In the Presidential debates last year candidate Joe Biden blamed President Trump for the deaths of 225000 Americans during the Covid pandemic. To my mind it was the lowest point in Biden’s long lackluster career in politics. In fact, his charge, echoed by his running mate, Kamala Harris, and many other prominent Democrats, could easily make the top ten list of dirty, despicable campaign smears in American history.
Typically, neither Biden nor Harris blamed Democratic governors like New York’s now disgraced Andrew Cuomo for the high death rates in their states. Even now, they still refuse to blame Cuomo after it was revealed that his administration fudged the death figures to avoid looking bad. Nevertheless, Democratic New York and New Jersey still lead the nation in deaths per million. New Jersey is the leader with 3077 deaths per million, and New York is second with 2863.
During 2020 I kept close count of the coronavirus figures and even ran a spread sheet that compared state by state results, as well as country by country results. I put a couple of posts on this blog to show that it would be hard to blame individual politicians. Other factors were more relevant. After election day, I stopped counting. Perhaps, I sensed that the figures would no longer matter.
Last week, the death toll from Covid climbed to over 700000 in this country. When President Biden took office in January 2021, the death toll was 400000. But who blames President Biden? Who blames the President for the recent surge that thankfully seems to be abating? The blame has been shifted to anti-vaxxers. Speaking of vaccines, neither Biden nor Harris has ever given President Trump any credit for the incredible and speedy work on the vaccines that has been labelled one of the marvels of medical history. Kamala Harris was the original anti-vaxxer when she insisted that she would never take a vaccine developed during the Trump administration.
Out of curiosity I took a look at the figures at the end of September. In the United States so far there have been about 43.3 Million people who have tested positive for the coronavirus. The death toll of about 711000 is 1.62% of those who have tested positive. The death rate is well below the world average of 2.05%, especially when you consider that the USA results help considerably to bring down the world average.
The USA figure also compares very well with countries like the United Kingdom and Italy with national health systems. In the UK there have been 7.8 Million cases and 136741 deaths for a death rate of 1.75%. In Italy there have been 4.9 Million reported cases and 130807 deaths for a death rate of 2.79%.
From the beginning scientists have argued that the number of people actually infected must be significantly higher than the reported cases. I have seen all sorts of multipliers but the latest seems to indicate that the number of cases should be multiplied by 2. In other words, at least 80 Million Americans have been infected and over 79 Million have survived.
A columnist in my local newspaper recently reported on his bout with Covid. He had been vaccinated but thought little of it when he developed symptoms of a postnasal drip. However, he decided to get tested after spending time with a granddaughter who subsequently tested positive. Sure enough, he tested positive and even though his symptoms did not get worse, he made a brief trip to the hospital to get antibody treatment because he had certain co-morbidities. That was it. He quickly recovered and went about his business when doctors told him he could not infect anyone after 14 days. He became one of the more than 99% of Americans who survived Covid infection.
Of those who have not survived, the great majority were elderly or laden with co-morbidities like diabetes or obesity. Newspapers and other media can always feature exceptional anecdotes, but the data has always suggested that the young and healthy are not at any more risk than during a normal flu season.
In the past I have refrained from blaming anyone for what is a world-wide pandemic, but Joe Biden was wrong to blame President Trump back in 2020 and he is equally wrong in not giving him any credit now for initiating Operation Warp Speed that produced the vaccines in record time.
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Very Nice Instead of firing workers who do not want to get vaccinated perhaps antibody tests should be done instead of testing for the virus. It is now known that like most virus infections those who have had it and survived without treatment are not likely to get it again as opposed to those who have been vaccinated. The "need" for booster shots seems to indicate the vaccine is only going to be useful for several months
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