12/9/22
So I’ve written a couple of pieces recently decrying the PANIC PORN around the flu this season. In short, “THE FLU IS REALLY, REALLY BAD SO GET YOUR FLU VACCINE!” To which i say BULLOCKS! Now we all know I hate both Grandmas and Juniors and I’d just as soon see them all dead if we could just stop talking about this whole COVID, or now flu, thing, but before you wish me into the cornfield, let’s look at some numbers that might be different from what everyone thinks they “know”.
I’ve already shown you in the last few days that the stories of kids overrunning hospitals and how much worse this flu season is compared to last year are lies (or at the very least misrepresentations meant to scare you into vaxxing up your family) but today let’s look at some other data. Here’s a map provided by the CDC for flu activity:
Oh crap, maybe I was wrong. Never mind, things ARE really really bad. Where do I get my shot? Can I get two? But hold your water there pardner. Take a look at the top of that color legend on the right. It says “ILI Activity Level”. Just what in tarnation is ILI you ask? Well ILI stands for “Influenza-Like Illness” and that means just what it says. This graphic (and everything you hear about the flu) is not about the flu but about anything that looks like the flu.
In fact the CDC tells us:
“Information on outpatient visits to health care providers for respiratory illness referred to as influenza-like illness [ILI)...For this system, ILI is defined as fever (temperature of 100°F [37.8°C] or greater) and a cough and/or a sore throat. Since the 2021-22 season, the case definition no longer includes “without a known cause other than influenza”. Since ILINet monitors visits for ILI and not laboratory-confirmed influenza, it will capture visits due to any respiratory pathogen that presents with the symptoms of fever plus cough or sore throat.”
So last year the CDC CHANGED the definition of the flu to include pretty much ANY common cold symptom with NO laboratory confirmation needed. Now why would they do that? Did they learn this from their little experiment with “COVID-Like Illness”? In case you didn’t know, the CDC counts COVID deaths as “Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19” Imagine you went to the doctor and he came at you with a scalpel. When you queried as to what he was doing, he said “I presumed that lump on your face was cancer so I was going to cut it off. Then you say “That’s my nose.” That’s the state of “medical science” today! Now the truth is we “presume” all sorts of things in medicine and in life in general, but in this case where the “presumed” numbers are used as a blunt instrument to effect some social engineering goal of our overlords. The truth is the CDC has been counting ILI and not actual flu for many years; and we’ve been falling for it.
So if you look at the graphic above, things look pretty bad. But here’s some more interesting information. This is from the CDC’s Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report:
You will notice that this is the cumulative data since the beginning of October. In yesterday’s blog I noted how the PANIC PORN was about all the flu since the beginning of October so we’re talking about the same time period here. You will also notice that of all the specimens tested for suspected flu (these are from symptomatic people who show up to the doctor or hospital) only 11.5% of these people actually have “the flu” (8,437 out of 73,201). In what can only be described as a coincidence, way back on April 2, 2020 in my very first post about COVID, in just the second paragraph I wrote:
“According to the CDC, from September 30, 2018–May 18, 2019, clinical laboratories in the US tested 1,145,555 specimens for influenza virus; and of these, 177,039 (15.5%) tested positive. Note that that means out of every seven people who thought they had the flu, only one actually had the seasonal influenza virus (this is a discussion about the seasonal flu that we’ll have at another time).”
I guess now is “another time”. 11%, 15%, it’s always around the same number. Almost nobody who thinks they have the flu (from the influenza virus against which you can be vaccinated) actually has “flu”. They have a rhinovirus or a coronavirus (not that one) or RSV or a parainfluenza virus; all things that cause what we generally call the common cold, but they do not have the flu. Now you may ask what’s the difference in what causes it, I’m still sick. True, but the PANIC PORN about the flu is designed to get you vaccinated against something you stand only about a 15% chance of catching. Screaming about 78,000 cases or cases being 40 times higher than this same time last year is dishonest. And since I’m the Truth Avenger (da-da-DAA!) I’ve sworn an oath to battle the evil League of Lying Imbeciles at every turn.
And for those of you (you know who you are) who tell me that you get the flu shot every year and you never get the flu, I say I’ve never gotten a flu shot and have never had the flu. So what? Get the flu vax, don’t get the flu vax; not really my concern. What is my concern is people being manipulated by fear-mongering to change their behavior (can you say “Two weeks to flatten the curve”?) or scared into getting a vaccine by liars and idiots. But as I say, it always sucks when the facts get in the way of a good story. Sorry “science-followers”.
As the Who (not the WHO) said: We Won’t Get Fooled Again.
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