So, Joe Biden has said if he is elected, COVID-19 will go away. President Trump has stated similar things. Since Republicans AND Democrats are both saying they handled the pandemic better, I decided to FACT CHECK THEM. I looked at state populations, whether the state had a Democrat or Republican governor, COVID-19 case-fatality rates per state, cases per population, and deaths from COVID-19 per population. Guess what? There was NO STATISTICAL DIFFERENCE in any of these values whether you were living in a Republican or Democrat states. All Democrat controlled states locked down, but one Democrat state does not require masks, so policies were mixed across states.
The most concerning thing is that if we look at overall deaths in the United States last year and compare them to deaths this year they are much, much higher. Our increase in deaths from all causes (COVID-19, suicides, heart disease) is 25% higher THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Why? Well, because we Americans have the unfortunate problem of being in a wicked political battle because it is an election year. We have the unfortunate position of having a CDC and FDA that care more about politics than anything else.
Think I am wrong? President Trump touted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment. The FDA banned hydroxychloroquine use in the USA. Now, I have seen some of the papers against hydroxychloroquine, but many of them contain insignificant information--and worse, the Lancet article panning it was retracted because the authors could not produce their data! There are several significant papers showing that hydroxychloroquine reduces the severity of COVID-19. I don't know if hydroxychloroquine is a good treatment or not, but I do know there was not enough grounds to completely ban experimentation on a drug that has been a safe treatment for malaria for years. I also know that African nations are relying on quinines to combat COVID-19. Every single African nation has half the COVID-19 case-fatality rate of any Western nation. This could be a coincidence, but without research we won't know. It is not acceptable to cancel research simply because there is some risk and preliminary results are not significant. Most research has some risk.
President Trump was given a treatment for his COVID-19, from which he recovered quickly. Less than two weeks later the FDA banned that drug. I didn't see all the information for that, but it makes me suspicious either they were trying to kill the President or they don't want others to recover that quickly.
The FDA is refusing to regulate masks. If you contract COVID-19 in a state that requires mask, you have a 1.16% greater chance of dying from it than if you live in a state that does not require COVID-19. I did the statistical analysis and this was a significant (albeit small) increase (p=0.0077236). The FDA is required by law to regulate medical devices, such as masks, but despite numerous reports of adverse effects of masks that have been filed with the FDA, they are still not regulating them for safety or effectiveness.
At the same time, the CDC flips from saying one thing to saying the exact opposite. It changes wording on things, seemingly to avoid legal action. Despite the failure of our national health institutions, Republicans and Democrats could look at the rest of the world and say, "Hey, we might be doing something wrong here." Instead, they jump on every chance they can to point fingers at the other side. They could question the CDC recommendations in light of world recommendations. They could force the FDA to regulate masks, but they don't. Why? Well, because this is an election year, and people dying at massive rates compared to anywhere else in the world makes good political ammo. But if you are voting for a political party instead of a person simply because you believe that political party will reduce or stop the COVID-19 pandemic, you are voting for unfounded reasons.
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