We are not in a Pandemic

Reprinted with permission of the Idaho Freedom Foundation

I feel like I have been under house arrest for the past 10 months, and for what? The fact is (and this isn’t just John Livingston’s opinion) we are not in a pandemic. Who else agrees with me? Why, the state of Idaho does.

In the state’s Emergency Operations Plan, it very plainly says a moderate pandemic is when there is a fatality rate of 1.5 percent. A severe pandemic is when there is a fatality rate of 2.5 percent. What’s happening in Idaho today? Certainly the 1,700 deaths since March 2020 is heartbreaking, but it is a fact that this number represents 0.1% of the population of the state. Those statistics are consistent with national statistics (assuming that every reported Covid death is truly a Covid death).

Despite this, it seems that I have been intellectually quarantined from the “mockingbird media” and “parrot politicians” who only are able to regurgitate their own talking points and call me a “fake scientist” or, most recently, a “heretic.” I am in the minority of physicians who feel that the “pandemic” has been improperly characterized and because of that mitigation strategies were improperly deployed. But I did not make up the numbers above.

Probably 20% of my colleagues would publicly support my positions. Many more, mostly those employed by large hospital systems agree with me, but are afraid to rock the boat and incur the wrath of their employers who have a vested interest in the pandemic both economically and professionally (many bad decisions were made and are being covered up including personnel deployment strategies that cost many nurses and technicians their jobs, and coding and diagnostic billing that have been incentivized by the CARES Act programs that were supposed to help patients, not institutions).

I very much understand Galileo’s 30-year frustration with the Catholic Church when, after using his new state of the art telescope, he was able to prove scientifically and unequivocally that the sun, and not the earth, is at the center of our solar system. For this, Pope Urban (surely an expert he) and the Catholic Church carried on a year’s long inquisition of Galileo that resulted in his living out his later years under house arrest.

In 1610, Galileo wrote the following words to Johannes Kepler, the father of modern physics and calculus:

“My Dear Kepler: I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd.”

By “the common herd,” I think he meant the so-called experts who were in agreement that their “science” was wrong.

Those who disagreed with Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo about the heliocentric theory of the solar system had a vested interest in their positions before Monarchs and Pope Urban. If they were wrong they would not have the access to power that they so coveted. To the brave scientists who refused to curry favor with the establishment and for whom history has proven to be correct, was history’s judgement a vindication of their integrity and courage?

Throughout the last year, the facts have been consistent and have changed little.

•  If you are under the age of 70 and develop symptoms or test positive for Covid-19, you have a 99.9% chance of recovering without sequelae.
• If you are over 70 that number goes down to 97.3% (a drop of 1% since I last reported that number).

Sometimes being a non-expert makes one rely on common sense, so here is my dose of the same:

• Isolate those at risk—like my own daughter-in-law who is just a few months out from chemotherapy and a splenectomy for diffuse histiocytic lymphoma.
• If they choose to take it, vaccinate those at risk first. That means there is little point in vaccinating young teachers and medical professionals when older Americans who want the vaccine and are at the highest risk go without.
• Continue using new strategies for treating hospital patients recognizing that not all hypoxic Covid patients need to be ventilated. Use antivirals early on. Use steroids liberally and antibiotics at the earliest possible time a bacterial process is identified.

My final words to the Governor would be along the lines in “THE FAMOUS KEPLER LETTER” cited above:

“My Dear Gov. Brad Little: I wish that we might laugh at the common stupidity of the common herd, the media, and the so-called experts.”

We are not in a pandemic, despite their statements to the contrary.