Chapter 13 in the R.M. Dolin book, “Truth and Trust in Crisis,” 2021
Like most countries, the US struggles with how best to promote their COVID narrative; Russia for example, denies even having COVID, well at least until they nominate fearless leader for a Nobel Prize for defeating the virus. If you pay attention to the bits and pieces of news leaking out, it’s obvious Russia’s COVID crisis isn’t much different than ours, they’ve just deployed different marketing strategies. For example, in late April, things get bad enough in Russia the Chinese close their shared border to avoid infected Russians crossing over,[1] which seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.
Unable to posture against mounting evidence, Russia announces in May, 145,268 people have been infected and 1,356 have died. Given Russia’s propensity for propaganda, it’s likely their statistics are far more dire. For one thing, these official numbers suggest the Russian death rate among those infected is 0.93% while globally the rate is 7.04% and within the U.S. is 5.84%. Given Russia’s poor living conditions and the lack of quality health care, it’s hard to imagine their survival rate can be better than ours, unless Vodka is COVID’s kryptonite.
If official numbers are to be believed, Russia ranks seventh globally in terms of infections, but keep in mind, Russia is a sparsely populated country with most citizens confined to a few high-density cities, so it’s not surprising half the cases in Russia are from Moscow.[2] After months of denying there’s a problem, President Putin in May, concedes their COVID peak is not behind them[3]. Indications are their health care system is being overwhelmed and soon Russia could be a COVID hotspot. We hope Putin’s projections are based on American academic models so their actual experience will be far less catastrophic.
Table 13.1 COVID Statistic for The U.S., China, and Russia as of May 2020.
As an engineer I’m trained to gather data and analyze numbers to prove assertions and sometimes find an initial assertion is wrong. For example, what if Russia and China are truthfully reporting COVID numbers and it’s the American government who’s manipulating and misrepresenting data? Before accusing me of treason, let’s run the numbers, beginning with the data presented in Table 13.1.
To assess the impact of COVID in these three countries, we must acknowledge that we’re constrained to accept WHO and CDC data, even though their data is suspect. Assume the U.S. has better healthcare, so should fare better than Russia and China with respect to COVIDS deaths and, with minor variations, every country should have to endure a similar COVID experience. Our earlier assumption that the U.S. would share the same COVID experience as Italy resulted in out model being spot-on since March.
Table 13.1 shows the U.S. has 4.25% of world’s population but accounts for 28% of COVID deaths, which is unrealistic and confirms the U.S. is inflating their COVID death data. Meanwhile, Russia has 1.9% of world’s population and accounts for 0.77% of COVID deaths, which suggests they’re underreporting. China has 18.5% of the world’s population and accounts for 1.5% of COVID deaths, which suggests significant underreporting.
Table 13.2. Expected COVID Deaths in the U.S., China, and Russia and the Percent Delta from What Each Nation Reports.
Table 13.2 shows an expected cumulative number of COVID deaths thru May in the USA, China, and Russia, if each country experiences the death rate reported by WHO. This is the approach used in our first COVID model to accurately predict the number of U.S. deaths on April 14th (Armageddon day). The delta between this number and the number of COVID deaths being reported for each country is computed as the percentage of over/under-reporting. The delta between what’s expected and what’s being reported becomes a measure of the extent each country misrepresents their COVID data.
It appears the U.S. over-counts COVID deaths by factor of 6.68. Meanwhile, China appears to be underreporting by a factor of 125.8, while Russia underreports by a factor of 2.44. In this context, Russia’s narrative almost counts as credible. While this assessment is not proof these countries misrepresent COVID data, our assertion that the COVID virus behaves the same everywhere is logical. The alternative explanation is less plausible, namely, that whoever engineered the COVID virus designed it kill Americans at a higher rate than citizens of other countries, which is unlikely since we are the most genetically diverse nation on earth, and we funded Wuhan’s gain-of-function research.
The same logic used to demonstrate the U.S., China, and Russia misrepresent COVID data to feed national narratives, can be applied to American states. For example, free states like Florida, South Dakota, and Texas have a vested interest in demonstrating the impacts of COVID are minimal, which would lead to underreporting. Meanwhile, lockdown states like New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New Hampshire, have a vested interest in promoting COVID’s existential threat. Since there are more lockdown states than free states, the nationwide narrative sways toward overreporting, which our analysis confirms.
Reuters breaks down U.S. COVID deaths by state, with New York having a 0.044% death rate; 12 times higher than the global death rate.[4] If you’re a Kool-Aid drinking New Yorker, consider this, President Trump moves a Naval hospital ship to New York and orders the Army to convert the Javits center into a 1,000-bed field hospital because Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio proselytize the earth is opening to swallow all New Yorkers. But at COVID’s peak, only four Army/Navy beds are utilized. Governor Cuomo insists he needs 40,000 respirators then complains when President Trump only sends 12,000; most of which go unused and during all of this, healthcare workers in NY are being laid off. Raise your hand if you’re starting to think you’re being played for a fool.
Pre-COVID, IndexMundi expects 90,944 people from New York and New Jersey to die by September and there have been 90,964 reported deaths. This means even with media sensationalism, these two states experienced 20 more deaths than was actuarially expected pre-COVID. Yes, COVID is a crisis, and people died in NY/NJ from COVID, but it’s only 20 more than were expected to die at the start of the year. It’s been actuarially demonstrated that governments and medical professionals intentionally falsify COVID data to obfuscate COVID’s true impact, leading to the following conclusions
- The U.S. overreports COVID deaths while China and Russia underreport.
- Russians can trust their government’s propaganda in times of crisis more than Americans can.
- Truth and trust in the government’s ability to manage a crisis is unalterably suspect.
We’ve journeyed many paths through national and global COVID data to sort through propaganda and data misrepresentations in a straightforward manner by asserting COVID is likely behaving the same in every country. We further refined this assertion by stipulating COVID likely behaves the same in every state. This logic becomes important as we matriculate toward exposing the biggest misrepresentation of the crisis once we reach the end of 2020.
Note: This chapter is based on a series of 2020 essays submitted to major media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. The essays can be found at: https://rmdolin.com/commentary/
Read the complete “Truth and Trust in Crisis,” book.
[1] To Avoid New COVID-19 Cases, China Closes Border With Russia: NPR
[2] Russia adds over 10,000 cases in another record single-day increase – CNN
[3] Coronavirus: Russia Reports Record New Number of Cases, 10,000 More (businessinsider.com)
[4] The novel coronavirus in the U.S. (reuters.com)
