Around December 2019, COVID-19 first appeared in China … it is now three years later. Where are we at? For most of the world, they are going about their lives. Going to work, going to school, shopping, travelling on public transportation, and playing jackpot casinos while waiting for their train.
China was the first country to be hit with COVID, and they tried to do a zero-tolerance policy for COVID. In terms of testing a huge population in a short period of time, China did that right.
Suppose you want to test a huge group of individuals in a short time and do batch testing. Test 30 samples; if all of the samples are negative, the whole group is negative. In the early stages, before home COVID tests were available, that approach was a good approach.
Although, not many countries followed China’s example in this area, and I always wondered why not. Probably, because if the group batch was positive, everybody in that group would have to be retested. In a controlled group, like a school classroom, that is realistic. But in the general population, that is not realistic.
China’s zero policy was a failure. It worked in the short term, but it was a failure in the long term. COVID is not smallpox. It travels through the air, so mutations are assumed. Once you have the mutation, vaccines don’t work. Vaccines can give the body a head start, but they can’t prevent infection. Vaccines can only prevent the specific infection the vaccine is designed for. They cannot prevent a person from getting sick from a mutation, and they can’t prevent a person from speaking the infection.
The health officials knew this, but they lied to the people. Did they die due to money, politics, a psychological experiment, or a “follow the leader” mentality? The answer to that question depends on which country you are talking about.
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Statistics mean nothing …
If each country records their statistics related to COVID differently, then the numbers mean nothing.
December 26, 2022, China’s numbers according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/:
- Total cases since 2019: 402,846
- New cases: 2,668
- Total deaths: 5,241
Out of a population of around 1.5 billion people.
Those numbers come from China’s version of the CDC: https://www.chinacdc.cn/jkzt/crb/zl/szkb_11803/jszl_11809/202212/t20221226_263112.html
But yet, according to NDTV, China Surge Infecting 37 Million People A Day. How exactly does China have 37 million COVID cases if the CDC in China says that there have been only 402,846 total cases?
“As many as 248 million people, or nearly 18% of the population, likely contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December, according to minutes from an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission. “– So the official records say one thing, and the figures from meetings in China say another thing.
China stopped posting asymptotic COVID early in the COVID pandemic. China did this, so China could claim that they were “the first to be over COVID”. But obviously, it was a lie. China only counted COVID cases for people who actually ended up in the hospital for COVID. If a person caught COVID, even if they showed symptoms, it was not counted if they stayed at home or went to an outpatient treatment centre.
In December 2022, China is also changing the definition of a “COVID Death”. China now says, “only people who die from Covid-induced pneumonia and respiratory failure should be included in the mortality statistics.”
“The 37 million daily cases estimated for December 20 is a dramatic deviation from the official tally of just 3,049 infections reported in China for that day. “
“Hospitals in major Chinese cities including Beijing and Shanghai have been overwhelmed with a sudden surge in patients, while crematoriums struggle to handle the onslaught of deaths.”
“Deaths caused by other diseases such as cardiovascular or cerebrovascular diseases and heart attacks are not classified as deaths caused by a coronavirus,” Wang said.
Wang said that compared with the first outbreak of Covid-19 in early 2020 when most patients died of respiratory failure, “the main cause of death from infection with Omicron is the underlying diseases. Respiratory failure directly caused by the new coronavirus infection is rare.” — so in other words, even though COVID has almost always been connected with somebody who had other preexisting conditions (like cancer, heart problems, obesity, etc.), only a person who specifically dies from pneumonia and respiratory failure is counted (the smallest group of all COVID related deaths).
What is excess mortality? How does that affect case numbers?
Excess mortality is defined as the difference in the total number of deaths in a crisis compared with those expected under normal conditions. Covid-19 excess mortality accounts for both the total number of deaths directly attributed to the virus as well as the indirect impact, such as disruption to essential health services or travel disruptions, the WHO says.
My opinion: That is the number that actually makes the most sense. There are a certain number of individuals who are expected to die each year. That is part of the cycle of life. People die, and new people are born.
But China is using one method, and other countries are using a different method, which makes comparing numbers (or even trying to figure out if Omicron is even something to worry about) very difficult.
Is China’s current spike a threat to the rest of the world due to mutations?
Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, supported that view. “I do not think that this is a threat to the world,” he told Reuters. “The chances are that the virus will behave like every other human virus and adapt to the environment in which it circulates by becoming more transmissible and less virulent.”
I would agree with that statement because if COVID is natural, it will behave as all other viruses that are made in nature behave. As they mutate, they spread more quickly, but they are less lethal.
Should a person worry about Omicron COVID? How to protect your family?
The answer to this question depends on if a person has a close family member (living in your house) that has other underlying medical conditions. That person would need to take any family member catching COVID more seriously.
But if your family is generally healthy, I would recommend treating COVID as other generations have treated a family member catching Chicken Pox or measles … let it run through the family, and in the end, everybody’s immune system will be stronger.
- Take Vitamin D, Vitamin C, and Zinc. Even though the package says “once a day”, when I caught omicron COVID, I took them three times a day.
- Something to help zinc absorb into the body: protein, green tea, etc. There are other things that can help zinc absorb into the body, aka, get into the virus cells to kill them.
- Do not take Advil (ibuprofen). Ibuprofen has a negative effect on COVID, so just take acetaminophen pain medicine.
But when I say “let it run through the family”, I do not mean “drink from the same cup”. I mean, if “big brother: has COVID, let him hang out with “little brother”, so little brother will be exposed in a natural way to COVID. Remember, this is still COVID we are talking about. So you want to expose “little brother” to COVID, but you do not want to purposely overload “little brother’s” system. It does not matter if a body is exposed a little bit or a lot; the body will still learn how to fight COVID.
What about schools and offices?
I knew of a school in the United States where they went on vacation for Purim (a Jewish holiday with lots of parties, singing, and dancing, aka, no social distancing and little mask-wearing). The school made the assumption that “everybody caught Omicron COVID”. So after the holiday, the school said that everybody should go into quarantine for five days before returning to school. The end result was that the whole school population ended up getting sick, but then everybody got better, and it was over.
It was controlled exposure. The school went into the holiday “knowing they were going to be exposed to COVID” and then acted as if “everybody had caught COVID”. So it became a planned exposure, and it was not an “I was not prepared”. On top of that, the people who were at risk did not attend the large parties, so they were either not exposed at all or exposed very little.
Each person acted and reacted depending on their own personal family situation.
In other words, it was a controlled exposure.
