Coronavirus in Perspective, Part V

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.  The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."- Frederick Douglass

By Rich Kozlovich

Life is about patterns, and people are like nations.  Both will act in their own best interests, and those actions create patterns. Those who write about geopolitics look for those patterns in order to understand events, and the historical precedents that relate to those patterns.  But sometimes the patterns fail, because people can't be programmed. 

You didn't see this coronovirus insanity coming? You may take solace in that no else predicted these insane actions by the world’s governments and American governors as a result of this coronavirus either, including me. 

This isn’t part of the historical pattern. In fact, the pattern should have been, "bad things happen all the time", so suck it up and move on. The only infection related event in modern times that was different than the normal pattern was the Spanish Influenza where 50 million died worldwide and 675,000 Americans died. and that was with a world population of less than two billion.  All the rest were dealt with on a personal basis. Why? It was a societal paradigm.  Society knew that a lot of people were going to get the “flu” every year, and many would die.  That's what everyone understood.  That was how life worked, until now.

As I said, people can't be programmed, but people can be manipulated.

Currently the worldwide population stands at 7.8 billion people, with 295,000 dying from coronavirus. Assuming those deaths were properly recorded, the mortality rate is 0.00378%!  

(Editor's Note:  The COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns HopkinsUniversity (JHU) keeps running totals, and as of May 15, 2020 at 6:30 PM EST the number of deaths were 301,370.  The percentage of mortality is 0.00386%, which is a miniscule difference, however I wrote the article based on the 295,000 number and that will be the basis for the calculations in this article. RK)

In 1968, with a worldwide population of 3,551,599,127 the Hong Kong flu killed over 1,000,000 people worldwide. The mortality rate was 0.3%!  It seems to me 0.00378% versus 0.3% represents a rather substantial difference! Don't you think?

In the United States we've lost approximately 85,000 people to coronavirus, however, we now know many of those deaths were improperly reported to make the number of coronavirus deaths seem higher than they actually are. Whether those numbers are correct or not, the following mortality rate figures will be based on those numbers. In a nation of 331,002,651 the mortality rate would be 0.03%.

America lost 100,000 from the Hong Kong flu that year, and with a population of 200.7 million the morality rate was 0.05%. Comparing 0.05% to 0.03% represents another substantial difference, and yet no one in America dreamed of shutting the country down in 1968.

In 1957 America's population was 172 million people, and in that year we lost 116,000 people from what was called the Asian flu. The mortality rate was 0.07%. Again, 0.07% versus 0.03% is substantial and no one thought they should shut down the country in 1957 and 1958.

All this media hyperbolic hysteria and leftist insanity is nothing more than an attempt to destroy a President. I don’t know how or why Europe bought into this insanity, but they did and there it is, and the penalty they're going to pay will be enormous. Europe's economy was already headed into the toilet and their social structure was already heading to dissolution and anarchy, but the doom is now on them. There will be more on this in a later article.

In Ohio, Governor DeWine shut down the state with “zero” cases of coronavirus at that time, and as of April 20 the mortality rate, based on Ohio's 2020 estimated population of 11.7 million people was 0.004009%. I'm not sure what the current death toll is in Ohio, but I extrapolated that April 20th number out ten times to cover all bases, and the mortality rates would be:

• Two times higher, 942 - Mortality rate – 0.008042735042735%
• Three times higher, 1413 – Mortality rate - 0.012076923076923%
• Four times higher, 1884 - Mortality rate – 0.016102564102564%
• Five times higher, 2355 – Mortality rate - 0.020128205128205%
• Six times higher, 2826 - Mortality rate - 0.024153846153846%
• Seven times higher, 3287 - Mortality rate- 0.028068376068376%
• Eight times higher, 3668 - Mortality rate - 0.032205128205128%
• Nine times higher, 4239 - Mortality rate - 0.036230769230769%
• Ten times higher, 4710 - Mortality rate - 0.04025641025641%

Even at ten times the deaths, the mortality rate would still be under one half of one percent, still less than the impact of the Hong Kong flu or the Asian flu.  And no one thought we should shut down Ohio in either 1957 or 1968.

This is more pertinent in Ohio because it’s estimated in 2020 Ohio will have more people over 60 than under 20. If Ohio has so many elderly, and this virus is particularly deadly to elderly, especially those with underlying medical conditions, and the mortality rate is still that low, why isn't DeWine backing off? To understand that we first, need to ask why did he take the actions he did in the first place?

Computer models!

And all of these scaremongering computer model doom and gloom predictions have been abjectly and stunningly wrong for decades. That's a pattern. And we need to recognize and act on it.   

As for DeWine, he's a disgrace as a leader, and yet the national media is saying he's one of America's most popular governors.  Really? With whom?

Let's talk about modeling, and these modelers don't like sharing their coding, which means there's no way to verify what they're telling us.

Real science can only be done through observation, that's the scientific method.  Computer modeling has proven to be a failed scientific paradigm over and over again. From Global Warming predictions to disease mortality rates. It's a failed scientific paradigm and it needs to either be dumped or reevaluated as an aid only. And even then, with complete and absolute transparency regarding the algorithms being used. Not the final tool in decision making!

On May 13, 2020 Ellen Sauerbrey posted the article, Wrecking the economy with discredited computer models saying:

"Neil Ferguson, a mathematical epidemiologist at Imperial College London, panicked policy makers around the world when he released his computer model projecting that the coronavirus pandemic would result in 500,000 deaths in the U.K. and 2.2 million in the U.S.

It is hard to understand why his pronouncement was accepted so uncritically when he has a history of being wrong.  Very wrong. According to The Spectator, in 2005, Ferguson said that up to 200 million people could be killed from bird flu.  The actual number was several hundred.

In 2009, he gave an estimate of 65,000 deaths from the Swine Flu in the U.K. U.K. deaths actually numbered fewer than 500. Ferguson's dangerously inflated computer models have led to policies that are wrecking the American economy."

(Editor's Note: More of this can be found in Coronavirus in Perspective, Part II and Coronavirus in Perspective, Part III)

The reality regarding the number of deaths in the U.S. will be no greater than many annual flu infections, but the economic damage will have a greater toll on people's well-being, health and even their deaths.  She goes on to say:

"Lockdowns, unemployment checks, and federal bailouts are unsustainable and will bankrupt the country. We should not continue wrecking the economy and mortgaging the nation's future over excessive fears created by a discredited computer model".

Michelle Malkin doubled down on this corruption of science in her article,  Protect Your Family From Fearmonger Fauci by saying:

"Dutiful reporters ignore the flip-flop, slavishly acting as stenographers for Fauci and the rest of the dishonest "deep state.............The truth is that Fauci is misleading American families and educators through arrogant acts of both omission and commission.

The Kawasaki lie is not his first or last lie. Before he embraced masks for all, he smugly dismissed the measure in March during a "60 Minutes" interview because it would "make people 'feel' a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection people think that it is." Now, he says, face coverings "should be a very regular part" of our daily lives..."

On May 14, 2020 Daniel John Sobieski posted this piece, Fauci's Song and Dance saying:

"His pronouncements have been dangerously and consistently inaccurate, as when he asserted that the coronavirus was nothing to worry about and we should just get on with our lives. As The Hill reported on January 26:....... “It’s a very, very low risk to the United States”..... and "Healthy people do not need to wear a face mask to protect themselves from COVID-19.  "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask," infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes." He goes on to observe:

First COVID was not a threat. Then it was. We didn't need masks. Then we did. This is Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown.  Now he tells us we have to wait for a vaccine for his permission to educate our children, worship our God, or visit our doctor?"

I've known this was scaremongering from the beginning because I know about pattern of past failures in computer modeling and the lack of scientific integrity.  What bothers me is why so many of my science friends, who are also aware of the corruption going on in science, have either disagreed with me or have chosen to ignore me.

One of my science friends, who I've had the privilege to dealing with for years, and for whom I have enormous respect, read my Coronavirus in Perspective, Part IV article and responded by saying;

"My virology days tell me that this thing is truly an "end-of-the-world" type event. I have never seen a scarier virus. It is far worse than the flu. Flu (mostly) kills by bacterial pneumonia. This thing goes after cells all over the body and is doing things no virus has done before. In the past month three people I know, none of whom would have been killed by flu, have died and the fourth is on a ventilator AND dialysis. You and I both know what that outcome will be. 

It is also more contagious than flu, and no one has acquired immunity. The number of silent carriers is a nightmare. If I'm right the reopening is going to be a catastrophe and this summer is going to be a nightmare. In the absence of a good antiviral drug (we're not even close) people are going to be hiding under their beds by fall. Sorry if I bummed you out, but if there's any good news out there I've yet to see it. Maybe I'll be wrong. Hope so."

This from a man with advanced science degrees who has never been given to hysteria, hyperbole or easily intimidated, and in point of fact has been instrumental in exposing fraudulent junk science for many years.  Well, as much as I admire him, the numbers don't support those observations, and everything else is speculation, which is what most of this public hysteria has been predicated on.

The fact that this virus is unique in what it does is immaterial.  In the U.S. the most toxic spider bite is from a spider who has mouth parts that are too small to bite people.  Mortality rate?  Zero!  So, does it matter how toxic its venom is?   What counts are the numbers, and it appears, based on the worldwide mortality rate of 0.00378%, the vast majority of the world's people are either immune to this virus or resistant.  Currently there are over 4.4 million confirmed cases.  That means only approximately 0.06 percent of the world's population has been susceptible to this virus.  So, if that's true, and it seems that it is, does it matter if this virus is so unique? 

It's the numbers that count!  And not the phony numbers these computer modelers present, and not the speculation they tout as realtiy.   As for the so-called predicted second wave - well, that's speculation also.  We're falling into the Precautionary Principle trap, the foundation for junk science.

People have been manipulated to the point they’re absolutely frightened out of their wits.  Frightened to the point they’re convinced by accepting tyranny they're acting in their own best interests.   And they willingly sacrifice their rights and freedoms to be "safe".   That creates a philosophy of indifference and acceptance, and when that happens we stop being citizens who believe they can, and have the right, to hold their elected leaders accountable for their actions.  When that happens we become sheep, to a corrupt government who will know no boundaries. and we will know no abuse we can't accept.

Once again quoting Frederick Douglass - The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

When this is all over we're going to look around and say:

"Was that all there was?  We destroyed our economy and the lives of untold millions and that's all there was!"  

There's a difference between being rightly concerned and being hysterical, and when this is all over, I hope society returns to believing they're citizens of a great nation that came about by defying tyranny, and then remembers how this happened, and who did it to us.  Because the long term social, economic and geopolitical consequences have yet to come into play, and when it does, its not going to be pretty, and will have a much larger impact on our lives than this Chinese flu.

There will be more on that in future articles.

Please read:

• Coronavirus in Perspective             
• Coronavirus in Perspective, Part II
• Coronavirus in Perspective, Part III
• Coronavirus in Perspective: Part IV

One more point.

For some reason people have been going back deep into my archives to read some of my old posts, including this one.  Grant Awards to Support Bed Bug Education: Activity as a Substitute for Accomplishment, Part IV.  This piece is just one more demonstration of how patterns repeat over and over again as this article highlights another example how the corruption of science and government are not in our best interests. 

There's a New Killer in Town: Tracking the ‘Murder Hornet’!

By Rich Kozlovich

On May 2nd in was reported that America is being populated by what's known commonly as the ‘Murder Hornet"!  In the article,  Tracking the ‘Murder Hornet’: A Deadly Pest Has Reached North America, and it's going to impact honey bees they state.

In his decades of beekeeping, Ted McFall had never seen anything like it.  As he pulled his truck up to check on a group of hives near Custer, Wash., in November, he could spot from the window a mess of bee carcasses on the ground. As he looked closer, he saw a pile of dead members of the colony in front of a hive and more carnage inside — thousands and thousands of bees with their heads torn from their bodies and no sign of a culprit.

“I couldn’t wrap my head around what could have done that,” Mr. McFall said.

Only later did he come to suspect that the killer was what some researchers simply call the “murder hornet.”

Giant Asian Hornet mandibles

These girls are big, (For the uninitiated:  All worker hornets are sterile females) and the "queens that can grow to two inches long".

Because of their aggressive nature and large mandibles, they can wipe out honey bee hives in a matter or hours.

They have very long stingers which are capable of penetrating beekeeping suits.  That's a scary piece of information, and clearly a new issue for the pest control industry, and it's noted in the article:

"In Japan, the hornets kill up to 50 people a year."

Giant European Hornet

Also, here's a picture of the Giant European Hornet, which has been the largest in the U.S. for many years, until now.

I went to a lecture by Austin Frishman over thirty five years ago and he claimed it appeared on the East coast some years before and spread west rapidly. I had the far East route in my company in Ohio, and was the first to bring one back to the office, and no one had any idea what it was. 

However, these Giant European Hornets are not even as aggressive as yellow jackets, and certainly not this Asian variety, and as far as I can tell they aren't a threat to honey bee hives.  

Here are some you tube presentations on Giant Asian Hornets:

• Killer Hornets From Hell
• Asian giant hornet in the Pacific Northwest - Feb 2020
• Here's one that's interesting:  Asian Hornet Nest Removal, but this was done after the season turned cold, and it also makes clear climatic conditions won't stop them.
• This one demonstrates just how aggressive they are: Two Giant Killer Hornet Colonies Fight to the Death    
• They're also listed as one the ten deadliest insects on the planet. 

This is going to be interesting as I've seen nature shows dealing with this pest, and if their numbers increase to the same level as Giant European Hornets, things will become interesting.  We will have to deal with this as I've shown, climatic conditions will not stop them. 

Beekeepers and pest control people need to be aware, alert and prepared.  It seems reasonable to me  it's going to take all new protective gear to deal with this menace. The techniques and tools to deal with them will remain the same, but it also seems to me we're going to need new protective gear.