In Ocean County, which includes Lakewood, Toms River and Jackson, household income exceeds the U.S. average. Ocean County is overwhelmingly Republican. When it comes to Covid-19, the New York Times reasons this is the most significant factor in the infection and mortality rates.
Ocean County is among the least vaccinated counties in the Northeast United States even with 53 percent of residents having received at least two doses of a Pfizer or Moderna Covid-19 vaccine (or one dose of Johnson & Johnson). Only 26 percent have received the booster shot.
The New York Times says the large number of unvaccinated residents in Ocean County has led to a “horrific amount of Covid illness and death”. They say that nearly one out of every 200 residents has died from the virus. That is higher than the entire state of Mississippi which has the largest amount of Covid death per capita, and worse than in any country except for Peru. If you do the math that “horrific” number comes out to .2%. Don’t get me wrong, any death is tragic but we now know that many deaths that were attributed to the Corona virus were caused by other deadly causes. Vehicle accidents, heart attacks, cancer and so many others, had more to do with gaining revenue by asserting it was Covid, as we are learning more about the true causes every day and the financial incentives given to doctors, hospitals and even individuals. The inflated inaccuracies of the VAERS database, doctors and nurses and even the employees of the manufacturers of the vaccines are coming forward, at great risk to their careers. Even the former CEO of Pfizer has resigned and the inventor of the MRNA vaccine has come forward.
With all this happening, the disingenuous NYT continues to push the absurd explanation of the vaccine skepticism in Ocean County. The NYT places politics, above all rather than real scientific evidence. It’s true that Ocean County is one of, if not the the most heavily populated Republican counties in New Jersey. Donald Trump won the county by almost 30 percentage points in 2020, and many Republicans — including those who are older than 65 remain skeptical of the vaccines. So, the NYT continues to push the bizarre idea that the true cause of this is a partisan divide. In other words, party affiliation:
Live Democrats vs. Dead Republicans
By the end of 2020, Covid’s first year in the U.S., it had spread across the entire country, there was no significant partisan divide in deaths. According to the NYT, it was only after the vaccines became widely available, in early 2021 — and liberals (read Democrats) were much more willing to get shots than conservatives — did Covid morph into a disproportionately Republican illness?
According to this ridiculously sourced chart, by the summer of 2021, the political gap was soaring:
Data as of Feb. 13. | Source: New York Times database; Edison Research. Author’s note: Edison Research is a financial advisor located in the UK. Edison Investment Research Limited, 280 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7EE UK. Company no. 4794244. VAT no. 815041270
To support this idea, the NYT publishes a chart from their own dubious database and Edison Investment Research Limited, located at 280 High Holborn, in London, WC1V 7EE UK. Company no. 4794244. It’s not even in the US let alone Ocean County! Edison does not do any scientific medical research. It only sells investment advice for a variety of corporations, some of which are healthcare but non of the vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer, Astra-Zeneca or Johnson & Johnson, yet according to this data the NYT posits it “makes clear, the toll has been even worse in counties where Trump won by a landslide than in counties that he won narrowly”. It’s all Trump’s fault.
“This phenomenon is an example of how the country’s political polarization has warped people’s thinking, even when their personal safety is at stake. It is a tragedy — and a preventable one, too.” Easy, become a Democratic left wing wing-nut and your cured.
A new study by four Harvard epidemiologists estimates that 135,000 unvaccinated Americans died unnecessarily in the last six months of last year. The Texas Tribune recently profiled a young unvaccinated couple: She spent 139 days in intensive care; he asked, “Was this my fault?” Of course it was, you’re a Republican!
Natural Immunity
The NYT theorizes that Red America has “probably” built up more natural immunity to Covid — from prior infections (and who are obviously not dead) — than blue America, given that many Democrats have tried harder to avoid getting the virus insinuating that Democrats supported the mask, social distancing and other now scientifically proven fake mandates.
I don’t get why the NYT is saying, “the partisan gap in Covid deaths is no longer growing as fast it had been”, as you can see from the new closeness among the lines in this chart which actually goes against their whole argument:
“Across the nation, in Trump and Biden counties, one candidate won at least 70 percent of the vote; in swing counties, both won at least 45 percent.” What this has to do with anything, I have no idea.
During the Omicron wave, deaths have risen less in red counties than in blue or purple counties. The NYT says the most likely explanation seems to be that the number of Trump voters vulnerable to severe illness has declined, because more of them have built up some immunity to Covid from a previous infection. Does the phrase “Herd Immunity” even exist in their vocabulary?
Strange Bedfellows
“During the early months of Covid-19 several major demographic groups lagged in receiving shots, including Black Americans, Latino Americans and Republican voters”. Maybe because more and more Blacks and Latinos are becoming more educated and fed-up with years of Democratic policies that have harmed them and they have now become “vulnerable” Republicans.
The NYT says flat out, that masks reduce the virus’s spread — and in the next sentence say masks evidently (as in scientific proof) were not powerful enough to overcome other regional differences, like the amount of international travel that flows through major metro areas, which tend to be politically liberal.
“Some of the vaccination gap stems from the libertarian instincts of many Republicans. They understand freedom as being left alone to make their own choices, and they resent being told what to do,” William Galston has written in The Wall Street Journal. Duh!
This one is incredulous: “It didn’t have to be this way,” German Lopez of Vox has written, “What distinguishes the U.S. is a conservative party — the Republican Party — that has grown hostile to science and empirical evidence in recent decades. A conservative media complex, including Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and various online outlets, echoes and amplifies this hostility. Trump took the conspiratorial thinking to a new level, but he did not create it”. OMG. (NPR. CNN. MSNBS) and the usual gang of liars.
“With very little resistance from party leaders,” Lisa Lerer wrote last summer, many Republicans “have elevated falsehoods and doubts about vaccinations from the fringes of American life to the center of our political conversation.” And I thought that it was the government, FDA, CDC, NIAID, Fauci and Birx, corrupt politicians and Big Pharma.
One intriguing anecdote involves the football team at the University of Mississippi, which is entirely vaccinated even though the state has one of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates. Coaches there emphasized the tangible, short-term costs of getting Covid, rather than the more remote chance of death: The players might have to miss a game, and the team might have to forfeit it, if they tested positive. Or they can always suddenly drop dead on the field. Forgot about that one, eh, coach?
In The Atlantic, Olga Khazan has argued that fear remains the best motivator, just like every communist, socialist and fascist dictator has used to begin their reign of tyranny and the death of millions. Daniel Darling, an evangelical author, has said that one-on-one conversations encouraging conservatives to talk with their doctors will have more success than any top-down campaign. After he wrote an op-ed in USA Today about his decision to get vaccinated, Darling’s employer — NRB, an association of Christian broadcasters — fired him. But what about the thousands of health-care workers, first-responders, corporate working stiffs and countless others, besides businesses that have been forced to close because of tyrannical Federal, State and local vaccine mandates? How about that OSHA threat if you have more than 100 employees?
I think I’m done here, I feel the need to throw up now. Please excuse me while I’m still allowed to do that without having to carry around a mandated hermetically sealed barf bag. I’m sure Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will be happy to place ballot drop – uh, I mean barf drop boxes in convenient locations. I know exactly where they can deliver my bags to.
Vote for Republicans only
Actually that isn’t true you said it’s one in two hundred js .2%
It’s actually 250% greater than that
It’s .5%
Oh boy, where to begin.
For the record, I have not read whatever NYT article you are talking about, and in general I don’t read the NYT unless I absolutely have to for some reason. That said there are more falsehoods and inaccuracies here than I can deal with at the moment, but I will at least point out some things.
First of all, “if you do the math” 1 out of 200 dead is not 0.2%, it actually 0.5%, or 2.5X times the number you mention. We are not off to a good start here.
Next, the claim that people with numerous other problems were mistakenly labeled as Covid deaths is absolutely false. To the “car accident” claim, that has been repeatedly debunked as those cases where someone positive with Covid who died in cases obviously not covid related do not go into the final Covid death statistics. As to the cases with people who have comorbidities, let’s use a simple example. If someone who has a heart problem that is under control with medication gets Covid, is in the hospital due to Covid and has a heart attack due to Covid causing further heart damage, should that be counted as a Covid death? I think most reasonable people would agree that it should. Or if someone has cancer that is treatable and is being treated but gets a severe case of Covid combined with the weakened immune system dies. I think most of us would agree that Covid should at least be considered a significant cause, and therefore be counted as a Covid death. And this issue applies to many other diseases too. How often does someone die from the flu with no comorbidities? Almost never. Yet we still count flu deaths. But people like the author of this article want us to only count people who had absolutely no other comorbidities as covid deaths. And by that measure, we would also have nearly zero flu deaths ever. This is obviously absurd.
As to hospitals getting extra money, they do not get extra money for Covid deaths, or even for Covid patients. They only get extra money for Covid treatment related services provided.
Next, as to vaccines. First you make a demonstrably false claim that Pfizer’s CEO resigned. No he did not. The CFO retired, not the CEO. The CFO handles the financial side of the business and has nothing to do vaccines or medicines or their devolopment. And he retired at 63, and for very large corporations it is common for upper level management who have no chance at becoming CEO often retire between 60 and 65.
As to the “developer” of the MRNA vaccine, he is not the devloper of any vaccine. Rather he is a scientist who way back in the 1980’s did some early stage research that made a contribution to a line of research that after much further research eventually led to MRNA vaccines. To call him the developer of the MRNA vaccine is equivalent to saying Isaac Newton “developed” the Apollo Rocket.
And I can go on and on about the problems with this article.
NYT says “nearly 1 out of 200
“. So I guess I’m nearly 1 person, 3/4 of a person? 1/2 a person? Does my gender identity count as a percentage? CFO, CEO, no difference. They’re both covering up mass corruption. So the Covid payouts don’t exist? Have you read the death certificates? And how many recorded cases of the flu have there been in 20 and 21. Whatever, it clearly states its an opinion piece and I think he does get HIS main point across. It’s not like he said Newton invented the apple and the Torah is a conspiracy theory. He made his point and had me laughing to boot. But… a of you’re points are worth noting but they don’t take anything away from the gist of the post, IMHO.
I do not take any one who claims to be a statistician, like Tony Fauci “Follow the data” seriously. If I was a non-binary or trans, which BH I am not, how much of the nearly 1 out of 200 do I account for?
I can tell you that I will be scrutinizing my Verizon bill data charges. I wonder if I was non-binary would they charge me 250% more for my plan and make me get an additional line.
I remember Rav Miller ZATZAL always had a copy of the Times on his desk during a shiur. Someone asked him why. He said the Sidra is always found on page one.
Really bad take, Aharon BenDavid.
I don’t chap. I live in Jackson. I’m 61. I weigh mamish 250lbs and am 5 feet 7 inches. I read that obesity is a comorbidity. I got infected, not injected but ivermected. Thats what my nephew the doctor told me what to do besides always hocking me to lose weight. Am I counted as the nearly nearly over 95% who BH are still alive? I voted for Trump.
Wow. I shouldn’t have wasted my time reading this propaganda when it begins with the statement that included Howell Township as part of Ocean County. If your first sentence includes such a glaring error it casts doubt on the rest of your opinion.
African Americans becoming Republicans:
With Democratic Rule Some realized how dangerous their neighborhoods had become, the long term dependency and harm , the huge inflation etc But that’s less than 2% ; over 98% of African Americans still enjoy the free stuff and special privileges from the Democrats.
The high Mississippi Covid death rate were mostly African Americans.
True: Ocean County was very hard hit due to our large older population. Most were very careful but it didn’t help.
HaShem sent this Mageifa of which no one could be smart about it.
You sound like reasonable person and deserve a reasonable response. First, just as when COVID was an additional item on the patient’s medical history, it was considered a cause of death, so too should a new medication recently given be considered a cause of death, i.e. the Pfizer shot, yet that shot was NEVER considered a cause of death. Thus, there is no consistency to the “records” of casualties. Second, many death records were played with as far as cause of death to make the records look the way they wanted, even of the car accident was “debunked”. There was a famous person who died from COVID a couple of weeks after he got the pfizer shot. it was all over the news, yet I saw with my own eyes his US embassy report of US citizen death abroad stating that cause of death is unknown per the Israel ministry. clearly they didnt want to report that one from covid as it was impossible for he was vaccinated.
Next, the hospitals received extra funds for every person put on a ventilator due to COVID, or diagnosed with COVID, supposedly since it costs more to treat them. I was at a levaya and the son said that his father suffered a major heart attack and was rushed to the hospital unconscious. the usual protocol is to put the heart patient on oxygen and help him relax, but since he tested positive, the protocol changed, and they put him on a ventilator. most patients on a ventilator do not make it. The levaya was shortly after this “protocol” was followed through. Everyone is biased when it comes to money, and hospitals and coroners are not exempt from this bias. they all wanted more money and thus way overreported the diagnostics. you can ask Hatzalah members how many people were stuffed into covid wards upon arrival to a hospital with asthmatic symptoms. Although they had such attacks for years, suddenly they were from COVID and put in isolation and who knows what afterwards.
And I can go on and on.
I am in full agreement with every statement made by FrumStatistician.
Moreover, to bash the NYT for falsehoods (which the paper is truly full of), through posting one’s own lies, misstatements, and fudged math isn’t merely dishonest.
It actually shows that just as the paper quoted may twist the facts due to its political leanings, the author of this particular post is doing exactly the same, and for the very same reasons, which, in his view, makes it legitimate. If that doesn’t constitute ultimate hypocrisy, what would?
I don’t see that at all. His main point was credible and backed it up with other references and publications, despite maybe some mistakes. After all, he did say it was an OPINION.
Howell is in Monmouth County
The Ocean County Congressional District 4 includes Howell.
Perhaps that’s what the author was referring to.
The real reason for the low vaccination rate in Ocean County is the extremely high proportion of children. In Lakewood, over 50% of the population is under 18. The same applies to other heavily frum areas such as parts of Brooklyn, Rockland County, and Monroe.
Oh, and by the way, Howell is not in Ocean County.
I stand corrected on on Frank D’Amelio as CEO. in November of 2021 is said he is retiring as CFO of Pfizer after a 14-year tenure during which he played key roles in “transformative transactions” (CFO’s design strategies to increase profit margins) and he played a key role in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As far as the inventor of MRNA, Robert Malone claims to have invented mRNA technology. when Malone was a graduate student in biology in the late 1980s at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, he injected genetic material—DNA and RNA—into the cells of mice in hopes of creating a new kind of vaccine. He was the first author on a 1989 paper demonstrating how RNA could be delivered into cells using lipids, which are basically tiny globules of fat, and a co-author on a 1990 Science paper showing that if you inject pure RNA or DNA into mouse muscle cells, it can lead to the transcription of new proteins. If the same approach worked for human cells, the paper concluded, this technology “may provide alternative approaches to vaccine development.” Now he is totally against the MRNA technology used in the Covid Vaccines he is acknowledged to have invented.
Instead of debunking the NYT article, this editorial actually bolsters its premise. It shows that there is a certain demographic in this country who are delusional and live in an alternate reality.
@ 9:54
Robert Malone CLAIMS to have invented mRNA vaccine technology, in much the same way as Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. His primordial work at a lab, as a graduate student, doesn’t constitute any invention, whatsoever. While a midrash states that Noach invented the wheel, would you call him the father of the automobile? There are great many parts to a car, far more advanced than the wheel itself. Malone is NOT acknowledged to have invented this technology, except by his own self. Who cares what Malone claims; is there any evidence for his words? People claim that JFK is still around, would you post that, too?
Now, quoting such self-promoting and baseless claims, without due diligence in verification, is unbecoming of someone who wishes to post his own take on a very charged issue.
You also neglected to stand corrected on the badly mangled basic math, in your original post.
A partial correction isn’t nearly enough, as your original post is misleading in every single point.
Technically, the argument could be made that Malone was not the inventor but it is undeniable that in the late 1980s, while a graduate student researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, Malone conducted studies on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology, discovering in a landmark experiment that it was possible to transfer mRNA protected by a liposome into cultured cells to signal the information needed for the production of proteins. That is what led to the subsequent application of mRNA that meshed perfectly with anti-viral applications. There is no disagreement that his discovery was a landmark experiment.
I recently fainted when getting out of bed too fast and my wife called Hatzoloh. They took me to Jersey Shore and put me in ICU!
Next thing they put me on oxygen eventhough my pulse-ox was 97. They wheeled in an IV, stuck it in my arm for “saline” but I saw the vial and it said Remdesivir which is step one before a ventilator. I flat out refused and asked for a document I could sign that said I approved. They could not produce one. They took out the IV and put me in the hall until a regular recovery room was available. Since there is some kind of stipulation that I have to remain in the hospital for like 11 days. They moved me to Atlantic Coast Rehab to serve out my sentence to solitary confinement. I told them I was Jewish and needed kosher food. They soon put me in a huge private room with a fridge and a kosher microwave. The hospital kosher food was inedible once I got it as they kept bringing me the non-kosher stuff until I had to remind them and then wait like almost two hours. A Tzaddik from Bikur Cholim came to visit and after that I was getting food from Pannini, Mike’s, Glatt Gourmet and Yussi’s. Electric Shabbos lamp. He would come everyday and ask me what I wanted and bring me menus. That helped me get through until the insurance company basically threw me out 2 hours before Shabbos in the snow.
What color are you? It might explain your comment and who you say are “delusional”. Meanwhile Murphy just shut down the vaccine mandate. Is he now living in an alternate reality?
The NYT article is full of idiocy, and I sent a letter to the author explaining why, but I found this article to be unintelligible.
It started with the claim that 1 in 200 is .5%, and didn’t get much better afterwards.
There are a lot of holes in the NYT article, a lot of other factors which were not considered, but this article does a poor job of conveying that.
I would also like to send a letter. How can I do it?