CORONA---The Numbers in Philly

           Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is a city of 1.5 million people.  Corona first appeared here in March, and our fatalities, as reported by the Philadelphia Department of Health, are as follows:

 

          March              14

          April               593

          May                677

          June                300

          July                 106

          August              57

          September         62

          October             66

 

          Anything that could reasonably be described as a “pandemic” ended sometime in July, but the city dutifully reports our COVID deaths and uses them, along with reports of new cases, to maintain the continuing dread.

 

          In fact, based upon current reporting and testing protocols, the numbers of deaths in August, September and October represent the statistical minimum number of COVID deaths here.  The Philly Department of Health, assuming it keeps doing what it is doing, will continue to report one or two deaths a day.  COVID fatalities in Philadelphia are now a function of the Department’s reporting practices rather than a reflection of epidemiological truth.

 

          First, based on 2019 stats, about 1192 people die in Philly every month.  A few, of course, are young people---homicides, suicides, a cancer here and there---but the vast majority are elderly Philadelphians who die of heart disease or cancer or respiratory diseases or diabetes, or Alzheimers or Parkinsons or one of the myriad of scourges that the flesh is heir too.  This means that, near the end, they are usually attended by doctors and probably spend some time in a hospital.  And in 2020, that means that before they pass on, they get a COVID test.  When you get a COVID test these days, it’s normally going to be a CPR test.  These are the ones that detect the virus’s nucleic acid, or some debris thereof, rather than an actual infection.  These are quickly becoming famous for generating a large number of false positives and “cases” where the patient has no symptoms.

 

          The positivity rate for CPR tests in Philadelphia is around 6%, so of the 1192 Philadelphians who are going to die in a given month, somewhere between 60 and 70 will have had a recent positive result to a COVID test.  Their deaths will be recorded as COVID deaths, no matter what the actual cause is.  This too is routine.

 

          Based upon current bureaucratic practices in Philadelphia regarding the virus and record-keeping, at least sixty deaths each month will be attributed to COVID.  And this will continue indefinitely.

 

Copyright 2020MichaelKubacki