The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has just released a tranche of new data about the coronavirus.
Far and away the most interesting statement is this one:
For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.
Now, per the same document, we’ve had 161,392 deaths WITH coronavirus up to August 22nd, meaning that the virus was detected either while they were alive or at autopsy.
But only 6% of those people actually died of the coronavirus alone … meaning that we’ve had about 9,680 people who died of Coronavirus-19.
And that is a nationwide death rate of 0.003% … and a before and after difference of 17 times. (see note- AW)
As for the rest of the fatalities, on average they had two or three “co-morbidities”, other diseases that might or might not have killed them.
Note from Anthony: Willis provided the base article, I made some enhancements to the title, the body, and made a bar chart. And to clear up some confusion about the initial title number (177% which was wrong, my bad), it is now 161392/9860 = 16.67 or ~17 times.
But only 6% of those people actually died of the coronavirus alone … meaning that we’ve had about 9,680 people who died of Coronavirus-19.
*************************************************************
tell me, how does the virus alone kill?
seems to me this is more a bad data issue, respiratory failure caused by covid is technically a death WITH covid.
shows how crappy the data collection and collating has been through all of this. mostly driven by an insane death certificate/reporting criteria.
Made worse by different standards in various jurisdictions, to include nation states.
Chile counts “probable” ChiCom virus deaths, while Germany doesn’t test the dead. Many countries and subordinate jurisdictions lie.
International comparison is thus impossible, but even within countries is dicey.
Someone has COVID but dies from cancer.
COVID antibodies are present so died from COVID?
No Bry, don’t be a moron.
In Sweden, this would count as a COVID death. They measure
all deaths with Covid and not deaths caused by Covid.
Uh huh
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/data-analytics/florida-covid-19-fatalities-data-included-man-who-died-in-motorcycle-accident.html
Not at all moronic in fact ..in the UK if you tested positive for Covid and died of another cause any time after that positive result you were put into the pile of Covid deaths.
They were since scrutinised after media coverage and then amended that to a 28 day cutoff and the death toll fell by over 5,000.
Bryan A is absolutely right, only something like a trauma that is obviously unrelated wouldn’t result in a positive Covid death being counted. Cancer would still be counted, heart attack would still be counted as Covid being a contributing factor to the death.
Yes Bry, there are documented cases of COVID presences ringing up a COVID death when actual C.O.D. was from a preexisting condition. The deceased would have died despite COVID.
Sorry Andyd.
There is an old saw Andy, that goes something like this “better the world think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” It is always best not to sling epithets for fear of blow back. In other words, Don’t pee into the wind.
You should hesitate before calling someone a moron, it might just be you. The CDC is indeed listing anyone WITH covid in the total number. Over 14,000 people in the total number died of SEPSIS. Over 5,000 died from “Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning and other adverse events”. Ischemic heart disease, renal failure, and any other reason at all, it’s all apart of the total number and it’s been there for anyone to look at the whole time.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
Andyd, for an instant I thought Bryan A was just being sarcastic, then immediately (remembering how the “authorities” lie about/manipulate numbers) realized his was an honest statement and almost certainly correct.
Try getting a clue — numbers are ALWAYS manipulated by the neo-marxist media.
Arizona Public Health Director in an interview said that is anyone died within 60 days of a positive Covid-19 test it was counted as a Covid Death. She went on to say this was per CDC directives.
Adam, you are mostly correct, anyone who dies in the UK, from any cause, within 28 days of a positive Covid test, or while being treated in hospital for Covid, will be counted as a Covid death ‘for statistical purposes’. Where I believe you are in error is that even if you die from trauma, such as being knocked down by a bus, if you had a positive Covid test within 28 days, your death will be added to the Covid death statistics. The numbers are deaths with Covid not of Covid.
Correct Bryan, this is how they will bump the death numbers up to 200,000 just in time for the November election.
It’s about defeating Trump.
You need to do a very detailed analysis on this data. Died with or died from ? Did the CoVid kill or did it usher in an early death ? There are some comorbidities in the data that have been discounted against CoVid, that is to say they ushered in the death when the comorbidity was not of a nature that Co19 would have aided.
It certainly isn’t 6% and the testing at time of death appears to have been minimal.
The feds were paying for COVID19 deaths and a 3 X premium for COVID19 death plus Ventilator user. That is a whole lot of bureaucratic incentive to find COVID19 antibodies and register a died of/from the ‘rona’ federal payout.
Yes. It would seem that there is a huge difference between a Contributory cause that was the direct result of the Covid infection and a Contributory cause that was unrelated to the Covid infection. It’s a shame, but I don’t think you can distinguish between those in the data.
PCR tests pretty much suck also with high numbers of false positives produced.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
I don’t understand how you can MASSIVELY scale up testing while maintaining excellent level of purity and hygiene to avoid contaminating wells… I don’t trust these money making “labs” and their overpriced testing services.
Is there any way of distinguishing at all? If I have cancer/heart disease/diabetes and coronavirus/influenza virus hastens my demise, is that or is that not a cv/flu death? And why! Or why not?
The only “pure” CV death is one where there are no compounding factors at all and those are likely to be very rare. Age *may* be considered a compounding factor as it weakens the immune system but the healthy elderly appear to be at not much greater risk than the healthy middle-aged.
I think the important question is whether we are applying the same criteria to CV deaths as we are to influenza deaths which are currently, in the UK, outnumbering CV deaths by about four to one!
Trying to declare that anyone who has a co-morbidity did not die from COVID-19 is no more valid, than declaring that anyone with COVID-19 died from COVID-19. Both sides are pushing an agenda.
Lots of people have co-morbidities, and most of them live for decades with these co-morbidities.
Being over weight, having high blood pressure or diabetes is not a death sentence.
So, report Died WITH as a separate number from Died FROM.
You’re welcome!
The current reports don’t have that option. Reworking the entire reporting system is not a trivial task.
Mark,
While what you say is true, does it make sense to include people that are in the later stages of cancer or have other serious ailments which will likely kill them in the near future? The fact of the matter is, this is a complicated subject and to present it using a simple number is doing the public a disservice.
Let’s start with the obvious. A cancer patient tests positive, gets chemo, it goes to stage 4 he is hospitalized, and dies. Of course, ( follow the money) the hospital tests him for Cov19, gets a positive and apparently, per the CDC , he is in the died FROM Cov19 stats.
Clearly that is ludicrous.
In the stats apparently, ( see post above) 6000 Cov19 cases died from septis!
Wow, quite common for people in hospitals to die from this. ( Eliminate those.
And so on and so forth, through all the diseases that have zero direct relationship with Cov19. ( Cov19 can exasperate numerous conditions involving resipotory heart and kidneys)
So make a seperate group of numbers for those ” related” conditions that testing shows Cov19 worsened. ( For instance any penmonia death is not necessarily Cov19 related. Cov19 penmonia is a very specific lung pattern.)
Only the government could screw up statistics so badly and apparently willfully.
Just summarizing:
The records are quite clear- very few(some 0.03%) of people under 50 died solely from CoVid- meaning they caught the disease, got very sick and developed complications such as respiratory or other, and died.
For people over 65 the number of deaths goes up exponentially. Over 80 virtually everyone who contracts CoVid dies from new complications to an already complex medical history.
While the overall picture is complicated(by gov. regs and medicine) a healthy person with no critical other problems(mainly respiratory or immunology problems)) the likelyhood of dying from CoVid is small.
To complicate things slightly more, it is accepted that people with certain preconditions (e.g. lung disease, leukemia, old age) are more vulnerable to acquiring a life-threatening case of COVID-19. This implies a causal link from precondition to COVID-19. Does that not mean that the precondition is a contributing “cause” of the subsequent death via this new causal route?
This is what I gleaned from minimal reading – note that ALL data about the virus is provisional and subject to radical amendment as research progresses. Anyone who tells you that they know everything the virus does is probably exaggerating…
The virus seems very similar to standard flu viruses, but it connects onto a protein spike which is common in a lot of our cells. So, rather than infecting just one part of the body, it is more of a systemic virus, and can infect many different parts.
The most common infective path is through our respiratory system, where the virus can infect cells in our nasal cavities (causing you to lose smell and taste senses), and from there into the lungs. It can damage the lung lining. From there it can make its way into the bloodstream, and damage the red blood cells which carry oxygen. Less commonly, it can infect the gut, and damage digestive processes. It might be able to travel through the nervous system, get into cerebro-spiral fluid and damage nerve pathways, or the brain.
A particularly bad infection of the lungs or blood could cause your other organs to fail due to poor oxygen supply. The occasional infection of a wide variety of organs may not be suspected by a physician, and so liver or kidney failure might not be recognised until it was rather late to treat.
When the doctor does not know what is happening there are two problems germane to this thread:
1 – the patient may not be treated properly, and may die
2 – the data input to the mortality data collection process will be poor, contradictory, and of limited use for statisticians.
Excellent post.
You’ve distilled about fifty papers I’ve read into a brief, accurate summary.
Good job,
Number 1 needs to be subdivided to better understand the situation. Both apply to covid.
1 – the patient may not be treated properly, and may die
… a – the patient doesn’t receive treatments that can help (due to ignorance, political motivations, etc)
… b – the patient receives treatments that cause harm (due to ignorance, rigidity of medical orthodoxy, etc)
interesting your listing about entire body effects
today a radio item re 4 people who had transplnted organs (in aus)
all died within 2 weeks of ops and all with unusual symptoms
turned out the donor had an obscure mouse/rat/hamster carried virus
the effects of that virus were widespread and varied as is covid
it killed the donor via stroke
the recipients via sepsis fevers and brain other organs failing.
Dodgy all true, but as I posted above, this is identifiable as Cov19 related or not. Fir instance the Cov19 penmonia lung pattern damage is very specific.
So you have 3 to 4 broad categories…
1. Died from Cov19 alone. ( 6 %)
2. Died from Cov19 exasperating pre existing conditions. (?)
3. Died from other conditions not related to Cov19, but tested positive for Cov19. (?)
And perhaps 4, died from other conditions and Cov19 was fraduantly
assigned as the cause. (?)
The difference, of course, is defining the difference between dying WITH coronavirus versus dying FROM coronavirus. And I understand your concern, but at the same time …
The CDC classifies *anyone* with a positive PCR or antibody test who dies within 6 months of said test as having “died from Covid-19″—even if that person died in a suicide, homicide, car accident, myocardial infarction, stroke, aneurysm, end stage renal failure, end stage congestive heart failure, etc etc etc. (the list is longer than I care to write out.) You tell me why, exactly, the CDC has made such an ambiguous definition plausible cause for dying FROM the virus, and why *anyone* who has had contact with said positive person, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT they test positive by way of PCR or antibody testing, to be considered yet another positive case for Covid-19.
Is it possible this is a huge snow job by our government to see how complacent we sheep are?
Is it possible the huge monetary kickback for all positive cases is a perverse incentive to inflate numbers?
AZ19can you tell me where you got the info that anyone who dies 6 months later is counted as covid death? Doesn’t sound right to me.
Same deal here in the UK. If you died within 28 days of having a positive test it is counted as death from Covid.
Run over by a bus? Covid.
Fell down the stairs? Covid
Ate a dodgy curry? Covid
Plane crash? Covid
Speedboat blew up? Covid
It’s the number of deaths they report on the execrable BBC News.
It’s a scam
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths
What if you died of a heart attack consorting with a crackhouse ho? Covid?
Leave the former Mayor of DC out of this, now. 😉
And that is the new “more responsible” counting method. It didn’t used to have a time limit. Any positive test (even a with a subsequent negative test) was counted as a Covid death.
You forgot Infinite Improbability Drive mishap.
Oh NO! Not again!
A UK couple are fighting to have the death certificate of one of their parents corrected as it says that she died from Covid despite testing negative. The reason was that to save time and money there was no post mortem to determine the genuine cause of death and coroners have been told to record most cases as Covid. How you can actually make any decisions based on figures that are so distorted beats me. Still, no matter what figures we had, the morons in charge would still cause a disaster.
Over the weekend an article looked at a small Lancashire town where testing is available in the street for everyone so they can see where they stand. Good idea? Well no not really as many who test positive are asymptomatic and non-infectious so have no need to isolate or warn anyone they have had contact with but the rules say otherwise. With no financial support during isolation there is a strong incentive not to follow the rules.
Florida…Man who dies in motorcycle accident counted as Covid death
https://cbs12.com/news/local/man-who-died-in-motorcycle-crash-counted-as-covid-19-death-in-florida-report
Now come on Latitude, you can’t just ignore those Covid induced road accidents, the fact the rider tested negative is just coincidental. In other parts of the USA there have been Covid deaths due to gun shot injuries. This Covid thing is so random we have to take it seriously…..don’t we? 🙂
A nearly 100-year-old member of our church after recovering from COVID fell, hit her head, and suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage from which she died a week later. What did she die from, COVID, naturally (/sarc)
Talk to people who work in urban hospitals and you will immediately know COVID was no ordinary seasonal flu.
Correct.It is different from flu. But the Case Fatality Rates could well be similar.
Flu can be a fatal disease, you know. .
Quite simply, we need to learn to be a little more scared of the flu, for people with dangerous pre-existing conditions, and a lot less scared of the nasty Wuhan cold.
I know, right? No one thought to shove tubes down the throat of thousands of flu sufferers, whether needed or not! They let them recover instead of snuffing them out!
Also, what governor forced nursing homes to take people sick and infectious with the flu? How do you decimate a nursing home with the flu if you don’t force them to take sick people?
Good friend died of the flu this spring, was in ventilation, induced coma. He had comorbidity, but flu was what killed him.
Ventilating flu patients is rare compared to covid patients, in which it became de rigueur treatment for hypoxemic patients due to Chinese doctors claiming covid causes ARDS (which isn’t true) and fear of aerosolized virus (which mechanical ventilation was thought to minimize).
I work in urban hospitals. Aside from completely screwing up our censuses due cancellation of tests and procedures, and the idiotic over the top response to the virus I havnt seen any difference. No over crowded ICUs, mostly empty CIVID units (whole floors dedicated and modified)…just laid off health care workers because we didn’t have any patients to take care of.
Correct.
Season Flu doesn’t cause irrational panic or TicToc videos.
The only continued justification for this claim is that because WuFlu is not CommonFlu we need to arrest people on the streets, invade their homes without a warrant and enforce a curfew. Why? It’s different from the flu.
The problem with this argument is the flu is still a cause of fatalities. People die from the flu and/or flu related complications every year. And what do we do about it? Not a lot. Wash our hands. Offer flu jabs. Stay home when sick.
We do this, and basically only this because it is Not Reasonably Practicable to do more and we say that because that is how society works. There is no ‘safe’. If you actually professionally deal with ‘safety’ you actually go to great lengths to avoid the word ‘safe’ and use variations on ‘risk reduction’ because you can NEVER make something 100% safe. If you wrap someone in cotton wool they still might choke on the wool.
We do not shut down our worlds because of flu deaths for pretty much the same reason we don’t shut down all road traffic to counter road deaths. Every death is a tragedy to someone, but at some level the society has decided that rather than panic about the deaths, it is better to focus on those who are still living.
So, getting back on topic – what is it exactly that has made ‘WuFlu’ into ‘Not the Flu’ and what is the justification in the massive (and failed) social experiment that was put in place?
Note that ‘We didn’t know at the time’ is a good retrospective answer for what you did in the past, but the moment you DO know then continuing to act in the original manner makes you look pretty stupid.
Also note that attempts to guilt trip the argument by quoting ‘hard working health care professionals who are daily putting their own lives at risk’ is not helpful. Please don’t.
Craig,
For an Aorstrainyiu are pretty smart
Everybody dies from COVID, except, of course, George Floyd…
You just made my day!
Floyd tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 at autopsy and during the prolonged arrest incident told the cops that “he just had Covid”.
So by the CDC definition, Floyd did become a “Covid-19 Fatality”…though the proximal cause of death was from pulmonary edema caused by a fentanyl overdose. Some evidence exists that he ingested a 2mg “street” tablet shortly before his death. That is enough fentanyl to cause certain death. This begs the question why would street doses of 2mg even exist. That would be really bad for repeat business. Regardless, the blood levels of fentanyl were consistent with approximately twice the fatal dose.
I found this.
“COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is
assumed to have caused or contributed to death.”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf
I’m not sure if the AZ portion means Arizona. The Arizona director of Public Health said in an interview a little over a week ago that the metric was to count as a Covid death anyone that died within 60 days. Followed that up with it was following the CDC protocols
Were the ones who died strictly of covid19 on ventilators? Were the ventilators possibly at least partly to blame?
The vast majority were on mechanical ventilation (MV). MV activates the same inflammatory pathways that they blame on covid, so, yes, they were at least partly to blame, and in some number of cases solely to blame. The whistle-blowing nurse from Elmhurst Hospital in NYC described a relatively healthy 29-year-old man who was put on MV for no justifiable reason, which eventually ki!lled him. Nick Cordoba (age 41) was put on MV and got VAP, ventilator associated pneumonia, which began his downward spiral into death.
Sorry, it was Nick Cordero, not Nick Cordoba
Hi! read the test again, it isn’t written “died of the coronavirus alone…” but “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned” and COVID-19 isn’t the coronavirus (SRAS-COV-2) but coronavirus disease.
WHO : https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it
Of course COVID 19 causes deaths in people with existing ‘weaknesses’, so does influenza and many other infections, that is why we have developed flu vaccines for example. If you suffer from a heart condition (lots of people do), a lung condition (ditto) or some other condition that makes you generally more vulnerable well you are the ‘low hanging fruit’ for COVID 19. So what, without the presence of COVID you might well be able to manage your health but get infected and you are gone.
So, what? Do we just triage all such people, especially the older citizens out and say stuff it lets just party on?
The sort of do nothing hillbilly horsemanure being peddled by some here is just moronic IMO. How about you just do the lockdowns as appropriate and follow up with social distancing like responsible adults until a vaccine is available, you know, like adults? This all rights and no responsibility crap is just the stuff of petulant brats.
Your hoax concerns end where my Rights & logic begins.
NEVER OPEN UP AGAIN! NEVER LEAVE YOUR HOUSE! SOMEONE SOMEWHERE MIGHT DIE OVER SOMETHING!
Gee, so maybe China really has suffered only 4600 WuWHOFlu deaths.
Oops! I left off two zeros. Never mind.
Yes, the notion that we’ve only had 9680 deaths from Covid is nonsense.
It is reasonable to conclude that counting deaths is harder than it might seem, but you cannot simply conclude that 9680 is the right number.
If you got hit by a car, and died on the operating table, and the tests showed that you had Covid, would it be accurate to call it a death from Covid?
Of course not.
But if you had high blood pressure, contracted Covid and died, should your death be removed from the count as high blood pressure was a contributing cause?
Equally absurd.
Unless your high blood pressure is actually pulmonary hypertension. So then COVID, which would otherwise not have killed you, results in death – but which actually killed you?
But I agree with your base argument – the data is terrible, some of it was intentionally corrupted for reimbursement or other reasons, some of it was not collected. But the bottom line is no matter how you count, this seems to be not much worse than a bad flu season. Certainly not orders of magnitude worse which is what the media and government was selling. And given the threat is clearly minor to those under 60, shutting down the economy was a wrong move.
The same “is it a death” log applies to most disaster deaths. If you die during an earthquake due to a heavy bookcase falling on you, is it the earthquake’s fault? Or the contractor’s fault for not securing the bookcase? Most everyone will count that as an earthquake death.
Willis Eschenbach’s argument here is incredibly weak. A much better metric is CDC’s excess deaths. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm) If you simply see far more Americans dying than usual, a good explanation is COVID-19. Some quick math of the data suggests we’re really at 226K excess deaths.
The great part about excess deaths is it gives us an apples-to-apples comparison metric among states and even among countries. Now you don’t get biased results because one state tested far more than another, you can estimate how many have really died because COVID-19 came into the country.
Brad–226K excess? we’re only at 187,672 actual covid reported deaths–did you make a mistake or mean the world?
There have been lots of excess deaths not caused by infection from WuFlu but caused by the chaos associated with the reaction to WuFlu.
E.G. a man has heart symptoms, in 2019 he would have called the squad, been taken to an ER, had stent inserted, etc. In 2020, he won’t go to the ER because he is afraid of catching WuFlu. The heart attack kills him.
Woman with drug problems fights them off, and keeps her self clean to go to her waitress job. In the lock downs she is sitting home wtching tV and getting high. She ODs.
These show up as excess deaths. They weren’t caused by WuFlu, but they wouldn’t have happened in ordinary times.
Excess deaths compared to which baseline? Just 2019? That’s what I keep seeing reported in these articles.
Know what else is up? Suicides. Roughly 50k people die each year in the US by suicide…with 1.4M attempts! Just takes a little nudge for that to take a huge chunk of the difference between excess deaths and reported COVID deaths. Suicides have been growing pretty steadily at 1,000 more each year since the start of the century.
Delaying medical procedures and inpatient doctor visits has likely led to more deaths as well. Added stress, closed gyms, etc. I think I read even deaths from car accidents are up this year over last.
Excess deaths is a poor measure.
Excess deaths can be from the Wuhan virus, or from the response to the virus, from an outside cause of deaths such as rioting, or even from a normal year to year statistical difference.
If someone dies of a heart attack because he was afraid to go to the emergency room, that’s a excess death. If someone dies of cancer because their surgery was considered non-essential then that’s an excess death. Both are caused by the response, not the virus itself. I personally know someone who had a stroke but waited three days before going to the emergency room.
If rioting and the diversion or suppression of police cause the murder rate to double in many cities, those are excess deaths.
Whether or not a death is caused by the Wuhan virus is very subjective in many cases, or even absurd in some cases with the examples pointed out by others. The problem is not in the error itself, the problem occurs 1) when you try to compare one country to another when every country uses their own criteria as to cause of death, and 2) basing government policy on erroneous data which can cause more deaths than the virus itself.
In France we say a lot of excess death, but only after the anti Corona measures were activated, and it may well be cause and effect.
niceguy, it’s the same in the USA – there were zero excess deaths before the end of March, which is when misguided policy reactions started to be applied. (lockdowns, etc.)
Some people avoiding non-COVID related medical care and even needed surgeries stayed away from hospitals for months and died. I avoided a needed doctor visit for three months myself. Doctors, including my own, were very disappointed by this behavior to avoid COVID.
Not mine. He seemed to be happy to be wherever he was. He was dressed in a loud open-necked shirt and I heard someone yell “Fore” in the back ground. When he knocked over his daiquiri into his computer he said we’d have to pick up the conversation some other time.
Excess deaths doesn’t work either. If you have symptoms of a heart attack – but choose not to go to hospital because of the fear of catching COVID-19 and dir, you will turn up in the excess deaths count. Or don’t get treatment for cancer etc etc. An unborn child died in Australia because the mother was refused treatment at the closest hospital – because she lived across the border and border travel is restricted. There is a myriad of reasons why excess deaths cannot be attributed to COVID-19.
Careful, Young Brad.
If you look at excess deaths now, are you going to also look in say 3 or 4 months time?
If the death rate during those months actually drops below ‘par’ (for want of a better word) it would strongly suggest that COVID is actually what is sometimes known as a ‘harvester’. (ie it harvests up all those really to collect.)
This would strongly suggest that in real terms COVID has killed very few people who were not going to die anyway.
Also, Your Country May Vary. Here in Oz some commentators have in the last few days discussing the Victorian death rates based on official records from Births, Deaths and Marriages.
For those not familiar with the dystopia that is the Australian state of Victoria it is – apparently – COVID Death Central with TENS of people dying each day. It is a much discussed situation here in Australia for various reasons I am sure you can work out for yourselves.
However if you look at the official numbers the total deaths from all causes in July 2020 for Victoria was 3561. July 2019 was 4102.
Also, just to come back to the ‘it is not seasonal flu’ discussion we all seem to have, ‘Seasonal Flu’ kills between 3500 to 4000 each year (aka More than COVID) and results in 25000 to 30000 hospital cases with about 2500 of those in ICU (again, more than the Australian COVID).
So yeah, COVID is different from Seasonal Flu (which you will remember has a vaccine that is readily available and heavily promoted). Seasonal Flu is different from COVID because it is easily shown that Seasonal Flu regularly kills more people.
That the data is bad is primary problem.
Though it’s not like the data was good and became bad.
One could blame all lockdown due to bad data, one also say we needed
lockdowns because we had bad data.
And data we seems to have gotten suggest our data in the beginning was abysmal. And how bad the data was, strengthen the idea that we did need lockdowns. But a month or so after starting NYC lockdown, seemed around the point it being more about hysteria than compared to merely being cautious due to the lack of what was not known about the China virus.
It was obvious then and really quite obvious now {with hindsight] we needed to more aggressive in attempts to get out of such strict lockdown conditions. I don’t think we at this point we should have lots {thousands] of people in confined indoor space. And I don’t want to be in crowded bus, plane or train, but if less crowded, it become less of problem- if wearing masks and regularly cleaned environment.
At this point, I don’t it’s same as common flu- for me {60 years old} but if under 30 and in reasonable health, it appear less or equal to problem of common flu.
And since it’s problem, I think main aspect is we need a very available, cheap and very fast way to know {or have some clue} of whether or not you have the china virus. Such a thing would nice for common flu, but it seems a requirement for this virus at this time.
Fair point, there’s hypertension and there’s hypertension. I probably should have picked a better example, but I picked it because I have hypertension. Not serious, and with low dosage medication it’s completely controlled, but I’m sure we are on the same page. There are a lot of deaths where there are multiple contributing factors, and, for better or worse, we shy away from concluding its 40% issue a 45% issue b and 15% issue c, not to mention the obvious fact that those percentages are guesstimates at best. I’m a big fan of Willis, who has contributed enormously to this forum, but I don’t think he’s thought this through. This will be a case study for years with many facets, one of which will be the highlighting of how difficult it is to count some things.
Hmmm equally absurd, should the high blood pressure death be removed since the death was was caused by a vehicle.
Just because we have on average 650,000 deaths a year in the US from heart disease, does that mean we have increased our chances of not dying from heart disease by contracting Covid19.
Yes, but at the same time Willis points out that:
“on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.”–CDC
So the deaths weren’t just “he had high blood pressure” , he had a bunch of things wrong. Codvid did kill him but a bad case of the flu would probably have done him in. Note the “on average” which means half of them were in even worse shape.
“If you got hit by a car, and died on the operating table, and the tests showed that you had Covid, would it be accurate to call it a death from Covid?”
Florida man killed in motorcycle accident counted as Covid death
https://cbs12.com/news/local/man-who-died-in-motorcycle-crash-counted-as-covid-19-death-in-florida-report
“If you got hit by a car, and died on the operating table, and the tests showed that you had Covid, would it be accurate to call it a death from Covid?”
Florida man died in motorcycle accident counted as Covid death
https://cbs12.com/news/local/man-who-died-in-motorcycle-crash-counted-as-covid-19-death-in-florida-report
If you were to have primary hypertension which you were not treating well and stroked out due to a sky high BP and just happened to be positive for COVID then no, COVID was not a contributing factor.
“But if you had high blood pressure”
…is not a DISEASE so it can be listed as factor like one (f.ex. COVID).
Hypertension isn’t a disease?
Mine (mild, except for white-coat hypertension) went away when I switched to the high-fat diet.
I’m not everybody, but it seems it’s largely a lifestyle choice, chosen due to misinformation.
It certAinly can be a lifestyle problem. But essential hypertension can be really resistant to changes in lifestyle… it’s hard to fight genetics. Having said that, im glad you got yours under control
It isn’t that “fewer than 10,000 have died from this thing, so it’s no biggie”. It’s that the intentional hype and hysteria would evaporate if people knew the Wuhan Virus was more like a coyote than a grizzly bear. It is an opportunistic killer, picking on the weak, infirm, and frail. It is absolutely not an apex predator.
If you’re not sickly or aged, then wash your hands often and get plenty of vitamins C and D and zinc. If you get sick, stay away from sickly and aged loved ones and seek out a medical professional who isn’t a political hack suffering from TDS.
Life can be dangerous so be careful, but Life is beautiful so get out there and live it.
The million dollar question.. did the comorbidity or covid19 kill them? Seems like covid19 killed the majority of people who may have died within 12 months regardless
There’s another pathogenesis that no one seems to be focusing on, but is very significant with this disease, i.e.,- iatrogenic pathogenesis induced by mechanical ventilation.
There was significant misuse of ventilators at the start of the pandemic. If lungs are full of crud pumping air under pressure into them only worsens the symptoms. It needed to be treated more like cystic fibrosis – changing posture trying to drain the lungs – and hypoxia – lack of oxygen – that even a simple CPAP machine with 100% oxygen feed could have cured.
Agree. Where is evidence based medicine in all of this? Neighbor who is a nurse practitioner here immediately noted that sleeping/being on your stomach dramatically improved outcome. Drain those lungs.
Average age of the 9,680 dead?
Better yet, where did they live? Most likely a nursing in New York or Washington states.
Likely relatively young, as the elderly usually have multiple pre-existing conditions and thus comorbidities. If you exclude those, the average age will go down.
The elephant in the room is the co-morbidities. Politicians and pundits could demand a root cause analysis of these conditions, but … sadly … their silence is deafening.
I’m sure that the demanded an analysis, and I’m sure that they will get one.
But, given the state of t3eh data, you should expect o wait several years before any valid pronouncement can be made.
In the meantime, because people are shouting for answers, invalid pronouncements are being made by a ‘best guess’ process….
We only need to wait until after the election when the politics of the numbers won’t matter.
Good point Dr Ed.
I think the overreaction to the Wuhan Virus was mostly political, i.e. it was one in a long line of political tricks to defeat Pres. Trump.
Incidentally, Joe Biden said the demonstrations/riots would continue if Trump wins.
Perhaps the unstated converse was it Biden wins the trouble will stop. Bet on it.
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/08/31/910014/?utm_source=rsmorningbriefing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=1f9d9f53c3ce19a20d9799d5672bfb4b
god help america if he won
We will never know the real numbers, however this seems to be other end of the extreme in terms of downplaying the virus.
Agreed.
With luck there will be some forensic accounting studies. This would normally be done, however in this politicized environment who knows?
Would hospitals be required to send back their $35,000 + COVID death fees? That could be almost a billion $ in NYC area alone.
Here’s one that kinda fits and has a very interesting perspective: https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/swedens-high-covid-death-rates-among-nordics-dry-tinder-other-important-factors
This would be my suggested methodology for teasing out the approximate number of excess deaths that should be attributed to COVID-19.
Determine the baseline average death rate (deaths per million population) attributed to each co-morbidity factor over several prior years on a monthly basis (compare each month to the average for that month in prior years, because mortality data displays seasonality).
Calculate the expected number of deaths for each factor based on the historical rate per million multiplied by population in millions.
Determine the estimated number of actual deaths attributed to each co-morbidity factor by combining deaths attributed to that factor “without covid” and deaths attributed to that factor “with covid”. The death count would be adjusted to account for multiple co-morbidities as follows. If a death had two co-morbidity factors, then it counts as 1/2 a death in each category, if three co-morbidity factors it counts as 1/3 of a death in each category, etc.
Compare the expected number of deaths to actual number of deaths. There will either be excess deaths in that category or fewer than expected. If there is an excess, count those deaths as covid-related. If there is a deficit, reduce the covid-related total by that amount.
This would be done for each of the co-mobidity factors.
Once all the surpluses and deficits are netted out with the deaths that listed only covid, we should have a reasonable guess at how many excess deaths occurred because covid was in the environment.
As a check on reasonableness, also consider excess deaths from all causes. Again, looking in monthly buckets, compare the deaths per million over a 5-10 year baseline, against the actual total deaths in that month during the current year. For each month where expected deaths were less than actual deaths, the excess counts as likely-covid. If there were any months where actual deaths were less than expected, that deficit would be deducted from the likely-covid total.
The two methods should yield similar results for us to have confidence in the estimate.
The rationale for this would be that mortality from various factors this year should be similar to mortality from those factors in prior years. Whatever number of excess deaths occurred can be attributed to the factors unique to the current year. And here we would be assuming that covid-19 is the only significant unique factor.
If covid k!lls a patient who would otherwise have died from flu, it confounds our estimate, but if we understand this metric to represent the excess deaths attributable to covid-19, then that is an appropriate outcome. The person who would have died either way, is not an excess death.
At a minimum, I’d like to see the numbers of deaths with COVID with 1 comorbidity, 2, 3, etc. Then a breakdown by specific comorbidity for those interested in the details.
We will never know the real numbers, …
Exactly – this is what happens when politics is inserted into an issue.
A href=”https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm”>From CDC:
All causes: Total predicted number of excess deaths since 2/1/2020 across the United States: 183,392 – 245,305 = 213k±30.5k
All causes minus Covid: Total predicted number of excess deaths since 2/1/2020 across the United States: 29,987 – 82,049 = 56k±26k
Neglecting the uncertainties, Covid-related deaths = 213k-56k = 157k deaths
If 6% of those are directly due to Covid, and the rest involve mortal co-morbidities, then Covid-only deaths = 9.42k.
Maybe some large fraction of the co-morbid deaths were induced by the stress of Covid. Nevertheless the low fraction implies that the Covid itself has an intrinsically low fatality rate.
I do one farther. That link references predicted excess deaths, not actual. When you see the number quoted in the NYT and other publications its using a projected number not an actual number.
Recently the projections have been far overestimating. Excess fatality and Covid-19 fatality are very close to final 4 weeks into the past by CDC data. The true excess is 40k lower than the predicted at this point.
What’s been unclear to me when I’ve reviewed the CDC data in the past is which of the co-morbidities predated getting the virus, as lung problems seem to be a leading cause of death and the virus appears to cause those. But if all 94% of those dying with co-morbidities had those before contracting the virus, it would indicate this virus really does only pick off the stragglers.
The 180k figure is a considerable overcount. But this is article is extremely misleading in the OPPOSITE direction now.
6% is just the number of deaths where there was no other cause listed. But the vast majority of respiratory infection deaths should AT LEAST include “pneumonia” as a co-morbidity, since that’s usually the downstream killer. So those should be fairly counted.
Flu death counts are traditionally overstated using computer models. Why would COVID flu death counts be more accurate? Lockdowns and unemployment are increasing suicides … and people avoiding hospitals for other medical problems are dying too. Should we attribute those deaths to COVID?
I don’t know that many people but two froends suffered a lot from COVID and survived. People who got the virus and suffered more than they would have from a typical seasonal flu seem to be ignored. Only deaths matter?
Dead Lives Matter!
Provided the pneumonia was the very distinctive “ground glass” form seen with Covid-19.
Of course we’ve “known” of the overstatement of Covid19 deaths since the beginning. We’ve heard stories of how people have died from other means (a story of a motorcycle accident comes to mind), yet declared death to Covid19. Those are stories, not data.
How does one classify deaths with comorbidity being a trigger for death from those killed by the virus alone, or from those who died with the virus, not of the virus?
I’m concerned and skeptical of just about anything that comes out of the CDC right now since they’ve flipped-flopped on so many statements/directions of late. How many of these changes in what the CDC says is actually politically motivated? Which party is driving this – Republicans that want small numbers to reinforce the proper handling of the pandemic response, or the Democrats purposefully making the CDC look suspect and subject to apparent tinkering by the Trump administration?
I agree with Dmacleo that the data collection is poor – is it incompetence, indifference, produce high numbers to gain additional funding, or a effort to embarrass the administration.
Nothing can be trusted. It’s all hooey.
Mark Levin has been stating this since the beginning!
– JPP
Mark Levin is not a COVID expert.
Neither, evidently, is Dr. Fauci.
fauci…. now there’s an expert we can all put our trust in.
Is this climate science ?
No, but he was looking at the CDC guidelines for covid-19.
– JPP
No one dies from COVID-19 alone. Either it made a co-morbidity worse or the immune system overreacted with a cytokine storm. Over-active immune system is not considered a co-morbidity.
No one dies of a bullet in the heart. The cause of death is an insufficient supply of oxygen to the body 🙂
I think you’ve got the decimal point in the wrong place. An increase of 177% is not quite twice as big as what you’re comparing it to.
I think you mean 177.366 times or 17,736.6%
For everyone saying that the small number is absurd, I agree. The point is it’s no more absurd than the big number. The reality is somewhere in between. As I pointed out earlier today, per that universally recognized font of absolute truth, Wikipedia, worldwide deaths from “lower respiratory infections” were about 2.5 million in 2016 and according to Google, deaths from Covid-19 are about 800,000 now. Since those other infections include significant comorbidities with Covid-19, it seems likely that the statistics for deaths from “lower respiratory infections” for 2020 might not have moved at all, but at most have gone up by about 30% Per the CDC, the death rate in the USA has been on a downward trajectory since late July after seeing the “second wave” that everybody was so afraid of, so maybe we’ll reach a million worldwide by the end of the year. (Would anyone like to make a wager about that?)
Also per Google, 95% of people whose case has reached a final outcome (i.e. either death or recovery) survived, a statistic that is certain to be actually low, considering that many many people were never diagnosed and may not even have ever had symptoms.
A great many people treat the 800,000 deaths from Covid as some kind of huge disaster, but it’s about 1/70 of the expected deaths per year. Yes, it’s tragic to die of something that could be avoided, but you’re about as likely to die of suicide and far more likely to die of cancer or heart disease than you are of Covid-19, and it’s not clear that any of the things that people say we have to do to survive have any effect at all. I am aware of no studies, for example, that show that surgical masks do anything to block a viral infection of the surgeon from infecting the patient, and that’s kind of the example that people are following.
If only 6% of deaths were due to Covid alone, that means the prior Covid death rate was over-reported by 16.67 times = 1,667%.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm is the link to the weekly report. The tables in the report have lots of info, including lung issues contribution.
Yeah – right. WHOOPSIE!
This has been a rat-f**k right from the beginning.
Never waste a good crisis!
Big Brother is watching you…. Keep your mandated face diaper ‘on’ and stay home, you mewling non-essential workers. Your babies were crying for food you couldn’t afford to buy for them? That’s all part of ‘flattening the curve’, you low science proles!
You say they died from starvation, during the covid ‘lockdown’? Ahh HA! Another comorbidity and more covid related deaths! The lockdown must continue.
Because… science!
The question is would the person with comorbidities have died at that time if he didn’t have wuflu? You can live quite a while with high blood pressure, heart problems and diabetes but wuflu could push you over the edge. All you can say is that you have a significantly reduced chance of dying if you don’t have any of the comorbidities.
Everything you say is true. Fair enough.
Now apply this standard in exactly the same way to the annual Flu deaths, then apply this same standard to the annual pneumonia deaths. What do you think the annual death tolls will look like. Sky-high, maybe.
You see where this is going, a wholly new way to account for deaths was implemented and the numbers relentlessly compared to long standardized counts using much more modest counting guidelines.
Now for the Bonus Point.
Take your new inflated Flu deaths along with your new inflated pneumonia deaths and *sum them together* and call it “Something New”. the result is an “Instant Pandemic”.
Now do not get me wrong, here. I am not saying that all this is not real. I am saying this is how bad the numbers are. Furthermore, the counting guidelines and standards were changed constantly throughout, and were implemented in vastly different ways from region to region in the US. The data is an absolute screeching mess and no amount of analysis after the fact is going to be able to make any sense of it.
Tony, you are not only right….but exactly right
That is my point of view also. How many fatalities do we get with a normal flu season with the same standards applied? Does the CDC have that raw (untainted, un-modeled) data from the prior flu seasons? Also, the same time frame would have to be applied. I believe the normal flu season is November 1st to April 1st, then I hear they stop counting, because those are stragglers afterwards. They have a fixed starting and ending dates, much like the hurricane season. With this New Corona strain, they keep adding to the 2019/2020 season. So it would have to be an Apples-2-Apples comparison.
Regards
MikeH
Tony L
Flu deaths are always over estimated using computer models so it would be hard to believe that COVID flu deaths would not be overstated too.
Anyone who believes 9600 is the “real” number is not very bright.
161,392 / 9,680 = 16.76
So, the overestimation would be 1,576%
That 6% figure has been on the CDC website for months, at least since June. Now it’s news?
Of course its not news, the MSM has been reporting this since June.
You’ve seen it on tv, right?…yeah me neither.
The key to the Comorbidities table is this footnote:
“2 Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19, coded to ICD–10 code U07.1 ”
The CDC finally admits clearly they have been reporting “deaths with” — not “deaths from” — not only the inflated “deaths with confirmed” Covid but “deaths with… presumed” Covid.
If it coulda, mighta, or “looks it it coulda been” Covid, they have been manically counting and reporting tit to the press as a Covid-19 Death — over a hundred thousand of them — most of them actually from other causes.
Hansen, not a very good comment. Flu kills a small percentage of infected people indirectly, mainly through pneumonia and sepsis from pneumonia. The two exceptions were SARS1 with a 10 percent death rate and MERS with a 35 percent death rate.
The flu death count had always been a CDC computer model wild guess. There is no reason to believe SARS2 death counts are more accurate. And no reason to believe there is a government conspiracy to overstate flu deaths. The bureaucracy ALWAYS overstates flu deaths.
If you are implying 9600 is the “right” number, then you must be drinking more than usual.
Just because a small percentage of SAR2 deaths were people with no KNOWN other medical problems … does not mean they really had no other medical problems. People may have high blood pressure witjout knowing it. People could have diabetes for years without knowing it. Lots of older people have high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and other medical problems. Often theu are being controlled, to some extent, with drugs. If they catch the flu and die, their death is blamed on the flu. The actual cause of death was probably pneumonia.
The CDC does not have a list of names of actual patients whose death was blamed on flu. They have a computer model that estimates flu deaths, possibly as a percentage of people who die from pneumonia. Doctors say their flu death estimates are ovetstated but the CDC does not care. I expect SARS2 deaths will be overstated too. But the “real” number is not 9600 — only a fool would believe that.
The pandemic is still in progress so death counts are still increasing. More important is that although it seems that 99.9 percent of SARS2 infected people will survive, it seems a lot of people will suffer more than they would have suffered with a typical seasonal flu, yet they survive. Those in the ICU who survive may have permanently damaged lungs. SARS2 is no ordinary flu.
1918 flu death counts that killed my grandmother when in her 20s may gave had even worse death estimates. Pretty much evrtyone who died of pneumonia was counted as a flu death. Viral pneumonia or bacterial pneumonia, it didn’t matter which. All blamed on the flu.
Mosh supposes to know by now, who the real criminals are, in plain consideration of crimes against humanity.
As per the COVID-19 clause.
It is black in white evidence… there for all to see… clearly.
In the whole human history especially in consideration of the modern industrial age, there never was a cause or a clause of total block achieved in and towards the health care system, even in the meaning of national scale… let alone global.
Still in 2020 the criminals achieved to cause a proper block of the entire health care system in global scale, for at very least in the expansion of 2 to 3 months, globally.
When globally the human herd was subjected to enduring and get through only in reliance of heard immunity, alone.
Zero, nilch, zilch support from the health care system at large, globally, as that one totally blocked due to the global lockdowns.
Criminal beyond criminal, as it wholly organized and intentional, as it happened.
Justifying the killing of the world, by and through the proclaimed means of saving it.
The remedy and solution offered and applied, far much worst and incredibly more poisonous then the projected risk of the situation in hand.
Simple,
there never happened to be anywhere in human history, as far as known,
that a full decapitation of the role and duty of a health care system, of any kind or form and shape, ever being there,
enacted by the will of a few… in power.
Criminal beyond criminal.
Mosh???!!!
cheers
Willis, a sincere question: How are deaths from seasonal flu counted? Wouldn’t it seem reasonable to count SARS-Cov2 deaths the same way?
Flu deaths are estimated.
Scarlet
Influenza deaths are grossly over estimated using computer models. There is no list of patients whose cause of death is listed as “influenza” … who usually die from pneumonia to be more specific.
I’m not getting the 177% overestimate math. If you’re saying the correct number is 9680 (that’s a dubious claim), then the reported number of 161392 would have overestimated by 1567%. If the true number was 100, and it was estimated to be 200, that would be a 100% overestimate.
fixed, my bad – Anthony
This is absurd. The most reliable estimate of the effect of covid19 comes from excess deaths And this exceeds
the official 180 000 or so in the US : https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
dk… and then you have to recorrect in coming years because those with comorbidities that were killed by the virus now will reduce the future all-causes death rate. Say the virus took anyone who otherwise would have died of their other illnesses in the next 3 -5yrs.
Yes but last year excess death ran low, it would be coorect to assume a good number of this years excess deaths would have happen any way. That the problem with this whole assorted affair.
And remove the suicides and in home deaths due to the lockdown?
I have said this before, and will again… All you can do is compare the number of deaths per month in the past with the number of deaths experienced now. You can try to adjust for fewer deaths by accident from insurance data. This kind of data can be compared between countries as it is so basic. If Spain has a rise in death rate this year over the past 10 previous years (as a percentage of their population) then you can be fairly certain what caused most of it.
All you will get out is that there has been a rise in deaths, and the rise is correlated with Covid-19. Whether or not you already had some disease really is not the point, it’s whether you would have lived additional time without Covid-19.
Anyone who at this point thinks Covid-19 does not kill people should join the AGW activists – they too can’t process simple facts. Covid-19 is HIGHLY contagious, kills at a higher rate than most Flu viruses, and there is no preexisting immunity. As we become more familiar with the virus, the death rate should continue to decrease (treatments improve). It was disappointing the summer weather did not appear to slow it down. It is just a matter of time before vaccines become widely available and then people who think the disease is no big deal can choose to not get the vaccine.
I WILL be getting the vaccine when available, along with my Flu shot. I can process facts – while not hugely effective the Flu vaccines can at least reduce the odds of death by Flu and usually reduce the symptoms if not prevent an infection.
Robert of TX: One might get significant numbers on HCQ with a forensic analysis of death rates around certain times where certain states banned use of it. I am amazed that trials were discontinued that could have provided definitive data on its use.
First off, it appears that there IS pre-existing immunity. Tests have shown people with T-cells that defend against the virus, probably from an earlier coronavirus infection. I’ve read that no place has shown up with more than 20% positive tests (excluding some local mistakes). That includes the Diamond Princess where pretty much everybody was exposed to the virus.
Secondly, nobody claims that the Wuhan virus is not deadly, so that’s a nonsense statement.
As far as co-morbidity is concerned, there is much that hasn’t been said. Take for example “hypertension.” This is listed as a co-morbidity. But does that include the people who are successfully treated and do fine on blood pressure tests, or just those who aren’t helped by the meds or go untreated?
My blood pressure is in very good range, but might not be if I stopped taking Lisinopril.
One thing the data shows us is that the virus is much less deadly if one doesn’t have one of the listed co-morbidities. It is probably even less since some of that 6% will have undiagnosed co-morbidities.
Make sure you take the HCQ cocktail when you get symptoms.
If I have symptoms and test positive and the doctor won’t prescribe the “cocktail” I will sue.
Recent studies described by Dr. John Campbell suggest that HCQ alone can reduce mortality by 30% at the correct doses, but in combination with azithromycin increases mortality somewhat. Shockingly some high profile studies, including by the WHO, reportedly used excessive doses. One study shows HCQ safe at correct dose for short periods (less than one month), but risky for longer periods, suggesting that a mere doubling of the recommended dose can be risky in the short term.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzXHnUViro
I copy and pasted two links, but only one wrong link shows. Trying again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzXHnUViro&t=860s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBn4e69tGlg
Can search for 2uzXHnUViro and SBn4e69tGlg if that fails again.
By the way, Dr. John Campbell has been a bit of a darling for the left, but he’s showing his honesty here.
Ever since this disease became highly politicized–VERY early I might add–I lost trust for any accuracy regarding COVID-19 deaths under the belief that they are being significantly inflated.
It’s impossible to find clear information about the disease as you can find supposedly qualified scientists to back up nearly any contention much like happens with the social “sciences”. The only seemingly clear thing is that the aged and chronically ill are by far the most likely to have severe complications and death.
This isn’t the best way to look at it. The US through week 31 – which is not complete but close – the CDC has 156k confirmed Covid fatalities and 184k excess mortality above their expected baseline. Note this is the lowest point of the year for fatalities – if we compare to flu season the excess is only 86k. Regardless, a good portion of the excess deaths likely would not have happened without Covid-19. Some certainly are from lockdowns and attributed to Covid-19.
Now we know there are many excess deaths not accounted for – almost all of these were in March-May and mostly in the 6 NE states (NY/NJ/CT/RI/MA/PA) that account for a high proportion of total fatality. These would include cancer, overdoses, suicides and heart attack/strokes which are all running over season norms.
The CDC has a death certificate matching policy for states which does involve some inflation. Realistically the true Covid-19 fatality number – meaning if Covid were not here these people would not have died when they did – is probably between 110k and 150k. Lockdowns did the rest of the damage.
Now, most of those people died in nursing homes – where Covid-19 is a real killer. Ever the 9,000 with no comorbidity are very old regardless if they were in a nursing home. In the US, up to 110k people have died with Covid-19 in nursing homes. Some states report this data poorly; notably NY.
Hope this helps.
Take a look at Australia
Population slightly over 25 million
650 deaths from COVID-19 in 6 months.
That’s 26 deaths per 1 million over a 6 months period.
Does it make sense to shut down the whole economy?
Sounds like Climate Science “logic”.
From Australia…
Aspects of the lockdown do feel excessive, especially when you live on a border. But what we don’t know is how many deaths there would have been without it. What if we had matched Sweden? That would have meant 15,000 deaths, given Australia’s population is 2.5x Sweden’s. And the effect of that would have been social and economic problems, perhaps a later and even more severe lockdown, and lots and lots of recriminations about why we didn’t lockdown. Like, did it make any sense not to lockdown?
At least we are in a good position, with very few cases and deaths, for the economy to bounce back. And some key aspects of the economy, mining and agriculture, have been running along fine beneath the radar. Agriculture has been recovering from the big disasters of drought and fire, but with a wet La Nina season forecast, it’s looking good. Floods of course, but that’s life, just one d’md thing after another.
There are still counts of “excess” or “premature” deaths, which indicate Wuhan whatever is a bad thing to have around.
But it also shows that locking down otherwise generally healthy and formerly productive people is a bad thing to do in response.
Let’s compare the US to Swedish data. Sweden, a country of 10 million, suffered about 6,000 Covid-19 deaths. They seem to be reaching a “heard immunity” with daily cases sharp down.
I don’t know how Sweden reports Covid-19 deaths.Using the same methodology, the US should suffer about 200,000 deaths absent a better treatment (how does Sweden treat the virus?) or a vaccine. Maybe we are almost there – but there are definitely insufficient data.
George
There was not much incentive for Chinese people to fly to Sweden during the winter and airplanes were a primary way the virus spread from China.
Flights to Italy and NYC bringing in people from China explain why they were hit so hard.
Without looking at data I would guess West Virginia was not a popular destination for Chinese citizens flying into the US, compared with New York City.
Norway did well by shutting their borders.
The way epidemiologists will be able to retrospectively untangle all this will be the diminishment of natural death rates from other causes during this epidemic. The big 5 are: cancer, COPD, coronary artery disease, cerebral stroke, pneumonia. Each of these have fallen during the COVID-19 death counting.
We know most of the co-morbidities for COVID-19 risk: uncontrolled high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, immunosuppressed due to cancer treatments are probably the top 4. But a person doesn’t die from high blood pressure, the high blood pressure leads primarily to strokes and also cardiac hypertrophy. But if the person with high blood pressure dies of COVID-19 ARDS, then they won’t be around to die from a stroke or other high BP complications. So in each of the falling rates of death in these other causes, it will allow epidemiologists and health care experts to retrospectively estimate deaths from COVID alone.
By the reasoning used in this article, it would seem similarly that almost no one has ever died of AIDS. All those years of AIDS propaganda telling us how dangerous it is, when it turns out most “AIDS” patients actually die of things like the common cold!
Critical thinking, properly applied, is a beautiful thing. Improperly applied, not so much. It would behoove this site to keep its level of critical thinking above that used by the “Climate Crisis” crowd.
When I read this site I hope to see good science about the exaggerations associated with climate change. The pro-Trump nonsense and opinions about Covid 19 are not going to convert anyone. The site has lost its way.
Lol
I unfortunately tend to agree with you.
If it wasn’t for the pro Trump nonsense people you probably wouldn’t even be able to have a skeptical climate science opinion on the Internet. Does your side allow free speech anymore?
It might occur to you that belonging to a “side” is itself precisely the problem that infects the entire global warming issue. What should be a matter of hypothesis, evidence, and reason has become instead a marker of identity, and an official tribal religion.
The taking of sides is not particularly helpful. It should be as possible for a Democrat to believe that the evidence for CAGW is bunk as it is for a Republican to believe so. The idea that it is impossible to agree with the Democrats on matters of tax policy, foreign policy, etc., while simultaneously thinking that CAGW is nonsense is ridiculous. Similarly, there is no reason in the world why a person cannot both think that CAGW is nonsense and simultaneously also think that Trump is an ignorant, corrupt buffoon who has taken the wrong side on every other issue.
The cheerleading for Trump on this site , and the inclusion of “MAGA!” on seemingly every other article, unfortunately gives one the impression that this is a political issue for WUWT, rather than a purely scientific one, which in turn allows members of the competing CAGW tribe to shut their minds entirely to any and all evidence presented by skeptics.
The Democrats should be ashamed at the way in which they have bullied people, including members of their own party, from expressing the reasonable view that the CAGW hypothesis is not substantiated by evidence. However, it is similarly shameful and counterproductive for skeptics to allow themselves to be seen as motivated by anything other than reason. And if people posting on this site are, in fact, primarily motivated by their personal politics rather than by dispassionate analysis, then they are likely not thinking clearly or much worth listening to.
This is “red meat” for Willis Eschenbach !!!
– JPP
I think what it really comes down to is the basic fact that everyone is doing it differently and that’s the problem I have.
I mean, excluding China with laughable numbers, the rest of the world isn’t counting Covid deaths like the US or rather some are and some aren’t. This leads to my other issue with this in that the media has used the US numbers to attack Trump (or not in Cuomo’s case?!) over his handling while lacking the integrity to be like “well, China’s numbers are BS, but not every country is counting deaths like us, so it’s hard to tell what’s actually true anywhere!”
All I think this really leads to is no one has any idea what’s true anymore with this and that’s more “scary”. It’s definitely not that only 6% of deaths are actual Covid deaths as I think that’s an extreme overcorrection from what we’ve been told, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the real dead from Covid number in the US is only 20-40% of what’s been reported and the other 60-80% were severe comorbidities and advanced age that just about any severe flu or pneumonia would have finished them off. Honestly, like others have said, I doubt we’ll EVER really know the truth of the REAL death toll from this, but I’m almost certain we’ll never need a vaccine for this because it’s not even necessary (for most of the world at least).
We’re talking about a virus that 50% of us are already immune to due to cross-reactivity and I guarantee we’re quite close to reaching herd immunity already even with the lockdown nonsense (at least here in the States and Sweden is quite likely just a few percent off from finishing it off there) except in Europe, South Korea, and New Zealand. Europe will probably get there as well, but SK and NZ likely won’t and they’ll require a vaccine with the latter probably not really opening including tourism (30% of their economy!) until there is one while the rest of the world is already up and running just because human immunity is wonderful
America is a country of 300 million people. If we assume people live to 100 (unlikely) that would suggest 3 million deaths per annum and tragically almost all of these are old people – specifically those who are most likely to be covid victims! So even 150,000 is 5% of the background death rate. There is an expectation that each death can be put down to a specific cause but is that really the case. Consider the car accident mentioned in posts above. A person with severe heart disease is hit by a car and dies. Cause of death – car accident but what about if that person would not have died had they not had heart disease? They did not die from the car crash and they did not die from the heart disease, they died from the combination of the two. Both together caused the death and that I suspect is the case with the majority of Covid deaths. So how to estimate the true impact of Covid?
Seems to me the best way is to look at total death rate over the last 9 months and compare it with similar periods in previous years. How much higher is the death rate in the last 9 months and what is the standard deviation on death rates. Normally proof of an impact is taken as at least 2 standard deviations from the mean but even if we use simply 1 standard deviation, is the death rate more than 1 standard deviation above the period average? If not, how significant is it really?
No doubt some will consider such an analysis callous in the extreme, cold comfort to people who have lost a loved one. Yes at one level it is but there are times when one has to balance one evil against another. Agonising over each death can become a barrier to seeing the best path out of a quagmire that cannot be entirely avoided.
i cant even bother and will never be posting anything on this site anymore I made my anti lockdown views very clear and was told to take a hike/ And i wont either on Jo novas or Mocktons and the incredible ignorant Mosh and all his debunked climate crap that AWUT seems to allow for his incredible ignorant views on hydroxychloroquine and world temperatures re Berkely. I have to say that Jo anne nova should be held responsible for any suicides and deaths not related to covid in Australia as she has been pushing the lockdown scenario full on without any knowledge about viruses but I note that she has stopped publishing anything about the viruses lately so she is forgiven as she has realized that she may be held respoinsible indirectly for quarantine deaths. I would strongly recommendt that this site and other not make any staements about the coronaviruses and stick to climate as Mr Watts is a Meteorologist and not a expert in Viruses whereas I am. cheers and enjoy life while you can. But of course Mr Watts you may continue to publish whatever you want about coronaviruses cheers
Whoa Eliza
I am with you 100% on the lockdown. It’s been crazy stuff. But blaming individuals for the fallout is not right.
These people are terrified. You dont get it, I dont get it. But the fact is, they are sh!t scared
I didn’t tell you to take I hike. I enjoy your opinion. I agree that Mockton admonished anyone who disagreed with him. Mosh…well he is entertaining
Eliza there is nothing in your long comment that even suggest you are a virus expert. If you are such an expert I wish you would have left us with a brief summary of your advice. We all realize the COVID pandemic is still in progress so there are no COVID experts yet … but there are virus experts in the world.
Lockdowns made sense for sick people, and idolatong very vulnerable elderly retired people. Lockdowns for young people and children is not backed by science. Even the six foot social distancing is not backed by science. The use of masks is backed by science simply to reduce the spray distance when an infected person sneezes or coughs. Not a great benefit but better than not wearing a mask. Seeing others wearing masks reminds me to social distance. If people think wearing masks means social distancing is not required, they are fools.
I’ve told Eliza I have a degree in Microbiology with two prizes, and was also published in a peer reviewed medical journal on genetic research. None of which proves anything other than that Eliza is aggressive, impervious to any polite personal replies or evidence, and utterly wrong.
I have and will continue to do my best on the Covid pandemic, sorry if it’s not what some people want to hear. Climate believers have been trying to harrass me to stop me saying what I think for years. Doesn’t work.
I would have hoped that skeptics, of all people, could maintain a civil debate?
BTW: If I was in charge of Australian infection control we wouldn’t have needed a lockdown at all. I warned the WHO advice was wrong by Feb 3. Called for border control from Feb 9. Predicted factories and schools would close in a month on Feb 16. It was obvious what was coming. We could have avoided so much pain just by working from first principles of virology.
As for suicides: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/no-increase-to-victorian-suicide-rate-during-covid-19-pandemic-20200827-p55pr9.html
Jo Nova in 2020 has the best climate science website in the world. At first I thought there were too many COVID articles but they were high quality too.
I’ve been reading climate science artickes and studies since 1987, read over a half dozen climate websites every week, and have had my own climate science blog since 2014, with over 60,000 page views. I believe I am qualified to judge the high quality of the material on the Jo Nova website. …. Eliza is a dingbat, just ignore her.
:- ) Made my day Richard. Thank you.
The CDC has provided more data on the ‘deaths with’ versus ‘deaths from’ Wuhan virus debate. The answer is not black and white As implied here. The new ‘deaths from’ gives a CFR floor, caused indisputably by ARDS and easily diagnosable by a ‘ground glass’ lung chest Xray.
But the real number is something unknowably higher (and provably NOT total ‘with Covid-19’ deaths) where COVID-19 caused a Co-morbidity death ‘with’, but that woild not have otherwise occurred at that time, butbrather sometime (years?) later.
I personally think a lot of the diabetes, hypertension, and obesity comorbidities fall into that grey zone, since diabetes and hypertension can be controlled with drugs and obesity is seldom a cause of death per se.
Should have added, the best approximation to the ‘true’ Covid-19 number is the CDC ‘excess deaths’ data by week for years, easily available on line searching “CDC excess deaths”.
People die all the time, from old age or morbidities. There is some seasonality thanks to stuff like imperfect flu vaccines. When deaths exceed statistical expectations for a week or month, they are ‘excess’ and in 2020 certainly caused by Covid-19. I have not integrated the 2020 cumulative excess curve (the CDC version of that exercise appears mathematically funky and high based on their own charts) but eyeballing it estimates something over half of reported COVID-19 deaths. And a lot more than just ‘from without comorbidities’.
Ground glass opacities are also caused by mechanical ventilation. Here’s an example (see link). The chest x-ray on the left is a patient on conventional ventilation (AC/VC mode). The white cloudiness, or ground glass opacity, is inflammation. The photo on the right is the same patient 3 hours after the ventilator setting was changed to APRV (airway pressure relief ventilation; allows spontaneous breathing). Notice how much clearer the lungs are. All it took was a simple mode change. APRV isn’t used very much and no studies have ever been done to determine if conventional or APRV is better. But a person with covid who ends up on a ventilator will most likely be receive conventional ventilation, and severe lung inflammation as a consequence.
https://twitter.com/EPKnott/status/1298406139688779778
Here’s another example. Left, ground glass opacities on chest xray of patient on AC mode ventilation; right, same patient 24 hours later after switch to APRV mode. There’s no question that conventional ventilation produces lung inflammation and activates systemic inflammatory pathways via biotrauma. btw, APRV is similar to BiPAP.
https://twitter.com/CalHarrell/status/1298447902055047169
Most severe covid isn’t typical ARDS. It can, and does, progress to typical ARDS after mechanical ventilation, though. This intensivist calls it pseudoARDS.
ARDS vs. pseudoARDS – Failure of the Berlin definition
https://emcrit.org/pulmcrit/pseudoards/
Mr willis Eschenbach was 100 percent correct all the time
thought you were not gonna post here anymore??
Willis is clueless and so are you Eliza.There are no SARS2 experts until the pandemic is over and data are analyzed for accuracy. Not likely in 2020. Meanwhile, anyone can jump to a conclusion.
Simple numeracy; 161,392 is a 56% increase over 9,680 or “overestimate”.
The typical error is to call a new figure which is twice the original a 200% increase; it is only a 100% increase in the same way that a 0% new measure is exactly a 100% decrease.
At the risk of spoiling the fun….
I wrote my first “serious” computer code in high school – a medical billing app which I sold to a handful of doctors’ offices. Later I wrote a full claims processing app for a multispeciality practice group, and still later constructed risk-sharing contracts with BCBS on behalf of a large “IPA” … so sadly, I know the weeds in this area. Here’s what’s going on:
SARS-COV-2 doesn’t PER SE kill anybody – we don’t see organ failure, or brain death, etc from the presence of the virus itself, reproducing in the usual virus way – “hijacking” ribosomal replication inside of cells. What DOES kill is hypoxia from clogged lungs (actually, most common in Covid is clogged alveolar capillaries, not the alveolar space itself). This is caused by a surfeit of Von Willibrand’s Factor, a clotting agent released from arterial wall cells due to hyperoxidative stress, which is brought on by stearic hindrance of the ACE2 receptor by that damn virus.
In other words, it’s a “side effect” of the virus. In an analogous fashion, the HIV virus doesn’t directly kill – but it does muck up the immune system, which allows other diseases (like a common one in AIDS patients, Kaposi’s Sarcoma) to run roughshod … and THEY kill the patient.
So what’s that got to do with this data? Well, the data is Cause Of Death coding using ICD-10 diagnosis codes. What the tables at CDC show is ALL the codes cross-tabulated with “Covid” – the generic “patient is infected with SARS-COV-2” moniker. If the patient also had diabetes, that’s coded – it’s a comorbidity. If the patient also had a coronary infarction, that’s coded too. In principle there could be many codes, and it’s pretty messy, and often inconsistent across coders and standards in different areas.
Point is … what the “Covid only” category represents is incomplete coding. Here “Covid” is a Cause Of Death in the same way as “Old Age” is – nothing specific on WHAT exactly happened. Did they stop breathing (respiratory arrest)? Heart stopped (coronary infarct)? Stroke? Hypoxia due to pneumonia (a condition, not a disease per se)? It’s a MESS.
So bottom line … bad coding to “only” list Covid. There’s no code for “Dunno” but it’s not uncommon for coding to be succinct (“gunshot wound”) and not detailed (“apoxia due to blood loss”) as to the PROXIMAL cause of death. Sorry to spoil the fun … but based on my experience in the hell hole of organized quasi-governmental medical coding standards, that’s all this represents: Bad coding. Thanks.
The only problem with your ‘bad coding’ analysis is that if all of the ‘fell off ladder’ deaths went to zero
and the number of ‘hit by invisible meteorites’ went up to the ladder deaths number
you would be forgiven for thinking that one was being labelled as the other.
So its not ‘Bad Coding’ . It’s redirected coding
for example, in the UK. Flu deaths have fallen, Covid deaths have risen. But Covid deaths plus flu deaths equal what flu deaths used to be.
Good point (and the others, too … thanks guys) …
I didn’t give a fully fleshed out post cuz that would take forever … it’s such a freakin’ mess. My initial reaction was and remains mostly that – it’s a hot mess. And it’s a direct result of the coding system and lack of consistency in its application.
Covid and … Covid and … Covid and … (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCxcU-kPwho)
Anyway, yeah without greater detail on what CAUSED, as in “why did they die, describe the last minute of life … what exactly was going wrong THEN” … coding Covid and (eg) Diabetes is about as useful as coding Covid and Aquarius. Hmmm having an “air sign” yes true correct … but HOW did it “help” result in death? Was it a February birth? February was notoriously unlucky to the Romans.
Might as well say a Cause was “Motorcycle accident and Diabetes” … I suppose the Diabetes COULD result in slower reaction time and yes … studies have shown that low blood sugar OFTEN IS ASSOCIATED with misjudging corners. But if the cause was rapid deceleration … well.
It’s different with functional codes such as Respiratory Failure. At least we can picture that eh.
So the CDC table has possible-distal-cause codes mixed in with proximal-cause codes UGH.
Throw in the demographics and I agree the only real measure in the end will be Excess Deaths – and even that’s imperfect (Plato? You out there?) – the weak flu season of 2018/19 left more “canaries” around, just waiting for Covid at the bus stop. From a colleague in Sweden – their annual Excess was running hot at over 5000, but is already down close to 3000 and the bar bets are whether it will be outside a 95% noise band by year’s end. I bid a dozen ciders on NO … just for the heck of it.
Anyway, humor attempts aside … another valuable lesson to be squirmed out of by politicians – NEVER let “Experts” run the show. Seems the only truly important, vital, stop the presses and the economy, the world, and life sort of events happen in THEIR FIELD, after all … right?
Sound familiar?
ALL CAPS is just my shorthand for italics btw. Cheers all!
Flu death never meant anything. There is no widespread testing in Europe.
Flu doesn’t mean anything. It’s INFLUENZA.
In France, estimated death from influenza is 6000 to 10000 per year. Exact count is around 80 in a BAD year. That’s eighty cases not thousands.
As a rule no estimate is close to any other estimate. Nobody knows!
..just no post mortem….and no length of time in the hosp
quite a few people die suddenly….no post mortem….they are listed as covid only
JSMill, interesting comment. I suspect that, in general, I see what you are saying and I can see where, given more time to review, I may be able to be convinced by your full argument.
In view of that, and that fact that we cannot do anything about our past nationwide shutdown, do you sense — with the current incomplete comprehensive understanding of all which can be known from the available data — that our continued or any further nationwide Covid-19 shutdowns remain justified, or, that MOST LIKELY this is not the prudent to do … or, something different?
Thanks, Johnny …
I’d say based on the available data from where I’ve been consulting …BCBS in Ohio, especially the PRISON DATA (where we COULD have had fantastic insight were the Dept of Health and Prison Bureau not completely incompetent, and callously indifferent btw), CDC, Sweden, etc, etc, etc …
END ALL LOCKDOWNS NOW, tell anyone “vulnerable” GET READY … blast a “scorecard” for risk assessment on all the airwaves … be realistic. That’s a tall order – do something SIMPLE but do it well – from the clown-show of “experts” handling this whole thing. We (myself and a handful of docs) had a rudimentary scorecard in the works back in FEBRUARY, off the cruise ship data.
BTW follow up on the cruise ships found about half the elderly are asymptomatic when infected, about 90% of the young are, and kids under 14 … it bounces right off. UNLESS they’re already “sickly” eh … so to continue the insensitive language we use around the docs – all the CANARIES need to stay away from everybody else, and let it rip. Basically the plan from February.
The shutdowns were detrimental, in my estimation. Books will be written about this, of course. Question is how many will nail the correct conclusion (in my estimation): The clusterf**k that results when “we” turn to the “top minds” in pretty much any field, as authoritative – without a constant, front-of-mind, string around the finger AWARENESS of a simple fact: To them, their field is the most important thing in the whole damn world.
In other words, they’re BIASED as to the value of “solving” the problem they’ve devoted THEIR life’s work to “solving” (scare quotes cuz most are actually insoluble in an absolute sense). And so here we are, discussing what happens when this is done with an epidemic, on a forum focused on issues that have arisen due to making the same mistake with “climate change.”
Tunnel Vision … (or as the experts in psychology call it, Cognitive Bias).
We had do destroy your life in order to save it. Yeah….
On the same track, in actuality the 6% are Likely people that COVID didn’t kill, they were the ones that cause of death was unknown. The rest COVID triggered their death with actual final cause listed.
What’s most interesting to me was the 0-24 age group, 330 total died, the average flu season would be much worse for that age group, so why close schools? Because the teachers might be at risk? Then close all the supermarkets and anywhere else that people have to come in contact with others.
Come on Bob. Close the supermarkets?
Maybe we should make the supermarket workers teach school 😡
Derg
I am for that! it comes down to school teachers having too much control over the schools, why because of the unions and their contributions to political parties. public unions should never have been allowed to exist now they have warped are system and there is no turning back, unless we have school choice.
Bob,
YES … as an early advocate of the “hardcore shelter/protect the vulnerable and let it rip” aka Sweden School (after cruise ship data and especially prison data) … and the FearStream News out there blaring the apocalypse … I had to bring it up “in jest” on a call – CLOSE EVERYTHING, IT’S TOO DANGEROUS. Get the truck drivers on board to STAY HOME, and WEEAAAR A MAAAYSK … and after about three days, the Downtown Condo Karens would have been umm, motivated to listen a little more closely as to the havoc being wreaked on “nonessential” people.
/end rant/
Back to the grind …
“This is caused by a surfeit of Von Willibrand’s Factor, a clotting agent released from arterial wall cells due to hyperoxidative stress, which is brought on by stearic hindrance of the ACE2 receptor by that damn virus.”
More than likely the increase in VWF is due to barotrauma and biotrauma caused by mechanical ventilation (MV). MV causes elevated cytokine IL-6 levels which reduces serum ADAMST13, which normally cleaves VWF to control clotting. Reduced ADAMST13 results in increased clotting.
Clarification: Some of the increase, not all of the increase. Any inflammation will cause VWF to increase, so covid is likely responsible for some of the increase. But MV, best case, exacerbates the situation.
Good point, icisilc – tho I’d refine that out a bit as an “additional” factor. No MV needed to get the VWF elevation due to hyperoxidative stress due to ACE2 inhibition causing AT-11 elevation (and exacerbated by a priori oxidative stress w/ eg diabetes, cv disease, etc) … so your observation rings MANY bells and I’m going to bring it up with my key “science nerd” (his term) pulmonologist. The MV “paradox” particular to the low compliance patients … left-right shunting … I’m going to have to ask him as I’m not a clinician. But I think you’re on to something.
Why am I thinking of the old saw “The operation was a success, but the patient died” right now…? Hmmmm….
Notice how countries like the United Arab Emirates have a low COVID-19 death figure. They also have a very low percentage of the population 65 and older. This proves the folly of lockdowns when those who are younger and make up the bulk of the work force are at a very low risk. I predict that it will take a decade or two to reverse the economic damage caused by politicians and the academic experts advising them.
Yes, and Peru has one of the strictest lockdowns throughout and also is among countries with the highest death rates. Police raids on “illegal parties” have been deadly.
Canada has reported ~9500 deaths with 10% of US pop. The gov here didn’t do anything about blocking flights, etc. and until the Prime Minister’s wife contracted it. The US reacted more quickly in blocking flights from China and Europe. Certainly ‘sinistral’ US politicians had more powerful reasons for inflating deaths in the US. The real number is less than 90,000 (half earlier tallied) and probably more than 50,000 (a standard flu mortality).
It looks like Robert Kennedy Jr and his group were correct and even a tad conservative.
The CDC is over counting covid-19 deaths by 90%
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/if-covid-fatalities-were-90-2-lower-how-would-you-feel-about-schools-reopening/
So where are all the people who are not dead?
tis misattributation, you dingbat 🙂
I like the notion expressed earlier about ‘excess deaths’ being a key statistic. However, if COVID is just pushing the elderly and vulnerable with comorbidities ‘over the edge’ then we should see deaths next year under the average. If so, it will be interesting who gets credit for the reduction – incoming Democratic administration, or re-elected Trump administration. Stay tuned…
Here in Western Canada, where our local economies have been severely crippled by initial government measures to slow the spread, very few people are falling ill enough to be hospitalized. In the province of Alberta, which has a population of 4.371 million, there are currently 44 people in hospital with COVID-19, which seems like a low number for a disease that ostensibly threatens us all. What our government leaders are doing now is shouting about case numbers, which is irrational. A healthy twenty year-old who tests positive is put in the same category as an 85 year-old with emphysema, case numbers must be presented with accompanying breakdowns in the their distributions by age. Which is not being done, because it would dilute the alarm that governments still want to keep alive.
My own suspicion is that all this hysteria arose because researchers decided to base their initial predictions of the impact of the disease on extrapolations from the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. By the time it had become obvious that this idea was wrong, governments had already committed to drastic and profoundly harmful measures to suppress the spread, and could not back off and admit that they had been wrong.
How will all this end? It will just fade away, as more and more people come to realize that the severity of the disease has been misjudged, and hyped by the media. It will just go away, as more and more businesses and schools open without great harms. Unfortunately this will take at least a year.
Here’s an update of CDC data.
Not much has changed.
Start close to home, Colorado.
Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties have more Covid-19 deaths than the ENTIRE rest of the state.
That takes some kind of special (BLUE) talent.
The top ten counties for Covid-19 deaths account for 90%!!! of them.
How is Covid-19 a state-wide problem??
Six states are responsible for over half of the Covid-19 deaths. That’s more than the ENTIRE rest of the country.
That takes some kind of special (BLUE) talent.
The top ten states account for over 2/3rd of Covid-19 deaths.
In five states Covid-19 is a significant cause of death. In the other states – not so much.
How is Covid-19 a national problem???
The 75+ demographic at 58.4% accounts for more Covid-19 deaths than the entire rest of the population. Expanding to include the 65+ accounts for almost 80%. Adding the 55+ accounts for over 90%.
The 24 years and under demographic accounts for 0.02% of the Covid-19 deaths.
The young and healthy demographic is not threatened by Covid-19.
How does the data support the notion that Covid-19 is a wide-spread, highly contagious and lethal pandemic?
Answer: It doesn’t ‘cause Covid-19 is a scam-demic to assert control, trash civil liberties and push political agendas.
Blue is correct of the all the states with a per capita death rate over the us average all but 1 of 14 are democrat run states with NJ and NY being the worst at a clip 3 times or more the us average.
People in urban areas often ride on crowded trains and busses. Social distancing on many streets would be impossible. Infected people flying in from China were much more likely to land in NYC than in Idaho.
I’ve seen the responses to this information. Hasn’t made one bit of difference to the panic-mongers.
Not news – to me. I’ve been following CDC for months.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
Go there and look at their spreadsheet headers. It was there all along.
I know how much some of y’all dislike actual data/science, but I’ll press on regardless.
Here’s an update of CDC data.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nicholas-schroeder-55934820_covid19-facts-pandemic-activity-6703695406045515776-MH7Q
Not much has changed.
Start close to home, Colorado.
Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties have more Covid-19 deaths than the ENTIRE rest of the state.
That takes some kind of special (BLUE) talent.
The top ten counties for Covid-19 deaths account for 90%!!! of them.
How is Covid-19 a state-wide problem??
Six states are responsible for over half of the Covid-19 deaths. That’s more than the ENTIRE rest of the country.
That takes some kind of special (BLUE) talent.
The top ten states account for over 2/3rd of Covid-19 deaths.
In five states Covid-19 is a significant cause of death. In the other states – not so much.
How is Covid-19 a national problem???
The 75+ demographic at 58.4% accounts for more Covid-19 deaths than the entire rest of the population. Expanding to include the 65+ accounts for almost 80%. Adding the 55+ accounts for over 90%.
The 24 years and under demographic accounts for 0.02% of the Covid-19 deaths.
The young and healthy demographic is not threatened by Covid-19.
How does the data support the notion that Covid-19 is a wide-spread, highly contagious and lethal pandemic?
Answer: It doesn’t ‘cause Covid-19 is a scam-demic to assert control, trash civil liberties and push political agendas.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/we-could-open-up-again-and-forget-the-whole-thing/?fbclid=IwAR3U3Kzu9YI3OcWejpZSpuv-iH2SC378E-_qMjq4KvX43P6ZVaC0hmK_7Jk
***********
Here is/are some more CDC data.
The lying, fact free, fake news media is absolutely anal about the number of positive cases.
They don’t mention out of how many tests or which states have the most positives.
Or how many of those positives died. (175,000/10,000,000 high=1.75% or 175,000/5,000,000 lo=3.0%)
So, here is a graphic that shows those stats.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nicholas-schroeder-55934820_testing-positive-covid19-activity-6706260206831177728-Elvq
Six states have over 50% of the positive tests. Four of those states also account for most of the deaths,
The top 15 states account for over 75% of the positive tests. This includes the other two top death states.
Looks like a personal problem for those (BLUE) states and not a national problem.
O.K. snip away.
The other issue is the rules for assessing the cause of death in the USA were conveniently changed in about March this year. Prior to that the rules used, had been in place unaltered since 2003. The rule change had a massive effect on the death toll —much higher. ( I think the UK made similar changes but I stand to be corrected on that. But they are correcting their figures at the moment.)
These guys came out with similar results to the revised CDC figures.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/if-covid-fatalities-were-90-2-lower-how-would-you-feel-about-schools-reopening/
Do not forget the Italians a reanalysis of their data a couple of months ago and found only 12% of death could be directly attributable to Covid19.
Here’s a paper that mixes the climate with the coronavirus. It proposes an “intergenerational” contract between young and old.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-sustainability/article/corona-and-the-climate-a-comparison-of-two-emergencies/AE382384C616E5707064066B5065DD4E
The contract is essentially this. The young say to the old, “agree to believe and support our climate agenda – we’ll know if you’re pretending – or we’ll give you coronavirus. Change your minds and join our cause or cough spit you’re dead.”
For their common future, both generations should enter a social contract (Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen, 2011) that is based on mutual solidarity. In such a Climate Corona Contract, the younger generations would agree to protect the elderly and other at-risk groups from COVID-19 by adhering to restrictions, such as physical distancing measures. Conversely, the older generations would vow to rigorously implement measures to keep global warming between 1.5°C to 2.0°C above pre-industrial levels in line with the Paris Agreement signed by most governments.
As policy, it is immoral to scr3w the young to protect the old. The young are the future. This virus is much less visious for the young than the common HxNx flu viruses, and for that we should be thankful. I am sure my parents, if still alive, would agree with this. Your future is in your children, and to impovish them is immoral. Why bother with all the effort of raising them if you are going to scr3w them in midlife.
Fran
Given the choice of scr3wing young or old, which would you choose? But that’s not the point. The entry of “scr3w” into your argument means that you have been brainwashed (less fun). The only real changes to earth’s biosphere caused by CO2 are positive ones so far. Plant growth is being universally enhanced because of photosynthesis (Google is your friend).
Have you ever heard of ice ages? Did you ever come across mention of them on Instagram? Get this – we’re in one, right now. The earth is almost the coldest it has been in the history of multicelled life. A few degrees of warming are of no real consequence.
Reflect on the catastrophic extent of your brainwashing and mental enslavement which has brought you to the point where you can look at the biosphere and consider mild warming in an ice age and plant CO2 enrichment, in a period of mild CO2 starvation, as being “swr3wed”. You need to take quite a few steps back and think again about where you are getting your information from. Something is not necessarily true just because it is on Instagram.
The only problem with your ‘bad coding’ analysis is that if all of the ‘fell off ladder’ deaths went to zero
and the number of ‘hit by invisible meteorites’ went up to the ladder deaths number
you would be forgiven for thinking that one was being labelled as the other.
So its not ‘Bad Coding’ . It’s redirected coding
for example, in the UK. Flu deaths have fallen, Covid deaths have risen. But Covid deaths plus flu deaths equal what flu deaths used to be.
The social distancing and lockdown measures introduced for Covid have the effect of reducing flu transmission. There’s also probably been an increase in flu vaccinations (definitely the case in Australia). So a decrease in flu deaths is not surprising. But is the rise in Covid really just due to those people who would have died of flu now dying of Covid? Social distancing and sanitation (hand-washing etc) rules should have a similar effect on both diseases, and where they break down (nursing homes, some workplaces, parties) there should be a parallel increase seen in both flu and Covid, all other things being equal. All other things are not equal of course, with no vaccine for Covid and no residual population immunity (flu doesn’t really have ‘herd’ immunity because the virus changes, but we have all had some prior exposure). As others have pointed out here, it’s still too early and the data is too messy to understand what is really happening.
How COVID deaths are counter
Beware! They could be trying to lure us out of our shelters so they can seize our food!
Where can I find the “6%” quote? I didn’t see a summary
First of all, this flu disease causes a lot of suffering which is too often ignored. There are not only two categories — infectef people who died and infected peopke who did not die. A friend in her 60s was extremely sick for thtee weeks. So sick at one point she condidered suicide. She received 24 hour a day care at home from her son, a doctor, who did not trust his hospital early in the pandemic. She, a recently retired emergency room doctor, survived, but her son got COVID from her, although with less serious symptoms. Both of them were healthy people with no pre-existing medical confitions. Very few infected people will die from COVID, but many will suffer more than they would have sufferef with a typical seasonal flu
Anyone who thinks only 9600 people died from COVID and the reports of 160000 are completely wrong is an incompetent conspiracy theorist and has no idea how flu deaths are estimated … and have always been estimated.
This pandemic is still in progress so there ‘are no experts yet. Especially the author of this article.
Influenza deaths are estimated with computer models, not a list of actual people who died. Most doctors will tell you they never lost a patient to influenza, or maybe one or two. They believe official numbers are double to quadruple actual flu deaths.
One problem is too often asduming deaths from pneumonia are *flu deaths*. There are many causes of pneumonia and sometimes it is bacterial pneumonia, not a virus. And when a cancer patient gets the flu and dies, the cause of death will most likely be listed as the flu, not cancer and the flu. That’s just the way things things are done.
Deaths attributed to the flu have always been guessed using computer models and doctors believe much too high versus reality.
Most Ameticans over age 40 have one or more medical conditions. Obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes are very common. Many people don’t know they have diabetes or high blood pressure for a year or two, or even five years. For some people a fatal heart attack is the first symptom of heart disease — I lost a friend that way — in his mid 50’s with no symptoms.
Some eople who died of COVID may have had other medical conditions NOT known before they got the virus. Health status not known does not mean they wete perfectly healthy.
A lot of old people with other medical conditions got a COVID infection and died earlier than they would have died without the flu virus. To imply those deaths are not really flu deaths is wrong, and ridiculous.
Influenza in general kills mainly old people but sometimes children too. Children seem to br avoiding this flu. Whether they can spread the disease while having no symptoms is unknown, but my guess is the risk is very low, or more families with children would all be infected.
At least 44,000 excess deaths in the U.S. have not been related to COVID-19 at all. In my view, this is a direct result of the government lockdowns. My analysis here:
https://www.virtualwright.com/The_Wright_Stuff/COVID19/Entries/2020/8/13_Death_By_Government.html
Wright
An excellent link.
The deaths caused by partial lockdowns, unemployment and avoiding hospitals and doctors gets far too little attention. I’m not sure I”d blame the government for all of this because the mass media has deliberately tried to scare people, medical non-experts wild guessed a huge disaster would happen and people avoided doctors by choice, not because the government told them to. As a libertarian since 1973 I hate anything official and don’t mind blaming the state governments, even if not 100 percent true.
27 million Americans were getting state and federal unemployment benefits as of last Thursday for an implied unemployment rate of about 17 petcent, NOT the official BLS numbet.
That huge unemployment rate has to have health effects.
Good point. The media thrive on disasters and this is great for their ratings. The media and government are a big cabal. And then there are the people like Bill Gates who wants to vaccinate literally the entire planet for COVID-19. Ultimately with the goal of reducing the population. His own words.
Amazing isn’t it, how using different criteria to capture the data can drastically affect what the data indicates? What we have is a complete failure of understanding how to collect data!
So when the hospital a mile from here had refrigerated trucks in the parking lot in April because they didn’t have enough places to put all the corpses, presumably almost all those people would have died in the next year or so anyway, but they just happened to get nudged off the edge in the same few weeks by a nearly harmless little virus. So now that we know this everyone can let down their guard and take off the face masks and party on just like they did in spring break in Florida and New Orleans. Let’s just hope it’s not a politically motivated whitewash. The lady down the street didn’t look near death to me.
Was she put on a ventilator? Was she at Elmhurst?
https://news.usc.edu/168987/antibody-testing-results-covid-19-infections-los-angeles-county/
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242260406.html
New York State is conducting an antibody testing survey to develop a baseline infection rate. The preliminary results of phase two show 14.9 percent of the population have COVID-19 antibodies. The preliminary results of phase one of the state’s antibody testing survey released on April 23rd showed 13.9 percent of the population have COVID-19 antibodies.
The above is from this! https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-testing
Conclusion, instead of 6,000,000 cases (based on active virus testing) there have probably been 60,000,000 cases. 10,000/6,000,000 = 0.0167% mortality. WHICH MEANS THAT THE COMMON COLD IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN COVID 19.
Hugo son
Your conclusion that the common cold is more dangerous than COVID is embarassing.
Max,
Interesting about the the vaunted NY testing program. The article says,
You couldn’t make a quote like that up.
Your comment raises the question of the point of RT-PCR testing. If herd immunity isn’t reached until a population surpasses some threshhold of 70 – 80% exposure (or whatever), New York isn’t even close. So why are we bothering with a strategy to reach herd immunity at any cost, or paying billions of dollars for an exquisitely sensitive test that doesn’t give us results for weeks? Ninety-five percent of the “positives” being delivered by the “gold standard” RT-PCR (naso-pharyngeal) tests are of people who are already recovered and thus already knew they were sick, or else are no longer infectious. Viral shedding takes place over several weeks, but we’re only infectious for one week. But the supremely sensitive PCR tests detect even the post-infection “fragments” of the virus and declare people as positive even during their convalescence. As a public health tool such testing is worthless.
It has been demonstrated that even though we may be sick for months, we are only infectious for about one week. During that time, know it or not, we are spreaders. What is needed are cheap, fast, at-home saliva tests, taken like an at-home pregnancy test, with a paper strip that changes color, giving results in a matter of minutes. Spreaders can be identified at points of entry to various institutions in minutes. But better yet, everybody could purchase a multi-test kit from Costco, enough for, say, 14 daily tests, and test ourselves before we go to work or school. Knowing we are infectious (even asymptomatically), we take responsibility for our actions and stay home (or go to one of those clinics that so desperately wants to take care of us.)
These kind of tests should be subsidized heavily by the government so that anyone can purchase them for $1 apiece. It’s this kind of screening frequency that makes any testing program work, not the “gold standard” laboratory tests whose results you don’t see for two or three weeks. A massive government investment should be made to manufacture and distribute a simple spit test – taken in the privacy of your home, low-cost, results in 15 minutes. Because it can be self-administered daily people could take back their own lives from these intrusive testing methods that require you to be screened online and report your status to the authorities. Such antigen tests exist in small labs, and have been shown to be near 100% accurate at detecting the high viral loads of CT 32 and lower (the lower the cycle number the higher the viral load). Claims that they are not accurate are NOT ACCURATE.
Antigen tests were shut down in February by FDA because they aren’t “sensitive” enough to catch viral infections on the upswing, or on the long tail of convalescence. Trump is apparently challenging the FDA’s imperial stance on their control of laboratory developed tests (LDTs). If he can get them to promote a handfull of the best rapid-result paper spit tests for use strictly at home (without any reagents or machine readers or online screening BS), maybe some financiers will get these tests to market.
People here should watch:
Oh. That was bold of me.
Excellent
According to the CDC, during the 2018-2019 flu season, there were an estimated 34,157 deaths from influenza. For comparison purposes is there any way of telling for how many of these deaths flu “was the only cause mentioned?”
The Province of Alberta has released detailed stats all along. The corrected CDC numbers are very similar, ie 75% 3 or more co-morbidities, another 15% 2 or more. Average age of death 83.
My one and only covid post does discuss this issue. A well known anomaly in cause of death determination in the age of covid where, as in climate science, the word “could” comes in handy.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/04/03/11187/
Too much is being made of this statistic. COVID-19 is the most honest cause of death to report for most oc these cases. Therr probably is identifiable exaggeration of the numbers, but it is percentages, not a factor of 17. Please don’t exaggerate in ways that allow enemies of wuwt to dismiss wuwt.
I have questions, Willis.
Out of 161K deaths, the biggest non-respiratory/non-circulatory comorbidity was diabetes with 26k deaths.
How many people died of diabetes in the same timeframe last year?
How many people died of diabetes without Wuhan Plaguein the same timeframe this year?
How many excess deaths was that over diabetes’ normal toll?
The biggest respiratory comorbidity was flu and pneumonia, and the second biggest was repiratory failure.
Are pneumonia and respiratory failure separate diseases, or are they symptoms of the Wuhan Plague?
Likewise, how many of the circulatory hypertensive diseases were symptoms of Wuhan Plague, not separate diseases?
Until we have data on *excess* deaths, the 6% figure is propaganda.
There is a huge point to be made about those comorbidities. They might be something huge like lung cancer or COPD that might well kill the patient tomorrow in the absence of the Wuhan flu. However, they might also be something less significant like obesity or diabetes, which probably wouldnt have killed the patient the next day, or week, or year, in the absence of the Wuhan flu. A finer grained and more detailed analysis might be able to narrow it down further for a particular case, but all we can say from this data is that there is now a floor. There was always an upper estimate for deaths of COVID, but now there is a floor as well to acknowledge that some unknown number of people died “with, but not of” COVID. No amount of parsing of this CDC data is likely to narrow that window between a floor of 9,000 (or so) and a ceiling of 180,000.
What if Covid was a vaccination? Then vague previous suspected medical events, or imaginary events would be used to excuse the vaccine. When a kid becomes very sick just after a vaccination, there is always a s’pert there to find a “disease” that the kid had and that was never diagnosed, so the vaccine is innocent.
Are we going to judge Covid more severely than vaccinations? That would make zero sense.
Checkmate, Big Pharma.
I may start a list of the worst posts on WUWT.
This video is far better than almost everything above, explains what’s really going on, and won’t be a waste of time.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=4326710077404117&ref=watch_permalink
Ugh, ZDogg. That guy is irritating as hell.
Then watch Dr. Seheult explain how he fills out death certificates of Covid-19 victims.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TECf3xSFbU
This was a world wide effort to keep the greatest President in American history from getting re-elected. Only history will prove me right. It’s because the world knows it’s going to get less of our tax dollars !!!!
In these discussions one should keep clear the reason for the quarantines and face masks and distances. It may be that in the end COVID is another flu, BUT the RAPIDITY OF ITS GROWTH, as seen in the example of Lombardy in Italy, does in a few weeks what a flu season does, (even with the vaccine widely distributed), accelerates the death rate of the old and with comorbidities. And there is no vaccine yet.
The whole medical objective was to keep the health system working. With a health system flooded a lot more unnecessary deaths, unrelated to COVID would happen: accidents, heart attacks etc, and people with some years of life expectancy would die in a few days. Also I do not think an economy would survive the death of the health system in the region.
Also keep in mind that we all die. The rate of death depends on many things, though to the individual and family it makes a great difference if one dies now or in one year. A good study would be a comparison per month of deaths in the same region/country over a few years. Are there peaks in the COVID season?
Also it would be interesting to study the economy of Lombardy during the coffin in trucks time. Was it working?