnesses (ILI) in US. What's missing? Aside from perhaps mid-July to mid-Aug summer nadir, there are no steady-state periods where ILI visits remain unchanged for weeks. Such balance doesn’t occur naturally.
2/8
And it makes sense, either the flu is spreading or contracting. To strike a perfect balance where there are a steady-state significant number of cases week over week would be very difficult. Even Colorado’s modeling group agrees.
3/8
Go to CO model & try to produce an output w/multiple weeks of steady-state hospitalizations. You can do it, but if you move any parameter by even 1%, you'll change hospitalizations to either increasing or decreasing.
To achieve a steady state in an actual population with varying lockdown levels, behaviors, weather, protests, events, lockdown fatigue, etc. would be incredibly hard to accomplish (i.e., impossible).
Look at Sweden’s Intensive Care graph for a more natural curve.
5/8
So theory is we aren't seeing true representation of Covid in a steady state condition in CO. We're seeing an artificial steady state, likely due to false positives, true positives not hospitalized "for" Covid, and/or some other artificial force.
Colorado’s COVID-19 Modeling Group advising @GovofCO believes a return to January-like behavior would result in 55,000 more Covid deaths (~10,000 per million, 6x worse than NY-the worst place on Earth). The data & real-world examples of more open places (FL, Sweden) disagree. 7/8
If floors remain stable, it’s a sure sign what we are seeing in hospitalizations and positivity in Colorado is not pure Covid cases, but some other phenomenon.
Conclusion: To @GovofCO - Covid isn't the threat you and your modeling group think it is. It's time to open up.
8/8
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U.S. Public Health and politicians killed at least twice as many people as Covid.
A short thread.
In the US from Jan 2020 through Dec 2023 (4 years) there have been 1,387,000 excess deaths in the U.S., which is 11.7% over the number of expected deaths.
These excess deaths were the result of Covid and the societal and healthcare changes caused by our reaction to Covid.
If we had stayed calm like Sweden and worked to minimize disruption to our lives, maybe we could have seen Sweden's overall rate of excess deaths over the four years: 4.1%.
If we had Sweden's rate of excess deaths (4.1%), we would have seen only 480,000 excess deaths.
Actions on Jan 6 were not an insurrection as the word was defined in 1860 around the time of the passing of the 14th amendment.
Trump is not an insurrectionist.
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The definition describes taking over of a city or state such that law cannot be executed. It doesn't say the opposition of "a" law, but law in general.
An insurrection is where a group seeks to replace a governing authority w/their own. On Jan 6, a few people sought to change how one particular law was being executed.
It's equivalent to a violent mob attacking a police station b/c they want particular police policies to change.
Are more people than ever “dying suddenly” since 2021? It appears the answer is yes.
In 2022, after Covid fear and restrictions had subsided, the US hit a record for % of deaths occurring away from healthcare facilities. In 2023, we are on pace to set another record.
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Each US death certificate records 1 of 8 places of death. This chart shows the share for each place category in 2019. The category most sensitive to changes in number of people dying suddenly is likely the “Other” category which is deaths away from home/healthcare facilities.
Note: Percent of deaths listed as “Decedent’s Home” has been growing for decades and was massively affected by Covid policies making a post-Covid increase difficult to discern. This analysis looks only at “Other”. The excess deaths at home over trend is about 100,000 since 2020.
Add to the list: masks contribute to long Covid symptoms.
When the idea of masking started, it was recognized that, at best, it was a tool to slow the spread. It couldn't stop Covid, but it could help flatten the curve was the theory.
...got involved and soon masks were treated as being able to STOP Covid. The CDC director at the time said masks were better than a vaccine (fact check: correct, but not because masks have any efficacy). Many said if we would just mask for a few weeks, Covid would disappear.
Parents claimed in court cases that an unmasked school was so unsafe for their asthma-suffering kids, they could not physically walk into such a school (some claimed under fear of death) under the ADA, but a masked school was perfectly safe and the courts went along with it.
PFE showed up briefly then disappeared, indicating a HUGE number of people are dying from our reaction to Covid.
Here's the CDC graph of US weekly deaths since Jan 2018.
Green=Non-Covid
Blue=Covid
Orange line is expected average.
It is well documented that Covid has hit the elderly and infirmed the hardest. So when a wave of Covid sweeps through a population, it stands to reason that among the victims will be many people who were weak and were going to die shortly absent Covid.
Thus after a wave of Covid, we should see a period of below average mortality as many of the deaths of people who were going to die after the waves were “pulled forward” into the wave.