New York City
Briand provides a graph like this for all 50 US States plus New York City, showing weekly deaths with lines of different colors for each year. The green line shows New York City's mortality from August 2019 to August 2020 which had the worst results of any region. Most states had mild or no increases in weekly peak deaths when compared to prior years, including all seven states that never issued stay-at-home orders, and many had less than in prior years. This is shown clearly by the graphs for each of these seven states, provided here with some comments under each one: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
However, the graph of New York City above shows a remarkable increase starting immediately after the WHO declaration of a pandemic which occurred almost exclusively in the very elderly and in people with fragile underlying health, over half of them in residents of long-term care facilities. New York and New Jersey had an institutionalized policy to empty hospitals, forcing people with very fragile health into unprepared and severely understaffed long-term care facilities as well as into unprepared private homes that did not have the support of home health or home hospice care.
This was the most extreme example of increased mortality of any region in the United States, and yet the city was initially praised for its strict social isolation mandates by advocates of these policies such as Anthony Fauci (Jones 2021). From a quality of life perspective the results were even worse, because most of these people, who already had a limited life expectancy, were deprived of the company of loved ones during this time. In contrast, many states that were heavily criticized for having milder social isolation mandates had much better results, showing that both quality and quantity of life can be increased together. This can be seen in the graphs and comments for South Dakota and Iowa.
New York City was infamous for its nursing home crisis, perhaps better described as a "catastrophe" with severe understaffing, and New Jersey was a close second. An excellent Wall Street Journal article in March 2021 discussed this, saying "Several governors, including Mr. Cuomo and New Jersey’s Phil Murphy, early in the pandemic required nursing homes to accept Covid patients discharged from hospitals, though many were short-staffed and unable to care for them properly." This article also points out how governors of states with the worst outcomes such as Cuomo of New York were praised by the mainstream media like a "Golden boy", and governors like DeSantis of Florida were pilloried with headlines saying he "Leads his state to the morgue". In an Orwellian reversal, Florida had better outcomes than states with severe lockdowns, news the media would not report on (Finley, 2021).
These problems in New York City and New Jersey also occurred in tens of thousands of elder care facilities across the globe, starting in March 2020, immediately after the WHO and governmental proclamation of a pandemic. A simple analysis of the evidence shows that this crisis was most likely caused by the spreading of exaggerated fears of covid-19, as was the increased mortality seen in the graph above. Rancourt et al summarize this evidence thoroughly in section 4.5, “Regarding Causes of Response-Induced Deaths” (Pages 41-46). At the top of page 43 begins an excellent summary of effects of the "unprecedented strict mass quarantine and isolation of sick and healthy elderly people" as a "main cause of the 'covid-peak' in Canada." (Page 43-46). After this section they state: “We conclude that the ‘covid-peak’ was palpably induced by the pandemic response” (Rancourt et al, Page 47). Regarding the simultaneous increases in weekly deaths occurring thousands of miles apart they state “We believe that it is not a coincidence that all the “covid peaks” started their sharp and sudden surges immediately (within 1 week or so) after the WHO’s March 2020 pronouncement of a pandemic. We believe viruses did not suddenly everywhere act on cue” (Rancourt et al 2021).
Briand provides a graph like this for all 50 US States plus New York City, showing weekly deaths with lines of different colors for each year. The green line shows New York City's mortality from August 2019 to August 2020 which had the worst results of any region. Most states had mild or no increases in weekly peak deaths when compared to prior years, including all seven states that never issued stay-at-home orders, and many had less than in prior years. This is shown clearly by the graphs for each of these seven states, provided here with some comments under each one: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
However, the graph of New York City above shows a remarkable increase starting immediately after the WHO declaration of a pandemic which occurred almost exclusively in the very elderly and in people with fragile underlying health, over half of them in residents of long-term care facilities. New York and New Jersey had an institutionalized policy to empty hospitals, forcing people with very fragile health into unprepared and severely understaffed long-term care facilities as well as into unprepared private homes that did not have the support of home health or home hospice care.
This was the most extreme example of increased mortality of any region in the United States, and yet the city was initially praised for its strict social isolation mandates by advocates of these policies such as Anthony Fauci (Jones 2021). From a quality of life perspective the results were even worse, because most of these people, who already had a limited life expectancy, were deprived of the company of loved ones during this time. In contrast, many states that were heavily criticized for having milder social isolation mandates had much better results, showing that both quality and quantity of life can be increased together. This can be seen in the graphs and comments for South Dakota and Iowa.
New York City was infamous for its nursing home crisis, perhaps better described as a "catastrophe" with severe understaffing, and New Jersey was a close second. An excellent Wall Street Journal article in March 2021 discussed this, saying "Several governors, including Mr. Cuomo and New Jersey’s Phil Murphy, early in the pandemic required nursing homes to accept Covid patients discharged from hospitals, though many were short-staffed and unable to care for them properly." This article also points out how governors of states with the worst outcomes such as Cuomo of New York were praised by the mainstream media like a "Golden boy", and governors like DeSantis of Florida were pilloried with headlines saying he "Leads his state to the morgue". In an Orwellian reversal, Florida had better outcomes than states with severe lockdowns, news the media would not report on (Finley, 2021).
These problems in New York City and New Jersey also occurred in tens of thousands of elder care facilities across the globe, starting in March 2020, immediately after the WHO and governmental proclamation of a pandemic. A simple analysis of the evidence shows that this crisis was most likely caused by the spreading of exaggerated fears of covid-19, as was the increased mortality seen in the graph above. Rancourt et al summarize this evidence thoroughly in section 4.5, “Regarding Causes of Response-Induced Deaths” (Pages 41-46). At the top of page 43 begins an excellent summary of effects of the "unprecedented strict mass quarantine and isolation of sick and healthy elderly people" as a "main cause of the 'covid-peak' in Canada." (Page 43-46). After this section they state: “We conclude that the ‘covid-peak’ was palpably induced by the pandemic response” (Rancourt et al, Page 47). Regarding the simultaneous increases in weekly deaths occurring thousands of miles apart they state “We believe that it is not a coincidence that all the “covid peaks” started their sharp and sudden surges immediately (within 1 week or so) after the WHO’s March 2020 pronouncement of a pandemic. We believe viruses did not suddenly everywhere act on cue” (Rancourt et al 2021).