The worldwide Coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic.
Part 8.
2020-SEP-03 until SEP-16:
2020-SEP-03: Three medications improve survival rates in severe COVID-19 cases:
A study of more than 1,700 severely sick patients found that the use of corticosteroids reduced deaths by 41% to 33%. 1
2020-SEP-08: U.S. biker rally MAY have led to 260,000 new COVID-19 cases:
About 460,000 people attended the 10 day annual motorcycle rally in South Dakota between 2020-AUG-07 and 16.
Economists at the Institute of Labor Economics at the University of San Diego wrote an article noting that most of the bikers did not wear masks or practice social distancing. They estimate that the rally will increase COVID-19 infection by 266,796 persons in the U.S. This presumably includes those who picked up the virus at the rally, plus those who caught the virus from the attendees after they returned home, and perhaps before they did not exhibit any symptoms.
Unfortunately, the report specified a precise number 266,796. That might be interpreted by many readers as a precise and accurate value.
Snopes.com is a very popular and influential group that performs fact checking. They noted that this study was:
"... prefaced with a piece of text noting that 'IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion'."
"... while the rally likely contributed to a rise in coronavirus cases, the figures stated here are estimates from a non-peer reviewed paper and have not been demonstrated definitively. Furthermore, various statisticians and epidemiologists have indicated the study had some flaws." 2
Snopes concluded that the study is "Unproven."
Webmaster's personal comment:
The death rate of persons who are infected with COVID-19 in the U.S. is close to 3%. This means that if 266,796 individuals were infected directly or indirectly as a result of the rally, and if they are "typical" Americans, then almost 8,000 will die. Fortunately, most of the bikers are relatively young, and so the death rate among infected attendees is probably lower that 3%. Still, even if it is only 1.5%, the deaths of over a thousand Americans seems a high price to pay for a motorcycle rally. 3
2019-SEP-11: Current spread of COVID-19 across the world:
CNN reported that 214 countries across the world have reported about 28 million cases of COVID-19. 4 That is approximately equivalent to three-quarters of the total population of Canada or almost 9% of the population of the U.S.
The total number of deaths reported is 911,282, for an average death rate of 3.22% among infected individuals.
The 31 countries with the highest number of cases per 100,000 population are:
- Qatar: 4,360
- Bahrain: 3709
- French Guiana: 3,165
- Aruba: 2,663
- Panama: 2,387
- Chile: 2,299
- Kuwait: 2,259
- Peru: 2,220
- San Justino: 2,137
- Brazil: 2,023
- United States: 1,959
- Oman: 1,829
- Andorra: 1,745
- Maldives: 1,726
- Turks & Calicoes Islands: 1,694
- Israel: 1,672
- Armenia: 1,542
- Columbia: 1,399
- Saint Martin: 1,304
- Marcotte: 1,236
- Spain: 1,212
- Vatican City: 1,200
- Moldova: 1,190
- Argentina: 1,178
- Luxembourg: 1,166
- South Africa: 1,115
- Montenegro: 1,000
- Saudi Arabia: 963
- Gibraltar: 958
- Dominican Republic 957
- Russia: 726
And because I live in Canada: 370. This is less than 19% of the United State's value. Yet, we share the longest undefended border in the world, and a similar culture.
At the other end of the scale, the following are the countries and regions with the lowest rate of infection per 100,000 population:
- Antarctica: 0
- Laos <1
- Tanzania: 1
- Vietnam: 1
- Cambodia: 2
- East Timor: 2
- Taiwan: 2
- Western Sahara: 2
- Burundi: 4
- Niger: 5
- Thailand: 5
- Mainland China: 6
- Papua New Guinea: 6
- Chad: 7
- Macao: 7
- Yemen: 7
- Burkina Faso: 8
The reported death rate per 100k varies from:
- Less than 1 in Dem. Rep, Congo, China's mainland, Ivory Coast, Ivory Coast, Japan, Malasia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Singapore, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, and many other countries with a lower percentage of infection.
TO
- 124 in San Marino, 95 in Peru, 87 in Belgium, 87 in Oman, 69 in Andorra, 64 in Spain, 63 in Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and the United Kingdom, 62 in Brazil, and 59 in the United States.
At least, that is what individual states reported. Many did not reveal their numbers of deaths. 4
2020-SEP-16: In Canada, COVID-19 deaths "plummet to zero" for the first time since 2020-Spring:
On SEP-11, the Canadian government reported a total of 9,163 death from the pandemic. The next day, the number was the same, indicating no new deaths.
Also, hospitalizations for the Coronavirus have flat-lined.
Concerned Ontario Doctors, a non-profit group, tweeted:
"September 11, 2020: Day 178 of harmful lock-down that started as ‘2 weeks to flatten the curve,’ no deaths reported in all of Canada (population: 37,971,020) 66,764 additional tests to confirm 702 additional cases (1.05%) 1.8 active cases per 10,000 people in Canada. ..." 5
On SEP-16, the government of Ontario reported that 44 people were being treated in hospitals because of COVID-19. 20 of them were in ICU, including 12 on ventilators. Quebec indicates 120 people are in hospital due to the virus.
Dr. Harvey Risch, an epidemiologist at Yale School of Public Health, said that the only solution to COVID-19 is to attain herd immunity. He wrote:
"That will start to show when 40 to 50% of people have become immune. ... Given that the pandemic will continue no matter how, lock-downs just postpone the inevitable, the only way to manage this is to protect people at medium or high risk. Those individuals can either remain completely isolated while everyone else resumes normal life, or have rapid outpatient treatment available in case they need it. That rapid outpatient treatment is of course hydroxy-chloroquine or ivermectin, plus zinc, plus azithromycin or doxycycline, plus vitamin D." 5
This topic continues in the next article
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyper links are not necessarily still active today:
- Adam Feuerstein, "Inexpensive steroids reduce deaths of hospitalized Covid-19 patients, WHO analysis confirms," Stat News, 2020-SEP-02, at: https://www.statnews.com/
- Dan Evon, "Was Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Responsible for 250K Coronavirus Cases?," Snopes, 2020-SEP-10, at: https://www.snopes.com/
- Katie Camero, "Sturgis biker rally adds 267,000 COVID cases and $12.2B in health costs, report says," Kansas City Star, 2020-SEP-08, at: https://www.kansascity.com/
- Henrik Pettersson, "Tracking coronavirus’ global spread," CNN, 2020-SEP-11, at: https://www.cnn.com/
- Anthony Murdoch, "COVID-19 deaths plummet to zero for the first time since spring in Canada," Life Site News, 2020-SEP-16, at: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/
Copyright © 2020 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Last update: 2020-OCT-05
Author: B.A. Robinson
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