COVID-19 positivity rate increases despite decrease in testing – Duque.....According to Duque, the positivity rate increased from the 0.9 % recorded from Dec. 12 to 18 to the 1.9% recorded from Dec. 19 to 25.“We are also seeing a decline in the demand for testing and our daily testing output, which is currently at 26,356 tests per day,” he said in Filipino.
He also noted that testing output drastically decreased on Christmas Day and on Dec. 26 as many laboratories were closed for the holidays.
well, duh.
On top of that, he said demand for testing in the previous week also saw a decline.
Again: Well, duh. People have a life and it's Christmas season: Time to party and visit relatives.
But the article didn't note: Who is being tested? I mean in the past our drivers needed a routine test to deliver rice in Manila. So the low (1percent) number suggests that these routine tests are not being done.
So the data is not valid.
And remember, half of the Visayas are building back after the typhoon, so what is going on there with the virus, especially given that a lot of people are crowded in shelters or in the homes of family or friends whose houses survived.
As for the rest of the country: so if you have cold symptoms and are not too sick, will you try to figure out where to get tested for covid, especially knowing if it is positive you will have to go into quarantine?
Joy has been going to a lot of meetings and got a cold that lasted two days. No she didn't get tested, because she got better quickly. But now many cases of the Omnicron cause mild cold symptoms that go away in a few days and are not being tested?
But I am reading of long lines to get tested in the USA, and ER's being filled with people who tested positive but have few symptoms but went to the ER because they are worried.
Maybe because the headlines shout the sky if falling, but without putting it into context.
A lot of "fog of war" out there in the reporting, and of course the Inquirer has an editorial noting the western countries are again pushing covid porn:
And just like that, countries and borders and establishments are shutting down once again in many parts of the world as cases of the new COVID-19 variant Omicron surge across populations. Europe and the US, which had relaxed most pandemic restrictions following a vast head start in mass-vaccinating their citizens, are now back to using grim, cataclysmic language to describe the threat of Omicron: Both Washington and London have warned about a “tidal wave” of new cases arising from the fleet-footed variant.
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| https://opinion.inquirer.net/147984/bracing-for-omicron |
The PhilStar has a similar "The sky is falling" article about the 49% increase in cases in the Manila area.
which sounds terrible until you search for how many people are actually sick:
According to OCTA, the seven-day average of new cases in Metro Manila increased to 116 from December 20 to 26 after not breaching the 100-mark since the first week of December.
Except there are maybe 13 million people in the Manila area.
Dr. Campbell update on the Omnicron laments the confusion in the news... Omnicron is weaker, you are less likely to get really really sick... but it spreads faster, and you come down with it quicker than in the past.
and he is commenting on the non vaccinated in the USA: this is a weaponized headline to blacken Trump supporters, even though Trump said to get the shot. And the real danger is that the non vaccinated rate in minorities is high because they just don't trust the system.
Who do you trust?
who do you believe when the institutions that used to be trusted are now being taken over by the woke religion, where science and logic is being seen as racist and cool headed discussion of pros and cons of disease are being replaced by propaganda?
I mean, the AMA is now "woke" and trying to reeducate docs on racism, (repent harlequin said the ticktock man) never mind that one quarter of docs are foreign medical graduates and these FMG tend to work in areas with fewer doctors (like my husband, who worked with poor white coal miners) and who know the frustration of treating people whose health is affected by their individual (bad) behavior?
AustinBay discusses this propaganda war to promote division in the USA and points out how this fits in with bot Sun Tzu and Stalin's manipulation of his useful idiots in the cold war.
As for the low rate of Covid in Africa: I googled for the Strategypage article about the genetic reason behind this: LINK
Chinese researchers discovered that Africans are less likely to catch covid19 because they have one fifth as many cellular receptors in their lungs than Chinese. That difference enables covid19 to cause breathing problems more, or less, readily. ...By April Africa, with 18 percent of the world population, has only suffered about 0.3 percent of the covid19 infections.
Africans are not immune, just less likely to get infected or suffer the breathing problems that cause most covid10 related deaths.
as for the rest of the world, he notes:
Other researchers found that this genetic difference was most helpful for Africans and most harmful for East Asians. People in other parts of the world have less resistance to covid19 than Africans. Lung damage is the most frequent cause of death among covid19 victims.
Dr. C wonders if the high rate of covid cases and deaths in the black populations in the USA and the UK are due to low levels of Vitamin D. and has discussed this in several of his videos, noting that Ireland is giving out Vit D to their people.
Vitamin D is made by the body from sunlight.
Darker skins block the suns rays that let the body make vitamin D, and of course, no one gets a lot of skin exposure in the winter in northern climates. And one does wonder if the Hijab is making some Muslim women more vulnerable to the virus in warmer climates.
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update: Via Instapundit:
Experts Say Covid 19 Cases Don’t Tell The Whole Story.
For nearly two years, Americans have looked carefully at coronavirus case numbers in the country and in their local states and towns to judge the risk of the disease.
Surging case numbers signaled growing dangers, while falling case numbers were a relief and a signal to let one’s guard down in terms of gathering with friends and families and taking part in all kinds of events.
But with much of the nation’s population vaccinated and boosted and the country dealing with a new COVID-19 surge from omicron — a highly contagious variant that some studies suggest may not be as severe as previous variants — public health officials are debating whether the nation needs to shift its thinking. . . . As a result, hospitalizations and deaths are the markers that government officials need to monitor carefully to ensure the safety of communities as the nation learns to live with COVID-19.
Do tell.
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update from Instapundit:
ICYMI: LETTER FROM “PUBLIC HEALTH” EXPERTS URGING PFIZER TO HOLD THE VACCINE UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTION:
“I didn’t even remember this but wow. I doubt the same letter would have been sent had 2020 not been an election year or had a Democrat been in office.” That’s Nate Silver I just quoted.
Yes, I noticed this in July 2020, when the protection numbers showed it worked with few side effects.
Usually if a disease is killing people, they release the vaccine to high risk groups, because the cost/benefit ratio is good.
But hey, an election is more important than people's lives.
/sarcasm.
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