By Michael Hernandez
NEWBURY PARK—”What we know medically, is that 99.5 to 99.7 percent of individuals exposed to COVID-19 have little or no symptoms,” said Dr. Daniel Erickson, co-owner of Accelerated Urgent Care in Bakersfield on Saturday’s Fireside Chat. “USC and Stanford University which are research institutions back our data.
“Show me the data, so we can reason together. I have talked to the greatest minds I could find around the world and what they say is ‘be sensible, do what you would do with the flu, and carry on with your lives.’ I applaud Sweden for what they did.
“I would love to see the science that shows kids should stay home. They are at home based on an academic model that is wildly inaccurate. We should (do policy) based on scientific principles and not academic models.”
Dr. Daniel Erickson and his business partner, Dr. Artin Massihi, are best known for their 52-minute April press conference where they shared their results of testing 5,213 COVID-19 Kern County tests in which 340 (6.5 percent) tested positive. Their April 24 press conference which aired on the local ABC affiliate (KERO) went viral with over 4.3 million views before YouTube took the video down without explanation.
(Editor’s Note: To view the 52-minute press conference see Channel 23 link:
At the time of the news conference, Accelerated Urgent Care had tested over half of all COVID-19 testing in Kern County. According to their data, the death rate of the coronavirus is similar in prevalence to the flu.
“Now that we have the facts,” said Dr. Erickson. “It’s time to get back to work.” Dr. Erickson said he believed businesses could reopen and as testing continues, people could start going back to work. He said that staying at home too long could be even worse for people’s health.
Four days after being posted on YouTube and receiving millions of views, 23ABC received an email from YouTube giving the station notification the video had been taken down, citing YouTube’s “community guidelines.”
When 23ABC reached out to YouTube for more of an explanation, a YouTube spokesperson issued a statement saying the video was pulled because the content contradicted the guidance of the local health authority. “We quickly remove flagged content that violates our Community Guidelines, including content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of local health authority recommended guidance on social distancing that may lead others to act against that guidance.
“However, content that provides sufficient educational, documentary, scientific or artistic (EDSA) context is allowed–for example, news coverage of this interview with additional context. From the very beginning of the pandemic, we’ve had clear policies against COVID-19 misinformation and are committed to continue providing timely and helpful information at this critical time.”
The press conference video which sparked debate over recommendations to lift the shelter-in-place order caught the attention of SPaceX CEO Elon Musk.
“If you look at it the content of it is contrary to what most members of the medical community are saying about COVID-19” said Dr. Joseph Russomanno, a mass communication law professor at Arizona State University in a follow-up interview by the Kern County ABC affiliate.
The television station reported that in a 2017 federal court case involving conservative non-profit PragerU versus YouTube, the video-sharing platform contended that the First Amendment should not dictate how they moderate content on their platform. The court ruled in favor of YouTube and removed PragerU videos that were made with a conservative perspective.
Dr. Erickson was criticized for the projection of Kern County data to all of California and to the nation. “I only had raw data and I was given facts to our local community. We were talking to Bakersfield but when we went on Facebook live it took off. It became the number one trending topic in California for two-to-three weeks.”
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) released a joint statement which accused the Accelerated Urgent Care doctors of “attention seeking to further their careers” but didn’t actually refute their arguments.
Dr. Erickson’s response to being censored and being attacked by other medical professionals: “Anytime you push against the grain, you are going to have people who don’t like it. You can’t debate the facts (because people are) not comfortable using logic. We should not label each other or silence (viewpoints). Let’s have logical discussion about the facts. Let’s reason together. Let’s come back with solutions to get America back on its feet.”
Michael Hernandez, Co-Founder of the Citizens Journal—Ventura County’s online news service; editor of the History Makers Report and founder of History Makers International—a community nonprofit serving youth and families in Ventura County, is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor. He worked 25 years as a middle school teacher in Monrovia and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. Mr. Hernandez can be contacted by email at [email protected].
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Google Sweden Covid. Here is a sample
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/sweden-to-start-lockdowns-worlds-22864690
The is article is dated May. These Bakersfield hydrochlorquine touting jokers have been proven wrong and are quite stale now
The Bakersfield Docs estimated about 6.5% positivity in March. Now 8 months later, California is in the same ballpark. ie 3% as of yesterday.
Chew on this Mike and Citizen Reporter
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2767980
https://weinbergerlab.github.io/excess_pi_covid/
Sorry Sue but a real medical reference isn’t going to dissuade the believers of fake news.
Mike seems to be a believer in fake news.
Yeah, if you believe USC and Stanford to be “fake news,”
In this case they really are. Remember though it is coming only from a tiny minority of people who work there. Not the institutions.
The 152k death toll figure is unproven and very suspect. The U.S. COVID-19 death toll numbers are inflated, and the cause of death criterion for case definition are not precise to begin with.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/29/us_covid-19_death_toll_is_inflated.html#! gives the other side of the story:
“The CDC currently puts the number of confirmed deaths at about 100,000. But even the “best estimate” 0.26% fatality rate is a significant overestimate because of how the CDC is counting deaths. The actual rate is fairly close to a recent bad year for the seasonal flu. And though public health officials have been transparent about how they are counting coronavirus deaths, the implications for calculating the infection fatality rate are not appreciated.
“The case definition is very simplistic,” Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of Illinois Department of Public Health, explains. “It means, at the time of death, it was a COVID positive diagnosis. That means, that if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means, technically even if you died of [a] clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death.”
And moreso here:
“There are financial incentives that might make a difference for hospitals and doctors. The CARES Act adds a 20% premium for COVID-19 Medicare patients. Birx and others are also concerned that the CDC’s “antiquated” accounting system is double-counting cases and inflating mortality and case counts “by as much as 25%.” When all these anomalies are added up, it becomes apparent that we simply don’t have an accurate death toll from this new coronavirus. But it seems clear that the correct rate is just a little worse than the rate for the 2017-2018 flu.”
The flu kills 50-60k yearly. Covid has already killed 152k and the year is not up.
Numbers wouldn’t be that high if the general public could get the very safe and effective HCQ protocol. Many would still be alive. I am a HCQ survivor that now has lung damage that is irreversable. The medical field offers no hope and is suppressing drugs and information because of an election. People are dying and the powers that be are lying.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32458969/
The bureaucrats, state governors and political agents of media influence who are exercising the power (without the authority) to deceive millions of healthy Americans into quarantining themselves, favor scientists’ opinions over scientific evidence.
Since the Wuhan CCP COVID-19 was first detected in the United States, still more people have died of the Flu in the US.
Yet there is still NO side-by-side chart comparing Flu deaths vs. COVID-19 deaths in the US. It goes unpublished and unreported. Yet the Flu kills an average of 50-60,000 people in the US yearly!
To the contrary. Pretty sure RealClear Politics is a conservative web site. Please review.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/country/united-states/
Even a problem for the people withn “little or no” symptoms:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/27/covid19-concerns-about-lasting-heart-damage/
One week after attending a Trump rally he came down with it:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/30/conservative-firebrand-herman-cain-dies-after-battle-with-coronavirus/
It is sickening to keep reading these quack stories about how Covid is no big deal.
How in the world does attending a rally mean he got sick at it? It doesn’t. The news is hearsay at best. They don’t say that he is from Henry County GA where there is a huge wave of Covid19. He likely contracted in his home town of Stockbridge, GA before or after he was at the rally in Tulsa.
The news doesn’t say anything about who else at the Tulsa rally got it. The story is conjecture.
Have you watched the video above? Read any studies or whitepapers on HCQ and covid? There is a lot of science behinde it. Two fake studies were just retracted. All epidemiologists aready know that HCQ works on SARS. When the news touts “Experts disagree”, you know your being fed a line of bull. Who are the real quacks here? The Experts the media puts forth.
Covid would not be a big deal if they would release and prescribe the one simple drug protocol that absolutely works. If you get Covid19 as I had, you’ll wish you had some HCQ early on…before you end up on a ventilator and one foot in a coffin. Herman Cain would be alive today if he did.
The rest of the story. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/20/stanford-researcher-says-coronavirus-isnt-as-fatal-as-we-thought-critics-say-hes-missing-the-point/
Did no one listen to their data about other parts of the U.S. , Sweden, Norway? 2018 saw 640,000 deaths for the flu throughout the world. Goggle facts about diseases people.
wow, typical con, failed math and science 101
try 34,200 deaths for the 2018 – 2019 flu season, you are adding too many zeros crack pot.
I agree with Eva’s comment above about Dr. Dan Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi.
Since their press conference back on April 22nd, Dr. Erickson noted that the death rate in California was .03% from Covid-19 Today (July 11) it’s .02% (even lower). Yes people are getting sick, some are dying and lots have also recovered too.
Although it seems like the media, the WHO and CDC don’t ever talk about those who have recovered.
To date none of my friends, my relatives, or myself know anyone that has been or is infected. As a matter of fact, not even a friend of a friend of an aunt of a stranger…just saying.
The symptoms today that the health experts refer to as having the Coronavirus infection. We grew up knowing these symptoms to be a cold or very, very bad flu.
It’s also not common practice for sick people to go around coughing, sneezing or hacking on other people. We stayed home until we got better.
You quarantine the sick not lock down the healthy.
Here are some sane, honest, rational and brave men who can still think for themselves. how refreshingly rare! They make the world a better place. Thank you!
too bad their thinking is quack science.
show me the data
Where is the Data? The only thing we get is Covid data (there’s an election in November…is it accurate? Its sure to change afterwards) Can you readily pull up DATA (not news flash “data”) on non-covid deaths or infections? If you can, where is it in the news? ALL we hear is two things: Trump and Covid. That is not news. You cannot beat two drums 24/7 and not drown out other instruments.
I welcome other voices, facts and alternative positions.
There is plenty of Data on the net, but its #80+ down the line in organic google searches. The first 79 is what google wants you to see first. The news giants and social media giants have zero credibility with me.
Each day that passes shows these doctors were correct. The states that have lifted the lockdown have seen no significant increases in deaths.
Re:
“When 23ABC reached out to YouTube for more of an explanation, a YouTube spokesperson issued a statement saying the video was pulled because the content contradicted the guidance of the local health authority. “We quickly remove flagged content that violates our Community Guidelines, including content that explicitly disputes the efficacy of local health authority recommended guidance on social distancing that may lead others to act against that guidance”
Wow. Just wow. And YouTube and their phony “fact checking” fronts, which include farces like SPLC, get to decide what these are. Using this “logic,” most of the major medical discoveries, and many other discoveries, which were at odds with current conventional thought, would have been suppressed. I’m not saying this article is right or wrong, but all ideas should see the light of day so that people may evaluate them.
So “community guidelines” are now whatever establishment beliefs are. That’s a ticket back to the middle ages.
52 minute “press conference?” 52 minutes of quacking.
Fortunately 99.5 to 99.7 percent of individuals exposed to this quack have little or no symptoms of the ignorance to believe him. Medical societies and local health officials have completely disavowed anything regarding this genius. The nicest thing I’ve read about this guy and his partner from fellow professionals refers to them as the “two dudes from Bakersfield.”