Skip to main content

How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy

It is hard to destroy your own cause and feel righteous while doing so, yet the American left has done it. After more than two centuries at the vanguard of the struggle for freedom, the American left, broadly defined, executed a volte face and embraced anti-working-class policies marketed as purely technical public health measures.
 
by Christian Parenti
 
Part 4 - Severity of the disease
 
The basic error of mainstream media hype is to conflate the “case fatality rate” (CFR) with the “death rate.” The number of known Covid “cases” is a function of testing; more testing means more cases are found. Thus, the denominator in the CFR depends on political, scientific, and economic choices. Up to 40 percent of Covid cases are totally asymptomatic and another 30 percent have only mild symptoms that can be confused with the common cold. Many of these asymptomatic and mild cases do not get recognized as Covid. 

Thus, the real measure of lethality is not the CFR but the “infection fatality rate” or IFR. That ratio must be estimated from large scale, statistically controlled, randomized testing. We now know that the IFR for Covid is basically low for anyone under 70, but it is rather high for those over 70. A total of 75 percent of Covid deaths have occurred among people over age 65; and 51 percent of the deaths occurred among people over age 75. In early 2021, The Bulletin of the World Health Organization published a Stanford-based epidemiologist’s overview study of 64 studies that used randomized serology sampling for antibodies; it found an infection fatality rate ranging from 0.00% to 1.54%. This study, found that, “In people younger than 70 years, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.31%…”  

Among those over age 85, (the average US life expectancy is about 78 years) the infection fatality rate was very high. One study considered by the author found an IFR of 15% among over 85-year-olds, but most of the studies found much lower rates and thus the mean average was lower. Translation: the young have very little to fear from this disease, while the very old face very real risks. Policy should have reflected these facts, but it has not.

The author of that study, John Ioannidis, MD, MPH, Physician and Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Stanford University, has been attacked and censored simply for doing antibody research that suggested an IFR lower than that assumed in most headlines.  As Politico explained: “YouTube has been especially aggressive about pulling down speech that questions various coronavirus prevention measures. For instance, the company took down a March 2020 interview with John Ioannidis — a Stanford physician long known for skewering bad science — in which he questioned the quality of the data about COVID-19 death rates and called for more targeted responses to the pandemic.” 

The real IFR demonstrated by Ioannidis suggest that the approach called “focused protection” put forward in the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – a statement drafted by several prominent epidemiologists that promoted an alternative strategy which sought to protect the most vulnerable, for example the elderly with pre-existing health problems, while minimizing the social harm of overly broad lockdowns – would have been the most effective public health strategy. But the left, like the liberal mainstream, immediately attacked “focused protection” not on the merits of the argument but with guilt by association – because the GBD was associated with a libertarian think tank.

The real IFR was becoming apparent by March of 2020 and it offered an opportunity for a policy course correction. But the pandemic was already hostage to the party politics of an extraordinarily weird election struggle.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"Kidnapped in Int'l Waters": Israel Intercepts Gaza-Bound Aid Ship, Detains Greta Thunberg & Others

Democracy Now!   Eleven peace activists and one journalist on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla ship, the "Madleen," were detained by Israeli soldiers as their ship carrying vital humanitarian aid for starving Palestinians approached Gaza.    The ship was intercepted by Israeli forces in the middle of the night in international waters. Its supplies were seized and communications jammed. The unarmed activists will likely be transported to Israeli detention or "immediately deported," says Ann Wright, a U.S. military veteran who has participated in four Freedom Flotilla journeys and now serves on the steering committee of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. She calls on citizens of countries around the world to push for the activists' release and an end to Israel's war on Gaza. 

How Israel’s Supporters Play Victim to Justify Genocide & Silence Critics

BreakThrough News   As Israel commits a live-streamed genocide in Gaza, Western media and political elites continue to center one narrative: Jewish fear. But what about the actual victims of this genocide—Palestinians? Journalist Nora Barrows-Friedman joins Rania Khalek on Dispatches for a fearless conversation on Zionist indoctrination in the Jewish diaspora, how antisemitism is being weaponized to silence critics of Israel, and how Jewish identity politics has been manipulated to cover for unspeakable crimes. From the media blackout on Israeli war crimes to the erasure of anti-Palestinian hate crimes—even in the diaspora—Nora lays bare the contradictions and power structures behind it all. 

How the U.S. & Israel Used Rafael Grossi to Hijack the IAEA and Start a War on Iran

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), allowed the IAEA to be used by the United States and Israel—an undeclared nuclear weapons state in long-term violation of IAEA rules—to manufacture a pretext for war on Iran, despite his agency’s own conclusion that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.   by Medea Benjamin - Nicolas J. S. Davies On June 12th, based on a damning report by Grossi, a slim majority of the IAEA Board of Governors voted to find Iran in non-compliance with its obligations as an IAEA member. Of the 35 countries represented on the Board, only 19 voted for the resolution, while 3 voted against it, 11 abstained and 2 did not vote. The United States contacted eight board member governments on June 10th to persuade them to either vote for the resolution or not to vote. Israeli officials said they saw the U.S. arm-twisting for the IAEA resolution as a significant signal of U.S. support for Israel’s war plans, revealing how much Isra...

Muslim Wins New York City Mayoral Primary & Zionists FREAK OUT!

The Jimmy Dore Show   A "scary" Muslim named Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic mayoral primary, and Zionists are absolutely freaking out. In this clip Jimmy and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger mock the over-the-top reactions from political figures and media personalities, particularly right-wing commentators, who equate Mamdani's Muslim identity and progressive views with anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment. They also explore how Mamdani's refusal to blindly support Israel during debates may have contributed to his popularity, contrasting it with exaggerated loyalty pledges from other candidates. Throughout, the hosts criticize the Democratic Socialists of America, highlight government hypocrisy, and deride fearmongering rhetoric around Muslims and leftist policies. 

How the EU is using anti-Russia sanctions to criminalise journalism

The EU sanctioned me and my media outlet for covering Palestine protests in Germany. It’s part of Europe’s growing authoritarianism and militarism, cloaked in language of fighting disinformation and defending democracy.   by Hüseyin Dogru   Part 2 - How the EU uses anti-Russian hysteria to smear Palestine solidarity journalism   The official rationale for sanctioning me hinges on red .’s alleged links to Russian influence. The EU sanctions listing cited just two pieces of “evidence”: that some red. staff had previously worked for Russian-funded media, and that we covered “politically controversial subjects” – specifically: Palestine. That’s it. The listing accuses me, through my work with red ., of “facilitating violent demonstrations”, amplifying “radical Islamic terrorist narratives” and claims our staff “coordinated with occupiers”. Not a single piece of evidence is cited, apart from the fact that we published footage of a pro-Palestine student occupation in Berlin. I...

UN report confirms: Israel is a terrorist state and its goal is to exterminate all Palestinians

Israeli attacks on educational, religious and cultural sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amount to war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, UN Commission says.     globinfo freexchange Israel has obliterated Gaza’s education system and destroyed over half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip, part of a widespread and relentless assault against the Palestinian people in which Israeli forces have committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said in a new report [yesterday]. While the Commission paid special attention to the situation in Gaza, the report focuses on attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole, and in Israel. “We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” said Navi Pi...

Keir Starmer admits Ukraine a proxy war

The Grayzone   The Grayzone 's Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate on the British PM's unintentional acknowledgement of an inconvenient truth. 

[LIVE] War in the Middle East after Iran's retaliation against Israel

globinfo freexchange      Explosions in Tel Aviv as sirens sound across Israel amid Iranian missile attacks in response to Israeli strikes.      The Israeli military continues to launch waves of strikes against Iranian military and nuclear sites, as well as major cities.   Updates:  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/6/13/live-explosions-reported-in-iran-amid-israel-tensions  

War criminal Netanyahu is pushing the Orange Clown and the US into the abyss

globinfo freexchange   It seems that the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, is rushing to accelerate the decline of the US empire by forcing Donald Trump into an utterly devastating war with Iran.   Trump shot himself in the foot during his first term by killing the Iran nuclear deal just because he wanted to erase everything from the Obama legacy. His insane narcissism pushed him into crazy acts and made him believe that he could make another deal with Iran credited solely on him.   But now he is in big trouble because he has to deal with a corrupted psychopath who won't hesitate to burn the entire planet just to save himself.  As if the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza was not enough, the out-of-control psychopath Netanyahu, is doing whatever he can to drag the US into a war with Iran. As he realized that the Iranians are approaching the negotiating table again, (rather surprisingly with the man that killed the first deal and assassinated Qasem Soleimani), he decide...

Latest on Los Angeles anti-ICE protests in US

CGTN     Views of downtown Los Angeles where protests against immigration raids entered their third day on Sunday local time.   Protesters clashed with National Guard troops in downtown Los Angeles during the latest wave of demonstrations against statewide immigration enforcement operations that swept across California over the weekend.