I feel better after I Panned the demic and the scientists it rode in on.

You’ve probably heard there’s been a virus afoot that’s killed more Americans than any war and any previous virus has done within a 5 year span. So what makes sense is to respond by attacking scientists for the deadliest 15 months in our history.

I mean, I can’t blame the dog for this one and I gotta blame someone.

After all, a woman highly regarded by her peers around the globe leaked it from a lab where they secretly plotted to make the deadliest virus ever into a deadlier one. Because she’s Chinese and the government of Chinese wants to beat us in global business so killing off its customer base only makes logical sense, right?

This upset the woman scientist and when she responded with ‘shut your filthy mouth’ why, that’s just added evidence that she’s guilty of something. Everyone knows that women scientists are just supposed to bring a pot of tea and offer chopsticks for your freedom fries. Guilty, guilty, guilty!

On the list of nations and territories compiled by worldometers, there’s 220 listed. There are only 15 of them where over 10% of the country’s/territory’s total population has been infected with Covid-19. And of the 135 counties with a population larger than 2.7 million, we’re the 3rd largest with 332 million people. We have the 3rd highest covid infection rate on the planet of any country with 2.7 million or more people. Only Czechia and Sweden have done worse and the Swedish response was to let the virus run free till enough were infected for herd immunity to take over.

Not the smartest choice for a country that gave the world Volvos and Saabs and IKEA meatballs. There must be a Swedish woman scientist who made that decision, too.

In total documented deaths by Covid, we’re number one. Both China and India have way bigger populations but China used its military to control its lockdowns and India is likely undercounting because they don’t have enough counters to test all the corpses that never made it to their already full hospitals.

The third worst percentage of infected here, and the worst total fatalities is what we got, which everyone knows is the fault of Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx. I mean, I suspect both even like Chinese food and consume it in secret bat caves underneath their homes.

And my suspicions are better and more accurate than any facts derived from evidence. Good golly, everyone knows evidence is one of those suspicious things that scientists promote.

But if you’re one of those annoying gotta-see-evidence people, the US is actually the perfect place to review the Covid outcomes because here, governors and mayors got to choose different responses to the pandemic. So some chose to follow the advice of scientists and some chose to follow the advice of a president who regularly attacked any scientist anywhere because he had some success for a few years as a real estate developer, so that gave him super duper knowledge of bat viruses and the use of disco balls to radiate our lungs from the inside.

With 50 governors and the mayor of DC, how well did the states perform if we use the same benchmark of 10% of their populations infected?

Out of those fifty one, 31 had more than 10% infected. In order of size, that means TX, FL, NY, IL, GA, NJ, AZ, TN, IN, MA, WI, MN, SC, LA, KY, OK, UT, IA, AR, NV, MS, KS, NB, ID, RI, SD, MT, ND, DE and WY had the worst percentage outcomes. So it was bad in red states and blue states like NY, IL, NJ, MA, RI and DE. And the swing states of MN, NV and WI.

Clearly, we have to look further than that voter preference divide.

In the early days of the pandemic - all sarcasm aside - several things have been determined as unquestionable facts:

1) The CDC fucked up, producing a badly flawed test for states to use to determine who had Covid. Of the documented mistakes that US scientists made, this was the worst one, costing the most US lives. The biggest epicenter we had in March 2020 was in the region of NYC and Newark, NJ, likely due to travelers coming through those airports. Governors in those two states and nearby states had no way to know how fast the virus was spreading till the hospital reports started pouring in. States near that epicenter, like MA and RI were impacted by that early siege too. Somehow, CT and PA were able to keep their infection rates below 10%.

2) For the biggest mistake US scientists made during the pandemic, no one was fired. The CDC broke its own rules to create that first flawed test. But the scientist appointed by the president to head the CDC wasn’t demoted or fired. Why not? The President who attacked more scientists than any president in history never once even criticized that guy.

3) Now consider the 20 states whose governors were able to keep the infection rates under 10%. The governors of CA, PA, OH, NC, MI, VA, MO, CO, MD, WA, CT, OR, NM, WV, NH, ME, AK, DC (mayor), HI and VT should get some credit for that. Of these 20 states, 17 were led by Democratic governors. Only Mike Dunleavy (Alaska), Chris Sununu (New Hampshire) and Larry Hogan (Maryland) were Republican governors able to keep their state populations under 10% infected. Hmmmm…

4) Certainly one could argue that 10% infected is an artificial benchmark. There’s not a huge difference between 10.1% and 9.9% and some in those 19 states and DC weren’t far below 10% infected. So how many of the 20 came in significantly below that 10%?

Nine.

Those states (in order of total population size) are VA, MD, WA, OR, NH, ME, DC, HI and VT. Of those 9 high performers, only MD and NH had a Republican governor. So maybe the partisan divide actually did matter in the outcomes.

Just three Republican governors kept their states under 10% infected and only two did so by a significant margin. But 17 Democratic governors did so and 7 of them by wide margins. Hmmmm…

5) This clearly means that mathematicians are likely lying, just like all the scientists are. Over 34 million infected in the US? Over 616,000 dead? STONE THE MATHEMATICIANS AND ALL THEIR FAKE NUMBERS!

I mean, beyond the major epicenter of NYC/Newark, two smaller epicenters occurred in Washington and California. How could WA be one of the top 9 performers?Its Governor Inslee initially sought a college education in medicine and is one of the nation’s leaders on environmental and energy issues, so he relies a lot on scientists. He was one of the earliest and most consistent governors in ordering a ban on large gatherings, requiring social distancing and shutting down schools.

Washington kept its infection rate under 6%, way below the 10% benchmark.

Of the 9 highest performing states, here’s their actual infection rates, and other relevant information:

HI 2.62% - 40th largest state by population.
VT 3.9% - 50th by state population. Only WY has less people and WY infection rate was 10.6%

OR 4.88% - 27th largest state by population.
ME 5.11% - 42nd largest state by population.
WA 5.89% - 13th largest state by population.
DC 6.97% - Democratic mayor. If it was a state it would be the 49th largest by population.

NH 7.3% - Republican governor, an environmental engineer considered a moderate libertarian mainly conservative on economic and policing issues.

MD 7.63% - Republican governor, considered a moderate centrist, an economic conservative who supported Trump’s impeachment after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building. 19th largest state by population.

VA 7.95% - 12th largest state by population.

So size of a state’s population mattered far less than the responses of the governors. Here’s the 6 states with less than a million people in each:

45. DE 11.24% infected
46. SD 14.1% infected
47. ND 14.5% infected
48. AK 9.29% infected
49. VT 3.9% infected
50. WY 10.6% infected

Facts are hard but these must be fake, because nobody who’s anybody believes math is real.

Finally, do scientists always make better calls than the politicians? Generally speaking, yes. They are not infallible, especially since nobody could know everything about a new virus at the beginning. Learning, refining and better defining is always going to take time. That’s how science works and always has.

Now scientists are human. Some can be motivated by greed, by political calculation, or by fear of an oppressive, secretive government (which is why the Chinese woman scientist draws concern, despite not being a member of the Communist Party which is very rare for such an important position as she holds).

So far, however, zero evidence has actually emerged that she or Drs. Fauci and Birx have been motivated by anything but standard scientific inquiry.

And still, the third best Covid performing governor currently lacks majority support. Trained in environmental law, unfortunately the governor can’t be trusted because she’s a (gasp!) woman.

As a country - one of 15 out of 220 with more than 10% infected - it’s broadly apparent that the president must be graded for his handling of the virus. Of the 10 countries with the largest populations in the world, the US, Brazil, Russia, Mexico and India have had terrible outcomes by most measures, whether you like or support them personally or not. All 5 are authoritarians, just like the guy heading China.

Unless, of course, math is fake.