All For Naught?

New York City has had some of the strictest Covid protocols in the world.

It has had some form of mask mandates for almost two years.

It required everyone as young as 5 years of age to be fully vaccinated or they were prohibited from entering restaurants, theaters, sporting events, museums, etc.

As of December 27, 2021, it required all private employers to exclude all unvaccinated employees from the workplace.

It terminated healthcare workers who did not get vaccinated.

New York City fired nearly 1,500 city employees just weeks ago because they refused to be vaccinated.

96% of adults in New York City have been at least partially vaccinated.

How did all of this work out?

Cases peaked at 6.5x higher in January, 2022 than they did in January, 2021 despite all of these measures.

Source: The New York Times

More troubling is that Covid deaths in January, 2022 were actually higher than in January, 2021, even with those "highly safe and effective" vaccines.

Source: https://twitter.com/HHS_Watch/status/1498085402640457730

In addition, "Deaths from All Causes" increased beyond the Covid death count when comparing 2021 and 2022.

There were 6,821 deaths from all causes in New York City in January, 2021. There were 7,905 deaths in January, 2022.

Increases in Covid deaths between January, 2021 and January, 2022 only explain about 60% of the increase in All Cause Deaths.

Looking at this data how effective were the vaccines and all those mandates?

In addition, what is the explanation for the increase in excess deaths that were not attributable to Covid?

Interestingly, these numbers seems to be consistent with reports we have seen from various life insurance companies recently reporting excess deaths claims not related to Covid in the second half of 2021.

Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/24/life-f24.html

According to a report Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, US life insurance companies saw nearly a 40 percent rise in death benefit claims in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic baseline, the largest such increase (so far) in the coronavirus pandemic.

While claims for COVID-related deaths were expected to jump, and did so, up 18.7 percent over the pre-pandemic baseline, there was surprise at the sudden jump in non-COVID death claims, which rose even more, up 19 percent.

 

I wrote about this troubling trend in a blog post "What Is Going On With Deaths?" in early January.

Looking at the data don't you have to wonder whether any of the measures that New York City introduced and enforced had any real effect on the virus?

Was it all for naught?

However, we do know that those measures had many other effects.

For example, look at this chart which shows the rate of change in airport enplanements for domestic destinations for the last two years.

One effect was that not many people wanted to travel to New York City any more.

Passenger traffic was down 53% at JFK airport in NYC compared to two years ago. LaGuardia  was -42%.

Or to California which also had draconian restrictions.

LAX was down 40%. San Francisco was down 55%. San Jose was -56%.

Credit: https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1487229156236709888

Where are people going?

Florida. 

Every airport that has seen an increase in incoming passenger traffic is in Florida.

Sarasota/Bradenton  +63%

Key West  +50%

Panama City   +26%

Destin/Ft. Walton Beach  +23%

Pensacola  +4%

Fort Myers  +3%

Miami  +3%.

What about eating out at restaurants?

This is a chart using data from Open Table that compares seated diners in restaurants in various cities in the United States in the period February 8-21, 2022 with the same period in 2019.

New York City diners were down 43.5%. Brooklyn -39%.

On the other hand, Miami, FL + 28.8%.

San Francisco -48.4%. Los Angeles -13.9%.

Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/02/24/life-f24.html

Make no mistake, the onerous restrictions, mask mandates and vaccine passports had severe adverse effects where they were used.

I don't want to even think about the effects that all of the school closures, mask mandates and vaccines have had on school children over the last two years.

It would be one thing if it was clear from the data that the forced interventions were effective in controlling the virus.

The evidence is just not there.

We are not just seeing this in New York City or other places in the United States. Look at other parts of the world.

Have you seen what is happening in countries such as Brunei, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand recently? These were all countries that had even stricter Covid restrictions and higher vaccine uptake than New York City.

92% of everyone is Brunei and 90% in Singapore is is fully vaccinated. 

Deaths in Hong Kong per million just reached a level higher than the 2022 peak in the United States although Hong Kong has a higher vaccination rate than the United States.

Look again at the New York City data comparing January, 2022 vs. January, 2021.

How do you argue that it was not all for naught?