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The lockdowns are WORKING: Daily deaths begin to fall in the US after four weeks of social distance; two million deaths averted

04/14/2020 // Mike Adams // Views

Tags: deaths, infections, isolation, outbreak, pandemic, quarantine, social distancing

Driven largely by the numbers from New York, daily deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus have peaked in the USA and may be headed for a slow downward trend over the next six weeks. This is, of course, due to the social distancing "lockdowns" that were put in place from March 15th - March 20th, breaking the cycle of exponential spread of the virus.

It now looks like we may be able to keep total deaths in the USA under 60,000 by the end of July. Had no lockdowns been initiated, there would have been over 2 million deaths by July. The lockdowns, in other words, have averted at least two million deaths by July.

Interestingly, had the lockdowns been delayed by just one week, the estimated 60,000 deaths we will experience over the next few months would have been 240,000 deaths. That's because the number of infections in the USA was doubling about every 3.5 days, meaning there are two doublings in a week. So 60,000 x 2 x 2 = 240,000 deaths.

Similarly, had the lockdowns taken place just one week earlier, the estimated 60,000 deaths we are going to experience could have been reduced to just 15,000 deaths (because 15,000 is 1/4th of 60,000).

When it comes to exponential growth, timing is everything. Every day counts. That's why we were sounding the alarm in early March, urging President Trump and state leaders to initiate the lockdowns as soon as possible. Had the lockdowns taken place on March 1st instead of around March 15th, the deaths could have been reduced to 1/16th of what we're facing now, or just 3,750.

Although the media is trying to blame Trump for all this, the truth is that any governor could have initiated a lockdown at any time, so the blame for acting too late should actually be applied to all the mayors and governors, too. In truth, all the "leaders" were slow to react, and most remained in a state of denial for far too long.

Many conservative publishers now claim the lockdowns weren't necessary because they worked

Sadly, we are still dealing with conservative indy media outlets that still fail to grasp the importance of the lockdowns as an early intervention. One broadcast host that I covered yesterday believes that the regular flu has a 10% fatality rate and kills 9,600 Americans each day, on average. The real number is about 95, or about 1/100th what that host is reporting. Amazingly, the people saying the flu kills 9,600 Americans per day still don't realize their numbers are off. They insist the regular flu kills 10% (it really only kills less than 1 in 1,000), and they refuse to look at the obvious errors in their bad math.

The number of people who die in the USA from all causes of death combined is normally about 7,700 as you can see from IndexMundi.com. That's all causes: Cancer, heart attacks, suicides, pharmaceutical side effects, shootings, car accidents, etc. That number does not include covid-19 deaths, so over the last few days the actual total deaths in the USA has been closer to 9,500+, since covid-19 has been killing between 1,800 and 2,000 per day (although yesterday it fell to around 1,500).

On this very day, covid-19 remains the No. 1 leading cause of death in America on a day-to-day basis. Nothing is killing more Americans right now than the Wuhan (Chinese) coronavirus, an engineered bioweapon that was produced by a communist laboratory which was funded, in part, by Obama's NIH (where Dr. Fauci is a top propagandist for the vaccine industry that actually serves as a front for the bioweapons industry).

Because they don't grasp exponential math, many conservative, pro-Trump publishers are now retroactively claiming the lockdowns weren't necessary. "The projections were wrong," they say, not realize how silly they sound when it's the lockdowns, of course, that halted the spread of the virus and prevented the fatalities from exploding exponentially.

That's sort of like having a fire in your kitchen, calling the fire department, watching fire fighters put out the blaze, saving your home, and then concluding, "Well I guess we didn't need to call the fire department after all."

The only reason the daily deaths are falling is because the lockdowns worked. Because the virus spreads through community infection, separating people was the best initial way to block the replication until we learned more about the importance of wearing masks, taking zinc, using elderberry, protecting the elderly and so on. So anyone arguing the lockdowns weren't necessary isn't being honest. Without the lockdowns, we would be on track to 2+ million deaths by early July, or perhaps much sooner since my projection models were too conservative.

Yet just as I predicted in early March, those of us who saw this coming and demanded the lockdowns will, of course, be blamed when the lockdowns prevent millions of deaths. That's because most people can't grasp the "unseen" deaths which were averted. And since they can't do exponential math, the number of deaths which would have occurred aren't "real" to them.

Many people can only see what's in front of them. They cannot project into the near future and anticipate future events. This is especially true when those events take place along an exponential timeline.

Thus, even though all of us who called for the early lockdowns have now averted at least two million deaths, we will be blamed for "overreacting" when far fewer people die. That's the cost of acting early and saving lots of lives: You get blamed by people who are mad that more people didn't die.

You see, the lockdowns were going to happen sooner or later. The only question was how many dead people you wanted to endure before the lockdowns were initiated. Do you want to see 60,000 dead Americans, or do you prefer 240,000? How about five million?

Using very conservative numbers, I have calculated that getting America to so-called "herd immunity" (about 83% infected ), would require about 5 million Americans to die. That's where this was headed.

And if 5 million Americans died, how devastating would that have been for the US economy? It would have been even more devastating that what has taken place already, due to the lockdowns.

The lockdowns, in other words, were the least bad option in a world of horrifically bad choices. Doing nothing would have been catastrophic. Shutting down the economy for 4-6 weeks was painful, but it's working and bringing us back to a level of infections that we can now track and manage by encouraging everyone to wear masks in public places (among other important suggestions).

Now we actually have an opportunity to reopen the economy without seeing millions of deaths. We can protect public health and restart the economy at the same time. We now have the knowledge and experience to know how to proceed with cautious, avoiding worst-case scenarios.

The lockdowns were necessary in March, but I don't think we need to return to such measures if we can achieve high compliance with the wearing of masks and sensible distancing in public for the next few months. This is how we beat the virus and get America running again, ending the lockdowns and restoring our freedom of movement and travel.

And no, I don't see a second wave of this unless people get lazy and stop wearing masks. As long as we keep the masks on in public places (workplaces, public transportation, grocery shopping, etc.), we likely won't see a second explosion this Fall. And that's a huge victory, if we are willing to earn it.

But if we get lazy, all bets are off. If people stop wearing masks and start gathering in groups again, the virus will explode yet again, and we'll be right back to square one.

Here's a short documentary on how we end the pandemic and restart America while protecting public health:

Stay informed by reading Pandemic.news.

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