It is extraordinary to see the way that the people – the politicians – who bleated the loudest about “following the science” are now following it into strange places. For example, in England, the Prime Minister, in what some people have suggested is an ugly compromise with some of his MPs as a way to save his position as PM after some extremely egregious flouting of the restrictions he put in place himself, has now announced that there will be no more Covid restrictions, even to the point where people who have a Covid infection no longer need to self-isolate.
Last I looked, the science was telling us that the omicron variant is massively more infectious than other variants, and was the variant infecting almost 100% of all new Covid cases in Britain. I must have overlooked the “new” science that says there is no longer any risk of infection, and/or that after getting infected, one is no longer at risk of any severe consequences of an infection.
An even more ridiculous announcement was here in Washington State where the governor announced that we’d be free of Covid and could give up most remaining restrictions on 25 March. How can he predict, over a month in advance, what the Covid situation will be on 25 March? That’s very impressive “science” indeed.
These actions tend to demonstrate that our politicians were indeed always following the science – but the political science, not the medical science.
I’d noted last week how Scotland has decided to stop sharing data about Covid infections and hospitalizations in terms of who has been vaccinated and who has not been vaccinated because they were concerned people might “misunderstand” the data and use it to show the vaccines are ridiculous rubbish and useless.
It turns out that the CDC has been doing the same thing, for more than a year, because we can’t be trusted with the actual real data. It is not only withholding the data from “ordinary people” like you and me, but also from experts like state public health officials – people who could have used the information to good purpose to anticipate, plan, and respond to outbreak hotspots, for example.
I guess the situation is “Trust us, we’re doctors so know better than you, and we’re from the government – we’re here to help you”. if only the CDC had a proud record of getting things right so far, it might be easier to feel good about that statement, but of course, they don’t.
One of the sad things I’m finally coming to accept is that the US is crippled with as much corruption as any other country in the world. We just use different names to describe our corruption. Instead of bribes, we talk about “no-bid contracts”. Instead of misallocation and outright theft of funds, we talk passively about “pork barrel politics” and “inefficiencies”. And somehow, if a person who is low-income and from a minority group steals money from the government by lying and claiming entitlements they don’t deserve (or stealing directly from a store the old fashioned way) that is not considered actionable, arrestable, prosecutable theft.
Underscoring these sad truths is this article with the headline “‘Immense fraud’ creates immense task for Washington as it tries to tighten scrutiny of $6 trillion in emergency coronavirus spending“. Except of course, no-one in DC or anywhere else really truly wants to officially “see” the immense fraud for fear of being required to do something about it. Suffice it to say that the very few people actually caught or prosecuted are the tiniest percentage of the total. Indeed, some of the official government programs have allowed people to lawfully claim money which by all normal standards they didn’t deserve. Why should a business that is totally unaffected by Covid be entitled to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in “compensation”? What are they being compensated for?
The politicians would have us believe that these are “one-off” cases that make up a tiny proportion of the total disbursements authorized. I disagree. I’ve been studying business accounts in a range of different fields for the last few years, and almost every business I’ve seen that received a forgivable loan has profited from that loan.
To be clear, this is not a Trump or a Biden thing. It is a “government” thing that happens, no matter which parties are in power. Both parties and most politicians are equally guilty.
All of which makes this article very on topic. Its headline reads “The Government’s Coronavirus Response Was a Complete Failure. Who Will Be Held Accountable?“. It is a question I regularly ask while watching the FDA turn its back on the Novavax vaccine authorization application, and pretending that ivermectin is not a valid and massively beneficial treatment, while people are dying, sometimes over 2,000 in a single day.
Go out, shoot up a school, kill a few children, and you can rightly expect to be strapped to a gurney and executed some years later. But do nothing and allow people to die – people who could have otherwise lived if you’d done your job and approved beneficial treatments instead of opposing them – and expect no consequences whatsoever.
Current Numbers
The Faeroe Islands are showing a lower case count today than on Sunday – clearly some type of data correction took place. But even after the correction, they are still way ahead of all other countries.
Ultra-vaxxed Israel moved up another place in the minor country list. I guess it is time to start rolling out fifth vaccination shots there. Or perhaps they’ll finally get the message and stop using the Pfizer gene drugs and try a “normal” vaccine like Novavax instead.
No changes in the major country table.
The Czech Rep seems to have also done a recount, showing a lower death count than a week ago. But they’re still in second place.
Lower rates of new cases were reported by all the countries in the “new cases last week” table.
In Europe, Ireland is having a modest growth in cases (14%). Most countries have dropping numbers, especially in Slovenia (down 52%), Sweden (down 41%) and the Czech Rep (down 37%). France is down 33%, the UK dropped 18%, and Germany eased back 8%. Overall, new cases in Europe were 21% down from the previous week.
In North America, Canada had a 25% drop in cases, Mexico had a 28% drop, and the US had a lovely 35% drop in cases.
Africa (with South Africa still reporting dropping numbers every time) cases dropped 29%. Asia had an unfortunate 4% rise, largely due to South Korea’s 85% increase. Much smaller Hong Kong had a 156% rise. South America was down 23%, and another massive rise in NZ cases (up 229%) saw Oceania end up with a 0.6% increase.
The world as a whole enjoyed a 15% drop in cases, including six countries with cases for the week (Benin, Central Africa Republic, El Salvador, Gambia, Honduras and Liberia).
Top Case Rates Minor Countries (cases per million)
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Faeroe Islands (621,804) | Faeroe Islands (651,711) |
| 2 | Andorra (484,367) | Andorra (489,977) |
| 3 | Gibraltar (439,258) | Gibraltar (453,050) |
| 4 | Slovenia | Denmark (440,202) |
| 5 | San Marino | Slovenia |
| 6 | Denmark (406,428) | San Marino |
| 7 | Seychelles | Georgia |
| 8 | Georgia | Seychelles |
| 9 | St Barth | Israel (386,222) |
| 10 | Israel (376,176) | St Barth (378,564) |
Top Case Rates Major Countries (cases per million)
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Netherlands (346,768) | Netherlands (362,554) |
| 2 | France (336,881) | France (343,985) |
| 3 | Czech Rep (322,899) | Czech Rep (330,439) |
| 4 | Portugal | Portugal |
| 5 | Belgium | Belgium |
| 6 | UK (270,191) | UK (274,167) |
| 7 | USA (239,152) | USA (240,714) |
| 8 | Sweden | Sweden |
| 9 | Spain | Spain |
| 10 | Greece | Greece |
| 11 | Italy | Italy |
| 12 | Argentina (191,840) | Argentina (193,521) |
Top Death Rate Major Countries (deaths per million)
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Peru (6,192) | Peru (6,224) |
| 2 | Czech Rep (3,612) | Czech Rep (3,578) |
| 3 | Romania | Romania |
| 4 | Brazil | Brazil |
| 5 | Poland (2,891) | Poland (2,934) |
| 6 | USA (2,859) | USA (2,901) |
| 7 | Argentina (2,723) | Argentina (2,744) |
| 8 | Colombia | Colombia |
| 9 | Belgium | Belgium |
| 10 | Italy (2,525) | Italy (2,553) |
Top Rates in New Cases Reported in the Last Week (new cases per million) for Countries over one million population
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Denmark 46,534 | Latvia 36,243 |
| 2 | Latvia 37,016 | Denmark 33,801 |
| 3 | Georgia 28,602 | Estonia 27,864 |
| 4 | Estonia | Singapore |
| 5 | Netherlands | Austria |
| 6 | Austria | Slovakia |
| 7 | Slovakia | Georgia |
| 8 | Norway | Norway |
| 9 | Lithuania | S Korea |
| 10 | Slovenia | Lithuania |
| 11 | Bahrain | Netherlands |
| 12 | Israel 17,217 | Germany 13,731 |
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Items below include Canada sort of makes it easier to visit, another reason not to worry about catching Covid from a contaminated surface, Covid rates plummeting around the world, and the mystery of early Covid cases.
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