Chapter 13 in the R.M. Dolin book, “Truth and Trust in Crisis.”
The U.S. is not the only country struggling with COVID challenges while promoting national narratives; Russia for example, denies even having COVID, well at least until they nominate their 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’re just deploying a different marketing strategy. For example, in late April 2020, things get bad enough in Russia the Chinese close their shared border[1] to avoid infected Russians crossing over, which seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.
Unable to posture against mounting evidence, in May, Russia announces 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 global hotspot for both infections and deaths. We hope those projections are based on American academic models so their actual COVID experience will be far less catastrophic.
Table 13.1 COVID Statistic For The U.S., China, and Russia As Of May 2020.
Like other engineers, I gather data and analyze numbers to prove assertions, often though, I’m surprised to find that maybe – just maybe – 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 if the integrity of their data is suspect. Assume the U.S. has better healthcare, and access to 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.
Begin by making observations about the data in Table 13.1, such as, the U.S. has 4.25% of world’s population but accounts for 28% of COVID deaths, which seems unrealistic and can be considered confirmation the U.S. is inflating their COVID death tallies. Meanwhile, Russia has 1.9% of world’s population and accounts for 0.77% of the world’s COVID deaths, which suggests they are 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.
The first row of Table 13.2 shows an expected cumulative number of COVID deaths thru May 2020 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 Armageddon day (April 14th). The delta between this number and the number of COVID deaths being reported (from row 3 of Table 13.2) for each country is computed as the percentage of over/under-reporting is shown in row two of table 13.2. The delta percentage 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 to promote narratives, our assertion that the COVID virus behaves the same everywhere is reasonable. 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.
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. Similar to countries having individual narratives, so do 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 California, have a vested interest in promoting COVID as existential. Since there are more lockdown states than free states, the nationwide narrative sways toward overreporting, which our analysis confirms when the fifty states are taken as a collective whole.
A Reuters report[4] 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. If you’re a Kool-Aid drinking New Yorker, consider this, President Trump moved a Naval hospital ship to New York harbor and ordered the Army to convert the Javits center into a 1,000-bed field hospital because Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio preached the earth was opening to swallow all New Yorkers. But at COVID’s peak, only four Army/Navy beds are utilized. Governor Cuomo insisted for weeks he needs 40,000 respirators then complains when President Trump only sends 12,000; most of which go unused. During all of this, the New York healthcare infrastructure is laying staff off. Raise your hand if you’re starting to think you’ve been played for a fool.
IndexMundi expected, 240,540 people to die in New York and New Jersey in 2020 pre-COVID. As of September, 90,964 people have died, while 90,944 were expected to die. This means even with sensationalized media hyperbole, these two states only experienced 20 more deaths than was actuarially expected pre-COVID. If you’re still all-in on the hysteria, I have waterfront investment opportunities in Southern New Mexico I’d like to discuss with you.
Yes, people died in NY/NJ during COVID but it was only 20 more than were expected to die at the start of the year (i.e., pre-COVID). It’s been actuarially demonstrated that governments and medical professionals intentionally corrupt 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 trust their government.
- Truth and trust in government’s ability to manage a crisis is unalterably suspect.
We 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 American state. The logic becomes important as we matriculate toward exposing the biggest misrepresentation of the COVID crisis.
[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)
