Back at the beginning of the pandemic the Trump administration tried to downplay the severity of the impact of the virus. First it was 15 cases that would be over in no time. It would magically disappear. Then the numbers quickly started to get out of control. Except there is a problem with that, they aren’t supposed to, I mean, Trump said something and now it is demonstrably false. Yes, that is sarcasm.
The following is a description of my observations at the time. Things got better over the Summer, so my numbers don’t end up being so bad, but it really is just a matter of time. As of right now, April 2021, they have climbed to over half a million dead and counting a year later after multiple surges. A year later and we are still in this.
They are boiling the frog.
When they saw their previous “projection” of 60k by August was about to be crossed they changed it to 74k by August with still over 1800 dead per day. That was around Arpil 27. We crossed 60.5k on Apri 29. There is no way a model could have thought 1800+ per day was gonna drop like a rock and yield only 14k dead in 3 months. Ten day later and its 74k.
A few days ago, knowing that 74k was a BS number, they raised it again. They had to. Trump could be quoted saying 60k, 70k maybe 80k. Then 100k. Why all over the place? Because its a BS number. They were saying a small incremental difference so that people would not get scared and resist opening up. They were using some university model at one point. Yeah, doesnt mean they are now.
Its about 2k dead per day right now. With 25 days left, thats another 50k by the end of the month. Thats 124k by end of month. 246k by August (at 2k per day) and we know its not going to stay that low because of opening up. I just came from a gas station where no one going inside the store had a mask and the cashier didnt either. I stayed in my car. This is FL. People seem to think its over.
With no reason to see numbers go down, we will go to herd immunity. At 50% of the population (low for herd immunity) and a 1% death rate, I suspect also low given its going to overstress healthcare and we will run out of vents, that will be 1.655 million dead. 331m pop * .5 * .01.
Forget the numbers they are giving you. They are not following a viral model because no viral model is so screwed up as to go from 60k to 74k a week ago starting at 1800+ dead per day. None. They are boiling the frog. Telling you low enough numbers to not scare you but adjusting them higher than whatever BS number they last gave. They started this when they went from 100k down to 80k and then down to 60k within a short period a month or so back. The real model they had been using was too scary.
1.655m dead scary? Its gonna be worse. Certainly it wont stay flat at 2k per day. It will go up much higher and then as herd immunity approaches it will get harder and harder to get infected and thus go down. But its gonna be an average thats high and nothing changes what percentage eventually gets to herd immunity.
Worldometer: US Covid19 Dataset
Someone ask to peer review the model they are using. I want to see the algorithm because thats some magic shit right there.
[Update June 1, 2020]
Deaths as of 11:44 per worldmeters.info are 106,272. Rate came down from near 2k per day below 1k and have since risen back over 1k per day. Most places are open now and local talk is its all over. Should we still be wearing masks, etc. In other words, it isn’t over and cases are likely to rise from here. So we are now talking around 166k deaths by August. And at this point even the CDC is saying those numbers. No longer able to hide things. A lot of the change downward was New York, but now other states are inching up. Montgomery, AL reporting no ICU beds.