Covid-19

[paulxu]

Excess deaths over a normal year since March are 200,000. Perhaps it's aliens causing the spike.

[waggy]

Even IF true doesn't mean we should all wear masks, nor shut down. All persons die.

Live your life the way you want. Holed up with your makers.

[STL_XUfan]

That page won't load, so I'll point out this. 24 million people. 7 deaths. They wear masks.
We have 13.4 times their population. Maybe we'd have had 93 deaths if we wore masks...not 214,000.
Maybe Sweden would have had 4, instead of 5,900.

https://www.worldometers.info/corona...ountry/taiwan/

You were not missing much. All the contributors to that source were identified by their twitter handles. Further the twitter feed associated with the page made it clear they were not taking an unbiased look at the data.

[paulxu]

Even IF true doesn't mean we should all wear masks, nor shut down. All persons die.

Live your life the way you want. Holed up with your makers.

Wags, I got my Makers and am well into it. Will wear mask to protect others. Can only hope they feel the same. Cheers !

[Muskie in dayton]

You were not missing much. All the contributors to that source were identified by their twitter handles. Further the twitter feed associated with the page made it clear they were not taking an unbiased look at the data.

The contributors to Rational Ground present factual information and detailed statistical analysis to refute the lies and sensationalism of the MSM. Just because it doesn’t fit your preferred narrative does not make it biased.

[principal]

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Excess deaths over a normal year since March are 200,000. Perhaps it's aliens causing the spike.

That there is a real disease killing people is beyond question. That the disease is a pandemic that requires lockdowns and social distancing is not beyond question. Here are a few important questions to ask about the excess death figure:

1. What calculation is used to determine the excess deaths? From what I have read it is comparing 2020 data to an average of the last five years. But are you aware that the number of deaths usually increases in the US from 25k to as many as 86k per year? Over the last five years (2013-2018, I could not find 2019 data), the average increase in the number of deaths in the US is 48,422. If we assume this average increase would have occurred in 2020 with or without CV19, we can take 48k from the number above, which brings the excess death number down to 152k.

Link to US death toll figures: https://247wallst.com/special-report...u-were-born-2/

2. What if the increase in deaths this year would have been on the high end, what if the US death toll would have increased by 86k, as it did between 2014 and 2015? An excess death number of 112k is significant, but not quite as significant as 200k. The question to answer is whether or not there is a way to determine what the 2020 death toll would have been without CV19? I am not sure we can possibly get at that number but some ideas as to how to get there might include looking at the increase in population - more people equals more deaths. We could also look at indicators such as the severity of the flu season going into 2020 (I recall reading it was particularly severe prior to the focus shifting to CV19). We could also consider population age, overall health, overall poverty, and whatever else is known to contribute to mortality rates.

3. How many of the excess deaths have been caused not by people being infected by the disease but by the collateral damage of the disease - postponed medical procedures, lack of access to medical care, increased poverty, increased suicides, increased homelessness, etc. These deaths should be subtracted from the excess death rate in regards to counting as CV19 infection deaths. We need to look at the increase in deaths due to heart attacks, organ failures, etc, things that may have been preventable had medical care been available. These numbers may be hard to come by because many of these deaths are being reported as CV19 deaths.

4. How many deaths were avoided due to the conditions that came about due to the lockdowns? For example, it has been stated that there have been substantially fewer road/traffic related deaths because there were fewer people on the roads. These deaths that did not occur could be added back into the total count.

The point I hope to make clear is that you cannot simply take the raw number of excess deaths and assume they are all attributable to death by CV19 infection.

Principal

[Muskie in dayton]

---

That there is a real disease killing people is beyond question. That the disease is a pandemic that requires lockdowns and social distancing is not beyond question. Here are a few important questions to ask about the excess death figure:

1. What calculation is used to determine the excess deaths? From what I have read it is comparing 2020 data to an average of the last five years. But are you aware that the number of deaths usually increases in the US from 25k to as many as 86k per year? Over the last five years (2013-2018, I could not find 2019 data), the average increase in the number of deaths in the US is 48,422. If we assume this average increase would have occurred in 2020 with or without CV19, we can take 48k from the number above, which brings the excess death number down to 152k.

Link to US death toll figures: https://247wallst.com/special-report...u-were-born-2/

2. What if the increase in deaths this year would have been on the high end, what if the US death toll would have increased by 86k, as it did between 2014 and 2015? An excess death number of 112k is significant, but not quite as significant as 200k. The question to answer is whether or not there is a way to determine what the 2020 death toll would have been without CV19? I am not sure we can possibly get at that number but some ideas as to how to get there might include looking at the increase in population - more people equals more deaths. We could also look at indicators such as the severity of the flu season going into 2020 (I recall reading it was particularly severe prior to the focus shifting to CV19). We could also consider population age, overall health, overall poverty, and whatever else is known to contribute to mortality rates.

3. How many of the excess deaths have been caused not by people being infected by the disease but by the collateral damage of the disease - postponed medical procedures, lack of access to medical care, increased poverty, increased suicides, increased homelessness, etc. These deaths should be subtracted from the excess death rate in regards to counting as CV19 infection deaths. We need to look at the increase in deaths due to heart attacks, organ failures, etc, things that may have been preventable had medical care been available. These numbers may be hard to come by because many of these deaths are being reported as CV19 deaths.

4. How many deaths were avoided due to the conditions that came about due to the lockdowns? For example, it has been stated that there have been substantially fewer road/traffic related deaths because there were fewer people on the roads. These deaths that did not occur could be added back into the total count.

The point I hope to make clear is that you cannot simply take the raw number of excess deaths and assume they are all attributable to death by CV19 infection.

Principal

Excellent questions - these are the things people need to be asking about all the numbers without context that get thrown around. The Ethical Skeptic (twitter and web page) had done extensive statistical analysis and has significant conclusions to the questions you present above. As usual, the answers lie in the middle.

[paulxu]

Principal, thanks for the well thought response.
I think you make good points about trying to get a handle on the deaths.
There are some stats that may go the other way (for example there may be lower traffic deaths in the last 6 months) but there is uncertainty in trying to get a definitive answer for sure
Overall I think we could have done a better job as some countries have demonstrated.
A coordinated national response with guidelines would have served us better (I think) than having individual states do their own.
Hopefully all this will pass with a minimum of further casualties.

[GoMuskies]

A coordinated national response with guidelines would have served us better (I think) than having individual states do their own.

Certainly true to some extent, although I also don't think it would have made any sense to have New York City and Escalante, UT (population 797 where my family went to escape the pandemic in April) playing by the same rules. Even now here in Wichita I'm thrilled that we're not subject to the same rules/restrictions as people in the Northeast.

[paulxu]

I do get that. But national responses (and most countries also have sparsely populated areas) get everyone thinking and working together to solve a common problem. Shared burden and all that.
Also, what's happening in Escalante, UT that makes it a go to place? Sounds like a good place for a basketball bubble.