The Biggest Lies Yet

We are passed the death toll that Donald Trump suggested would show how his efforts have successfully contained the spread of CV-19: 60,000. And accelerating as many states are beginning to work towards a general reopening of public facilities and private businesses. Since the resulting deaths contradict that comfort zone, the facts are clearly bits of information that the President and the red states that are reopening simply do not want to hear. The goal is to figure out how to get the stock market up before the November election, and numbers that either show a failure of the public to trust enough to return to normalcy or that the death toll from new cases of CV-19 resulting from this premature reopening is rising again… to terrifying levels… are being suppressed.

There are lots of models and projections showing that varying degrees of reopening will carry definitely consequences – higher infection rates and death tolls. So, I picked a set of projections presented by an Ivy League university, actually the same university that granted Donald Trump his Wharton undergraduate business degree. Almost all credible projections show rapidly rising infection and mortality rates, from bad to catastrophic depending how wide and quickly businesses are reopened. “New data from the University of Pennsylvania suggests that relaxing lockdowns across U.S. cities and states could have serious consequences for the country’s battle to contain the coronavirus, which has infected over a million people while killing more than 67,000 people.

“According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), reopening states will result in an additional 233,000 deaths the total projected to die from the virus — even if states don’t reopen at all and with social distancing rules in place. This means that if the states were to reopen, 350,000 people in total would die from coronavirus by the end of June, the study found.

“Kent Smetters, the PWBM’s director, said the decision to reopen states is ultimately a ‘normative judgement that comes down to the statistical value of life.’… He explained: ‘That’s not a crude way of saying we put a dollar value on life, but it’s the idea that people will take risks all the time for economic reward.’… That figure far surpasses estimates and models that the White House has cited from the University of Washington, which put the death toll at roughly 73,000 by the start of August.

“The U.S. economy is reeling as statewide lockdowns have thrown 30 million Americans out of their jobs, and stoked a furious debate about how long the restrictions can remain in place. Some states, like Georgia, are choosing to partially reopen, allowing businesses like restaurants, hair salons, massage parlors, and more to open again… However, partially reopening would also cause the death toll to rise, the university’s data found. An additional 45,000 lives would be lost, according to Wharton’s Budget Model, bringing the U.S.’s death toll from COVID-19 to 222,000.” Yahoo Finance, May 3^rd. Some government folks want to make sure you don’t get the real statistics anyway.

There’s a little battle brewing in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis, who passionately supports the President, is watching a conscientious Florida Office of the Medical Examiners, reporting death tolls that seem to contradict his reopening efforts. Rather than subsiding, as one would hope as the state officially begins to reopen businesses, beach, etc., the CV19 death is still rising. Medical examiners – coroners (pathologists) to most of us – are medical doctors that review and determine the cause of death (they’re the ones who view the bodies, the cases and issue the actual death certificates).  They are realistically the only “on the ground” accurate assessment of causes of death.

It seems that the Florida Department of Health, which relies on third party information, is reporting fewer deaths than those determined by the state medical examiners who are dealing directly with the decedents. The health department managers are obviously playing with the numbers to make the governor’s efforts seem effective. “[T]he state health department is counting coronavirus deaths only for people who claimed residency in Florida. The medical examiners, who are legally responsible for certifying fatalities from diseases that constitute a threat to public health, are counting anyone who died in Florida, including snowbirds and visitors.” Tampa Bay Times, April 11^th. Like you cannot contract the virus from a vistor?

By the end of April, as the reopening orders were flowing out of DeSantis’ office, the state decided it no longer wanted the Medical Examiners’ numbers to be released: “State officials have stopped releasing the list of coronavirus deaths being compiled by Florida’s medical examiners, which has at times shown a higher death toll than the state’s published count.

“The list had previously been released in real time by the state Medical Examiners Commission. But earlier this month, after the Tampa Bay Times reported that the medical examiners’ death count was 10 percent higher than the figure released by the Florida Department of Health, state officials said the list needed to be reviewed and possibly redacted.” Tampa Bay Times, April 29^th. “Redacted”?! There was no statement as to when those numbers will be released again, if ever, and if released if they will be allowed to list CV-19 as the cause. For example, if a CV-19 victim contracts pneumonia in reaction to the coronavirus, there is insider talk that the cause of death will only be listed as “pneumonia.”

The headline on another article on the May 3^rd Yahoo News reads: “Trump wants to deliver 300 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.” Or a few days later. The odds of the federal government, under the leadership of Donald J Trump getting such a vaccine completed and able to be replicated by the hundreds of millions by the end of January 2021 are too low to measure. Conveniently, those dates fall just past the November election. I guess Trump wants credit for something he cannot deliver. And by the time he is proven not to be able to deliver, he’s hoping he will have already been reelected.

“The hardest-hit parts of the United States may be past the peak of the pandemic. Other places may be lifting their lockdown restrictions. But deadly pathogens don’t eradicate themselves; once Americans stop staying home, the coronavirus will continue to spread… The expectation is the U.S. won’t return to normal until there’s an effective vaccine against COVID-19 — and almost everyone in the country has been vaccinated.” Yahoo News.

Even Dr Anthony Fauci, Trump’s most credible health expert, believes that the fastest we could develop and perform the most cursory tests on that vaccine (there are 102 such vaccines being researched according to WHO), perhaps one based on antibodies from those who have recovered, is 12-18 months. We’ve never been able to achieve even that timeline before. Considering that this same federal government has still been unable to get sufficient test kits to meet demand… or even basic cotton swabs and PPE for healthcare workers who take their lives in their hands every day.  Treatments may continue to be developed, but no one is expecting a cure.

Nevertheless, the Trump clan has declared success, from son-in-law Jared Kushner’s statement on April 29^th  touting the obviously failed federal response to the CV-19 outbreak as “a great success story,” to the President himself, on Fox News’ virtual townhall on May 3^rd bragging about how successful the reopening of the country is going and will ultimately be BEFORE the reopening process really began and AFTER the announcement, from the largest states embracing that “back to work” program, of their highest daily death tolls from the virus. So bad, in fact, that Florida has elected not to report the actuals as noted above.

Trump’s forecast of a solid recovery by the third quarter and a back-to-normal economy in the fourth quarter are pipe dreams that no serious expert in epidemiology believes possible. Just investors worried about their portfolios… demanding that they be exempted from liability if their clients, customers and/or workers are infected with CV-19… and that work rules be suspended accordingly. The market will continue to fluctuate in blissful ignorance, but we know where it is going to be by the end of the year! That red line above is not a reduction in infection rates or deaths from CV-19; it’s the economy stupid!

            I’m Peter Dekom, and this litany of roiling deceit may just result in the greatest number of Americans killed since the 1918-20 Spanish Flu, that too 675,000 American lives.