November 1, 2021
MOVCAC Contributor: Sean P. Keefe
Early in 2020, COVID-19 reached the shores of the United States. This was a novel virus that perplexed our government leaders and our medical establishment. We, as a nation, jumped on board the “15 days to slow the spread” plan. Businesses were closed. Self-employed and employees alike were asked to forgo earning a living in order to protect our fellow man. Masks were mandated. Social distancing was enforced. I’ll never forget the first time I heard the overhead announcement at Lowe’s in that robotic voice reminding shoppers to wear their masks and social distance. The dystopian scene of my fellow shoppers dutifully complying while looking wearily at one another is burned into my memory.
Early in the pandemic, Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was touted as a possible treatment. This idea was ridiculed so rapidly and adamantly that further discussion of existing anti-viral medications has been stifled to the point that many pharmacies refuse to fill prescriptions for HCQ or Ivermectin. Instead of serious testing of existing medications, the focus turned to Operation Warp Speed.
The answer became vaccines.
Until these COVID-19 experimental shots came along, common sense and my historical understanding of medical treatments told me that the introduction of a therapeutic drug, medical treatment, or vaccine should have at least one of two effects on the illness/disease being targeted:
- Reduce Death
- Reduce the occurrence of the illness/disease
One could argue reduction of pain and/or suffering in addition to these two expected effects. However, these vaccines are being mandated for citizens to attend many colleges, to maintain their employment, or to undergo other lifesaving treatments such as organ transplants. For this analysis, we will focus on death and the occurrence of the disease.
Our nation has decided that the only path forward in our war against this virus is to require all citizens to accept an injection of an experimental medical concoction. There is very little discussion of existing anti-viral medications. There is very little discussion of natural immunity. There is very little focus on improvement of health outcomes by eating better, exercising, or getting outside to enjoy the most efficient and inexpensive Vitamin D delivery system ever discovered; our own sun.
Since that weird day in Lowe’s early in the pandemic, terabytes of data have been compiled by state health agencies and reported to the CDC and other governing agencies. Governor Justice has been holding three times a week COVID updates to, if nothing else, scare WV citizens with a listing, not of names, but of numerical values associated with the chronological death of the listed WV citizen. Our governor dutifully reads that number, the decedents age, and county of residence.
Over the last week or two, it struck me that our state media has been asking completely irrelevant questions during these COVID updates. The governor of our state along with the COVID Tzar, Dr. Clay Marsh from WVU Medicine, attend each meeting. One would think that our state media would hold these powerful individuals leading the state’s COVID response initiative to account for their performance during this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic crisis.
Any critically-thinking human being would assume that since the introduction of these super safe and super effective experimental shots and the incessant media drumbeat of “vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate”, the death and hysteria of 2020 would be mollified in 2021. Again, the introduction of a medical treatment should bring immediate and quantifiable relief if the treatment is indeed effective. If not relief, it should at least bring hope that trends will soon begin to turn in a positive direction.
As the calendar turned from 2020 to 2021, the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson Emergency Use Authorization was approved and vaccines were rolled out. We were told by federal and state officials that the vaccine was our ticket back to normal. Governor Justice and Dr. Clay Marsh in their thrice-weekly COVID briefings introduced and promoted incentives including a $150,000 wedding, several trucks, and many scholarships awarded in vaccine lotteries. The “I Got Vaxxed” incentive for schools with the highest percentage of vaccinated students and staff, the “Do it for Babydog” incentive program, and the “Grandfamilies” program all provide coercive incentives for both adults and children to participate in this medical experiment.
When the majority of the states in this union are experiencing both increased death and illness after medical intervention, a logically thinking person would surmise that the applied medical intervention was not working.
Again, at the very least, one would expect that the introduction of a medical procedure would reduce the occurrence of death from the targeted disease. That reduction did occur in some states, but not the majority. In fact, the average increase in death in the United States when comparing calendar 2020 to year-to-date 2021 is 113%.
So, we found ourselves facing a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, engaged our scientific community in a 21st century Manhattan Project, and produced not one, not two, but three vaccines in a record 9 months. Some of us are old enough to remember the videos of these vaccines reaching hospitals. If we concentrate, we can remember seeing news clips of people getting the first doses. Hurrah, the miracle has arrived!
Ten months later…
The following analysis will show you that we, as a nation, did not reduce cases with these vaccines:
2020 total COVID Cases = 20,426,020
2021 total COVID Cases = 25,209,688
Change in COVID Cases = 4,783,668
Nor did the introduction of these vaccines have any meaningful impact in the total number of deaths experienced:
2020 total COVID Deaths = 370,147
2021 total COVID Deaths = 369,709
Change in COVID Deaths = (438)
Dr. Clay Marsh should be the one explaining these outcomes and trends to the citizens of West Virginia. He should be explaining why West Virginia’s cumulative deaths in 2021 are more than twice the number of deaths experienced in 2020.
Once again, the responsibility of analyzing and illuminating this data falls to We The People.
The CDC compiles information regarding cases and deaths for each state at:
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailycases.
In the example below, I have filtered the data only for WV Cumulative Deaths:
By placing the cursor over the blue vertical lines in the graph, the number of cumulative deaths is identified for each specific date in the graph. I looked at each graph for the fifty states and the District of Columbia and compared 2020 cumulative deaths as of December 31, 2020 with the 2021 cumulative deaths as of October 29, 2021 and calculated the percent increase for each state and D.C.
As you can see in the ranking above, only 22 states have seen their cumulative death count in 2021 fall below their death count from 2020. Ohio and West Virginia both land in the bottom six with cumulative death counts that rose in 2021 by 173% and 230% respectively.
The same process was completed for the cumulative cases:
Ohio performs in the middle of the pack with a 119% case increase in 2021 while West Virginia again ranks in the bottom six with a 217% case increase when compared to 2020.
Our media are given an opportunity three times a week to ask our state leaders about our performance in addressing this pandemic. This data is readily available and proves that our state leadership in both Ohio and West Virginia are performing at rates well below the national leaders.
Rather than ask Governor Justice or Dr. Clay Marsh about when the guidance for churches in regards to singing and praying out loud will be modified, as was asked in the October 26th update, why aren’t we asking about the 3,000 deaths that have occurred in 2021? Why not ask how North Dakota went from 1,309 deaths in 2020 to 1,762 in 2021 while in West Virginia, we went from 1,338 deaths in 2020 to 4,426 in 2021? What is North Dakota doing that we should be emulating?
Why not ask Dr. Clay Marsh the following:
“Can you explain how the state’s death count has increased at a rate greater than twice the national average and the state’s case count has increased at almost twice the national average after the introduction of these vaccines?”
Or:
“Since the rollout of the vaccines, the state’s death count has increased by 230% and our case count has increased by 217%. At what point would you consider the state’s response a failure?”
How is it that WVU Medicine is allowed to run our COVID response and help set policies within the state when their performance in leading our state’s response is so abysmal?
The freedom of the press was included in our 1st amendment because our Founding Fathers knew that a free press’ most important job was to hold the powerful to account, not to cheerlead for them.
Instead of asking Governor Justice how fast we can get shots out to our children (5 – 11 year-olds, also asked in the Oct. 26 update), how about we ask:
“Since the introduction of these vaccines, West Virginia’s death count has increased by 230%. With that knowledge, why would you seek to use this ineffective medical treatment on children who have a far greater chance of experiencing myocarditis from the vaccine than suffer any ill-effects from COVID?”
Or:
“Since the introduction of vaccines, West Virginia has experienced an increase in both death and cases. At what point do you look at this data and determine a different approach is needed?”
When the majority of the states in this union are experiencing both increased death and illness after medical intervention, a logically thinking person would surmise that the applied medical intervention was not working.
However, since we, as a society, have decided that logic and reason should be sacrificed at the altar of the narrative, shouldn’t we at least hold our leadership accountable for failing to perform even in the top half of states as it relates to increased death and illness? Shouldn’t we evaluate the effectiveness of the leadership that has produced these outcomes? Should WVU Medicine be the monolithic force taking over the medical industry in our state while ranking a solid 50th in managing death during this pandemic?
Why are the invited media ignoring this poor performance? Why are they not asking the relevant questions that will perhaps motivate those in power to improve their performance?
We are being led by unserious people. While our response, as a state, is failing to protect our citizens, our governor invited a child who dressed up as Jim Justice for Halloween to close the briefing (see the 109-minute mark of the October 29th Jim Justice Covid Update).
The data shows that our state leadership is failing in its most basic job: Keeping West Virginians safe.
As Governor Justice said in his Friday COVID Update Briefing, “Numbers don’t lie.”
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