Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Sort of unrelated but I would note that the suicide rate going up in America has been, at minimum, a 10+ year trend. If it's gone up again in 2020, that would be fitting a long-term pattern and isn't JUST because of covid. Moreover if heart attacks, and car crashes, and accidents, and suicide were really causing most of the excess deaths and being misattributed to covid, you would expect sharp decreases in deaths by those causes in the official statistics. That hasn't happened. Nor has the official number of flu deaths dropped precipitously -- it was about the same as usual.

https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/

[CGVT]

Sort of unrelated but I would note that the suicide rate going up in America has been, at minimum, a 10+ year trend. If it's gone up again in 2020, that would be fitting a long-term pattern and isn't JUST because of covid. Moreover if heart attacks, and car crashes, and accidents, and suicide were really causing most of the excess deaths and being misattributed to covid, you would expect sharp decreases in deaths by those causes in the official statistics. That hasn't happened. Nor has the official number of flu deaths dropped precipitously -- it was about the same as usual.

https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/

Yeah, the Covid isn't/wasn't killing people argument doesn't hold water.

[iam416]

Whether the masks make a difference or not, they cost almost nothing to wear. So, do it.

We understand it more. We understand where high risk groups are (I think over half of Ohio’s deaths were at long-term care facilities—mostly from the initial blast).

We understand who is low risk.

We understand better how to treat it.

We just know more. I was fine with initial 4-6 week measures. But, facts have changed since March.

Personally, I was legitimately afraid of getting it early on. Now I’d simply rather not get it. I mean, I think it would suck, so I’d really prefer not getting it. But, if I get it I’m not going to be afraid or terrified. I’ll just be reconciled to a sucky week or so. Maybe two.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Sort of unrelated but I would note that the suicide rate going up in America has been, at minimum, a 10+ year trend. If it's gone up again in 2020, that would be fitting a long-term pattern and isn't JUST because of covid. Moreover if heart attacks, and car crashes, and accidents, and suicide were really causing most of the excess deaths and being misattributed to covid, you would expect sharp decreases in deaths by those causes in the official statistics. That hasn't happened. Nor has the official number of flu deaths dropped precipitously -- it was about the same as usual.

Like I said, and I think we can all agree, CFR is unreliable right now. We know that SARS_CoV-2 causes C-19. COVID is a serious disease that can cause significant illness and death. To what extent is debatable. Because it is, experts who are advising PH policy makers nationally and locally don't rely on it. The media likes to scare you with it. There are several better metrics to measure disease burden and evaluate the need for or easing of various mitigation measures.

[iam416]

What we have is a lot of excess deaths for people over 75. This is what we have.

[iam416]

All those huge case numbers in July never really led to a huge death spike. April remains the worst month by far. By far. NY remains the worst state (NJ might be higher per capita). The NE was a disaster mostly because they were first.

[Dr. Strangelove]

What we have is a lot of excess deaths for people over 75. This is what we have.

I don't dispute that at all. What I will dispute, and what crash, hanni, and others have implied, is that even a significant portion of those 75+ covid deaths didn't actually happen and were caused instead by people not showing up to elective surgery or suicide.

I'm sure not every single death ascribed to covid is indisputable. But believing something else caused all those deaths or that the deaths aren't even happening is irrational.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Also studies show suicide rates increase 35% when AA tells jokes

[Hannibal]

The "excess deaths" number is being used to make the argument that Covid-19 is actually killing way more people than has been reported. Given the attention paid to this disease and the fact that only 6% of the people in the death statistic died "of Covid" instead of "with Covid", I think that's preposterous. I confess that I don't know the exact reason for the "excess deaths", but with total deaths per capita actually down from previous years, I've got to question it. I don't believe that there is a shadow population being killed off from Covid-19 that the medical community can't identify.

[iam416]

FWIW, DSL pretty much thinks the covid numbers are accurate. So do I. So, if your point is to refute the “it’s way worse than reported” nonsense then I’m with you.

[CGVT]

Jesus. Still clinging to that "with covid" bullshit.

[crashcourse]

when you have 58k dying a week in Jan and Feb and 58 k dying in June/Julynper CDC ALL causes----wheres the excess?

and where the fok is my email for officepools.com

[crashcourse]

I will say this--I worked in a covid unit for 6 weeks--1 week on for 80 hrs 1 week off.over a 6 week period. every one of our fatalities and there were about 10 total had fatalities in their family. lady came in already lost mom dad and brother--she died too. same with another 40 yo obese female --she lost both her parents before she went. a guy lost her wife and daughter and he never woke up to hear the news thank god. every one of those stores was ventilator dependent. they got hydroxychloriquine remcyclovir and steroids--only thing that helped them was flipping them onto their stomachs what we call proning and they still died--most could never get off the ventilator --and if they did they were way to weak to survive. point is i think its genetics or immune system or they got dealt a particular harsh batch of covid when family members die like that. just like heart attack or stroke or high blood pressure or cancer --youre either fokked because of your family tree or your not. I just think its interesting that after the spike in april may we are right back to our 0.8% death rate as a country

[Dr. Strangelove]

when you have 58k dying a week in Jan and Feb and 58 k dying in June/Julynper CDC ALL causes----wheres the excess?

and where the fok is my email for officepools.com

Well, I'm not sure about how accurate the 58k figure is, but I'll say again that you're sort of answering your own question. In a normal year the total number of deaths (From all causes) are NOT evenly distributed across the year. The normal ebb and flow of deaths in the US should usually be at its highest in January and lowest in July, because diseases like flu and pneumonia take more lives in the winter months. For July to match January would suggest an unusual event of some kind.

That chart I linked to show that in the week ending April 4, the CDC estimates that in a normal year we should have had 56,800 people die. Instead we had closer to 72,500. In the week ending April 11 we should have had about 56,200 die. Instead it was closer to 79,400. And so on. Every week since then has had deaths above the 95% prediction interval (excess deaths).

You can also see there were an abnormally high number of deaths in the winter of 2017-18 as well, which is regarded as the worst flu season of the past decade if I'm not mistaken.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

[Dr. Strangelove]

Really smart move by President Deals to allow Bob Woodward to record 18 different conversations with him.