First US Coronavirus Death Occurred Much Earlier Than Previously Thought

Which means the virus has been infecting people longer than believed, too.

Back on February 29, health officials in Washington state reported the first known death from coronavirus in the United States.

...

But it turns out that was not accurate. Santa Clara County announced today that it had identified three deaths linked to the virus, two of which happened before February 29. In fact, the first newly identified death happened on February 6th, more than three weeks before the death in Washington state which America was told was the first of its kind....

Santa Clara County is the place where that recent study found the rate of infection was 50 to 85 times higher than believed.

Although the people pushing the Panic Buttons all day long tried to discredit that study, a similar study in Los Angeles came to similar-ish results: that the disease has been 50 times as prevalent as test results for current infection would suggest.

Meanwhile, Sweden gambled that it would be better in the long run to not lock the country down, but just deal with it as it occurred. The benefit of that is that Sweden will likely develop herd immunity throughout the entire country-- and so will not have to worry about a "second wave" or any other wave, ever again.

The Swedes think their gamble is paying off-- their hospitals are not overwhelmed and they have extra bed space and ICU berths. And keeping hospitals from being overwhelmed -- "flattening the curve" -- is the entire point of a lockdown.

And they say their curve is pretty flat with minimum social distancing (no lockdowns, more just like common sense and self-limiting trips to the store and bar).

The writer of the story linked above writes:

A journalist from French television that I talked to on Sunday admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that 'it's almost as if we want Sweden to fail because then we would know it is you and not us that there is something wrong with'.

Indeed. And it seems exactly that way in the US as well. The liberals and their Renfields the NeverTrumpers have demanded we shut down the country -- only with the secondary purpose of "flattening the curve;" the primary purpose was flattening Trump's economy -- and so we have.

And yet it just may be that Sweden proves this to have been an unnecessary bit of economic suicide.

I wonder what AllahPundit (a.k.a. "Professor Science") will say then.

posted by Ace at 02:35 PM

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