Five Coronavirus 'Narrative Violations'

I'm passionate about the truth. To best pursue the truth, I need to hear the best arguments from all sides before I come to a conclusion. The problems is, in today's media landscape, some strong arguments don't get the same attention as others because they don't fit a particular narrative.

To combat this, up-and-coming venture capitalist Geoff Lewis has made it his mission to hunt for "narrative violations." When Lewis led early investment in Lyft, he violated the popular narrative that "Uber would crush all competitors and win every market around the world." Now, his bet on sports media start-up The Athletic, goes against the narrative that "mass market readers are not willing to pay for written content online."

"When the pendulum swings too far, narratives become a shortcut for thinking and we shortchange our future," writes Lewis. "The most popular narratives are often accepted as truths. Yet we forget that narratives are not synonymous with truth. They can reflect what people wish were true, what would make people rich if they were true, or simply what an algorithm spits out as truly profitable."

Like Lewis, one of my core values is radical open-mindedness. That means constantly questioning popular narratives in search of hidden truths.

No topic is off-limits. No argument can be dismissed simply for being taboo.

So today I want to ask you to try something. Instead of following the popular narrative, instead of investing in the seventeenth copycat scooter startup, try thinking for yourself.

Below you will find five arguments that challenge the popular narrative surrounding Coronavirus. Don't worry, at the end of this exercise you can still invest in the scooter company, or agree with the mainstream media. I'm not here to tell you what to think, but I am encouraging you to challenge yourself. Let's get started.

1. Not Every Doctor Thinks Like Fauci

Since mid-March when "social distancing" began, many experts, including Dr. David Katz of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, have argued that we would do better to keep at-risk groups isolated while letting the rest of society operate as normal.

Appearing on the Joe Rogan Podcast, Dr. Michael Osterholm uncomfortably pointed out that "social distancing" measures were futile for Covid-19, which is more infectious than the flu.

"I always have said, 'trying to stop influenza virus transmission is like try to stop the wind.'" "You never hear anybody say in a bad seasonal flu year, 'We’re going to stop this one.' If you don’t have a vaccine that works, you don’t."

"I feel like we’re not being really honest with the people. That the data, and we’ve looked at this very carefully, really is about just breathing air, and that’s a hard thing to stop. Keep doing the hand washing, but don’t think that that’s going to stop the disease."

Even Fauci doesn't think like Fauci. After saying last week that between 100,000 - 200,000 could die, "but I don't want to be held to that," he came out today and said that after this week, the U.S. should see the “beginning of a turnaround."

2. Why Aren't Third World Countries Burning To The Ground?

This thought has been nagging at me for some time. On the one hand I hear people say that without the extreme measures we've taken our healthcare system would be overrun by hundreds of thousands of sick people. The truth is, and I've been to 41 countries, we have some of the highest quality healthcare in the world. If that's right then why haven't the poorest countries with the worst healthcare been overrun?

Bangladesh and Nigeria, both multiples denser than the United States, are reporting only a couple hundred cases each with less than ten deaths. Even if they are vastly underreporting deaths (they are), where is the one cellphone horror video, like this one from Italy. These countries are poor, but they aren't completely repressed. Something could and would get out and make it's way onto social media if this were serious.

Instead what's come out are hilarious videos, like this one of police in India whacking people with what seem to be pool noodles.

And this one of police dressing up like the virus.

3. We've Likely Underestimated The Number of People Who've Had Coronavirus By 5-10x, If Not More

Last week worldwide reported Coronavirus cases topped one million, but “the true number is probably five to 10 times that,”said Australian Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brendan Murphy.

One way to know if Dr. Murphy is right is through anti-body tests, which show who has already been infected. Those tests are starting to become available and people who had flu-like symptoms in January but have had no symptoms since, are testing positive. That either means they got sick later on and were asymptomatic, or Coronavirus had been spreading around the world for months before governments started taking severe precautions in March. If true, this means that Covid-19 is much less deadly than initially thought.

4. Many Emergency Rooms Are Less Crowded Than Usual

One LA area nurse wrote the following on Facebook:

“This doesn’t seem to be talked about at all… People are losing their shifts and paychecks and jobs,” the L.A. nurse wrote. “We only had 5 people in the whole ER when they sent me home. My agency sent out an email blast basically saying that there are a lot of people struggling to find shifts.

In Syracuse, New York, hospitals have seen a 41 percent decline in their combined number of patients. About 20 percent of the decrease is due to a decline in seasonal influenza activity, with the majority of decline due to the cancellation of elective surgery.

One hospital, Crouse, revealed it is losing $300,000 a day and another, St. Joe's, said it would furlough an undetermined number of workers. #FilmYourHospital has been trending on Twitter with posts showing videos of empty hospitals. At this point it's worth the reminder that as of this writing there are only 9,225 serious/critical cases in the United States. You couldn't fill the hospital beds if you tried.

5. How To Count Deaths

Sweden is only counting Covid-19 deaths if the victim died solely of Covid-19 and not an underlying condition. In United States we are doing the opposite. Yesterday, Dr. Birx told reporters that "if someone dies with Covid-19 we are counting that as a Covid-19 death."

Here's the bottom line, across the world Coronavirus has not turned into the pandemic it was declared to be. Sweden has refused to mandate social distancing. Brazil's leader Bolsonaro continues to downplay the virus, and South Korea, one of the densest countries on earth, flattened the curve. Today, China reopened Wuhan, where the virus began.

A final reminder...

Top Causes of Death in America in 2018 (2019 data hasn't been released yet)

1. Heart Disease - 655,381

2. Cancer - 599,274

3. Accidents/Unintentional Injuries - 167,127

4. Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease - 159,486

5. Cerebrovascular (Stroke) Diseases - 147,810

6. Alzheimer's/Dementia - 122,019

7. Diabetes - 84,946

8. Influenza/Pneumonia - 59,120

9. Kidney Disease - 51,386

10. Suicide - 48,344

U.S. Coronavirus Deaths as of this Writing: 14,463

In Serious or Critical Condition: 9,225