Michael Fumento

Source: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

“A Second Wave of Coronavirus Is Coming.” So warned the Grey Lady recently. As well as many other outlets, adding that we might expect further waves, nay tsunamis, even after that. What, wait! When did the first wave end?

Well, it didn’t. In fact, the first wave is rolling back. [U.S. deaths continue on the downswing](file:///C%3A/Users/jerry/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/AX4TRFGL/But%20in%20fact,%20often%20per%20both%20CDC%20and%20WHO%20guidelines%20not%20even%20a%20positive%20coronavirus%20test%20is%20required.%20(After%20all,%20as%20the%20WHO%20documentation%20states%20The%20primary%20goal%20is%20to%20identify%20all%20deaths%20due%20to%20COVID-19.) since their peak at about 5,000 on April 16 and are now well below 1,000. So whence this wave? Cases. Yes, cases have ticked up slightly recently. But how can deaths and ICU cases be dropping, yet overall cases are going up?

Because testing is going up. U.S. testing is absolutely soaring with 1.52 tests per thousand compared to 1.23 just a month earlier, according to the Our World in Data Website. By comparison, tests in the U.K. have dropped over the same period and are now just two-thirds the American rate. So a good thing, that we’re getting a better handle on where the virus is spreading, is converted into a bad thing. Similarly, it’s thought that all of us at all times have malignant cancer cells that usually are killed by the body’s immune system; but nobody would say a cancerous cell equals cancer. But with COVID-19, even the WHO admits 80% of cases are nearly or entirely asymptomatic.

Hence, articles with a national focus have such headlines as, “Surging U.S. Virus Cases Raise Fear That Progress Is Slipping,” meaning infections and not case in any realistic sense. And then for states that have also gotten more aggressive with testing you get such headlines as “Colorado’s COVID-19 Cases Rose Last Week For First Time Since April.”

And inevitably the media ignore rising testing in favor of the explanation they presumed from the start, as with “Alarming Rise in Coronavirus Cases as States Roll Back Lockdowns.” It’s merely synchronous. They were convinced through confirmation bias or whatever that lifting lockdowns would lead to increased cases and their bias has been seemingly confirmed.

Thus they break another common tenet, favoring death data over incidence data. But as with cancer cells, for COVID-19 the rules change. It’s confirmation bias, clickbait bias, a desire to make states lock down again for various reasons including saving face over their alarmism, the left’s inherent belief that government can do everything better than individuals exercising freedom, a desire to permanently expand the welfare state, and hoping that both direct impact from virus and keeping the economy tanked until at least November will clobber President Trump and the GOP.

What’s not to like?