Im-Politic: Anti-Pandemic Economy Clamps Could Be Strengthening Just as the Virus Threat is Weakening

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Andrew Jackson, Battle of New Orleans, Biden, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, data, hospitalizations, Im-Politic, Jobs, lockdowns, mortality, OurWorldinData.org, stay-at-home, vaccination, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, vaccines, War of 1812, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

What a stunning and thoroughly depressing point the U.S. fight against the CCP Virus may be at. Governments at all levels, private businesses, and non-profit institutions of all kinds are imposing all sorts of vaccination mandates on employees that could result in significant layoffs for the recalcitrant (including those with natural virus immunity) and equally important damage to the economy. And at the same time, the most reliable data now show that the virus’ destructive impact – recently renewed by the highly infectious Delta variant – is easing once again, and for reasons that look completely unrelated to vaccination rates.

Not that the most reliable CCP Virus data are incredibly reliable. As I’ve previously written, there are some awfully dubious definitions of “Covid-related deaths” being used across the country, and major holes in the coverage achieved by the official record keepers. In addition, serious problems have been revealed even in the hospitalization numbers – which I’d considered the most accurate gauge of the virus’ effects on human health.

All the same, the proverbial statistical curve for both indicators is now bending down for the first time since Delta began dominating the American virus scene in mid-summer.

As often the case, my source for the death and hospitalization figures are the Washington Post‘s very user-friendly CCP Virus databases. For this post, I’m also using some hospitalization figures for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website. Unless otherwise mentioned, the specific numbers here are changes in seven-day averages (7DA), which smooth out random fluctuations that tend to occur on a day-to-day basis.

Regarding mortality, the 7DA for daily reported covid-related deaths bottomed out on July 6 at 209 and it had plummeted by nearly 30 percent during the previous week. And through July 27, the 7DA stayed below 300. But by August 16, it hit 651 and thereafter began soaring rapidly.

By the 18^th, the 7DA average had jumped by nearly 32 percent week-on-week, and the rate of increase continued surging until it peaked on the 24^th at an appalling 77.90 percent. But thereafter, these increases dropped dramaticaly. A week later, they were down to just over 21 percent. That is, consistent with the “bend the curve” criteria, the problem kept worsening, but it was worsening much more slowly, which counts as welcome progress.

This encouraging development continued through September 9, by which time the 7DA was rising on a weekly basis by just 3.17 percent. In other words, it nearly stopped rising altogether. But this fall-off proved to be a head fake. Almost immediately, the weekly increases in the 7DA for covid-related mortality bounced back, and reached a discouraging 27.49 percent in less than a week (by the 15^th).

Yet another decline has followed, and this one has been considerably deeper. By September 21, the weekly 7DA increase was back below ten percent, and just four days later, hit zero for the first time since the second half of July.

Since then, and through yesterday, the 7DA has not only been decreasing on a weekly basis. It’s been decreasing faster and faster. Yesterday, the decline stood at 6.74 percent.

The hospitalization story has been somewhat different, and brighter, especially since early September. The 7DA for daily new hospital admissions for CCP Virus-related reasons bottomed out on June 25 at 1,824 and at that point, it was down on week by just under 5.20 percent.

By August 9, the situation had turned around completely – and then some. The 7DA had soared by 34 percent. Afterwards, however, came a consistent decline. By the 20^th, the weekly rate of increase in the 7DA had fallen to ten percent, and by September 1, the increases had stopped. The weekly 7DA registered its first weekly decline on September 6 (down two percent), and its first double-digit decrease on the 21^st (ten percent).

Since then through the 30^th, it’s fallen by ten percent or more twice, and the weekly decrease in the 7DA hasn’t dipped below seven percent.

Given the mushrooming of vaccine mandates and widespread claims – including by President Biden – that the nation is now facing a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” you’d think that the above improvements stemmed overwhelmingly from increased vaccination rates. But the data – in this case, from the OurWorldinData.org website, provide no support for this conclusion.

Specifically, on August 24, when the 7DA of daily covid-related deaths was skyrocketing at that awful 77.90 percent weekly rate, 51 percent of Americans were fully vaccinated against the CCP Virus, and 9.1 percent were partly vaccinated. By yesterday, these figures were only 55 percent and 8.8 percent, respectively.

On August 9, when the 7DA for covid-related hospitalizations was growing by 34 percent week-on-week, half of Americans were fully vaccinated and 8.5 percent were partly vaccinated. Through yesterday, those numbers hadn’t changed dramatically, either.

Could mask-wearing be responsible? Trouble is, I haven’t seen any figures on how this practice has changed in recent months. (If you have, let me know.) As far as I’m concerned, the real reasons for this good CCP Virus news have to do with rising levels of natural immunity (especially important given Delta’s virulence), the distinct possibility that the CCP Virus is one of those pathogens whose lethality wanes as it mutates (an important Delta consideration, too), and the nation’s better treatment record – due to a combination of more experienced doctors and new therapeutics.

In early 1815, then-General Andrew Jackson led American forces to a great victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans. But due to that era’s painfully slow communications, the triumph came about two weeks after the United States and Great Britain signed the treaty ending the War of 1812.  It makes me wonder how long the U.S. public and private sectors — which don’t have the communications excuse — will keep threatening the economy’s recovery with redoubled anti-virus measures just as the pandemic tide appears to be turning.   

Im-Politic: So You Think Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Reflect “The Science”?

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Anthony S. Fauci, Biden, CCP Virus, CNN, coronavirus, COVID 19, Im-Politic, immunity, Mainstream Media, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, public health, RealClearPolitics.com, vaccination, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, vaccines, Wuhan virus

Can we just finally stop pretending that the Biden administration’s approach to mitigating the CCP Virus has anything to do with “The Science.” And don’t take my word for it. Take the word of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, longtime director of the federal National Institute of Allergy and Chief Medical Advisor to the President.

As the President insisted emphatically, and even angrily, in his speech Thursday, “This [now] is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” and this situation is entirely the fault of Americans who aren’t “doing the right thing” to protect themselves “and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love”; and of “elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19.”

So in order to prevent vaccine hesitancy for whatever reason “to stand in the way of protecting the large majority of Americans who have done their part and want to get back to life as normal,” he decided to impose a series of sweeping vaccine mandates for both federal government workers and large numbers of private sector employees.

As I pointed out this past Wednesday, the (big) problem with this strategy is that it completely ignores the huge numbers of Americans who don’t need vaccines because their exposure to the virus has left them immune. I should have added that, consequently, they can’t spread it to others unless they themselves get reinfected. As a result, the Biden strategy threatens to deprive tens of millions of Americans of their livelihoods, and the U.S. economy of production and demand that it still urgently needs, for no good medical reason at all.

And guess what? Fauci clearly agrees with me (and the others who have made the same point). Yesterday, during a CNN appearance, he was asked about

“a study that came out of Israel about natural immunity, and basically, the headline was that natural immunity provides a lot of protection, even better than the vaccines alone.

“What do people make of that? So as we talk about vaccine mandates, I get calls all the time, people say, I’ve already had COVID, I’m protected. And now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone. Should they also get the vaccine? How do you make the case to them?”

Fauci’s answer?

“You know, that’s a really good point….I don’t have a really firm answer for you on that. That’s something that we’re going to have to discuss regarding the durability of the response.

“The one thing that paper from Israel didn’t tell you is whether or not as high as the protection is with natural infection, what’s the durability compared to the durability of a vaccine? So it is conceivable that you got infected, you’re protected, but you may not be protected for an indefinite period of time.

“So, I think that is something that we need to sit down and discuss seriously, because you very appropriately pointed out, it is an issue, and there could be an argument for saying what you said.”

But it seems Fauci didn’t “sit down and discuss seriously” this complication with Mr. Biden. Or maybe the President decided to ignore input from someone who’s supposed to have personified “The Science” lately, and steam ahead anyway.

Of course, this would be a great subject for the Mainstream Media (MSM) to investigate. (Forget about Congress as long as it’s controlled by the Democrats.) But that’s not where the smart money is. After all, if you Google some obvious search terms like “Fauci” and “a really firm answer” and as of this writing (a little after 3 in the afternoon today, EST), and no MSM hits come up. But searchers are told that “It looks like these results are changing quickly. If this topic is new, it can sometimes take time for results to be added by reliable sources.” Oh.

Speaking of “reliable sources, however, Fauci’s admission isn’t even featured on CNN’s own website! Here’s what its search engine tells you: “Your search for Fauci ‘a really firm answer’ did not match any documents.” I was only able to find the transcript because I’d read about Fauci’s remarks on a decidedly not mainstream news site, and as the link above shows, finally came across it on the RealClearPolitics.com news aggregator site.

Maybe Fauci himself will speak up, before the vaccine mandates actually begin, or before they beging inflicting real economic damage on unvaccinated Americans and an entire economy that relies heavily on them? After all, he felt pretty free to contradict or correct President Trump when he felt the need. (Google “Fauci contradicts Trump.”)  But I wouldn’t bet on that, either, since he was already praising Mr. Biden even before the election.

In all, this information loop seems to be closed, at least till the 2022 Congressional elections, which could create the possibility of at least one house of Congress checking and probing the Executive Branch. For now, though, what word describes the fix in which this leaves the country better than “sickening”?           

Im-Politic: The Case Against Sweeping Vaccine Mandates and Passports

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, healthcare, hospitalizations, Im-Politic, immunity, mortality, natural immunity, Nature, public health, unvaccinated, vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, vaccines, Worldometers.info

It’s approaching the status of a reliable rule of thumb: The longer the CCP Virus pandemic lasts, the weirder, and more unnecessarily harmful on balance, the actual and potential official responses get. The most important example nowadays has to do with the ever lengthening lists (a) of vaccine mandates and passports that have already been created by governments and businesses and universities around the country; and (b) increasingly irate calls for more – including demands that the unvaccinated be denied medical care or (seemingly more reasonably) affordable health insurance.

Given the large numbers of Americans remaining unvaccinated, and apparently likely to stay unvaccinated, the risks of mandates and passports per se should be obvious. Despite the U.S. economy’s strong recovery so far from the initial virus- and lockdowns-induce recession, new laws denying, say, employment to this population and barring them from patronizing businesses could deeply depress demand and output, and put the economy uncomfortably close to Spring, 2020 square one.

More troubling, even though these restrictions are still far from common, virus uncertainties generated by the highly contagious Delta variant seem to have already undercut hiring dramatically, and are widely forecast to weaken growth going forward. (See, e.g., here.)

But even if the virus was remotely as lethal or otherwise dangerous healthwise as Ebola or the Black Death (which it’s not), today’s insistence on universal vaccination and penalties for holdouts badly flunks the common sense test. The main reason: It completely ignores the existence of both natural and acquired immunity.

In fact, not only has the phenomenon of immunity not exactly been a secret to “The Science” – at least ever since disease began to be systematically studied. It’s likely reached gargantuan scale in the United States today. For example, a study just published in the respected science journal Nature and funded in part by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences contended that as of the end of last year, 103 million Americans had been infected with the virus. That’s about a third of the total population, and about five times the numbers of recorded cases at that point. Also during 2020, according to the reliable Worldometers.info website, just shy of 366,000 had succumbed to the disease.

Therefore, as of the end of 2020, more than 102 million Americans acquired immunity by recovering from infections that were either asymptomatic or too mild to report. And an unknown (but surely large) number of Americans were never infected to begin with because they were naturally immune.

All of these figures, of course, cover the period months before Delta arrived. Since it’s so infectious, the numbers of those with natural or acquired immunity nowadays must still be at least as big and possibly much bigger. The full vaccination of nearly 177 million Americans as of this latest CDC update of course complicates the estimation process, because so many with natural immunity undoubtedly have gotten such protection.

Another big complication: Vaccines have only been available since the very end of last year, and the numbers of fully vaccinated Americans took a while to become significant both because of roll-out delays and vaccine hesitancy. As a result, there’s not much data yet on whether either form of immunity is more protective than that offered by the jabs – which of course bears vitally on the core assumption behind the calls for vaccine mandates and the like.

After all, if either natural or acquired immunity is comparably effective to vaccination in warding off the virus (the study described here indicates they’re at worst not far off), or if both are, the case that the jabs are medically necessary for all the unvaccinated – either to safeguard the health of the unjabbed themselves, or to prevent them from spreading the malady – simply falls apart.

In addition, the paucity of great data is a problem in and of itself. Unquestionably, there could still major risks, especially long-term, to leaving the unvaccinated unvaxxed. But as noted, the risks of indiscriminate mandates and penalties are impressive as well. Consequently, what should be foremost on Americans’ minds when it comes to mandates-like questions is that in these circumstances, barreling ahead with sweeping measures and sanctions – many of whose effects, particuarly like joblessness and lost income, won’t take long to appear – would be the height of recklessness. As for those who would deny medical care to all of the unvaccinated on this fatally flawed basis (except those who can cite medical exemptions?), that seems the height of arrogance and self-righteousness – not to mention morally disgusting.

And in case you think that the common observation that the unvaccinated comprise nearly all recent CCP Virus-related deaths and hospitalizations clinches the case for mandates, these immunity points shred that idea, too. The problem is not with the claim of high correlation between unvaxxed status and mortality and  hospitalization. The problem is with assuming that a noteworthy share of these virus victims – or even the vast majority – had any form of immunity. In principle, large numbers of the unvaccinated immune could be coming down with dangerous virus infections anyway, or are likely to – and consequently should be coerced into getting jabbed and punished for refusing. But I haven’t seen that argument made; have you? And it’s surely missing in action because immunity is undeniably a thing.

So absent evidence to the contrary, the only reasonable conclusions are that getting the non-immune unvaxxed vaccinated should be a top priority, and that vaccination campaigns should be focused tightly on them. The immune unvaxxed, however, should be allowed to continue their lives as normal.

More than enough American live have been lost or ruined during the pandemic. Unless and until it’s discovered that all of the unvaccinated pose dangers to themselves and/or to others – whether because natural or acquired immunity is completely mythical, or is much weaker than the vaccines-produced variety – indiscriminate vaccine mandates, passports, and penalties will only needlessly lengthen the list of casualties.

Im-Politic: Why Delta Looks Like a Wave (in the Best Sense)

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, health, Im-Politic, lockdowns, pandemic, public health, The New York Times, vaccination, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, vaccines, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

I hate to break up the CCP Virus panic party that’s been held lately due to the surge of the Delta variant in recent weeks.

Actually, as known by RealityChek readers, I don’t hate to break it up, since I’ve been writing that it doesn’t portend the end of days, or anything close – much less a development serious enough to justify a return to economic and behavioral curbs in the United States. But even I was surprised to see how strongly the U.S. data support my confidence that Delta’s a wave in the most encouraging sense: It’s something that’s going to come down about as fast as it went up, both nation-wide and state-wide. Moreover, contrary to the almost universal claims, differences in vaccination rates don’t seem to have much to do with these trends.

These conclusions are based on data showing recent changes in hospitalization rates in states that have seem to have been hardest hit by the overall national increase in recorded virus cases since late June. As I’ve pointed out, case numbers are a deeply flawed measure of the virus’ impact on the nation, largely because so many infections are asymptomatic or very mild. Therefore, such victims typically don’t bother to report them. By the same token, however, their prevalence indicates that the pandemic’s dangers to Americans generally speaking are limited.

Hospitalization rates suffer major flaws, too – mainly because of sloppy definitional practices – but they’re better than case numbers. And what the numbers make clear is that in handful of states widely described as the Delta and overall new wave epicenters (see, e.g., here and here), the hospitalization curve is bending down big time. That is, the weekly numbers of new hospitalizations have slowed dramatically.

Here are the actual figures, with the percentage changes new hospitalizations over the last two weeks shown on the left side (and based on The New York Times‘ interactive CCP Virus tracker) and the percentage changes over the last week shown on the right side (and based on the Washington Post‘s tracker). I needed to use two sources here because I couldn’t find a single source that presented all this information in one place.

U.S.:                      +90 percent            +34 percent

Florida:                +111 percent            +17 percent

Texas:                  +102 percent            +19 percent

Lousiana:             +136 percent            +32 percent

Arkansas:               +45 percent              +4 percent

Missouri:                +27 percent              +5 percent

Mississippi:          +166 percent            +26 percent

In addition, as well known by now, the full vaccination rates in all of these states have lagged the national average of about 50 percent as of today.

Florida:      49.6 percent

Texas:        44.5 percent

Lousiana:   37.6 percent

Arkansas:   37.6 percent

Missouri:    42.1 percent

More evidence of the relatively modest role played by the vaccines in slowing hospitalization rates can be seen in the below table presenting, as above, the changes in weekly hospitalizations over the last two weeks and over the last week for the ten states with the highest full vaccination rates (shown in parentheses).

                                   over the last two weeks            over last week

US (50.1 percent):              +90 percent                       +34 percent

Vermont (67.9 percent):    +577 percent                     +260 percent

Mass. (64.4 percent):          +78 percent                       +25 percent

Maine (64.2 percent):         +29 percent                          -8 percent

Connect. (63.9 percent):     +90 percent                       +14 percent

R.I. (62.1 percent):               -29 percent                      +89 percent

Maryland (59.5 percent):     +77 percent                      +23 percent

N.J. (59.0 percent):              +60 percent                      +14 percent

N.H. (58.6 percent):             +45 percent                     +13 percent

Wash. (58.6 percent):           +60 percent                     +21 percent

N.M. (57.8 percent):            +89 percent                     +23 percent

The first observation to be made is that nation-wide, the increase in hospitalizations has slowed significantly – for which everyone should be thankful. The second point worth noting is that the two week changes for the high- and low-vax states don’t differ to any great extent, though both display significant variation. And the third point I’d emphasize is that the slowdowns mostly have been much faster in the low-vax states. So since we’re examining all these states during the same timeframes, it’s difficult to understand the insistence that vaccination is so vital to stopping the spread. (Incidentally, I’d ignore the Vermont data, since the absolute numbers are so small.)

The only other explanation I can think of is that the high-vax states tend to be states that are densely populated, whereas the low-vax states are much less so. But logically, that would seem to argue most strongly for more energetic vaccine efforts to be made where people are most crowded together, not for villifying the vaccination laggard states (especially when, as in the cases of Florida and Texas, they’re not trailing by that much).

And nothing apparent about the Delta variant so far changes what’s been the most sensible formula for contending with the CCP Virus since the pandemic’s first (understandably) panicky months of 2020:  Don’t treat it like the nation’s only health problem, much less its only problem; don’t ignore its wave-like dynamics or its highly differentiated health effects; therefore keep social and economic life as normal as possible, and focus protective efforts (including vaccines) on the highly vulnerable.      

Im-Politic: The CDC’s Delta Misinformation Spread

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CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, Im-Politic, lockdowns, public health, Rochelle Walensky, vaccinations, vaccine passports, vaccines, Wuhan virus

Remember all the way back to…August 3, when I wrote that the available data made clear that the U.S. government’s leading medical authorities, its President, and many of its politicians and Mainstream Media journalists were engaged in fear-mongering over the new-ish Delta variant of the CCP Virus? I documented that although the new strain has indeed spread rapidly, even the (overwhelmingly circumstantial) evidence cited said absolutely nothing about the most critical issue: the new variant’s ability to cause serious illness and death.

Indeed, I noted, the ability of all versions of the virus (1) to spread asymptomatically, or (2) with symptoms too mild to be reported, and the consequent inability to measure its presence in the population accurately, combined (3) with death rates that have remained at rock bottom, strongly indicated that its lethality rate was low. Flawed definitions of virus-caused hospitalizations further complicated even efforts to gauge Delta’s severity.

Today, however, I’m reporting that the misinformation propagated about the Delta threat is even worse than I originally thought. The problem? The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose statistics, conclusions, and guidance form the basis of so much of the virus-related information received by the public, and of so much of the mitigation policy adopted by government at all levels along with private business (e.g., most recently, vaccine passports), has been using figures that are hopelessly out of date. 

The misinformation episode came this past Thursday, when CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky answered a reporter’s question about the data backing up the Biden administration contention that Delta’s proliferation, plus the rise in virus-related hospitalizations, had produced a pandemic almost exclusively “among the unvaccinated” that’s creating a new public health emergency serious enough to justify sweeping vaccine mandates and other new public health as well as economic curbs.

Here’s what Walensky said: “So those data were data that were from analyses in several states from January through June and didn’t reflect the data that we have now from the Delta variant. We are actively working to update those in the context of the Delta variant.”

She did add that “I do want to reiterate, though, that based on the data we’re seeing — and we don’t have fully updated numbers — universally, as we look at our hospitalizations and as we look at our deaths, they are overwhelmingly unvaccinated people.”

But her initial response revealed that the information the agency has been principally relying on have nothing to even with vaccinations, much less Delta. And that’s not because the CDC has been slipshod in this respect. It’s because it wasn’t until May that even half the total U.S. population was partially –not fully – vaccinated. In fact, as of early April, the share was only about 25 percent. (See here for the figures.)

So since the vast majority of Americans hadn’t been fully vaccinated for most of the six-month period from which the CDC come – as the agency obviously knew – of course the vast majority of hospitalizations would be of the unvaccinated. And please keep in mind those aforementioned flaws in the definition of CCP Virus-related hospitalization and the lack of data on what age groups dominated the hospitalized population whether properly counted or not – since the pathogen’s severity and lethality are so highly concentrated among the relatively old, and  with underlying health problems.

The focus on January-June also weakens the linkage between virus hospitalization rates – even given all the definitional flaws – and the Delta variant. For the new mutation was at least as scarce during that period as vaccination. The first U.S Delta case wasn’t even recorded until March. In early April, it had produced just 0.1 percent of all American cases, according to the CDC. As recently as early June, the figure was just 9.5 percent. (See here for these numbers). By June 19, the figure was still just 30.4 percent, and it was only in the last 10 days of June into the first three days of July that Delta was responsible for half of infections. (See here for these numbers.)

Throughout the pandemic, their obsessive focus on the CCP Virus – as well as apparent obliviousness to its highly differentiated effects – has blinded the  CDC and other public health authorities to the grievous harm done by its mitigation advice to workers, small business owners, students, opioid addicts, not to mention to those suffering from a myriad of other health problems forced to stand at the back of various medical service lines. 

Walensky’s latest comments show that intellectual dishonesty now belong on the list of their blunders – and on the list of reasons for thoroughly overhauling their leadership and institutional cultures, and role in health policymaking as soon as possible. 

Im-Politic: Delta Fear is Leading The Science, Not Following It

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Anthony S. Fauci, Biden, CCP Virus, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, Delta variant, hospitalizations, Im-Politic, infections, lockdowns, masks, public health, vaccine passports, Wuhan virus

Sorry, but I’m not that comforted by the fact that Anthony S. Fauci is now saying  that “I don’t think we’re going to see lockdowns” because of the rapid spread of the Delta variant of the CCP Virus.

That’s because (1) President Biden’s top medical advisor has been such a single-minded backer of broad curbs on economic activity despite their devastating costs to both workers and businesses, not to mention the educational and non-virus public health crises they’ve worsened (like deaths from opioid overdoses); and (2) because he and the rest of the lockdown crowd keep harping on fatally flawed measures of virus dangers that have triggered previous lockdowns, and that are especially prominent and misleading because of Delta’s unusual transmissability. The two most important are case numbers and hospitalization increases.

Normally, the number of victims of a given disease and how that number’s been changing would be crucial gauges of the threat it poses to a population at large and of the effectiveness of mitigation steps already taken.

As has been known since the early phases of the pandemic, however, the CCP Virus can be present asymptomatically. That is, many individuals might not know they’re hosting it, either because they’re still feeling perfectly healthy, or because the effects are so mild that they’re judged not worth dealing with – or reporting to the health providers on which governments at all levels in the United States rely heavily for the virus data, and that form the basis for their policy responses.

As a result, literally no one knows how many Americans have been affected by the CCP Virus and, even more important, how that number has been changing. The same goes for the Delta variant. And therefore, literally no one knows the actual national health consequences of its virulence, and especially what percentage of those who have caught Delta are now or will become seriously ill, or have died or will succumb. Those are the Delta statistic — not simple numbers recorded instances of serious illness or mortality, however distressing they are on humanitarian grounds — that matter in assessing the peril posed by this strain, and in formulating responses whose net effects economically, socially, and health-wise aren’t worse than the disease/

To understand this distinction further, think about what’s known about Delta-related hospitalizations. The most accurate answer is “Very little so far in the way of hard data.” Indeed, as pointed out last week by the American Society for Microbiology, “Research is ongoing to determine if Delta infection is associated with increased hospitalization and death.” But that hasn’t prevented a pandemic of claims that it’s been a  primary driver of admissions lately. (See, e.g., here and here — among a gazillion other articles.)

Let’s assume, however, that the narrative is true. If so, since June 27 through the end of last week, when according to the Washington Post‘s very convenient virus tracker, the number of virus-hospitalized Americans hit its lowest level since the spring of 2020, the number of such patients has increased from 16,403 to 49,498 (through July 31), or 33,095. That sounds like a lot of hospitalizations, and the percentage gain (the numbers have nearly tripled), seems even worse. So Delta looks pretty dangerous, right? But again, what’s the context – that is, what’s the share of Americans infected with Delta who get seriously ill enough to get hospitalized?

As of two weeks ago, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the new strain was responsible for just over 83 percent of all new American CCP Virus cases. That was up from just over 30 percent on June 19 – just about the time virus-related hospitalizations hit their latest bottom. From that time through the end of July, just under 1.352 million total new virus cases have been recorded. So assuming that over the entirety of this period, Delta variant cases made up about 75 percent of these, their total at comes to 1.014 million.

Let’s further assume, in sync with the evidence-free narrative, that all of the new hospitalizations can be blamed on Delta. This would mean that 3.26 percent of the total new Delta cases (that 33,095 figure) were serious enough to require hospital care. Does that number justify even thinking about new lockdowns, much less calling them (only sort of) unlikely?

But don’t forget the asymptomatic cases! According to a new CDC estimate, as of mid-2020, 83 percent of total virus cases in America were asymptomatic – i.e., not recorded. Since so much has changed then – mainly, mass vaccination – that 83 percent figure probably doesn’t hold any more. A reasonable guess might be that 33 percent is now more like it (since about half of the total population is now fully vaccinated and many more Americans have either natural or acquired immunity).

If that’s right, the number of new Delta strain infections is more like 1.5 million, not one million. And the hospitalization rate is more like 2.21 percent. So the notion that “the war [against the virus] has changed” because of this recent mutation, as contended by an internal federal health document obtained by the Washington Post, looks recklessly alarmist.

Further, such views look even wilder and crazier given the likelihood that Washington’s methods for defining cases and virus-related hospitalizations have produced seriously exaggerated counts.

After all, detecting the virus’ presence in an individual is only one of several sets of criteria that the CDC uses to conclude there’s a CCP Virus case to be counted. For example, for individuals that have been in contact with even a probable case of the virus, or who are members of designated vulnerable groups, a positive virus diagnosis can be justified if they display a headache and a sore throat at the same time. Or a sore throat and a runny nose. Or fatigue and a fever. Or if he or she is simply has a cough.

Even the CDC lab test standards for declaring a virus case via testing are dodgy, primarily because the main determinant seems to be the simple presence of the SARS-COV-2 pathogen that causes the disease. Unfortunately, these standards don’t seem to take into account how microorganisms like viruses can enter hosts and form “colonies” that result in no tissue infection and indeed don’t interact with the host at all. And as no less than the World Health Organization has pointed out, “Detection of viral RNA does not necessarily mean that a person is infectious and able to transmit the virus to another person.” Indeed, for all intents and purposes, it means that someone can be hosting the virus but shouldn’t be considered a case at all. One recent study suggests that this pattern is found in more than a tenth of positive cases.

Finally, the hospitalization numbers may be the least reliable of all. In the first place, the reporting system used by the CDC covers only about ten percent of the American population. Moreover, all you need to qualify for the CDC’s definition of a CCP Virus-related hospitalization is to be admitted into such a facility for any reason within 14 days of a positive test. As a result, if you need to be hospitalized for, say, cancer, and you’ve tested positive for the virus during the previous two weeks, you’re considered hospitalized for the CCP Virus.

It’s the same issue that the country has been dealing concerning whether various deaths are “from” or “with” Covid. And genuinely complicated judgment calls are involved. But for that very reason, public health officials should be awfully careful when they talk about devastating consequences of infections in and of themselves.

So the bottom lines are that the sharp recent increase in CCP Virus cases – including of course Delta variant cases – look overwhelmingly to be asymptomatic or mild; that even these numbers define positivity way too broadly, thus representing a major exaggeration and therefore affecting the nation’s health only marginally at best; and that, similarly, there’s probably even less even to true hospitalization rates that are already meager enough than meets the eye.

If Fauci, or anyone else in the Biden administration or in the ranks of restrictions fans had been pointing out any of these absolutely vital nuances since the virus’ Delta phase began, I’d have more faith in assurances about avoiding new lockdowns or any significant new business or behavior curbs. That they haven’t tells me that if such deeply mistaken and needlessly damaging (as known since the virus’ early period) measures aren’t yet on the lockdowners’ table, they’re not too far off — and so far, that would represent leading the science, not following it.