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With June over, it is time to take stock of where we are as a nation, as a society striving to restart, and as individuals wanting to reacquire freedoms that once made America unique. Throughout June, particularly in the run up to July 4th weekend, politicians promoted a major marketing campaign aimed at convincing us we are enmeshed in an escalating COVID crisis threatening our very existence. The flaw in their marketing, however, was using the wrong metrics. The inconvenient truth, as I will demonstrate with mathematical clarity, is that there is no crisis.
Statistical Data Analysis: According to the CDC and WHO, at the start of June, the global percentage of confirmed COVID cases resulting in death was 6.12%. By the end of June that rate dropped to 4.88%, which represents a significant decline when applied to the global population. The U.S. percentage of confirmed COVID cases resulting in death at the start of June was 5.87%, which dropped to 4.79% by the end of the month. The takeaways from this data analysis are a) the COVID survival rate significantly increased in June, which is great news, and b) the U.S. is performing better than the rest of the world in terms of virus survivability.
Critics will say the increase in COVID survivability was due to more people being tested, but those are the same people who scoffed at President Trump when he made the same point. Also, it does not account for the increase in global survivability. As further evidence that there is no crisis, the CDC reports that “the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia, influenza, or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 9.5% during week 24 to 6.9% during week 25 (June 20th). This is the ninth week during which a declining percentage of deaths due to PIC has been recorded.” It is disappointing and alarming that politicians ignore this data to promote partisan ambitions and that no one in the media is willing to acknowledge these very inconvenient truths.
Actuarial Analysis: The highly respected Mundi Index, projected their 2020 U.S. death rate from all causes prior to the start of COVID. So far, the country has experienced 4,128 fewer deaths than Mundi projected. Given that 1.44 million Americans have died so far this year, to be off by only four thousand is remarkable. In addition, the data indicates that the impact of COVID on the overall number of U.S. death thus far in 2020 has been negligible. This seems shocking until you take into account that things like elective surgeries have been on hold during COVID and there are 440,000 doctor caused deaths each year from surgeries.
Just as significant, the delta between the Mundi projection and actual deaths remained flat throughout June. On June 1st, the year-to-date number of U.S. deaths from all causes, including COVID, was 4,543 below the Mundi projection. By the end of June, the number of U.S. deaths, from all causes, was 4,128 below the Mundi projection. Using death rates as a metric, which is the only metric that matters, evidence indicates there is no surge. Politicians and the media continue to lie and mislead the country by hyper-sensationalizing the increasing rate of infections, a statistically meaningless metric, while ignoring the inconvenient truth that death rates are stable and hospitalizations remain low (98/100,000).
Herd Immunity Analysis: While no one should want to get COVID, another inconvenient truth politicians and media will not acknowledge is that as a nation we want the infection rate to increase. To date, the CDC confirms 2,689,107 Americans have COVID. However, a Stanford University study found 85 times more Americans are likely infected, which puts the infection count at 228,574,095. Politicians want you to believe increasing infection rates demand reinstituting lockdowns when in fact our nation’s goal should be reaching a point where between 60% to 85% of the population is infected; this is when herd immunity is achieved.
When herd immunity is reached, the ability of an infected person to transmit the virus to a noninfected person becomes so low the virus dies from an inability to find viable hosts. If the Stanford study is correct, 71% of the country has now been infected, which means we are in the herd immunity range. Rather than celebrate this milestone, “experts,” like as Dr. Fucci, liberal governors, and the media want to scare you into thinking we’re in the throes of a cataclysmic second wave when the inconvenient truth is the data does not support that assertion.
Validation Through Modeling: Since March I have been comparing my COVID model against media models generated by the University of Washington and the Penn’s Wharton School of Business, along with the government’s FEMA model. At every benchmark, the media and government models have been embarrassingly wrong while the Dolin model has been spot on. In mid-June Harvard University joined the fray; not with a predictive model however, but with a simpler model based on linear extrapolation. Below is a table depicting how each of the models performed.
Consistent with past performance, the media models were again wrong in June by 40% and 58%. The government FEMA model was wrong by 53%. The Dolin model, which has been correct on every projection since March, was off 3% and in the world of mathematical modeling, 3% error is pretty much spot on given all the uncertainties involved.
The Harvard extrapolation was off 4%. Their analysis is significant because it validates my earlier assertions based on CDC, WHO, and MUNDI data; namely that there was no COVID surge in June. The Harvard extrapolation validates the pandemic behaved the same in June as May, which means riots did not result in a surge, political rallies did not amplify a surge, and freedom loving Americans getting on with their lives did not propagate a surge.
It is heartbreaking, sad, and alarmingly disconcerting that in times of crisis Americans cannot count on experts to tell the truth, Americans cannot rely on politicians to cast aside adolescent pettiness and make policy based on the truth, Americans cannot trust the media to uncover and report the truth. While data is an inconvenient foil for those with an agenda, it begs a larger looming question; namely, as we look forward to celebrating our Nation’s revolution, were does that leave we, the manipulated masses? Perhaps we should borrow a page from the protesters and demand to have state and federal oligarchies defunded so purposeful decisions can be made on behave of the masses that are based on data.
