Reported Number of Covid Cases: Fact or Hoax?

As of this writing, the reported number of cases has skyrocketed to 7,990 on March 20, 2021, with a 7-day average of 5,635, according to the JHU CSSE COVID-19 data. There was even a time reported when cases were said to have reached 8K plus in a day. Photo above by Bruno Kelzer on Unsplash.

Now some folks don't believe this. They say it's blown out of proportion. They say reports are exaggerated to scare people to:

1. Make them take the vaccine pronto.
2. Enable some sectors to get more Covid funds than they need (election time is near).
3. Force people to stay home.

Such stories are unfounded and unconfirmed, how the number of cases is supposed to be manipulated and all that. But I don't discard them easily. I listen and try to weigh things. But in the end I opt for confirmed news reports than humors. Sometimes I try to come up with my own conclusions after an analysis of facts and stories, and keep it to myself.

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Stories like first-hand experiences of friends of friends. My sister, for instance, had a college classmate who died of Covid recently. It was so fast that it seemed the classmate died just after a day or two of contracting the illness. Her symptoms were a bit different--LBM, severe back aches, flu-like weakness, fever and breathing difficulty--but her sense of smell and appetite remained intact.

My sister was still texting her one evening and she was still responding, though precariously in short replies--like she was really having a hard time. But come early morning, no replies came in. My sister learned that her classmate went to the hospital but was not admitted because the hospital was filled to capacity. So she was given oxygen at the reception area. Hours later she died.

And then after just a short while, my sister started receiving several other urgent prayer requests for the same thing--friends and their families having the same symptoms. I saw the same things on my FB wall--friends and their families suddenly catching Covid and they couldn't figure out why or how.

I mean, all of a sudden, a lot of people around me were catching it. They pop up one after another on my wall. It was not like this last year. The virus is hitting closer to home so I had to meet my clan on Zoom for re-orientation on health protocols and prayer. It's become so alarming. 

It's silly to insist at this point that there's no pandemic, that it's fake news, that the statistics are designed to scare people and get more funds, that's it's just a panic tactic or some other reasons some smart-Alecks try to come up with. I'm not also saying that we believe everything. 

What I'm saying is that Covid is real and it's a deadly killer. This much is clear. I don't care if some unscrupulous people are trying to get rich out of the pandemic or using it for strategic positioning in the coming election. Or if the media is blowing things out of proportion to keep a high rating. The true-to-life stories of real people around me are enough to see that this thing is for real and we must all be doubly careful at all cost not to catch the virus.