In fact, I’m looking at the Gold Standard of official corona virus figures — from the Johns Hopkins based Coronavirus (COVID-19) Tracker.

It’s a remarkable piece of work and gives by far the best display of available data on the world-wide progress of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Without context however, the data it displays is misleading.

The key question is, “How does a person, verified as having COVID-19, show up in the data?”

In the early stages — when the number infected is still managable — there are the folks who are known to have COVID-19 and those who have come in contact with them and test positive or come down with the disease.

Barring that, however, someone worried about their symptoms would have to take themselves to a doctor or medical pro etc. who’s plugged into the reporting network. The Prepperu2019s Blue... Tess Pennington Best Price: $11.98 Buy New $18.98 (as of 02:20 UTC - Details)

But suppose they’re not sick enough — or worried enough — to seek a medical opinion? Or feel they can’t afford the medical system. Or are asymptomatic — that is, while infected, don’t show symptoms and so don’t know they’re infected.

And then there’s the question, “Are such folks contageous?” The estimates I’ve seen suggest that, yes they are, for the entire incubation period which is thought to be at least 14 days and possibly as long as 37 days. Also, possibly, even after recovery.

It’s these folks that make it clear there are a lot more cases of COVID-19 than show up in the official data so far. In fact, some scientists estimate that as of March 1, there were as many as 10,000 unrecognized cases in the U.S. How many folks have they unknowingly infected since then?

This explains why there’s no centralized way to stop the spread of COVID-19. Which means it’s up to you to protect yourself and your family as best you can.

Probably the things that help protect you from the flu will also help head-off COVID-19. In addition to hand-washing, social distancing, etc., vitamin C and zinc supplements may help. Also you might look into anti-viral L-lysine suplementation and possibly short-term echinacea use as well.

If you have children, you might want to consider that the public health course required of teachers warned us that public schools are “sumps of infection” and act accordingly. That’s because the kids bring disease from home to the schools where it spreads to the other kids who then take it home, etc.

The sort of good news is that the ratio of deaths to reported cases only takes into account those who enter the medical system, which is slanted toward the most ill and misses those unknown less ill cases. Clearly that means the official death rate mostly reflects what happens to the the worse-off subset of those infected folks who are actually under observation.

Thus the over-all death rate of the whole universe of those who get infected with COVID-19 is likely smaller than the one implied by the official figures so far. And that puts the official data in context.

Now, if you like conspiracy theories — or even just the truth — you might find these well-documented articles interesting – – –

China’s Coronavirus: A Shocking Update. Did The Virus Originate in the US? Japan, China and Taiwan Reports on the Origin of the Virus, By Larry Romanoff, Global Research

Coronavirus: A Contrived Pandemic? By Bill Sardi

Coronavirus- Blunt Truth | Capitalist Eric

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