Yes, COVID-19 is real, and it’s dangerous. The virus can be deadly, very deadly, to the elderly, people with co-morbidities, and seemingly random people since it, unlike most viruses we know of, appears to manifest itself wildly differently in people with no, at least as of yet, discernible pattern. That being said, there are some aspects of the pandemic that deserve, really require, serious conversations and examination by both the medical profession and the public. But that’s not being allowed to happen by the media and the medical profession. That should concern everyone.
A recent newsletter from Johns Hopkins raised some interesting questions about the extent of the pandemic’s deadliness. It asserted that total deaths of Americans were not out of the ordinary, not elevated. “Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same,” it read.
This is interesting for many reasons. There’s no question the virus can be deadly, but just how deadly is something we don’t know. You’d think we would by now, but we don’t. All we get reported to us are numbers, and numbers without context are meaningless. We’re told the “total number of cases in the US,” but this includes everyone who’s ever tested positive. That number dates back to March, and is over 13 million. But the vast majority of those people had it and got over it. There aren’t 13 million Americans infected right now. That would be a more useful number to know, would give the pandemic context, and help give people some perspective, which is likely the way it’s not reported. Can’t scare the hell out of people as easily with reality.
According to the Hopkins story, “not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths.”
That’s amazing, and goes against all the expert declarations and reporting on the subject.
This data was gathered by Genevieve Briand, the assistant program director of Applied Economics for Hopkins’ master’s degree program, so it wasn’t some random kook on the Internet.
Shockingly, the story concluded this way:
"When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising...this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.
"This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly ... the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19."
This is, to put it mildly, contrary to everything we’ve been told and could be wildly important. This wasn’t peer reviewed research, so I’m sure there’s a lot to question. But those questions should be asked and answered. (To their credit, and likely because it was already disseminated too widely to contain, Hopkins posted an archived version of the piece here, so you can read it for yourself.)
Well, as has been the case with everything that challenges the narrative on COVID, those questions will likely never be answered. The article has been replaced with an editor’s note. “it was brought to our attention that our coverage of Genevieve Briand’s presentation “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data” has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic,” the note reads. “We decided on Nov. 26 to retract this article to stop the spread of misinformation, as we noted on social media.”
The note continues, and is rather long (read it yourself), but is yet another example of things not adding up being swept under the rug when it’s related to COVID-19.
I don’t know what the answer is, I don’t know where the truth lies. But I do know you’ll never get to it by ignoring or silencing anything that doesn’t conform to a narrative. To get to the truth, questions must be asked. Sometimes those questions are uncomfortable, and sometimes those answers won’t make sense on their own, which is why more questions have to be asked.
That questions aren’t allowed to be asked should lead to the most important question of all: Why?
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter