{"id":87899,"date":"2020-09-05T13:04:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T19:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=87899"},"modified":"2020-09-06T00:18:34","modified_gmt":"2020-09-06T06:18:34","slug":"why-the-covid-19-killed-only-6-argument-is-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/09\/why-the-covid-19-killed-only-6-argument-is-wrong.html","title":{"rendered":"“Why the ‘COVID-19 killed only 6%’ argument is wrong”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>
Cape Foulweather, on the Oregon coast, received its name in 1778 from Captain James Cook. In this photograph, it doesn\u2019t appear to merit the title, but things can change. Crowding and \u201csocial distancing\u201d are not major problems in places such as this.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been encountering the claim, of late, that the Centers for Disease Control have finally been forced to admit that they\u2019ve grossly inflated the death toll caused by the coronavirus \u201choax\u201d \u2014 the phony \u201cscamdemic,\u201d as one person put it.\u00a0 This is not only wrong, it\u2019s dangerously wrong.\u00a0 If it\u2019s taken as true, it will likely lead many Americans into risky behavior that will kill people \u2014 if not themselves, then others around them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOrac\u201d is the blogging pseudonym of David Gorski, M.D., Ph.D.<\/a>\u00a0 Here\u2019s what he has to say on the topic:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u201conly 6%\u201d gambit: The latest viral COVID-19 disinformation: While Orac\u2019s been away, there\u2019s arisen a new bit of COVID-19 disinformation that deceptively claims that \u201conly 6%\u201d of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 were really due to coronavirus. It turns out that this is QAnon disinformation.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And if you need other sources on the matter, here\u2019s a representative sampling:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cViral claim that only 6% of COVID-19 deaths were caused by the virus is flat-out wrong:\u00a0This stat points to people who didn\u2019t have any underlying conditions or complications.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy the \u2018COVID-19 killed only 6%\u2019 argument is wrong: Many people who have died of COVID-19 may have been closer to death than the rest of us, but the fact is the virus killed them before their time.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCDC Did Not \u2018Admit Only 6%\u2019 of Recorded Deaths from COVID-19\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCoronavirus: The US has not reduced its Covid-19 death toll to 6% of total\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is serious, folks:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIHME model predicts 410,000 Americans could die of COVID-19 by the end of the year if people don\u2019t continue to wear masks \u2013 as health experts warn Labor Day will determine how prevalent the virus is in the fall\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is far less<\/em> serious.\u00a0 But I have some personal experience with it that I thought I would briefly share:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTravel shaming \u2014 another plague of 2020\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Critical Points: Travel shaming is here \u2014 and it\u2019s a problem\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTraveling was once social currency. Now it might get you shamed.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My wife and I are fanatical theater-goers.\u00a0 (That\u2019s scarcely surprising:\u00a0 She was a theater major.<\/em>). But we\u2019ve canceled all of our season theater tickets.\u00a0 Even where plays were being staged, we concluded that we just didn\u2019t want to be among such crowds.\u00a0 Where we haven\u2019t had major trips canceled on<\/em> us, we\u2019ve canceled them ourselves<\/em>.\u00a0 We stay almost entirely at home.\u00a0 We wear masks when we go out.\u00a0 We haven\u2019t seen our children and grandchildren who live in the eastern United States and in Latin America for months, except via computer.\u00a0 (This is extremely distressing to my wife.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re particularly concerned, not only that we not contract COVID-19 ourselves but that we not in any way risk transmitting the coronavirus to my wife\u2019s father, who is quite healthy for his age but who is well into his mid-nineties.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, we did, for quite specific reasons that I will not outline here,\u00a0take two substantial trips this past summer, one to Colorado and one to the Oregon coast.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

(My most implacable critics will demand to know<\/em> those reasons, of course.\u00a0 They somehow seem to imagine that they\u2019ve earned the right to audit my personal finances and to subject me to an invasive public moral colonoscopy and, absent such examinations, to pronounce me guilty.\u00a0 I don\u2019t grant them that right.\u00a0 And the guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion in any<\/em> event.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We stayed in lodgings that had been \u2014 we inquired into this \u2014 meticulously cleaned.\u00a0 We ate almost entirely in<\/em> our lodgings, but occasionally bought drive-through food from restaurants.\u00a0 Our visits, in our own automobile, were almost entirely to wild and unpopulated places in the Rockies and along the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 We went to Rocky Mountain National Park and to Dinosaur National Monument, complying with all masking and distancing regulations, gaining access only subject to careful limits and control by the National Park Service.\u00a0 We wore masks.\u00a0 We washed our hands frequently.\u00a0 We carried hand sanitizer with us and in our car, and we used it often.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This angered my most obsessive online critics, nonetheless.\u00a0 (Big surprise!)\u00a0 They pronounced me selfish, arrogant, hypocritical, and indifferent to the suffering and possible death of those upon whom my baneful shadow might fall.\u00a0 On several occasions, one of them labeled me a \u201cmurderer.\u201d\u00a0 My Malevolent Stalker, unusually candid about the judgment of me that has inspired him to devote daily time to condemning me for the past fifteen years, declared me \u201chuman garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some people are rather strange.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019ve been encountering the claim, of late, that the Centers for Disease Control have finally been forced to admit that they\u2019ve grossly inflated the death toll caused by the coronavirus \u201choax\u201d \u2014 the phony \u201cscamdemic,\u201d as one person put it.\u00a0 This is not only wrong, it\u2019s dangerously wrong.\u00a0 If it\u2019s taken as true, 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