So on this RNZ post I see that there have 8,118 cases since the start of the Delta outbreak (As of Nov 28).
Of these 5,325 were unvaccinated cases (1876 are kids under 12, 30 of whom have been in hospital at some point).
We’ve had seventeen Delta deaths, I assume that still includes the gunshot victim, and for argument’s sake we’ll assume they were all unvaccinated, even though we know that’s not the case.
So that’s a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 0.32%.
Among the unvaccinated!
Of course we know that some of the dead had co-morbidities. I don’t think there’s any breakdown of that with those hospitalised.
The IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) will be even lower, since it’s based on the population of people infected with the virus but asymptomatic. Every year in the USA the CDC calculates that number:
Influenza virus infection is so common that the number of people infected each season can only be estimated. These statistical estimations are based on CDC-measured flu hospitalization rates that are adjusted to produce an estimate of the total number of influenza infections in the United States for a given flu season.
…
on average, about 8% of the U.S. population gets sick from flu each season, with a range of between 3% and 11%, depending on the season.
The figures for IFR seasonal flu is 0.1% or lower.
The CFR of the famous Spanish Flu was between 2–3%. Covid-19 CFR is in the same range as the 1957 Asian and 1969 Hong Kong flu pandemics.
My but this Delta is a deadly disease.
Keep in mind that the CFR above does not account for the demographics, which we know are heavily tilted towards people aged 70+ and those with co-morbidities and whose CFR is higher.
But this is nothing new. A lot of this was known about the slightly deadlier Alpha strain from early 2020 analysis out of China and Italy.
Incidentally the flu has almost vanished in the USA over the last two years, as noted by this doctor back in May of this year:
Hospitalizations varied from 140 to 810 thousand, and deaths from 12 to 61 thousand, depending on the particular year, strain of influenza, and effectiveness of the vaccine.
This year, “flu activity is unusually low at this time” according to CDC surveillance. Since late September 2020, they recorded only about 2000 cases, a minute fraction of the tens of millions of cases in past years.
Hospitalizations this flu season are minimal with only 224 confirmed influenza hospitalizations from September 2020 to mid-April 2021.
He looks at different possible answers to this mystery, especially the number of Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations. Answers may lie with:
Public health measures
One theory is that public health measures for COVID eradicated the flu. Did we just now discover hygiene? Was last year the first time that Americans washed their hands and used hand sanitizer? We have always done these things. And if they worked to stop the flu, why didn’t they stop COVID?
…
Those ill with the flu stayed home until better. We naturally distanced when sick. Again, if these measures, far more draconian this year, stopped the flu, why didn’t they also stop COVID?
Masks
If masks worked so well, why weren’t we told to wear them every flu season, preventing tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations? It is not like masks were just invented last year.
Does size matter? The influenza virus is 80-120 nanometers. COVID is similar in size, 50-140 nm. If, as we are incessantly told, masks work to save lives from COVID, then they should work similarly for influenza. Yet COVID cases are high and influenza cases are near zero.
Flu Vaccine
Perhaps the flu vaccine last season was a home run, unlike the 40-60 percent effectiveness of past seasons, one year as low as 19 percent effective. In a normal flu season, the vaccination rate is between 50-60 percent. It was likely much lower last year during COVID as a flu shot was not a priority and many avoided going to the doctor unless necessary.
He has a suggestion, which is blostered by the fact that the CDC has listed the cases and deaths, from the start as “PIC” (Pneumonia, Influenza, Covid-19) since all three kill in very similar ways that make it tough to distinguish the cause of death to each:
I’ll throw out an idea, namely testing. Perhaps COVID numbers are artificially high due to PCR cycle thresholds, as I have written about. At cycle threshold of 35-40, “up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus” according to the NY Times, meaning most positives are false positives. Deliberately attributing accidental deaths to COVID falsely inflates the death counts.
What if influenza cases were incorrectly labeled as COVID? After all, everything now is called PIC. Perhaps the influenza numbers are much higher and COVID numbers much lower based on misclassification.
The CDC wouldn’t play numbers games like that would they? Sure they would. The CDC changed its cycle threshold for “vaccine breakthrough cases,” those cases occurring post vaccination, to 28, far below that for normal cases of 40 or higher, to reduce COVID cases numbers after the vaccine.
Imagine if they had done that last year. COVID cases numbers would resemble that of a bad flu season.
The good news is that if the CFR and IFR are so much lower for unvaccinated people than initially calculated, then the growing numbers of cases in near fully vaccinated nations like Ireland or US states like Vermont and Colorado will matter even less.
Mind you, that would reduce the chance for the MSM to run with the If It Bleeds, It Leads news and would not require the government to step in to save us with “emergency” measures.
No Minister 
It is a crisis built from the intersection of the new found abilities to measure things ever more precisely, the need to interpret what these measurements actually mean and Postmodernism where power lies within the narrative and controlling the narrative allows people to advance their own agendas
The existence of viruses as infectious agents was first inferred because they are far to small to be seen under the microscope
With the invention of the electron microscope they could be visualized for the first time though to show that fuzzy object on a photographic plate is in fact a visualization of the culprit behind a particular malady is a non trivial exercise
The very recent development of the ability to DNA/RNA sequence genetic material allows differentiation between viruses of the same class – we can now produce a taxonomy of corona viruses which of course are ubiquitous in the environment
As the COVID virus mutates as all corona viruses do those controlling the narrative can summon up a new variant almost at will which is why this pandemic™ can be kept going as long as the powers that be want or until the general population stop listening and start to ignore them
The PCR technique is an amazing piece of technology but it is insane to use it to define someone as being ill who is displaying zero symptoms of any illness, as happened with my oldest daughter and is a common and well documented phenomenon of this current pandemic™
The same thing is occurring with “deaths” which a tallied up and reported as a harbinger of doom – a positive PCR test can transform the death of someone who died from trauma due to a shotgun blast to a COVID death to be added to the “grim total” – this literally happened last week in this country.
Around thirty five people die every day in this country but if the narrative controllers can take a subset of these people and tag their deaths as being anomalous due to the presence of some RNA fragments detected by misused PCR techniques they can scare the gullible into complying with their absurd rules and regulations.
That is not to say that people are not dying of COVID – in vulnerable people respiratory viruses can and do trigger pneumonia which sees them off but this is business as usual and has been happening since Adam was a cowboy – it is the narrative and spin that has convinced the suggestable that these departures are somehow unusual and more tragic than they would be if some other agent triggered the pneumonia
Sadly we are puppets on a string dancing to a tune being called by God knows what piper
CFR calculations are so simple that I can’t see how I’ve stuffed this one up, and the fact that we’re talking about actual unvaccinated cases takes away the arguments about lockdowns, masks, social distancing, and vaccines.
This is a measure of how lethal this thing is and the answer is … not very.
What are the odds that any journalist will run this calculation and ask the PM or Bloomfield the related questions?
Had to tweet this one. You might get 2 people coming through – I have a few more followers now! 😛
Heh! I’m told that the trick is to be constantly controversial within the constraint of 140 byes? Or is it 280 now?
Could be 280. Definitely too small, whatever it is! Though, I always have the option of blogging and then linking to the blog comment.
Anyway, that comment I made the other day under a Newshub article has raised my profile. Debate very interesting to understand how pro-mandaters think. Have been attacked by a couple of tweeters that I’ve checked out that are being followed by NZ Labour.