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(Article) COVID-19 & Face Masks: Are We Blind to the Real Truth? (Part 2)

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In my previous article, COVID-19 & Face Masks (Part 1), I shared that “a virus is – metaphysically speaking – an ‘agent of change’.” Well, that change has finally hit home for me because, in the past week or so, a war has raged right in my backyard. In rare fashion, the governor of Louisiana decided to hold a press conference this past Saturday claiming “thousands of new cases in the past two days” served as justification for issuing an executive order regarding all citizens to wear a face mask when in public. But wait, there’s more…

Surprisingly enough, his order comes one day after a lawsuit was filed and a temporary restraining order was issued against the mayor of Shreveport, who tried to issue a mask mandate because he was “sadden” over 11 deaths since June 30 (per a July 6th article via The Shreveport Times). He even admitted that the number of cases had not increased just the number of deaths. He went to say: “Since Memorial Day, we’ve seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases in our community…this is not due to more testing in our area. We’ve seen an alarming rise in hospitalizations in our area. On June 12, we achieved a two-month low at 129 COVID positive hospitalizations but today, just 25 days later, we’re at 221.” At the same time, the mayor was announcing this mask mandate, the Caddo Parish Commissioners followed suit issuing their own mask mandate for everyone outside of Shreveport city limits.

Back to the lawsuits, it was filed on the behalf of several local businesses that came as a result of the mayor getting a little overzealous in his restrictions. His mandate got him in legal trouble since it went beyond just requiring face masks but also threatening to turn off the water of businesses and other establishments that allow customers without one. That lawsuit was filed this past Friday. As a result, a judge in turn issued a temporary restraining order against the mayor’s mandate. His court date to respond was set about a week and out. So isn’t it “convenient” that the governor comes just one day later and imposing his own restrictions. It’s also no coincidence that as the governor was “flexing” so was the Shreveport City Council, who issued an emergency ordinance which they will vote on this Tuesday (7/14/2020), with even more restrictions including fines individuals who do not wear masks out in the public specifically in public buildings. Where is the sandhill is going on here? Is it really that serious or is this a bunch of political mind games with the Louisiana citizens serving as their pawns?

Let’s Play the Plan-demic by the Numbers Game…

In a nutshell, per the New Orleans Advocate, today’s updated numbers include the total cases and deaths as shown below but also adds on 1,308 that are currently hospitalized and 142 on ventilators. Again this is the numbers game because we know nothing about their health history to determine if these people would be in the same state of health regardless of the “existence” of Corona. Since we were shelter-in-place from/around March 22nd to June 4th, there have been only 34 additional COVID-19 linked deaths in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. Unless you are blind, this does not justify any type of mask mandate by the parish or the city. The total cases won’t justify it either so keep reading because there is so much more.

  • DEATHS ASSIGNED AT COVID-19: (as of July 13th)
    • State of Louisiana: 3,315
      • Interestingly enough, Google search shows 3,416.
      • As of July 6th, the LDH website showed 3,308 deaths.
        • Average age: 74
        • Top Underlying Conditions:
          • Hypertension (62.09%)
          • Diabetes (37.82%)
        • Probable Deaths: 108**
    • Caddo Parish: 247 – per Google COVID-19 statistics as there are not numbers posted on Caddo.org
      • Per an article entitled Caddo Parish shows small increase in positive COVID-19 cases, death via the Shreveport Times dated June 9th:
        • March 24:
          • 1st COVID-19 death for Caddo Parish
          • 9 more deaths occurred in the next week
        • April 11:
          • Highest daily peak “when nine people died with positive virus tests”
          • Another 102 deaths occurred in that month.
        • May: 80 deaths
        • June: 12 deaths
        • From March 24 through June 9, 2020, the total number of deaths was 213 with at least 128 of the 70+ population.
      • NOTE: The governor issued his order to shelter-in-place, from March 22nd until Louisiana moved into Phase 2 on/around June 4th.
    • Shreveport: Who in the hell knows?!?***
  • CASES REPORTED:
    • State of Louisiana: 79,827 – if “presumed recovered” were taken into account, wouldn’t the number of cases be around 30k?
      • Per the LDH’s Twitter account, “there were 1,710 cases reported since July 12, 2020.”
      • Per LDH, the “presumed recovered” is 46,334.
    • Caddo Parish: 395.60 (incidence rate per 100,000 – see the LDH website); however, Google says its supposedly 4,323
    • Shreveport: Who in the hell knows?!?***

In case you missed it, the number of deaths contributed to COVID-19 is not going up and neither the death rate – nor the “cases reported” are numbers we should be in an uproar about as they pale into comparison to the actual population numbers. Let’s not even pull up the general flu statistics each year – why hasn’t a national, state or local shutdown happened over those numbers?

Dying of Natural Cases?!? – “Bam, humbug!”

Now if we listen to the government officials as far as COVID is concerned, then I guess it’s safe to assume that dying of natural causes is a thing of the past, right? So does that mean that are all deaths – natural or not – will be labeled as COVID-19? Does this mean everyone who dies will be tested for COVID-19? Another thing: Why isn’t the recovery number listed as “presumed”? As many tests are supposedly being done, wouldn’t you have an adequate count of the number of folks that have recovered? Well see, that’s where the problem comes in. Do you know what “cases” really mean? Are  If common sense were applied here, wouldn’t it be safe to say the number of cases would much lower if the “presumed recovered” number was taken into account? Or is that asking too much?

“Oh what tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.”
~ Walter Scott

What Exactly Does “Cases” Mean?

Per the World Health Organization, cases are classified as suspected, probable, and confirmed. Most of us in the general public is assuming that “cases” means actual confirmed cases. In other words, for us, that means more people are getting tested and testing positive for COVID-19, right. But that’s where the lie lies – pun intended. Let me provided a little background first.

As of June 30th, President Trump ordered all federally-funded COVID testing sites to close or be transferred over to state and local government control. This means that guidelines handed down from CDC but also WHO are up for interpretation at the state and local levels. Recently, Collin County, Texas, says that received updated standards from the Department of State Health Services, for a new case definition for COVID-19. Probable cases are included alongside confirmed cases.

In the example provided via their presentation, if one person tests positive for COVID-19 – we’ll discuss PCR tests in our next podcast.), then that no longer means one new case. Everyone that person came in contact with is now included. WHO even defines “contact” and the CDC clarifies that even further via their Public Health Guidance for Community-Related Exposure last updated on June 4, 2020, at the time of this writing. This is in conjunction with the regular updates from WHO via their Coronavirus Disease – Situation Reports. (All reports are in PDF format and the current report is #175 at the time of this writing)

WHO defines a contact is “a person who experienced any one of the following exposures during the 2 days before and the 14 days after the onset of symptoms of a probable or confirmed case:

CDC changed it from “onset of symptoms” to “the date the specimen collection”. Anyone that a confirmed case came into contact with for longer than 15 minutes in the two days before the test was taken and 14 days afterward are ALL DEEMED AS PROBABLE CASES. It doesn’t matter if they have been (or will be) tested for COVID-19 or even if they have symptoms – IT DOESN’T MATTER. If that person came into contact with 16 other people, all of them regardless of their status are added to the TOTAL CASES. In other words, the new interpretation of total cases means that if a confirmed case can into contact with 16 other people, then the total number of new cases is 17.

Furthermore, they no longer need a positive COVID-19 test to classify a death as COVID-19 anymore. That means that COVID-19 no longer needs to be the primary cause of death, it can now be listed as an underlying condition instead of the other way around. To include it on as such, a physician (or the coroner) would simply add “Possible COVID-19” as a cause of death and now that person’s death is also be contributed to COVID-19 and thus included in the overall death count. Although I’ll address this in a later post, all of this boils down to MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! To explain that I’d need to go deeper down the rabbit hole but to begin tracing the money, start here and read Public Health Emergency Declaration. You see – as long as government officials continue to renew this event as a public health emergency, it continues to open up all kinds of financial assistance. Believe me, those stimulus checks they are giving the American public pales in comparison to what those at higher levels a.k.a. the rich plus the ones hanging on their coattails are really the ones getting the best bang for their buck right now. Don’t believe me, listen to Rich Dad, Poor Dad:

After Masks, What’s Next?

Between previous posts and my podcasts, no one in the right mind would continue to believe that any of this is as serious as the powers that be are making it out to be. In the meantime, here are some hard questions to ask of yourself and your officials:

  1. After long after the presidential election, will COVID-19 continue to linger?
    1. If President Trump wins a second term, will COVID-19 suddenly disappear as quickly as it appeared?
    2. If Joe Biden wins, how soon will the government create “concentration camps” to issue forced vaccinations on all citizens? Or will they continue to impose restrictions that take away even more of our human rights like confiscating personal property, refusing to issue business, driver’s, or even wedding licenses until one has had it?
  2. How exactly will you know when the “Victory over COVID” has been won? Aside from faulty tests, misleading statistics on “the total number of cases”, and routine hospitalizations that go south, what exactly is the criterion for determining when COVID-19 is no longer a threat? Why do I ask because some of us want to go back to living our lives without the government acting like a bunch of bullies who need to flex their egos for power and greed?
Footnotes:

*Those numbers are ill-regardless of COVID-19. So let’s also not assume that the decrease must be due to COVID-19 deaths alone. Everyone around here knows that many leave Shreveport for greener pastures oftentimes, moving to Texas or elsewhere. If the crime doesn’t kill you, the heat will.

**Probable COVID deaths are deaths identified by coroners and/or physicians as COVID-19 deaths or as probable/suspected/possible COVID-19 deaths without a lab positive result. This number could change if pending test results turn our positive or negative.” (per LDH)

***As far as Shreveport is concerned, you must rely on information filtered to the public via the local officials as there are but no official numbers listed anywhere on the city’s website. However, they do have links to various new conferences here and another web page that has no actual statistics but does state: “The City of Shreveport is coordinating with state and parish officials to manage local efforts of coronavirus (COVID-19).”

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