Cooking the Books
If you ever saw the movie “The Sting”, you’ll remember the scam that Gondorff and Hooker ran on Doyle Lonnegan. Clever to say the least. Now in the time of pandemic, is there a scam being run on the nation with respect to the numbers of “Wuhan Flu” cases?
Thanks to some great investigative reporting by a Fox’s Channel 35 in Orlando, Florida, it was discovered that more than 300 Covid-19 testing labs in Florida reported 100 percent Covid-19 positive results, for every person they tested. That is simply impossible. The investigation revealed the actual positive cases were 10 times lower. The Channel 35 report stated that Orlando Health hospital officials, “confirmed errors in the report”, affirming their positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent. Veteran’s Medical Center in Orlando initially reported a positivity rate of 76 percent, but a company official said that "the positivity rate for the center is actually 6 percent."
Did anybody see this reported in the national print and broadcast media? Only Fox Cable, whose affiliate in Orlando did the investigation, gave this story airtime. Bet you didn’t hear a peep about it, find it on another other channel or read about it in a major paper. Is that coincidental or conspiratorial?
All the usual “major media” outlets have been asleep at the switch regarding this story. They would rather hammer the leaders in Florida (Republican) because it fits their long-term goal. So, is the outbreak in Florida that everyone was clutching their collective beads over is substantially overblown? The Florida Department of Health is investigating what the real results and count should be.
Of course, this begs the question, how many other states have reported inflated cases? The Texas numbers (Republican leaders) are suspected to be skewed. The state health services had to remove 3,484 cases from its Covid-19 positive case count, because the San Antonio Health Department was reporting “probable” cases for people never actually tested, as “confirmed” positive cases. What is the intention of padding the numbers of coronavirus positives? What other states health departments make this same “mistake”?
Again, there appears to be an almost joyous slant to the reportage that there are increased instances of positive test results.
This news about increased cases, drives the public’s fear on many levels, especially the school reopening issued covered in a previous blog. That story has seized the national media attention despite some very solid evidence to the contrary. Pay attention to what Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center said:
"I'm not sure how many times it has to be said, but the risk of children from this disease and the fatality is nearly zero. The risk of children for a significant illness is far less from the seasonal flu. This is totally antithetical to the data. Obviously, we know this by now, it’s been confirmed all over the world, children rarely transmit the disease to adults, but those are people that obviously either don't know that data or have a refractory to learning themselves because the facts say otherwise."
"The problem here and the biggest point of all, I never hear anyone talk about the harms of closing schools. The harms are against the children. Anyone who prioritizes children would open the schools and that's just counterfactual to say ... we're at risk here. All over the world ... from professors, teachers, mothers, in the United States and elsewhere, they are stunned that we are willing to just simply destroy our children on some bizarre notion that's completely contrary to the science."
Dr. Scott Atlas is no dunce and he’s not going to put himself out to be the subject of derision and ridicule. The Doctor is a scholar and he is standing on solid scientific data that’s not being reported. It is far better to drive fear of the pandemic with increased case numbers, never mind that under age 18 death rate is infinitesimal and the overall death rate is decreasing according to the CDC.
As such, the “cooked books” scam could be greater than currently reported, another nail in the coffin of honest journalism and a gross disservice to the nation by the Fourth Estate.
