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In response to Flood and Cabry attacks

November 27, 2020

Just a quick response to the letters from my critics, Joanne Cabry and Don Flood, in the Cape Gazette Nov. 20.

On Nov. 10 I wrote a commentary listing six examples where in my view, the medical community, not to mention the government, do not give us a true picture of COVID-19 and its effects on our lives. Flood and Cabry pick only one of my examples to attack.

In the article, I wrote that CDC Director Robert Redfield said, “We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are from COVID.”

In the prior sentence Redfield said, “particularly in high schools” which was changed to “specifically” in a later Editor’s Note at the end of the article. Here’s how it read: “This piece has been updated to clarify that the CDC director was referring “specifically” to high school students when discussing rates of suicides vs. COVID deaths.” 

So, based on that missed adverb error in the article, I am being indicted by Cabry and Flood.

Mr. Flood farcically says, “whether through deceit or willful carelessness, ( I ) preferred the alarmist narrative.” 

And, Ms. Cabry follows saying that I, “distort facts and context…submits...misinformation and lies of omission.” 

Nonsense. 

Mr. Flood adds that, “the U.S. recorded 48,344 suicides in 2018” and deceptively compares that to the 250,000 who have died from COVID-19 in 2020 (two years later!) to prove his faux “gotcha” point that my claim was to him “complete bunk.” 

As a side note, he conveniently leaves out that there were, “at least 1.4 million (suicide) attempts in 2018” which, if even partially successful, could have easily swollen the total well beyond 250,000.  

But, credit Flood for, at least, admitting that, “Students ages 15-19 do die less often from COVID-19 than suicide.” But, he suggests no solutions like to keep the schools open to reduce anxiety and depression, and to have counselors available rather than have kids holed up in their bedrooms. 

In reality though, we probably won’t have actual 2020 suicide numbers for several years. But, Dr. Hansen at John Muir Medical Center in California said, in the same July 2020 article, that the facility had, “seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks...what I have seen recently, I have never seen before.” A nurse at the facility said, “I have never seen so much intentional injury.” 

Flood’s and Cabry’s magnified hyperbole, plus the fact that they don’t even mention my point about the Johns Hopkins study, led by Dr. Martin Makary, and other studies that show between 250,000 to 440,000 people die “annually” from medical errors is the real bunk. COVID-19 is not the entire story.

Geary Foertsch
Rehoboth
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