Italy just revised its COVID death toll, something the United States needs to do in order to be honest with its citizens. Italy  had reported 130,000 COVID deaths (their population is 60,342,962). They seemed to be especially hard hit at the start of the pandemic. But they have now changed their reporting. Like us, they had counted anyone who died WITH COVID but FROM an accident, heart attack, old age, as a COVID death,  which meant a death rate of about 0.03% of the population. That is still not a terrifically large percentage, but worrying none-the-less. Now, however, they are counting only those who died FROM COVID, that is, as a direct result of the disease. That number is 4,000 people, or 0.00066% of their population. Quite a difference, isn’t it!

If only our doctor/politicians had been as open with us as the Italians are now being with their people!  Certainly, early on this was an unknown disease, with no known treatment or vaccine, which spread quickly in a couple of west coast nursing homes and then on a cruise ship.  Our “medical experts,” however, should have taken note of the fact that virtually all of the first deaths were among the elderly and ill residents of nursing homes.  They should have wondered if this meant that the elderly were the most vulnerable, but instead, they simply concluded that the deaths were a result of people being congregated in a small space — thus the “stay six feet apart” and eventually, the lockdowns.  But Dr. Fauci and Dr. Brix seemed more concerned about remaining in the spotlight than about investigating who was most vulnerable to the diesease, telling us no masks, then masks, no masks outdoors, then masks outdoors with a constantly changing message that both confused and frightened Americans.  If the “medical experts” had no idea how to avoid dying from this dread disease, how could we possibly manage to survive it?  

For weeks, we made our daughter, who works at the hospital here, take off her clothes in the garage, put on her bathrobe, take the clothes immediately to wash them and then take a shower herself before being around us. We sanitized the car where she had ridden masked and everything she had touched before her shower.  Some people un-bagged their groceries in the garage lest the grocery bags would transport the virus into their homes. And every day the media gleefully ran up the growing number of deaths.  

When President Trump, understanding that the economy was dying, attempted in April of 2020 to end the lockdowns, many Red states thankfully followed his advice.  But Democrat-controlled Blue states refused to budge, insisting that to do so would kill off many thousands more.  And the number of COVID deaths kept rising.  But strange things began to happen that some people took notice of.  In New York state, for example, suddenly every dead body that appeared in New York funeral homes had as their listed cause of death:  COVID.  No one, absolutely no one died from cancer, heart attacks pneumonia (unless it could be related to COVID), accidents or any of the other myriad things that kill Americans each year.  Hospitals were willing to join the COVID circus since they were paid extra for every COVID death.  Originally, the CDC informed all medical personnel to assume that anyone who died with COVID symptoms should be considered to be a COVID death.   That included anyone with a runny nose and a cough (common to a cold)  body aches and pains (the flu), nausea (a symptom of food poisoning or stomach “flu”) and difficulty breathing (a symptom of congestive heart failure, COPD and other lung ailments).  Thus, myriads of people were misdiagnosed and the number mounted.  

Then as the numbers continued to mount, testing became available to determine if someone had the virus in their systems.  If so, they were considered to “have COVID.”  Doctors say this is not a usual situation.  It is possible to have a virus in your body that your body is successfully fighting so that you never become ill.  Thus, with most diseases, if a person tests positive for that disease, he/she is still not considered to have it until he/she exhibits symptoms.  Not so with COVID.  It was as if the CDC and Dr. Fauci wanted to continue to frighten us all, because now, if you tested positive but never had symptoms, you were considered to “have it”  but be asymptomatic, and became one of the even faster growing number of “COVID cases,” also reported on a daily basis.

It became evident that older people, especially those with underlying diseases, as well as younger Americans who were immune-compromised were the most vulnerable, whereas the young and healthy got sick, as with the flu, and recovered. Yet this did not change the way we counted cases or deaths.  When two young men died in one state, a reporter asked the medical examiner if the two COVID deaths had been because both young men had underlying health problems.  The medical examiner answered honestly:  “No, one of them died from a motorcycle accident.”  

So, what are the facts?  Today, in our state, masks are mandated indoors, although in our deep red county most ignore the masks, and those who wear them don’t hassle the majority who don’t. But our Democrat governor overrode a decision by the State Board of Education to make masks in school a local option, and instead mandated masks for teachers and students.  I substitute teach at a local school, and the children wait outside the room while we spray disinfectant through the air from electric contraptions.  My mask, which is utterly worthless, is a fabric mask of a dog’s nose and mouth.  I know that masks don’t work, so when I am forced to wear one, I have a little fun with it.  I find it interesting that absolutely no one, not at the school, nor at the hospital, nor in any doctor’s office has yet told me that my totally inefficient mask is of no use whatsoever, and that I must find a better one.  But no one, no one, has said a word, but to tell me it is cute. 

As a retired teacher, I can attest to another problem with our past year of rabid disinfecting:  We did not catch colds or the flu or any other bugs going around.  That’s a good thing, right?  No, actually it isn’t.  We gain immunity to the regular germs that surround us daily by living with them.  We sometimes have a cold or a stomach bug, but generally we are pretty healthy because our bodies have built up immunity to them.  The first month or so of school, after nearly three months away from kids, tend to present teachers with some kind of cold.   Why?  Because we had lost a little of the immunity we had built up by handling germ laden papers day in and day out.  Now, not only our teachers, but our children and we ourselves, have had nearly an entire year of sanitizing everything, staying away from others, and basically barricading ourselves inside our homes.  This winter may well bring with it a multitude of illnesses because of that.  Our daughter already has had strep throat.

  While Blue states (Democrat-run) require masking, Red states (Republican-run) generally do not.   Kids wear masks to school only if their parents want them to, not because some bureaucrat forces them to.  And their case numbers are often less but never higher than in the mask-mandated states.  But the Democrat administration pays no attention.  Dr. Fauci (who funds experimenting on beagle puppies and then killing them) pays no attention.  The governors of the Blue states pay no attention.  The media ignores it.

But what if they told the truth like the Italian government is now doing?  Let’s look at our numbers. Our population is 333,601,303 people. According to the government, by early October of 2021, 710,659 of them had died with COVID. That is only 0.00213% of our population.   When Italy only counted those who actually died FROM COVID, the percentage of deaths was only 0.000066% of their population. If we assumed the approximate same percentage of ACTUAL COVID deaths, instead of 710,659 COVID “deaths,” we would be looking at about 22,017 actual people who have died FROM COVID and not of something else while they were COVID positive. 22,017 people! That is less than the average of 36,000 people who the CDC says die FROM the flu each year.

And look what they have done to our lives because of this! Gov. DeSantis had the right idea. Protect the elderly and the immune compromised. Vaccinate them when possible. And let the rest of the world go about its business. No masks (which the FDA warns do NOT protect against viruses!), no lockdowns, no standing or sitting six feet apart, no businesses closing their doors forever.

If only our government and the media would stop lying to us!