Viral endemicity appears to be beyond the ability — of Duke University to understand — a US COVID metaphor

16 September 2021

Is everyone in authority a moron — or just conniving liar?

Ask yourselves this, after reading this COVID-related post.

Duke University

See whether you understand the reasoning of the apparent boneheads running Duke University.

Toward the end of August, Duke tested about 15,000 people for COVID — evidently marching in lockstep with our reigning national paranoia:

In the first week of classes, 304 undergraduates, 45 graduate students and 15 employees tested positive for COVID-19.

All but eight of these individuals were vaccinated, and the vast majority of them are asymptomatic.

A small number have minor, cold- and flu-like symptoms, and none have been hospitalized, according to the university.

[Nevertheless] Duke University has set new restrictions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 as cases are rising on the Durham campus despite its vaccine mandate.

The rules include:

Masks are required on the Duke campus in all indoor and outdoor locations, unless individuals are exercising alone, eating or drinking, or otherwise not around others.

Indoor group seating at campus dining facilities is temporarily suspended. Students and employees have also been advised to eat outdoors as much as possible.

Professors can teach their undergraduate classes remotely for the next two weeks. (This option is due to absences from the number of students in isolation, not spread in classrooms.)

Student activities will be limited.

Two questions arise

First, after running some numbers, what substantive benefit do the US COVID vaccines really have?

Second, if:

almost no one at Duke is sick

and

those who are, have only a version of the sniffles or flu-like aches and pains

and

no one (at all) was admitted to a hospital

— why is anyone limiting campus freedoms over this nonsense?

Consider the following numbers — figuratively jotted on a paper napkin

From Duke's reported numbers, let's calculate vaccine effectiveness in at least one regard — the vaccines' ability to prevent us from being infected with SARS-CoV-2.

First, only 8 people — from among the 364 people who had positive COVID tests — were unvaccinated.

Duke helpfully tells us that 98 percent of students and 92 percent of faculty-staff are vaccinated.

So, to be conservative, let's assume that 98 percent of everybody at Duke is vaccinated. Calculating the competing infection rates this way will make the rate for the unvaccinated people look worse than it really is.

Making the unvaccinated infection rate look worse than it actually is will bolster Duke's argument that everybody needs to cower in isolated caves. (After paying tuition, of course.)

Doing the math

Multiply 0.98 times 15,000 people to see how many people are vaccinated (14,700).

Subtract the 14,700 vaccinated people from the 15,000 total to find the not-vaccinated group.

Divide the 8 unvaccinated COVID 'cases' by the presumably 300 unvaccinated people (2.67 percent).

This means that roughly 2.7 percent of the unvaccinated herd of 300 people at Duke came down with asymptomatic or sniffly COVID.

Now let's compare the (supposedly contrasting) infection rate for vaccinated people.

Divide the 14,700 vaccinated people by 356 (the total of vaccinated COVID cases that Duke reported) — which comes out to 2.42 percent.

This means (roughly) that the chances of getting COVID infection are equal between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

Notice that our calculations say nothing about the possibly contrasting risks of serious illness, hospitalization and death between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.

Nevertheless, these roughly derived 'findings' do not say anything particularly positive about COVID vaccines' ability to protect us from infection and, possibly, from re-transmission.

In light of all this . . .

. . . let's address Duke's overreaction to pretty much nothing. I do this because the United States, as a whole, is also overreacting to the Delta variant.

If no one at Duke became significantly ill, what's all the fuss about?

Why is Duke harassing an age group of folks that are very-very unlikely to die from — or be maimed by — SARS-CoV-2?

And what is the point to going to college, if one is going (effectively speaking) to be locked up in the equivalent of isolation cells?

Also pertinent — consider the CDC's conniving definition of . . .

. . . a 'breakthrough infection':

Defining a vaccine breakthrough infection

For the purpose of this surveillance, a vaccine breakthrough infection is defined as the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA or antigen in a respiratory specimen collected from a person ≥14 days after they have completed all recommended doses of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized COVID-19 vaccine.

Think about the CDC's semantic distortion of Reality

According to the CDC, you are not vaccinated, until 14 days after you have received two doses of America's current two mRNA vaccines.

Thus, if you pass into the Great Beyond 13 days after receiving the second dose of a vaccine — you are counted as 'unvaccinated'.

Similarly, if you enter the hospital — with COVID — 13 days after receiving the second dose — you are still 'unvaccinated'.

Presumably, according to the CDC, your immune system has not done diddly squat with either or both vaccine doses — until a magical moment that miraculously occurs on the 14th day after being twice inoculated.

Convenient, no?

This way of assessing vaccination status deliberately overcounts unvaccinated (COVID-infected) people.

The CDC's dishonest method additionally ignores the presumed partial efficacy of the first vaccine dose. As well as intentionally undercounting the two doses' combined efficacy, during the first two weeks after the completed two shot process.

The CDC definition of 'unvaccinated' therefore deliberately obscures evidence for problems with the vaccines. Both as to their (supposedly rare) negative health effects and with regard to the vaccines' now demonstrated less-than-ideal protective effects.

This is the CDC's subtle (and scientifically corrupt) way of dismembering epidemiological data to favor power-seeking Government's propaganda line.

The moral? — It is time for the US (and the rest of the world) to get a grip on Sanity

SARS-CoV-2 is endemic. And it attacks mainly the elderly and the comorbid.

Are we going to continue ignoring the virus's limited deadly targeting — as well as the public health messaging that should go with addressing those vulnerability-creating conditions — and continue punishing the rest of human society for no good reason?

Is everybody in authority a Big Pharma stooge and/or powermonger?

Or is it just that we are all fear-quivering morons?

PeteFree.com

Viral endemicity appears to be beyond the ability — of Duke University to understand — a US COVID metaphor