Fagan: What fear-mongering media isn’t telling you about COVID in Alaska

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By DAN FAGAN

Here’s some information you won’t read in the Anchorage Daily News or KTUU about COVID-19 and the virus’ impact on Alaska.

Wyoming residents are twice as likely to die of COVID-19 compared to those living in Alaska. 30 out of every 100,000 Wyoming residents died this year that tested positive for COVID-19. In Alaska, 14 out of every 100,000 died after testing positive for the virus.

We don’t know how many of those patients died as a direct result of COVID-19. Some may have died of other causes even though they tested positive for the virus.

Those living in Minnesota are four times as likely to die of COVID-19 compared to Alaskans. 56 out of 100,000 Minnesotans testing positive for COVID-19 died compared to 14 in Alaska.

105 out of every 100,000 North Dakotans testing positive for COVID-19 died this year. Meaning someone living in North Dakota is 7 and a half times as likely to die from the virus compared to Alaskans.

133 out of every 100,000 Louisianans testing positive for COVID-19 died this year. People living in Louisiana are close to 10 times as likely to die of COVID-19 as Alaskans.

188 out of every 100,000 New Jersey residents testing positive for COVID-19 died this year. New Jersey has the highest per capita COVID-19 death rate in the country. Living in New Jersey means you are 13-times as likely to die of COVID-19 as those living in Alaska.

Alaska’s 14 COVID-19 related deaths per 100,000 are the third-lowest in the country. Only Maine and Vermont have lower per capita fatality rates. Maine has 13 deaths per 100,000 and Vermont comes in with 10.

There are 44 states with at least double the COVID-19 fatality rate per capita compared to Alaska.

The COVID-19 fatality rate is the best metric in determining the virus’ impact on Alaska.

The fearmongering media, Anchorage Assembly members, and Gov. Anne Zink often focus on the number of Alaskans testing positive for COVID-19. But Alaska has conducted more COVID-19 tests than there are people in the state.

Obviously, not every Alaskan has been tested. That number represents multiple tests for some. But Alaska tests more people per capita than 47-other states.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Alaska conducts 120,086 tests per 100,000 residents. That’s five times as many tests per capita than Pennsylvania. Of course, we have a lot of people testing positive. We conduct so many tests. The more you test, the higher the number of positive results.

But even though Alaska tests more of its residents than 47-other states, our positive case rate per capita is lower than 29-other states. It’s three times as low as North Dakota per capita.

But the fearmongering media love to play up the number of positive tests. The headline in Saturday’s Anchorage Daily News read: “Alaska Virus cases continue to swell, with 676 new cases and one new death reported.”

Generally speaking, there are plenty of questions surrounding COVID-19 tests. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX announced earlier this month he began to have flu-like symptoms and got tested. Musk says he was tested four times. Two tests came back positive and two came back negative.

I received a call recently on my radio show from someone who got in line to be tested at the Anchorage airport after returning to the state from the Lower-48.

The caller says he signed up to be tested but the line was too long, so he left. He says several days later he got notice he had tested positive for COVID-19 even though he never took the test.

When the state conducts more tests than there are people, fuzzy math is sure to surface.

It’s important to note the coronavirus is not something we should take lightly. More than 250,000 Americans have died either directly from or with COVID-19. The disease is especially troublesome for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. Eight in 10 COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. have come from those over the age of 65.

But if you are under 65 and are in relatively good health your chance of dying from the virus is minimal. To shut down our economy over a virus that impacts a small percent of our population seems foolish.

There’s never been a time in our history where we’ve for all practical purposes quarantined everyone, even the healthy, over a virus.

We know we can’t trust the media or most government officials to give us a balanced message on COVID-19. Their default position seems to be to stir up fear and play up the worst-case scenario in hopes we do what we can to defeat the virus.

They do so for one simple reason: they don’t trust us to protect ourselves or the vulnerable from the virus.

Dan Fagan hosts the number one rated morning drive radio show in Alaska on Newsradio 650 KENI. 

26 COMMENTS

  1. That’s 250,000 deaths of people that either tested positive for COVID or were suspected to have covid, it is not 250,000 people that died from covid. It is a serious disease, but so is tuberculosis. Covid is very contagious and it is an intense sickness for a few. Instead of talking about protecting the vulnerable and educating people about vitamin D and C and staying healthy so we can take on this disease effectively, the left wants to debate masks and mask mandates and masks and masks and masks and oh, masks. They love these debates. Remember second hand smoke is worse than first hand smoke. They glom onto these silly debates with extremely misleading interpretations of data so they can compare a drunk driver to a person not wearing a mask and get their beloved mask mandates. And then when the numbers still climb or do whatever that people don’t like, they will argue for stricter enforcement of masks and more stringent guidelines for masks. Watch, after a vaccine is available to the masses, there will still be many wanting to have a mask mandate, and then even after the dust settles, if it ever will, they will not want it to ever get off the books so it can be utilized anytime wearing a mask might be “a good idea”.

    The best way I have found to see the local numbers is this dashboard:

    https://covid-response-moa-muniorg.hub.arcgis.com/pages/data

    I really like this dashboard. It’s far better than what John Hopkins is doing, IMO. John Hopkins map was designed from the very beginning to make things as dramatic as possible, start with the color scheme and then it continues in the numbers presented and the way they are presented, for example they weren’t reporting anybody recovered for months.

    Local numbers have drastically dropped in the last few days and we haven’t seen any discussion or explanation of this. This is why the mayor pulled the plug on shutting down the restaurants, but that isn’t going to be told to anyone that will share it with the public. (The mayor still would have shutdown the restaurants if left wing restaurant owners weren’t giving her pleads that she actually listens to.) This is the trend I despise the most from the media, politicians (except Kristi Noem), hospitals, epidemiologist, and left wing doctors. If you google ” new cases” there is a news article for it, for every single random number. The reason for this is that they have computers writing or updating articles for every single tick up. But google ” less cases” and it is crickets you hear. There is a consensus amongst the above groups of people that good news is bad news. It is disgusting and I expect it from the media, but doctors? Shameful. Providence was quick to tell everyone that they are understaffed, but didn’t let anybody know publicly that it was because they have sent 250 employees home to quarantine. Some damn transparency would be nice for once from somebody, anybody. Have you not heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?

    Anyway, I would love to hear some theories on why the extremely sensitive PCR tests all of sudden aren’t getting as many positive test results. Or is there a new delay in the data getting reported to this dashboard? Was the governor’s announcement that effective or did they change the sensitivity of the test and stopped running it above 35 cycles? Or are they testing far less because now it doesn’t matter if you test negative, you are still expected to quarantine for 14 days if exposed to someone that tested positive, so there’s no point in getting a test. But none of that matters. Positive test results should stop being the metric. It should be hospitalizations and symptomatic people, and really important should be ICU beds availability and the amount that are there because of severe covid symptoms, not just a positive test result. Then guess what, much more people would listen to the advisories seriously and be united.

    Epidemiology is a sh!t field. The whole profession should be thrown into the trash and rebuilt by people that understand economics, hysteria, math, pathology, mental health issues, open scientific discussion that welcomes diverse ideas and perspectives from diverse fields, and the importance of honesty, transparency, and humility. And last but not least, the “trolly problem”.

    Sorry, I’m always long winded. Thanks for letting me vent and you are probably the only one to read this thing.

  2. “They do so for one simple reason”, and that’s not the one the author is giving.

    If you go to the Rockefeller Foundation site, you can read the whole blue print for managing the Virus. It is their plan that has been foisted upon us by the CDC, and not just America, but all around the Western World. The New World Order is following an Agenda. The Agenda is called the Great Reset. This is not a theory, this is one which has been stated plainly. The next step is to require at least 75% of the nation’s population to take the mRNA vaccine. I’ll leave a discussion of that for another post. The Virus is a means to an end. And that end is the end of America is a sovereign nation. Checkout the Great Reset. This is war for our survival as a nation… nothing less.

  3. This whole pandemic has been wildly overblown. Just take for example the recent dinner by California Governor/Dictator Gavin Newsom. The guests were not social distancing and they were not wearing masks. Did you know Newsom’s guests included the CEO of the California Medical Association, as well as its group’s senior vice president and the head lobbyist? Now ask yourself, if these people who have access to all the latest scientific information really believed that COVID is a deadly disease for people in normal health would they have attended this dinner? The reality is that your chances of dying from just about any other cause, i.e. cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc. are magnitudes higher than dying from Covid. We are being played.

  4. Appoximently less than 1% of 100,000 are affected by COVID-19 nationwide.
    MediCovid-19 is the actual epidemic and not the COVID. If Anchorage is so proactive in preventing the spread of COVID-19, why is Anchorage leading in cases in the state? Is Anchorage reporting COVID-19 honestly?

  5. The other day Dr. Zink had a graph that showed over 70 percent of Alaskans have one or more conditions that make them likely to have a severe experience should they contract this disease. I recommend the 12 noon, Wednesday, one hour sessions with DH&SS, and it seems to me that everything state and municipal governments are doing in Alaska are completely in sync with Dr. Zink. So I am not getting Dan Fagan’s point here, assuming he has one. If one or more aspects of this disease are lessened in Alaska compared with another state, or another part of the world for that matter, we should be happy about that; and Dr. Zink would undoubtedly say we should do everything we can to keep it that way. I have the distinct belief that Dr. Zink is working extremely hard to see that we do so. I am sure that no one wants to see reefer trucks sitting outside Anchorage and Fairbanks hospitals, yet after reading what Dan Fagan says here it’s not clear what direction he would have Alaska take.

  6. Dan,
    Pretty much agree with everything you said.
    I can still remember when it was an American’s choice to seek medical advice, now it is shoved down our throats daily by obedient media personal.
    Dr. Ron Paul lays out the thesis that a positive test result is not a “case” since many (up to 50 % ) of these rapid tests are “false positives” and another high percent is either Asymptomatic or has VERY minimal symptoms…why does ADN never include this in their reporting?
    Don Young is almost 90 and survived it fine in a few days, yet Dr. Zink wants us all to give up our Liberty and destroy an economy that took over 60 years to build in AK.
    At some point the sheep must turn off the MSM and live the life they know in their hearts to be true to this country.
    If history is any indicator, once your freedom is lost it may not return for generations.

  7. The European and Australia media is talking about the left’s economic and social “ Great Reset” .
    Alaska once again gets mired down in U.S. politics .
    I imagine we will be forced into the radically experimental vaccine if we want our kids to go to schools we pay for or if we want to keep our “critical” jobs. Who knows how living RNA will affect us, the Bolshevik cabal is running this nation ( not trump) and they are historically the most hostile tribe on earth.
    Americans have become soft and weak, we are no longer a strong fighting nation of inventors and conquerors,we have become pansie apologists, we have been ruined by T.V and it’s globalist “values”.
    We deserve exactly what we permit. And if we permit communists to lecture down to us we deserve to be ruled by them.

  8. “In Alaska, 14 out of every 100,000 died after testing positive for the virus.”
    .
    “Alaska has conducted more COVID-19 tests than there are people in the state.

    Obviously, not every Alaskan has been tested. That number represents multiple tests for some. But Alaska tests more people per capita than 47-other states.”
    .
    The reason our death per case rate is so low is because all of the testing, it’s simple math. Look at deaths per 100,000 people not per positive test, or just look at excess deaths.
    .
    There’s no reason to point out how and where the media lies if you are just going to do the same thing they do…twist the numbers for your own agenda.
    .
    I read MRAK to get factual reporting, sadly this isn’t that.

    • The CDC is now reporting that excess deaths in the US will not exist this year and in Alaska it is a definite fact that there will be no excess deaths. Look at the numbers and you will find these are accurate statements.

      • Robert,

        Do you have a link to that information? I can’t seem to find it anywhere but your post.
        .
        I thank you for your valuable guidance in this matter.

    • “The reason our death per case rate is so low is because all of the testing,…”
      Please explain.
      How does excessive testing reduce case rates?
      I just do not see the cause/effect relationship..

      • It reduces the number of deaths per confirmed case. It has been published near and wide that the number of asymptomatic and nonconfirmed cases are greater than those suffering severe cases, let alone those who die from this disease. Some say there are four to ten times as many asymptomatic or nonconfirmed case per confirmed case. The more testing that is done the more asymptomatic or nonconfirmed cases will be caught. Early on during this pandemic testing was only done on those suffering the most severe cases since tests were in short supply, I know people who suffered all of the tale-tell signs but were not tested. This either condenses or waters down the results, depending on which side of the testing a lot or not enough line you fall upon. In Alaska we have done more testing than the majority of other states, just like in the US we have done more testing than other nations, these variables change the equations we are dealing with…in some cases they change the numbers immensely.
        .
        In other words if we didn’t test as much as we currently are, we would have less confirmed cases but the number of deaths wouldn’t have changed so the math would be completely different, potentially by orders of magnitude. If we test more we could also drive that death rate number down by having more confirmed cases per death.
        .
        This is why deaths per 100,000 or 1,000,000 or per capita is a far better way to measure…using a known quantity instead of a variable quantity makes comparing apples to apples much easier.

        • Simple math is number of deaths divided by those that test positive, period no need to tell me math until plandemic is over, all the math is just postering to keep the FEAR going

  9. Here’s some information you might want to consider if you think we are in a safe situation with the virus.
    1) Numbers have been low, but they are now increasing strongly and in the realm of exponential growth. Typically, we are now seeing around 400 to 500 hundred new cases a day. This number is not going down. It is going up, and with exponential growth, we will get to the point where the number will be 50% to 100% higher each day. That’s how exponential growth works.
    2) Just because we don’t have high numbers of deaths doesn’t mean we won’t have them soon. That is the trap into which the Dakota states fell. Now they have serious growth. We would do better to look at hospitalizations. They will grow exponentially, as did reported cases, before deaths start to increase. That’s how exponential growth works.
    3) We might be OK for hospital rooms now, but with exponential growth, we will find ourselves behind the 8 ball in just a few days, especially if we are already close to maximum occupation.
    4) As the number of people with the virus increases in the hospitals, there will be less room for those with other, serious conditions, such as acute heart problems, serious cancer treatments, dialysis.
    5) As the number of infected people in the hospitals increases, so will the demands on those highly skilled people treating them. Medical professionals will become overextended. Some of them will become sick with the virus. Some will die. We will find ourselves not with a shortage of equipment to treat Covid patience, but with few to do it.
    We are on the front end of the attack by the virus. Things will get worse, even with palliative action. We are where North and South Dakota were two months ago. This is not a worst-case scenario, this is a real world scenario. This is not a case of the government not trusting us to take care of ourselves. This is a case of us not taking care of ourselves. Left to our own devices, in a month or two we will look back on Dan’s article and wish were back where we are now so we can take the measures necessary to staunch the progression of what is coming.

    • Greg,

      We don’t need to wait a month or two, we just need to look back a month or two. Where now in a daily basis we are seeing 500+ cases statewide, just two months ago we were seeing anywhere from 30-100 cases statewide daily. In fact it took 83 days from the beginning of this pandemic in Alaska on March 12 until June 3 for our statewide total to surpass 500 cases…we easily pass that just about every day now.
      .
      And some people keep pretending this pandemic isn’t happening. Until people can accept the fact that this is happening, our numbers will continue to rise.

      • Steve-O, you’re very likely right about not needing another month or two for Covid to burgeon. Our relative isolation and sparse population density hasn’t saved the Y-K from exploding contagion. No reason to think it’ll be different here.

    • Greg:

      Please explain how you came to the conclusion that the current trend will continue as exponential growth indefinitely?
      That is at best an assumption that is not really supported, either by this virus, or any other pandemic that the human race has ever gone through.
      Inquiring minds want to know.

      • Actually, it isn’t exponential at this point. If it were, infections would double every day. So we’re not there, but we are moving in that direction.
        This is an assumption based on numbers. Epidemiologist have long understood that contagious diseases spread in this way. Eventually, of course, when the population has been reduced to the point where people aren’t spreading it as much to each other (the R0 number gets below 1.0) then contagion will fall, slightly at first, then more quickly as more people either die off or get immunity. Unfortunately, in serious plagues, this can happen when about half the population dies. In extreme cases, like smallpox, it can kill everyone before it runs out of victims. Every epidemic is unique, but they all follow this pattern.

  10. “Their default position seems to be to stir up fear and play up the worst-case scenario in hopes we do what we can to defeat the virus.”

    No, they play up the worst case scenario to justify keeping us all under control.
    It’s all about the control and has nothing to do with our health.

    • The claim that attempting to corral a rapidly increasing epidemic is “…to justify keeping us all under control…and has nothing to do with our health,” is simply not so. We do need to control the situation to keep the virus from running completely wild, but it is about the health of our people, not an attempt to subjugate us.
      Once the virus is contained, the need for control goes away. If that doesn’t happen, then we have a different problem, and one that could much more worrisome.

  11. Latest info from a massive study is there is no evidence whatsoever that asymptomatic cases spread the disease.

    The money shot: “A total of 1174 close contacts of the asymptomatic positive cases were traced, and they all tested negative for the COVID-19”
    This conclusion mirrors smaller studies published earlier.

    Yet, the governments at all levels ignore this data, and impose lockdowns on the healthy.

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