by Michael Senger, Brownstone:
To date, we still don’t have especially good studies on the actual causes of excess deaths by state and country when the world first went into lockdown in spring 2020.
For political reasons, these deaths were all generally been lumped together as “Covid deaths,” but this coding was appallingly sloppy. According to the World Health Organization’s initial coding guidance, if a decedent had either tested positive—using a PCR test later confirmed by the New York Times to have a false positive rate over 85%—or been in contact with anyone who had within several weeks prior to their death, then the death should be classified as a “Covid death.” This enormous number of “Covid deaths” was obviously belied by the fact that many places reporting those “Covid deaths,” such as Maine, actually had no excess deaths to speak of.
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Thus, this article reexamines data from the US CDC on all-cause excess deaths by state during peak lockdown in April 2020 using the information we now know to determine what actually caused them.
This examination concludes that, contrary to popular belief, there was no uniquely deadly strain or variant emanating out of New York in spring 2020; this is clear from the fact that several states close to New York such as Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine experienced little to no excess deaths during that time period.
On the contrary, over 30,000 Americans appear to have been killed by mechanical ventilators or other forms of medical iatrogenesis throughout April 2020, primarily in the area around New York.
This result is not altogether surprising, as subsequent studies revealed a 97.2% mortality rate among those over age 65 who were put on mechanical ventilators in accordance with the initial guidance from the WHO—as opposed to a 26.6% mortality rate among those over age 65 who weren’t put on mechanical ventilators—before a grassroots campaign put a stop to the practice by the beginning of May 2020.
As one doctor later told the Wall Street Journal, “We were intubating sick patients very early. Not for the patients’ benefit, but in order to control the epidemic… That felt awful.”
To put this in perspective, patients over age 65 were more than 26 times as likely to survive if they were not placed on mechanical ventilators.
Weekly Excess Deaths by State in April 2020
Below are all-cause excess deaths and percentage of all-cause excess deaths per capita (“Percent Excess Estimate”) by state for each week of April 2020. All data used in this examination is obtained from “National and State Estimates of Excess Deaths,” available on the US CDC website at “Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19.”
(Note: Although many of these hospitalizations and deaths may have actually occurred in March 2020, due to time lag in reporting, the vast majority were recorded in April 2020. Thus, April 2020 provides the most consistent and robust data set. After April 2020, excess deaths taper off significantly.)
The first pattern that emerges from this data is a clear correlation between population density particularly in low-income areas, cold weather, and excess deaths per capita.
For example, percent excess deaths were high in Michigan and Illinois, both of which are cold states with fairly dense and relatively poor urban centers. Percent excess deaths were likewise high in Louisiana, a warm but especially poor and dense state. Percent excess deaths were also somewhat high in Wyoming, a sparse but very cold state. By contrast, percent excess deaths were relatively low in California and Florida, both of which are somewhat dense but also warm and relatively rich states.
A clear cluster forms at the top of the chart in the area around New York City, with New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts generally experiencing the greatest percentages of excess deaths per capita for each week of April 2020. To be sure, each of these four states is a cold state with dense low-income areas, which goes a long way to account for their high excess deaths. However, outside of those four states, excess deaths per capita fall into a more normal range.
It may be tempting, therefore, to conclude that a particularly deadly strain or variant emerged around March 2020 in New York and began emanating from there, which was generally the mainstream narrative at the time.
However, the idea that a particularly deadly strain or variant began emanating from New York in March 2020 is belied by the fact that states like Vermont and New Hampshire, which are both very close to New York, had some of the lowest percentages of excess deaths of any states. Even more remarkably, Maine is very close to New York and had virtually no excess deaths to speak of throughout April 2020.
