Is It Over Now? Looks Like It.

Posted on 23 February 2021 by E.M.Smith

This graph is from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

To me, this looks like it’s headed for “over and done”.

Chinese Wuhan Covid Dropping 23Feb2021

Chinese Wuhan Covid Dropping 23Feb2021

We’ve got States that didn’t “lock down” and we’ve got States that have said, effectively, FU We’re getting back to work, and we’ve had thousands in the streets in “peaceful protests”. And it looks to me like the virus has just reached the “running out of targets” stage.

Admittedly, there’s also that small point about folks realizing running the PCR “test” at a 30 to 40 cycle will find Covid in anything, so have backed off to a more sane “20 something”. Admittedly, we’ve got some vaccinations done… but IMHO not enough to account for this.

From what I’ve seen, here in Biggest Hot Spot California, (at 3.5 million cases we lead #2 Texas by 900,000) folks have more said “screw it” on protections and “lock down” than continuing “conformance”. We’ve had family over. I put on the crappiest mask to enter stores now (used “surgical”, no longer using the N95 ) and we stopped the alcohol washes of hands 1/2 a year ago.

Yet California daily new cases at 4976 match, roughly, June 17 of 2020 at 4197. Plunging from a peak of 61,569 last December 16. Our plunge is faster than the average of the nation, even though folks can now (Finally!) get hair cuts and go to restaurants (even if they have us sit in tents in the parking lot).

So how can you explain that drop other than that “the virus made its run and now it is running out of vulnerable hosts”?

Projecting the present trajectory (always risky, but …) it looks like it hits near zero in about 2 weeks. Mid March ought to be a big psychological adjustment date.

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About E.M.Smith

A technical managerial sort interested in things from Stonehenge to computer science. My present "hot buttons' are the mythology of Climate Change and ancient metrology; but things change...
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38 Responses to Is It Over Now? Looks Like It.

  1. H.R. says:
    23 February 2021 at 5:05 pm

    On some news show or other that Mrs. H.R. was watching, I heard out of the corner of my ear that Biden is going to put out a mask mandate where masks must be worn, both inside and outdoors, at all times. Well, Biden’s handlers will have it done. Biden is the Sock Puppet of The U.S. (SPOTUS), and an illegitimate SPOTUS at that.

    If I heard right, the plan is to hold businesses hostage – IRS, fines, licenses etc. – so they will enforce the edict. Karens will be unleashed to report people so they can be found and fined.

    Good luck with that. I’m not seeing a nation in the mood for compliance at this point. There are already Sanctuary Counties that refused to comply with their own State’s mandates. I’m expecting the number of Sanctuary Counties and some Sanctuary States to grow.

  2. Ossqss says:
    23 February 2021 at 6:37 pm

    Done? No way.

    They will just push the button again with a new worse than evah! global alternate now that they know they can actually push a button and the masked masses will bow down. Virus testing and reporting is even more systemically corrupt than voting IMHO with built in incentives across the board. Masks are now a powerful psychological tool for mandated submission and obedience. In many places, not having a mask is like wearing a branded A on you like the old days of identifying an adultery criminal. It just blows me away seeing people riding bikes and in their cars, by themselves, with a mask or 2 on. WT! are they doing?

    I observed, while at a crowded restaurant yesterday, the 1′ plexiglass dividers now installed between booths etc., and looked up at the 20′ ceilings and tried to rationalize how that could even be effective at anything in such a large and open room. We live in insane times with many weak minds now days.

    Queue up Dr. Smith “Oh The Pain”! (no offense @EM)

  3. E.M.Smith says:
    23 February 2021 at 6:48 pm

    @Ossqss:

    I got over the Dr. Smith stereotype angst some decades ago….

    FWIW: I try to religiously wear my mask when driving… anywhere with surveillance cameras ;-)

    I also like to wear oversized wrap around sunglasses then (to keep the virus out, of course!). Along with a broad brimmed hat (so it can’t crawl in down my hair…). I’m thinking maybe gloves, a scarf, and loose fitting clothes might help too… perhaps some colored grease, like make-up, on any exposed skin so it can’t find a cut or scrape… a nice olive drab perhaps, so I can see what is covered…

  4. Ossqss says:
    23 February 2021 at 7:22 pm

    Well this mask will certainly keep people at a distance :-)

  5. E.M.Smith says:
    23 February 2021 at 7:50 pm

    I want to get an N95 rated Anonymous (V for Vendetta, Guy Fawkes) mask… then find someone to demand I take it off….

    Though that Alien one has a certain attraction to it 9-}

  6. jim2 says:
    23 February 2021 at 8:35 pm

    A “Impeach Biden” mask would be nice.

  7. philjourdan says:
    23 February 2021 at 9:38 pm

    That Alien mask freaks me out and I know it is fake!

  8. Tim says:
    23 February 2021 at 9:59 pm

    Really interested to know about the reduction in cycles for PCR testing…. where has that info been seen or published? IMO the 35+ cycles will find every trace of every needle in every haystack. Would love to see what else I would be positive for after 35 cycles (or maybe I wouldn’t…)

  9. The True Nolan says:
    23 February 2021 at 10:14 pm

    @Ossqss: “I observed, while at a crowded restaurant yesterday, the 1′ plexiglass dividers ”
    WHAT?!! Only one inch thick?! No way — we need to install plexiglass AT LEAST 3 inches thick!

    @E.M. :”Along with a broad brimmed hat”
    I’m sure you have seen the ball caps with the LED lights built into the brim. Replace the visible light LEDs with infra-red LEDs. Makes a nice bright glow on CCD cameras obscuring face features.

  10. Nancy & John Hultquist says:
    23 February 2021 at 10:43 pm

    I wear a hand-sown mask (colorful) by a friend. I wear it when expected, say a grocery store; or required like a medical office. The local farm/ranch/feed places have a sign, much ignored. The staff have masks that will be put in place when you enter.
    “Social” distance fits this description.
    Physical distance ( > 6 feet; 10 ft. is better) means when I am out and about and no one else is near my old dirty mask stays in a pocket.
    In our rural county of about 35,000, nearly 1/3 have had at least one shot. Another bunch had a natural case, so likely have immunity. Only the Lord knows that number. We get shots Friday. Soon we will be at a level where most that intend to get it will have done so. Maybe in 3 weeks. This is easier in a small county.

    I wear broad brimmed hats any time I’m out. Also called bucket-hats or fisherman hats. Maybe fisherwoman, I’ll check on that.

  11. E.M.Smith says:
    23 February 2021 at 11:09 pm

    @H.R.:

    Even here in Looney Left California, the Recall Petition for Gov. Nuisance has enough signatures to make the ballot. They are now going for enough excess signatures that the PTB can’t get it tossed because someone didn’t dot the i in their name…

    This is largely over the “lockdown” crap…

    Yeah, they will have to use their rigged voting machines to keep him in, but “recall petition is forever” (Nancy…)

  12. E.M.Smith says:
    23 February 2021 at 11:29 pm

    @Tim:

    I think I saw an indirect discussion of it on one Dr. John Campbell episode and then another discussion on a slightly more political channel (but not sure which one – perhaps Tim Pool? The one I trusted referenced a medical discussion about it being just too high at 30+ and the other one was snarking about Biden in office now… I think I also heard an oblique reference to it on Gorka’s radio show…

    A semi random search on “WHO covid reducing PCR cycle rate” finds the random choices:

    https://informedchoicewa.org/covid-19/shameless-manipulation-positive-pcr-tests-drop-after-who-instructs-vendors-to-lower-cycle-thresholds-we-have-been-played-like-a-fiddle/


    Shameless manipulation: Positive PCR tests drop after WHO instructs vendors to lower cycle thresholds. We have been played like a fiddle

    By Meryl Nass, MD

    First Published on Dr. Nass’s website

    Hospitalization rates associated with Covid have dropped from a high of 132,500 Americans on January 6 to 71,500 on February 12. The US had 920,000 staffed hospital beds in 2019, of which 14.4% harbored a Covid case last month, and 7.8% do now.

    This tremendous drop was predicted. Every hospitalized patient is tested for Covid, often repeatedly, using PCR tests with high false positive rates. False positives are due in considerable part to exhorbitant cycle thresholds. This refers to the maximum number of doublings that are allowed during the test. The problem caused by excessive cycle thresholds was well described in a NY Times article last August, but has otherwise been ignored by the mass media. Dr. Sin Hang Lee challenged the FDA’s reliance on exhorbitant cycle thresholds in its acceptance of efficacy claims for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in early December. He and FDA remain engaged in this debate.
    The WHO instructed PCR test users and manufacturers on December 14 and again on January 20 that PCR cycle thresholds needed to come down. The December 14 guidance stated WHO’s concern regarding “an elevated risk for false SARS-CoV-2 results” and pointed to “background noise which may lead to a specimen with a high cycle threshold value result being [incorrectly] interpreted as a positive result.”

    The first instruction has been superceded by the second, which additionally advises on clinical use of the test: If the “test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested…” While this implies that the test should only be performed in those with symptoms, and its results should be interpreted with the clinical context in mind, most PCR tests in the US are used very differently: to screen asymptomatics at work, at colleges and universities, to permit border crossings, etc. No caution is applied to the results. One single positive test defines someone as a Covid case.

    https://catholiccitizens.org/news/94232/covid-cases-plummet-after-who-changes-testing-protocol-on-bidens-inauguration-day/

    COVID cases plummet after WHO changes testing protocol on Biden’s Inauguration Day
    02/11/2021 at 5:38 PM Posted by Mary Anne Hackett

    On January 20, the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration and entrance into the White House, the World Health Organization (WHO) quietly issued new guidance on the manner in which polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were to be conducted and reported.

    By Michael Haynes

    February 8, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Days after the World Health Organization changed the protocol for confirming a positive COVID-19 test, the number of positive cases across the world have dropped dramatically, leaving the mainstream media confused and leading people to suggest that the timing of the change in testing protocol was political.

    On January 20, the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration and entrance into the White House, the World Health Organization (WHO) quietly issued new guidance on the manner in which polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were to be conducted and reported. It warned against reporting someone as having COVID-19, just because the test had been positive, when they did not actually present with any symptoms. The WHO also raised concerns about the “risk of false positive” tests.

    In a surprising statement, the WHO described PCR tests merely as an “aid for diagnosis” without placing any greater weight upon the results of PCR tests, pointing the testers to examine real life evidence, such as symptoms.

    “Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information,”the WHO stated.

    Reporting on the news at the time, the U.K. based website Lockdown Sceptics, wrote that the news vindicated the warnings of likeminded “sceptics,” who had been “ridiculed for questioning the accuracy of the PCR test, referring to the risk of false positives when prevalence is low and urging the Government to carry out confirmatory second tests on those that test positive.”

    The WHO’s new guidance conformed to the longstanding wishes ofthose critical of the excessive dependence on the results of PCR tests on forming government policy    , as the directive stated that “a new specimen should be taken and retested” and further stipulates that “health care” workers should weigh up the test result alongside real-world information, such as symptoms or “clinical observations,” and contact with any other infected individuals.

    At the time, a number of commentators pointed to the politicized timing of the WHO’s news, suggesting that it would be a help to Biden’s response to COVID-19, most likely reducing the number of cases reported, as he began his time in office.

    It could also be seen as an act to mutually benefit both Biden and the WHO, since Biden came to the White House as an ally of the WHO    , whilst Trump had began the process to withdraw from the WHO last summer after denouncing the organization as being “China centric.” The WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also expressed his own delight at Biden’s recent inauguration.

    Just a number of days after the WHO’s note, the media reported that COVID cases were dropping in what has been described as a “plunge,” leaving the “experts” confused as to the reason why. Reports have noted that cases, along with deaths and hospitalisations, have dropped “precipitously in the United States in the last several weeks.”

    On January 14, The Covid Tracking Project (CTP) wrote that for the week just ended, “deaths are 25 percent higher than any other week since the pandemic began.” In the next weeks’report on January 21, the CTP wrote that weekly new cases were “down 20 percent,” with the same trend the next week with a “17 percent” drop in cases compared to the previous week.

    So there’s that…

  13. philjourdan says:
    24 February 2021 at 12:20 am

    @Nancy & John Hultquist – My adopted daughter made a cloth mask that is as effective as a pin holed condom. That is what I wear. I wear it in contempt of the anti science dictatorial tin plated despots called democrat governors.

    I do not wash my hands for 20 seconds. I do not wear a mask unless I am entering an establishment (so when I pump gas, I am not wearing one – the county dump requires it, but I do not wear it there either).

    Masks are a joke. Health care workers wear them to protect the PATIENT! Not themselves. They do NOTHING to protect the person wearing them! That was established a year ago.

    They are a sign of obedience. As it is a dictatorial mandate from my tin plated dictator governor, businesses require them. SO I wear the least effective one.

    I also give blood every 8 weeks (universal donor and they love me). Every test has come back Covid free. Yet I make it a point to go out every damn day. TO the store, to the liquor store (state owned), to the Warehouse store. To the hardware store! I may not buy, but since I am WFH, I get out an hour ever day.

    With a mask that would not stop anything. And I am covid free. I am not jumping the line (although I am of the age to get in line with the seniors). I am waiting for my doctor to get the vaccine. Should I even then choose to take it. Probably not.

    Contempt? Yep! I have loads of it for the anti-science of this stupid Chinese – let me repeat CHINESE VIRUS.

    Eff the Woke. ANd EFF the EFFING clowns that cave to the WOKE!

  14. another ian says:
    24 February 2021 at 12:47 am

    TTN

    IIRC 3 inch perspex ought to be bullet proof.

    What do you have in mind?

  15. H.R. says:
    24 February 2021 at 12:49 am

    The True Nolan says:
    23 February 2021 at 10:14 pm

    “@Ossqss: “I observed, while at a crowded restaurant yesterday, the 1′ plexiglass dividers ”
    WHAT?!! Only one inch thick?! No way — we need to install plexiglass AT LEAST 3 inches thick!”

    LOL! 5 inches of Plexiglas would be better and 10″ better yet. Give it a year or two and the mandate will be for three yards of Plexiglas between booths… but only a foot above head height. I can see it now. Restaurant owners will soon be required to just install Plexiglas wall to wall and then patrons can sit wherever they… oopsie! No seating at that point.

    Diners will learn to hang from the ceiling like bats and do the best they can. I can see sandwiches increasing in popularity and soup sales declining. 😜

    That Kung Flu virus is almost as amazing as CO2. I mean, what other virus lays low until 10:00 pm on the dot and then comes out to claim its victims? And just how does that little Chinese virus know not to attack people in grocery stores or big box stores, but jump all over people in baseball card or jewelry stores? What?!? Do canned vegetables offer immunity from the virus?
    .
    .
    .
    P.S. to Ossqss – The alien mask gets 👍👍 up at the H.R. household. Might get some for the dogs, too. Now that would be some fun.

  16. Tim says:
    24 February 2021 at 12:51 am

    @EM – Thanks for that additional info. I was not aware of the changes to the guidance…. Makes you wonder, a lot.

  17. The True Nolan says:
    24 February 2021 at 1:53 am

    @ H.R. “Diners will learn to hang from the ceiling like bats and do the best they can. I can see sandwiches increasing in popularity and soup sales declining.”

    Ha! Best laugh I have had today. I needed that. Thanks! :)

  18. The True Nolan says:
    24 February 2021 at 1:56 am

    @ another ian “IIRC 3 inch perspex ought to be bullet proof.”

    Exactly. You haven’t seen me sneeze!

  19. Ossqss says:
    24 February 2021 at 3:03 am

    BTW, I have applied many different BR glass applications over many years and you can judge thickness by virtue of the product and application involved. U.L. Class 1, 2,3, and up will let you know based upon composition.

    Unfortunately, I have viewed too much footage of folks sending shots mistakenly at the wrong thing, while doing bad things.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_glass

  20. Ossqss says:
    24 February 2021 at 3:09 am

    Note to HR, I think that Alien mask ate the Buckeyes as the first shelf of them has mysteriously disappeared!

    I just wish we had a test to see who it was like with Cheetos!

  21. H.R. says:
    24 February 2021 at 5:25 am

    @Ossqss – You should have stored those Buckeyes in the ‘refrigerator’ on the other side of the garage; the one with the tumbler lock. *sigh* I suppose they wouldn’t be ‘safe’ there, either.**

    Just sayin’.
    😜
    .
    .
    .
    [Columbo voice] Just one more thing. How do I get Iguana Bait beer back home? That stuff was great!

    [Oliver Twist voice] Please, sir. May I have some more?

    I.Want.More.Iguana.Bait.
    .
    .
    .
    **For those not in the know, the Grand Poohbah of the Chiefio’s Blog Central Florida Command Center and Hideout has a huge US Post Office-size safe in his garage. How else is he gonna keep all that Busch Light away from the zombies?

    P.S. to the Walking Dead zombies. Yer not gettin’ Ossqss’ Busch Light. Yahboo. Sucks to be you. Stay dead. Vote Red. Maybe you’ll get some too.

  22. another ian says:
    24 February 2021 at 6:07 am

    “Tweet of the night courtesy of ZUBY…

    **I honestly believe that if the media and ‘experts’ said that blue masks don’t work, but yellow masks do, then a significant % of the population would switch colours tomorrow…
    And proceed to call anyone who questions it a ‘science denier’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’.**

    https://twitter.com/ZubyMusic/status/1364323010740641795 :

    Via http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/02/24/february-24-2021-reader-tips/#comment-1414234

  23. another ian says:
    24 February 2021 at 6:13 am

    And the Hillary comments and links below that

  25. another ian says:
    24 February 2021 at 8:56 am

    H.R. says:
    24 February 2021 at 12:49 am

    That I had to spread! Thanks

  26. climatereason says:
    24 February 2021 at 9:25 pm

    According to news reports over here there is an unpleasant new variant of covid circulating in California

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9295385/Homegrown-California-coronavirus-variant-account-90-states-cases.html

  27. patrick healy says:
    24 February 2021 at 11:08 pm

    Explain the drop in Wuhan flu cases?
    That’s easy – the real President is gone from Washington.

  28. E.M.Smith says:
    24 February 2021 at 11:13 pm

    @Climatereason:

    But if you scroll down to the daily new cases graph for California here:
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/

    you see them dropping at about a 45 degree angle of plunge…

    So if it is soooo horrible and soooo contagious and bypasses soooo much of our vaccines and kit: Why are we dropping like a rock (really a tossed rock…) on new cases?

  29. climatereason says:
    24 February 2021 at 11:30 pm

    Pleased to hear your cases are dropping so quickly

  30. tom0mason says:
    25 February 2021 at 6:49 am

    I note that researchers have found that Lysine, a very cheap and widely available supplement, is very effective at protecting against viral infection.
    The research paper is available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7641537/pdf/main.pdf

  31. beththeserf says:
    25 February 2021 at 11:33 pm

    Voice of Big Bro’: If the crisis is over we will have to invent another one.

  32. philjourdan says:
    26 February 2021 at 12:55 am

    @Beththeserf – Exactly

  33. YMMV says:
    26 February 2021 at 5:42 pm

    Remember a few weeks ago when cases in India were falling dramatically and no journalist could figure out why? It was Ivermectin.

    Here is a very powerful video about why IVM should be approved and why we adults should take it until we get a vaccine. It is just as protective as the vaccines (but not for as long) and safer.

    The audio quality of this video is poor until they learn to mute unused microphones.
    7:20 presentation starts
    The first part explains that Covid is an “organising pneumonia”, not a viral pneumonia.
    The virus triggers the overreaction of the immune system. “very few of the autopsies show cytopathic effects of the virus. It’s really an inflammatory reaction to the virus having been there and/or an inflammatory reaction the viral debris.”
    23:45 IVM update
    “It really is the cure for Covid.”
    1:06:13 Q&A begins (and goes until 1:50:09 and to be continued)

    “Dr. Pierre Kory, Ivermectin, and COVID (Let’s help end the pandemic.)”

  34. tom0mason says:
    26 February 2021 at 8:07 pm

    Here’s a cute German video showing how the COVID daily numbers are screwed to give higher peaks for the MSM to report.

  35. E.M.Smith says:
    26 February 2021 at 8:14 pm

    @YMMV:

    Golly! I just posted a comment with the same video in another thread. Looks like we are on the same page ;-) That’s just a Great video. I watched it in the middle of last night (since the dogs decided something had gone ‘bump in the night’ and were howling unless I was in the room … so I wasn’t sleeping…)

    As far as I’m concerned, the more places it is posted the better.

    I do find it a minor horror that way back about a year ago, when I bought my bottle of Ivermectin Drench, it was ‘in the news’ and the response was to have Tractor Supply and others pull it from the shelves. How many of the 1/2 Million dead in the USA could be alive today had that not been done; if instead they had just said “Doctors, try it. People, talk to your doctors.”

    It is, as they say in the video, one of THE safest drugs ever. It gets poured by the gallon (literally, it is sold in gallon and even 5 gallon lots) over cattle herds. This stuff has an extraordinarily wide range between therapeutic dose and “issues”, and that seems to mostly be with the solvent not the drug. Oh Well.

    FWIW, I’ve treated myself roughly 4 or 5 times so far. 2 were on my cross country run. Once a week for 2 weeks. Prophylactic for meeting a “few thousand of my closest strangers”. 2 for when I “thought I was coming down with something”. And I think I had one in there as prophylactic when first breaking full hard lockdown protocol about 8 months ago.

    ZERO, complete ZERO side-effects, symptoms, whatever. Just a bit of cold from the rubbing alcohol solvent evaporating on the skin.

    In the cases where I “thought I was coming down with something”, the next day or 2 at most, all symptoms left. Scratchy throat, watery / itchy eyes, nose being ‘wrong’, etc.

    Spouse self treated for 2 “incipient somethings” also and with similar results. The something just becomes nothing in the next 2 days.

    Which virus? Don’t know. Was it a virus or something else? Don’t know. I do know that the ‘reverse and evaporate next day’ profile is not what usually happens. Even the bugs I “toss off” in no time usually take 3 to 4 days of getting worse first.

  36. Ossqss says:
    28 February 2021 at 4:24 pm

    Here is why things look over. Links in links embedded also to source materials. CDC documented position was 40 Ct until recently also, as posted in a prior thread. Why is this not huge news? Better yet, why is this not being investigated by every government, well, aside from Portugal which tossed the testing out in court last year.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/why-new-covid-cases-are-crashing

  38. philjourdan says:
    1 March 2021 at 12:09 am

    @Ossqss

    Yes, it is called common sense. And a reluctance to turn over science to mental midgets that think they are the guardians of the universe. Cancel culture has not infected Israel yet. I am seriously thinking of converting to Judiasm. The last rational religion on the planet.

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