Joe Biden is scheduled to address the nation about Covid today.
You may recall that at this time last year Biden was warning us of a "very dark winter" ahead.
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| Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-11-09/biden-warns-of-very-dark-winter-as-us-approaches-10-million-coronavirus-cases |
For context, there have been an additional 40 million cases of Covid since Biden said this last year.
There have been 100,000 additional deaths in 2021 from Covid over the 352,000 we had in 2020.
This is the latest CDC snapshot of cases, deaths and vaccinations.
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| Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends |
Biden was also saying that he was going to shut down the virus.
When he took office has said he had a 100 day plan that was based on science. It involved getting people vaccinated, mandating masks for 100 days wherever he could, and increased testing
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| Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/biden-national-coronavirus-plan/index.html |
As cases dropped during the Spring, Biden and his advisors must have believed that they really had accomplished something.
Biden attacked the Governors in a number of southern states that were not following the lockdown measures and were lifting mask mandates, saying they were "neanderthals" in their thinking about Covid.
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| Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56275103 |
In the hot summer months, he attacked Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and other Republican governors when cases surged in a seasonal summer peak which we had also seen last year in the Sun Belt states.
Biden said what they were doing was bad health policy.
“I believe the results of their decisions are not good for their constituents,” Biden said, according to a transcript released by the White House. “And it's clear to me and to most of the medical experts that the decisions being made, like not allowing mask mandates in school and the like, are bad health policy —- bad health policy.”
To his credit, DeSantis did not cave to the pressure at the time when it would have been easy to do so. He was confident in his position and listened to science advisors that had a different view.
“We are having schools open. We are protecting every Floridian’s job in this state. We are protecting peoples’ small businesses,” DeSantis said. “These interventions have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic, not just in the United States, but abroad. They have not stopped the spread, And particularly with delta that is even more transmissible. It if didn’t stop it before, it definitely ain’t going to stop it now. I think it’s very important we understand that.”
Florida had a tough period but it never got as bad as predicted.
Biden's experts like Fauci predicted cases would explode when school opened.
Cases actually starting falling in mid-August when most school districts in Florida were starting the Fall semester.
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| New Reported Cases in Florida Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/florida-covid-cases.html |
As pointed out above, there have been many more cases and deaths with Covid since Biden said he was going to shut down the virus than there were before.
This is despite the fact that 77.4% of everyone age 5 and older in the United States has now taken at least one dose of the vaccine based on the most recent CDC data.
30% of those eligible have also taken booster doses.
What is Joe Biden going to say in his Covid address?
I predict we are going to hear again about a "very dark winter" approaching.
How could this be?
Biden told us he was going to lock down the virus.
We were told if you got vaccinated that you would not get sick or spread the virus.
We were told you could take off your mask.
We were told that you would not be hospitalized or die if you were vaccinated.
We were told that 99% of all those in the hospital or dying were unvaccinated.
We were told it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
We were told if we got 50% (then 60%, then 70%) vaccinated there would be no further Covid surges.
We were told that we needed to fire healthcare and other workers who were not vaccinated in order to prevent outbreaks from occurring.
We were told that states run by Democrat Governors like Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul were doing it exactly right while Ron DeSantis and other red state Governors were doing everything wrong.
If you have not seen this video montage, I suggest you take a couple of minutes and see snippets of the misinformation and the the totally contradictory messages we have heard this year about the vaccines from the "experts".
One of the most vaccinated states in the nation is New York.
In New York City you cannot enter any restaurant, building etc. without being fully vaccinated.
The state of New York instituted another indoor mask update December 10.
Have you seen New York's numbers recently?
81% of age 12+ are fully vaccinated.
New York hit a new record high number of daily cases of 28,260 on December 19. Previously, there have never been more than 20,000 cases in one day in New York since the beginning of the pandemic.
Are we seeing a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" in New York?
This chart shows the 7-day average which is just shy of the record of 16,612 set on January 12 in the last "dark winter" which is certain to be eclipsed in the next day or so.
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| New Reported Cases in New York Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/new-york-covid-cases.html |
Here are the top 10 states for new Covid cases (7-day average) as of today according to The New York Times.
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| Source: The New York Times |
9 of the 10 states are headed by Democrat Governors (Ohio the exception). All 9 of these states also voted for Biden.
8 of the 10 states have full vaccination levels higher than the national average of 61% of all residents (Ohio is at 55%. Michigan at 56%).
Notice that all of the states are in colder climates supporting the fact that Covid is a virus that follows very distinct seasonal trends.
Back in early July, when Biden and others were feeling confident that we had largely put Covid behind us, I warned that it was way too early to claim the vaccines were responsible for the decline in cases we had seen from January to June.
This what the trend in cases looked like at that time. It did look like we had put Covid behind us.
However, I wrote at that time that we should wait and see if a seasonal surge occurs in the Sun Belt before anyone takes a victory lap. I was not convinced the decline was due to the vaccines. I was concerned that we were going to see another surge.
This is what I wrote "Where Are We Going With Covid" on July 1, 2021.
The data alone suggest that this drop is not solely due to the vaccines. Most of the decrease had occurred before the vaccines really took hold.
There clearly has also been an effect from herd immunity from those who had existing antibodies and the fact that all viruses eventually burn out.
Although Covid cases have shown a large decline nationally since January I am interested to see what occurs across the Sunbelt in July and August.
We saw cases explode in this area last year after New York, New Jersey and other hot spots saw their cases decline in the summer.
I believe that the cases went up as more people in these hot areas sought the refuge of air conditioning indoors and avoided the sun and outdoors.
The more I research and study the Covid issue the more it appears to me that locking down and not being out and about actually makes you more vulnerable to the virus.
That surge came in the Sun Belt.
Cases peaked and then they dropped just as quickly as they increased even though most of the Sun Belt states did not order any mask mandates, lockdowns or school closures.
Governor DeSantis of Florida was clear about his policy positions. No lockdowns, no school closures, no mask mandates, no vaccine mandates.
The cases came down without any overt public policy interventions.
How do you explain it?
They dropped so far that Florida has had the lowest number of new Covid cases of any state for the last several months despite having no mandated restrictions.
A month ago I wrote that we would know a lot more about the effectiveness of the Biden "plan" and the true effectiveness of the Covid vaccines over the next three months.
I predicted the virus was going to challenge the strict measures of the blue state governors and the effectiveness of the vaccines as the weather turned cold in the Northeast and Midwest.
We would really see how effective Biden's "plan" and the vaccines were in the coming months.
After all, if the vaccines can't control seasonal surges how effective are they?
The vaccines do appear to provide some benefit against severe disease but if the vaccines cannot stop infection or spread we are not putting an end to the pandemic.
We are barely a month in and it couldn't look much worse.
I don't know about you but I have seen more people I know come down with Covid over the last month than at any time during the pandemic. A lot of them are fully vaccinated and boosted. It feels like Covid Chaos right now.
It appears a "very dark winter" is upon us.
What will Joe Biden say today?
I can guarantee you he will once again point his finger at the unvaccinated. It doesn't matter if they already had Covid and recovered. He and his experts have bet everything on the vaccines and they don't want to admit they made a bad bet.
He will likely say again that vaccines should be mandated by employers.
He will urge parents to get their 5-year old vaccinated.
He will tell everyone they should get a booster shot.
He will undoubtedly say that everyone needs to cooperate and comply with the edicts and mandates as there is no other way to get through this. He will say it is your duty as an American.
Of course, there is another way.
A year ago a group of distinguished doctors and epidemiologists came together and put forth what was called "The Great Barrington Declaration". In that document they stated they had grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommended what they called a Focused Protection plan.
This group was led by esteemed Nobel Prize winner Dr. Martin Kulldorf of Harvard, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University in the UK and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford.
Their belief is the United States should be following a similar approach to what Sweden has done with Covid. Protect the vulnerable and have others carry on with their lives as close to normal as possible.
Sweden had excess deaths with their strategy early in the pandemic but its strategy is looking pretty smart in 2021 compared to its Scandanavian neighbors, UK, Germany and the United States right now.
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