Image source: Screenshot from June 14 WRAL story “Parents gather in Raleigh to protest school mask mandates.” The sign refers to recent research (among others, see here, here, and an RCT study here) showing specific ills affecting mask wearers including decrease in oxygen, increase in carbon dioxide, hypoxia, hypercapnia, dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide 3-7 times higher than the maximum limit (and worse for younger children), anemia, fatigue, headaches, respiratory impairment, temperature rise, and moisture under the masks (which harbors infectious bacteria). To date the governor and DHHS have not acknowledged the existence of any of this scientific research or other such studies. Nor for that matter have North Carolina’s political media shown any interest whatsoever in asking such basic, research-backed questions about what many researchers, health experts, economists, and parents consider cruelty by the state against schoolchildren.
Here is the NC Threat-Free Index for the week ending July 12:
- As of July 12, there were 998,668 North Carolinians presumed to be recovered from COVID-19
- Active cases comprised just 0.7% of NC’s total case count (note: a case of COVID isn’t a permanent infection, and only someone with an active case of the virus can conceivably transmit it to you)
- Active cases represented 0.07% (seven-hundredths of one percent) of NC’s population (note: active cases are lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 minus recoveries and deaths)
- Already 49 out of every 50 (98.0%) of NC’s total cases were recovered, meaning they are no longer infectious
- Only just over 0.1% of people in NC had died with COVID-19 (regardless of the actual cause of death)
- Over 90.4% people in NC had never had a lab-confirmed case of COVID-19, despite the PCR test cycle threshold set so high as to produce a large amount of false positives (note: this proportion will always decline, but we have been living with this virus since February 2020, as far as testing is concerned)
- All things considered, over 99.9% of people in NC posed no threat of passing along COVID-19 to anyone — a virus most had never had and the rest had recovered from (note: this proportion will fluctuate based on relative growth in lab-confirmed cases vs. recoveries, and it is likely understated because it does not account for vaccinations)
By next week, there will be over a million people who’ve recovered from Covid-19 infections. Will media, ever-ready to give banner headlines to bad numbers, be willing report that number at all? Or would they think it could undermine the present political push that only vaccinations matter and let’s dare not consider natural immunity?
Community immunity update
For June 21, the estimate is now 73.7% of adult North Carolinians with immunity (vaccine-induced immunity and natural immunity), using CDC estimates of actual infections and DHHS estimates of current vaccinations and the formula outlined here.
As a reminder, it is widely accepted that herd immunity from Covid-19 is with 70% of people immune. Furthermore, the ongoing, rapid decline in virus numbers in North Carolina is also indicative that North Carolina is either at or very near herd immunity.
Deaths as reported vs. when they actually occurred
Once again, many of the “new” deaths announced in the past week actually occurred several months ago, even in 2020. There were 44 total “new” deaths announced, but only 29 were reported from May 2021 on. That is, only 66% of the “new” deaths reported actually occurred within the past two and a half months. Ten of the “new” deaths had actually occurred in January and February, and four of the “new” deaths occurred between August–December 2020 (but DHHS also retracted two deaths from October–November 2020). One of the “new” deaths reported within the last week actually occurred on August 10, 2020. Recall that it’s now July 2021.
