On Fox News Thursday night, John MacArthur said he is planning to have church on Sunday despite the California Superior Court preliminary injunction barring indoor church. Watch:
In addition to appearing to promise to defy the court order, he again said only .01% of Californians have had COVID-19.
A statistic: One one hundredth of one percent of Californians have COVID, that’s the number and yet no one in the entire state of California is allowed to go inside a church. Doesn’t make sense.
As of September 11, California has 755,714 COVID-19 cases. With a population of just under 40-million, 1.9% of Californians have COVID-19. I have twice asked the public relations firm representing Grace for the source of MacArthur’s misinformation but with no reply.
Yesterday before his sermon, John MacArthur gained loud applause from his congregation when he announced the following news:
In truth, 6% of the deaths that have occurred can be directly attributable to COVID, 94% cannot. Of the 160,000 people that have died, 9,210 actually died from COVID.
There is no pandemic.
MacArthur may have gotten this news from his attorney Jenna Ellis, who in turn may have gotten it from Gateway Pundit.
I normally would not link to Gateway Pundit since he appears to have gone full QAnon but I will in this case because I want to demonstrate how misinformation works. Joe Hoft cites a QAnon source who claims that the CDC “quietly updated the COVID number to admit that only 6% of all the 153,504 deaths recorded actually died from COVID. That’s 9,210 deaths.”
Hoft calls his post a “Shock Report” and says the CDC “silently updated their numbers this week” implying there was something to hide or that there was something new about this week’s report. Before MacArthur told his congregation that only 6% of deaths were due to COVID, he said: “A rather telling report came out this week and for the first time, we heard the truth.”
The First Time?
In fact, there was nothing new about the findings in this report.
Via the Wayback Machine, I went back to May and found that 7% of deaths had COVID alone listed as a cause of death.
Here is the CDC comorbidity report summary for June 20 showing COVID as the only cause mentioned for 7% of the deaths.
How about July?
By July 18, the percent had dipped down to 6%. That took place the week ending July 4. That is the percent today and has been since July.
There was No Quiet CDC Admission but There is a Pandemic
Looking back over the CDC reports, these breathless QAnon reports look silly. There was no new revelation, change, or admission. Throughout the pandemic, people with underlying health vulnerabilities have died because they became infected with COVID-19. Without COVID, those people would be alive or at least would have lived longer then they did.
So much of the conspiratorial thinking is focused on the U.S. What about the rest of the world? Have all other countries been taken in by our “deep state?” Is Dr. Fauci so powerful that he can manipulate every nation on Earth to shutdown?
There is a pandemic. It is irresponsible to say otherwise. When you read the next “shock report,” remember this one, check the sources and get a second and third opinion from people who have some knowledge in research.
For a great summary of the death data, read this from Bob Anderson at the CDC.
Here's a clear statement from the CDC mortality statistics chief Bob Anderson on the actual facts about the statistic the president and others are grossly misusing: pic.twitter.com/LAXBx3ot7e
