Why we need to stop the lock-downs now.

While our state locks down small businesses, restaurants, schools, gyms and more for our “protection,” I do not see a good reason for this. The disease is just not lethal enough to justify the closures, which are more dangerous. (See the orders from our state that came in my email today.)

What I do see is a situation where the government is taking control of people instead of the other way around. We have already worn masks and stayed home for 10 months now. Will continuing with this tactic, and tightening it down make any difference in the spread of a virus? It hasn’t stopped it so far. But it has already had a devastating effect on our lives, and it will get worse.

So I did some more research on the covid “surge” and am very concerned about the way the data is being reported vs how it actually looks when you run the numbers. Even more concerning are the governor’s tactics for “protecting” the citizens here in Washington state.

When the media compounds the number and hypes it up to say the situation is critical, it appears scary, but the real data says otherwise.

I took some time to do my own research and this is what I’ve found:

Across the state, and the country, there are lots of people getting tested and are positive for covid-19. The State of Washington has 7.5 Million people. Since March, there have been 2,795,736 people tested in WA, showing 131,532 have been positive. Sounds scary, right? But that actually means that 1.75% of the people in WA have tested positive for covid-19 over the course of 10 months. Not so scary when you phrase it that way. Of course there could be people who never had symptoms and were never tested, and there could be some test irregularities. But a contagion rate this low is not worth the debate.

It has not proven to be a statistically high-fatality virus. In the last 10 months, a total of 2548 people have died of covid-19 in WA. If you take the number of people who tested positive for covid and then died, the mortality rate is 1.937% And from a statewide perspective, your chance of dying from covid is 0.039%.

On top of that, 1354 of those deaths were elderly people in Long Term Care (LTC) facilities. 53% of the total state covid fatalities are from people who are close to the end of their lives anyway. And even in those LTC facilities, only 15.4% of those elderly people who tested positive for covid, actually died from it.

If you remove the death count of the LTC facilities, the total number of covid-19 deaths in WA lowers to 1,194. Then the chance of someone (who is not an LTC patient) dying if infected with covid lowers to 0.972%

Source: https://covidtracking.com/data/#state-wa

When compared to the top 10 causes of mortality in WA state over the last 10 years, notice that Flu and Pneumonia have previously had mortality rates of over 10% historically*. (Source: WA DOH)

We are being told that the hospitals are overrun to justify more mandates

…and yet there are only 586 people currently hospitalized for Covid in the entire state! (See below.)

Source: https://covidtracking.com/data/#state-wa as of 11/18/20

A bigger problem is all the people who were not allowed to get medical care for OTHER ailments when hospitals closed down for covid, and once they opened back up, they were backlogged with medical needs.

“In the spring, some states ordered that most elective surgeries come to a halt so that hospitals had room for COVID-19 patients, but Litvak says this leads to all kinds of collateral damage because patients don’t get the care they need and hospitals lose money and lay off staff.” (Source NPR)

Hospitals are considering anything over 10% capacity to mean “overrun.”

“Though there’s not a fixed threshold that applies to all hospitals, generally speaking, once COVID-19 hospitalizations exceed 10% of all available beds, that signals an increasing risk that the health care system could soon be overwhelmed, explains Sauer.” (Source NPR)

More cases do not mean more deaths

The media is using skewed data to make headlines and to scare the public into accepting more lock downs. While the media is reporting “surges” in cases, they fail to mention the low percentage of deaths. Additionally, now that we have more access to testing, thousands more tests are being done each month, so there are going to be more positive cases.

Compare month-to-month and you can see that more tests are being done, which yield more positive cases, but the death rate is decreasing. For example, as of today, Nov. 20, there have been 9,320 more cases than occurred in October, but 16 less deaths.

The highest number of deaths was in April (539), May (317) and August (341), but other than that, the monthly deaths have stayed around 240 per month. (Source: https://covidtracking.com/data/#state-wa)

To put it in perspective, according to WA statistics report from 2015, an average of 4,743 people die on a monthly basis. Significant reasons for death include: 23.2% from malignant neoplasms, 20.2% from heart disease, 6.4% from Alzheimer’s disease, 5.8% from unintended accidents, and 1.6% from the flu or pneumonia.

What about the effects that masks, isolation and shutdowns have on society?

“The psychological effects of social isolation can affect your immune system. The culprits are loneliness and stress. Research shows that our anti-viral response is suppressed when we feel lonely. An analysis of 148 different studies involving more than 300,000 people found that people who were more socially connected were 50 percent less likely to die over a given period. One experiment even found that people with many social ties are less susceptible to the common cold. ” (Source Medical-MIT)

The effects on children are even worse than adults. 91% of the world’s children are out of school.

“The global economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 crisis, including massive global job losses, is likely to increase rates of child labor and child marriage. Globally, an estimated 152 million children were already engaged in child labor before the COVID-19 pandemic, with 73 million engaged in hazardous work. Research has shown that child labor is highly associated with financial shocks experienced by a family, such as illness, disability, or a parent’s loss of employment.

The COVID-19 crisis also heightens the risk of online child sexual exploitation. Europol has reported that law enforcement partners are reporting “increased online activity by those seeking child abuse material,” as a result of COVID-19.” (Source Human Rights Watch)

On top of that are the effects on our economy.

It is just shocking that we are allowing this kind of destruction of our infrastructure and businesses to happen. I have personally watched many small businesses struggle to stay afloat over the last 10 months. Unfortunately this next shut down will be the final nail in their coffins – not from covid death, but the death of their livelihood using covid as a justification. We can pour money into training and technology, PPP and put off payments, but it wont make anything better unless the natural amount of commerce is allowed to flow freely again… and then allowed time to recover.

What about the regular safety net, or special programs needed to support our citizens AFTER covid-19?

More and more people are relying on government funded programs to pay their bills. It is completely unsustainable. Government programs including schools, universities, unemployment, and wellfare rely on our tax dollars, but without successful businesses and employees to pay taxes, there will be nothing left to fund the government. It is just a matter of time before personal savings run out, inflation grows beyond our means, supply shortages get worse, and state governments are unable to use emergency federal funds that they have already exhausted.

Mandates to avoid covid-19 exposure risks do not outweigh the dangerous effects they create

I am not going to sit by quietly and take it anymore. You should not either. Do not buy into the fear mongering that is taking over our country and much of the world. Fear lies in the dark, but bravery can bring the truth to light. I am standing on the side of the light. Please let me pull you out of the darkness. We need to put a stop to this now.