What if I told you that confirmed flu surveillance across the world has dropped year over year by 98% since April?
This is the deep dive story with data, graphs and charts showing how the world's most consistent nemesis has (almost) completely vanished.
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We began hearing reports back in May the flu was nowhere to be seen in the Southern hemisphere, which was the start of when cases usually peak. I had theorized as early as June and July that perhaps Covid was keeping the flu away.
Full pivot. After a lot of reflection, prayer and many signs and circumstances pointing this direction in my life, I need to continue this path of data analysis full time if I'm to have time to do it. I'm creating a Patreon for supporters to donate.
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I set the Patreon tier at $3. People can tip any amount above that if they wish. It's recurring but if you want to make a one time donation, you can set it to that amount and cancel after. I'll post more in depth analysis on there daily plus my weekly podcast, etc.
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I'm only looking to supplement my income. If the spirit moves and I'm blessed to make more than that, I will be donating 20% above my expense threshold to charity. I really never planned or wanted to monetize this, but if I'm going to have time, I need to be fully devoted.
It is undeniable, IMHO, that there has been an increase in spread in the upper Midwest. This is specifically in WI, the Dakotas, MT, WY, etc. This is not just on account of detection of college cases, but PCR/CLI have risen too. This does not mean a ton of deaths will follow.
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Remember those of us following both seasonality & infection thresholds have been calling this for months. Places that have not been hit hard are still susceptible to further spread. It's not an accident this is hitting a specific geography (seasonality) & places not reaching HIT
Here is a visual of CLI in HHS region 8 (CO, UT, WY, MT, ND, SD)
You can see a definite tick up the past 7-10 days in symptomatic ER visits and confirmed diagnoses.
We have our MMWR 38 update in from the CDC, and my Covid Indicator Trend Index has been updated from that. All 4 indicators: CDC Viral Testing/PCR by collection date (20% each), Covid Like Illness (CLI, symptomatic ER visits) and hospitalizations per 100,000 (30%) went DOWN.
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To be transparent, we're seeing significant rise in HHS region 8 (CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY). We saw a definitive jump in positive percentages last week, a small increase in CLI and an uptick in hospitalizations. Every other region looks good.
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Here are the CDC viral surveillance... labs reporting to the CDC and specifically the HHS PCR testing dataset by collection/test date
Today the CDC acknowledged what has been known for several weeks: the flu has largely disappeared this flu season in the southern hemisphere. The CDC is spinning this as being the result of mitigation (masks, lockdowns, etc.). This thread will show that to be false.
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First off, WHO has NEVER found lockdowns/mitigation to stop the flu. Here is their guidance from 2019 saying isolation/quarantine simply doesn't work
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Let's be more blunt, a working group by WHO found in 2006 that there has never been any evidence of quarantine/isolation strategies stopping the spread of the flu
This is no surprise, considering I've been predicting it, but @RMConservative here is the CDC acknowledging finally the flu didn't show up in the southern hemisphere and they're claiming it's because of mitigation (even though it didn't stop Covid-19).
Please do NOT panic what I'm about to show you. This is the so-called "second wave" in Europe; daily reported deaths inverted and overlayed with daily reported cases. This is shockingly graphic.
Please...remain calm.
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More graphic detail. Please view at your own risk
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And then there's Sweden, who is barely even going through a casedemic because they didn't mess with worthless mitigation strategies. They took their medicine and got better.
This was aptly mentioned by @RMConservative on the most recent @CR podcast I was on, but anyone else notice how experts that spent 6 months telling us this is not like the flu are now saying we have to treat flu season as if it's this and continue to wear masks and distance?
Live look at the 'experts' and 'politicians' slowly trying to make a seamless transition from covid mitigation to flu mitigation without you noticing
As we wrap up the week for CDC death additions, we finish Friday with 2.26% of all deaths being attributed to Covid-19 associated deaths. Overall total is down with a holiday, but percent is still down nonetheless. Here is how end of first week reporting compares to previous:
Here is the same trend for the second reporting week on the last several Fridays:
Here is where we are with testing right now. Compare disclaimers of the CDC's diagnostic panel EUA with that of LabCorp's PCR profile; both using a similar 40 ct, yet note how very different their disclaimers are of what can be concluded from a positive result...
The CDC version says this is an active infection. The LabCorp version basically says otherwise. LC says it should only be construed as an active infection for people having other signs and symptoms.
And here is the Quest disclaimer, more closely aligned with LabCorp but in the middle of the two
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Jan. 26 on AM 970, NY, with John Catsimatidis
"The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It's a very, very low risk to the United States, it isn't something that the American public needs to worry about or be frightened about."
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Dr. Fauci on Feb. 29 on the Today Show
"Right now, at this moment, there is no reason to change anything you're doing on a day by day basis. Right now the risk is low."
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So how is it the POTUS, having the same intel as Dr. Fauci (remember they were meeting in January already) gets raked over the coals for trying to keep the public from panicking, but Dr. Fauci gets a pass for doing the same?
Here are cases, estimated infections (weighted by week from 5.5 to 11 w/0.25 increases by week back to Mar) and deaths for 209 aggregated media markets with deaths per 1 mil in 2 week increments. Infection prevalence highlighted by 10% midpoint (red >10, green <)
Covid indicators trend index (my CITI measurement) were down or neutral in 8 of the 10 HHS regions and nationally for MMWR week 35 (ending Aug. 29). They went up in regions 7 & 8 due to slight increases in viral lab, PCR and hospitalizations. CLI was neutral.
The week numbers got clipped on that above graph, but here it is with the weeks:
Here are your trends for CLI and hospitalizations through week 35 (Aug. 29) by region.
Below is an example of a death certificate from the Nat'l Vital Statistics System (NVSS), a CDC branch that is in charge of D.C. collection/reporting. This is a quick explanation of how Covid-19 deaths are reported and where the "6%" came from and why it isn't important.
Generally, NVSS guidelines suggest any death caused by Covid be listed in Part I, which lists all causes in the chain of events leading to death right up to the final underlying cause (Line A). Any death Covid is listed in Part I is supposed to be lowest line (underlying cause).
Pneumonia, for instance, is frequently brought on by both Covid and the flu. So a person could have PN listed on Line A as being the immediate cause, but CV would be the UCOD below it. This would be the same as the flu, except we don't actually confirm flu like we do this.
Herd Immunity. I'm devoting this thread to it because it's a possible way out. There are a lot of Herd Immunity Threshold (HIT) deniers out there over theories that the virus is burning out at 15-20%. I'm about to throw some cold water in the faces of the deniers.
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I can't prove, and won't attempt to suggest I can, that we are reaching herd immunity in the U.S. However, after seeing the data I have to offer, anyone would be cray to dismiss the possibility out of hand. First, let's discuss what herd immunity actually is.
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Let's explain herd immunity from an excerpt found on the Mayo Clinic website:
I've missed a few publication dates, but here is the national ICU census from the HHS dataset by reporting intervals. This lags a few days behind the general hospital occupancy I've been reporting (would be lower than the numbers show), but following the same trend.
The hospital census decreased 27.6% from Aug 3 to Aug 23. This was a 22% drop for the same reporting period. Considering this lags a bit in reporting with 4-day windows, this is right on par with the hospital census.
Florida ICU census from July 30/Aug 2 through Aug 20/23
Second week of my Covid Indicator Trend Index (CITI). National index dropped from 91 to 80 Aug 8 to 15, whereas 100 is the average baseline of the four indicators: CDC Viral Surveillance (20%), PCR testing (20%), CLI as %ER visits (30%) and hospitalizations per 1 million (30%).
As anticipated, huge drop in the southeast in Region 4.
(2/3) This is the current display of all deaths in 2020 with and without Covid-19 (unweighted). Using lower estimate (2xSD), we're 135,593 deaths over normal; it's 193,437 using the higher estimate... the lower 5Y ave range.
(3/4) Now when we look at what the CDC is PROJECTING for the same date range (through week ending Aug. 8), which is the predicted weighted model, we see the 135-193,000 range bumps up to 174,930-235,728. This is what CDC thinks will be lower and higher results.
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