So, we continue to hear from MSM, local, and national leadership how terrible this ṕandemic' is. Of course, anytime even one person dies it is terrible, but from what I am hearing and seeing the numbers are constantly being cooked. Why? I have heard, seen, and read about many different factors when calculating the number of patients and deaths.
https://bgr.com/2020/04/06/coronavirus-deaths-official-toll-not-counting-everyone/
I do know that, from when it all started up to a week ago, all the numbers we were feed were very off. Like hundreds of thousands of people off. Not just from one or two agencies or states. Not from just one or two issues involving this virus, but every single issue involving this virus has been shady at best. It has been at every level and from all sides. States, Washington, legislators, POTUS, media outlets, and state/ federal doctors(all of which are glued to their prospective leader. (i.e. Governors/POTUS)
https://twnews.us/us-news/hospital-ship-offloads-few-remaining-patients-before-ny-exit
I think the issue comes down to what information people have at the time. In the beginning the corona virus was a big unknown. In January we didn't know transmission rates, if the virus could mutate, what the incubation period was, what the mortality rate was, nothing. We just had Trump closing travel to China and democrats calling him a xenophobe.
Then in February we started to see outbreaks in other places. We found out that it was transmissible from person to person and that it appeared to be highly contagious but we still didn't know a lot about it. But it just so happened that Italy got hit early and with their older than average population they got hit very hard raising all sorts of alarms and artificially inflating the data to make this look like the disease everyone feared it might be. Then you had the democrats flipping and going into full lockdown mode and blaming Trump for not doing enough to protect us.
In March we finally started to get some real data. Reliable testing was starting to get rolled out (earlier tests were very unreliable, China's tests failed 70% of the time and the CDC's tests diagnosed water as coronavirus for instance), enough countries were now hit with it that we could do early comparisons and modeling, etc. We started to realize that there was 2 major problems with our data at this point. It appeared that a lot of people weren't being affected much at all by the virus and secondly the death rates were artificially high. If a person is dying of some pre-existing condition and then covid-19 shows up and kills them in days it technically was death by covid but... that's not a fair representation for calculating mortality rates. Around this time Trump started talking about reopening the economy and democrats ridiculed him for peddling false hope.
In April, we started getting much more accurate modeling as anti-body tests started being done and countries were now starting to see declines in death rates and comparisons could be made based on how they handed the spread of the virus. Where we are now we have the best data and it's easy to use hindsight to question what people should or shouldn't have done. We now know that the virus isn't what it was previously thought to be, but early on there was no way of knowing that. And unfortunately with partisanship being what it is and egos being what they are, some members of government and the media don't want to admit that they got almost everything wrong and that Trump got a lot more right than they did. And sadly that, is going to ensure that a lot of Americans needlessly. When politicians and journalists and so on would rather lie to the American public instead of admit they overreacted we end up with the situation you describe.
Remember a virus is inert, that is, not alive, that is dead. No hijacking of The metabolism , no replication , no contagion , just a few old sick people dying from diseases of civilization as was always the case. And a power grab from a bunch of petty fascists
Well it's true that viruses arn't technically alive (according to traditional definitions at least), they arn't technically dead either and occupy a sort of grey middle ground between the two. They are capable of adapting to their environments and can reproduce (via their host) like living things and (fun fact) a virus can also become "sick" and infected with another virus (though that's pretty rare).
And while I don't disagree that this situation has resulted in a power grab from a bunch of fascists it is important to keep in mind that viruses can and do kill young healthy people (including the coronavirus) and can be HIGHLY contagious. Good news however with this virus is that even though it's quite contagious the mortality rate is significantly lower than what some in positions of power and influence are trying to make people believe.