Table of contents
- References for Burton op-ed, Washington Times, Dec. 27-28, 2020: “Do the math!”
- Vaccine information
- WND: Scott Atlas is wrong, by Dave Burton, Sept. 2, 2020
- Worldometers tracks Covid-19 case and fatality counts, globally
- CDC Covid Data Tracker
- Covid-19 phylogeny
- Deseret News: The dysfunctional American regulatory state, by Sally Pipes
- LOS: Understanding “comorbidities”
- StatNews: “Long Covid” puzzles doctors
- Estimated relative risks of various common activities
- WaPo: CDC says most infections were via asymptomatic/presymptomatic spread
Burton op-ed references, Washington Times, Dec. 27-28, 2020
Do the math! “Died with covid” means “died from covid” (usually)
These are the references for my Washington Times guest “analysis/opinion” column (Sunday Dec. 27 online, Monday Dec. 28 in print, and archived here). ↑
- The current U.S. population is about 332 million:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/ - In normal times, the U.S. records an average of about 230,000 deaths per month:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db328.htm
That is about 230K/332M = 0.07% of the nation's population. - Worldometers U.S. Covid-19 statistics (Mondays):
Total deaths as of 2020-12-21: 327,448
Total deaths as of 2020-12-14: 308,298
Average deaths/day over week of Dec. 15-21: (327,448-308,298)/7=2736
Total cases as of 2020-12-14: 16,947,548
Total cases as of 2020-12-07: 15,415,382
Average cases/day over week of Dec. 8-14: (16,947,548-15,415,382)/7=218,881
Total cases as of 2020-11-30: 13,965,681
Average cases/day over week of Dec. 1-7: (15,415,382-13,965,681)/7=207,100
Average cases/day over two weeks: (16,947,548-13,965,681)/14=212,990
Daily deaths as a percentage of cases 1 week prior: 2736/218,881=1.25%
Daily deaths as a percentage of cases 2 weeks prior: 2736/207,100=1.32%
Daily deaths as a percentage of cases 1 to 2 weeks prior: 2736/212,990=1.3%
Latest U.S. totals (as of 8:30 a.m., 12/23/2020):
Cases: 18,687,330
Deaths: 330,841
Recovered: 10,948,136 - U.S. Covid-19 Case Fatality Rate (CFR), calculated over entire pandemic = 330,841 deaths / (10,948,136 recoveries + 330,841 deaths) = 2.93%
- From CDC data, here's a spreadsheet of seasonal influenza statistics for the last ten flu seasons. The average Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) was 0.121%
- The U.K. government reports that 88% of Covid-19 deaths occur within 28 days of diagnosis.
Vaccine information:
There are hundreds of Covid-19 vaccines under development, in nine broad technology categories.
Several dozen of them are in clinical trials, and an early few are now in use. If you want to understand
more about them, I highly recommend this in-depth
Tweet #1:
● https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1310372301314101250
Tweet #138 (last tweet):
● https://twitter.com/florian_krammer/status/1310435247243304962
Unrolled thread, in several formats:
● https://threader.app/thread/1310372301314101250
● https://rattibha.com/thread/1310372301314101250
The Milken Institute has two similar Covid-19 vaccine tracker web sites:
● https://covid-19vaccinetracker.org (This site is just about vaccines.)
● https://covid-19tracker.milkeninstitute.org (This site also has information about non-vaccine treatments being developed and/or tested.)
Here's a very easy to understand educational “Tweetstorm” about the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna; sorry about the gratuitous foul language:
Tweet #1:
● https://twitter.com/WheatNOil/status/1339624815137722368
Tweet #37 (last tweet):
● https://twitter.com/WheatNOil/status/1341081423558537217
Unrolled thread, in several formats:
● https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1339624815137722368.html
● https://threader.app/thread/1339624815137722368
● https://unrollthread.com/t/1339624815137722368
● https://rattibha.com/thread/1339624815137722368
RNA biologist Rob Swanda has created a series of excellent educational videos about Covid-19 vaccines, on his YouTube channel. Currently, there are eight videos averaging about 2.5 minutes each, in English, plus versions in several other languages. ↑
There is, arguably, an ethical problem with some of the Covid-19 vaccines, because some of them were developed using fetal cells, from aborted babies.
National Review has been on top of this issue. Here are two of their articles, reporting that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines do not use fetal cells:
But here's an article reporting that the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines unfortunately do use fetal cells, albeit from cell lines which are several decades old:
Science Magazine had some more details in an article in June, 2020. ↑
WND: Scott Atlas is wrong, Sept. 2, 2020
Scott Atlas could not have been
more wrong in his advice to America's leaders.
by Dave Burton ↑
CDC Covid Data Tracker
The CDC tracks many Covid-related statistics on their Covid Data Tracker site. ↑
Covid-19 phylogeny
Nextstrain tracks Covid-19 strains on their “genomic epidemiology” web page. Hover your mouse cursor over the graphic for information about the particular mutations which characterize each strain. ↑
Worldometers Covid-19 site
Worldometers tracks Covid-19 case and fatality counts, globally and by country. ↑
Deseret News: The dysfunctional American regulatory state
COVID-19
has shown us how dysfunctional the American regulatory state can be
by Sally Pipes (archived here) ↑
LOS: Understanding “comorbidities”
COVID comorbidities are not analogous to car crashes: Debunking the 6% mortality claim ↑
StatNews: “Long Covid” puzzles doctors
Some Covid-19 patients remain sick for many months, and nobody knows why. Explanations for long Covid remain elusive. ↑
Estimated relative risks of various common activities
Here's some expert opinion about relative risks of catching/spreading Covid-19 through various activities. ↑
(Unfortunately, they left out a few important high-risk activities out, such as having a plumber or cleaning service in your home, or riding a train, subway or bus.)
Most Covid-19 cases were contracted from a person without symptoms
WaPo: People without symptoms spread virus in more than half of cases, CDC model finds
The tl;dr version is this: a CDC study estimates that more than half of Covid-19 cases were contracted from someone who was asymptomatic or presymptomatic. That's based on a computer model, but it is consistent with anecdotal evidence.
(That's why people without symptoms need to wear masks, and practice “social distancing,” unless they have some means of being certain that they are not infected... e.g., they've already been vaccinated, at least a month ago, and they have no symptoms.)