Only 6% of covid-19 deaths were solely caused by it

[jalanlong]

This place has become absurd to a degree that it's actually becoming somewhat entertaining....I love how the man advocating for a private judicial system and posting bitchute articles as truth is diagnosing mental illness. There is no bridging the gap anymore I'm afraid. The kooks in this country have garbled common sense to a degree that people now protest for the government to keep their commie hands off of their Medicare.

I decided this weekend to either keep doing this or stop posting, and mentally the only way I could justify continuing is to treat it as a diversion, vs. getting mad.

Off topic----

We were riding bikes around this weekend, and passed a house that had two signs in front:

0% Socialist
100% American

Got me thinking, what % actually are we socialist and people, (even some here!), are fine with it? Are services socialist, like fire and police? Public schools, roads, parks, libraries certainly seem to be socialist as well. Social security, medicare, unemployment ditto.

I’d like to think the first examples are the most effective ways to obtain the services: fire, police ... libraries And I would add highways and military. I’m not quite so sure about social security ... unemployment. Good question.

I highly question the necessity of public libraries in 2020. University libraries perhaps. The large public library in downtown Dallas could be considered a prime example of government waste. There are virtually no people in there checking out books or doing research. The only thing it seems to be used for is homeless people to come in out of the elements and sit in front of computers to watch YouTube all day. I would definitely recommend you never visit a restroom in there.

https://www.npr.org/2017/02/07/51395789 ... e-homeless

I understand some people may applaud that as creative use of public space. But you have to admit that was not the stated purpose of having libraries and using taxpayer dollars for them lo so many years ago. But we all know once a government program gets started, it often veers off course and certainly never ends.

[doodle]

This place has become absurd to a degree that it's actually becoming somewhat entertaining....I love how the man advocating for a private judicial system and posting bitchute articles as truth is diagnosing mental illness. There is no bridging the gap anymore I'm afraid. The kooks in this country have garbled common sense to a degree that people now protest for the government to keep their commie hands off of their Medicare.

I decided this weekend to either keep doing this or stop posting, and mentally the only way I could justify continuing is to treat it as a diversion, vs. getting mad.

Off topic----

We were riding bikes around this weekend, and passed a house that had two signs in front:

0% Socialist
100% American

Got me thinking, what % actually are we socialist and people, (even some here!), are fine with it? Are services socialist, like fire and police? Public schools, roads, parks, libraries certainly seem to be socialist as well. Social security, medicare, unemployment ditto.

I’d like to think the first examples are the most effective ways to obtain the services: fire, police ... libraries And I would add highways and military. I’m not quite so sure about social security ... unemployment. Good question.

I highly question the necessity of public libraries in 2020. University libraries perhaps. The large public library in downtown Dallas could be considered a prime example of government waste. There are virtually no people in there checking out books or doing research. The only thing it seems to be used for is homeless people to come in out of the elements and sit in front of computers to watch YouTube all day. I would definitely recommend you never visit a restroom in there.

https://www.npr.org/2017/02/07/51395789 ... e-homeless

I understand some people may applaud that as creative use of public space. But you have to admit that was not the stated purpose of having libraries and using taxpayer dollars for them lo so many years ago. But we all know once a government program gets started, it often veers off course and certainly never ends.

Yes, probably time to reenvision libraries in 21st century. It's already happening though. A lot of library material is now accessible online. I do think there is a role for a public institution which provides public accessibility to literary material and information...Whether that continues on as physical buildings or further migrates to cyberspace will probably continue to evolve. Just like paper newspapers I think these vestiges of our past will probably move to different mediums in the next 20 years or so.

[jalanlong]

The programs coming out of that era I think are quite popular with Americans.

I am very sure if you passed a Universal Basic Income law today and gave every citizen $5,000 a month, pretty quickly that would be "quite popular" with Americans as well. That does not make it right to do. Nor does it make it fiscally viable.

I have yet to hear anyone from either party explain how we pay for these things in the future. Democrats think magically the 1% is going to pay for everything. Republicans have no answer at all.

According to figures from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to have a balanced budget right now you would need to tax everyone making more than $150k at an 80% tax rate. I am not saying a balanced budget is feasable or even desirable. But that gives you a starting point at how much the average American is going to have to start forking over to actually pay for these things they like so much. My son loved expensive gaming computers and high tech toys like VR sets until I made him start paying for them himself. Suddenly they were not quite a necessity any longer.

[doodle]

The programs coming out of that era I think are quite popular with Americans.

I am very sure if you passed a Universal Basic Income law today and gave every citizen $5,000 a month, pretty quickly that would be "quite popular" with Americans as well. That does not make it right to do. Nor does it make it fiscally viable.

I have yet to hear anyone from either party explain how we pay for these things in the future. Democrats think magically the 1% is going to pay for everything. Republicans have no answer at all.

According to figures from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to have a balanced budget right now you would need to tax everyone making more than $150k at an 80% tax rate. I am not saying a balanced budget is feasable or even desirable. But that gives you a starting point at how much the average American is going to have to start forking over to actually pay for these things they like so much. My son loved expensive gaming computers and high tech toys like VR sets until I made him start paying for them himself. Suddenly they were not quite a necessity any longer.

The monetary system is a bit of a mysterious animal...the answer I guess eventually is we pay for it with inflation if it's creation exceeds the productive capacity of economy. Of course, despite the insane budget deficits of the last 10 years it hasn't cropped up yet...neither in Japan who is further along in this game than we are. Anyways, who is advocating for universal basic income at this point though...although it should be pointed out that there are right wing/libertarians who have touted it's merits and the question of how capitalism continues to function in a potentially automated jobless future are good thought experiments.

[I Shrugged]

One of quickest and widest thread divergences I've noticed in a while.

[vnatale]

The programs coming out of that era I think are quite popular with Americans.

I am very sure if you passed a Universal Basic Income law today and gave every citizen $5,000 a month, pretty quickly that would be "quite popular" with Americans as well. That does not make it right to do. Nor does it make it fiscally viable.

I have yet to hear anyone from either party explain how we pay for these things in the future. Democrats think magically the 1% is going to pay for everything. Republicans have no answer at all.

According to figures from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to have a balanced budget right now you would need to tax everyone making more than $150k at an 80% tax rate. I am not saying a balanced budget is feasable or even desirable. But that gives you a starting point at how much the average American is going to have to start forking over to actually pay for these things they like so much. My son loved expensive gaming computers and high tech toys like VR sets until I made him start paying for them himself. Suddenly they were not quite a necessity any longer.

Second that!

Regarding kids.

I spent a lot of time with various kids when I was in my 30s. When we were out and about I asked them if they wanted this or that and, of course, they'd always say Yes.

At one point I reached a dilemma, asking myself, "Have I spent too much on them today?"

All of a sudden it became clear to me that at the start of the day when we were doing something, I should give them a fixed amount of money so that it was their money and their real choices to make.

I immediately saw the difference. I'd ask them if they wanted this or that and see the looks on their faces while they were thinking about how much it cost and how much money they had left and I then got a ton of, "No's."

Vinny

[Maddy]

I have a hypothetical.

--A person with high blood pressure, mid 40s, get Covid and dies. Listed as Covid plus a comorbidity.

What's the thinking behind a very large percentage of those dying from Covid having had co-morbidities? Most of these, possibly except for weight loss, can't be resolved in any reasonable timeframe.

Are we saying, hey, you had high blood pressure, too bad, you would have lived another 40 years with medication, but Covid cut that short.

But that wasn't Covid's fault? Not following the logic.

The significance, at least to me, is that people with severe comorbidities are, more often than not, train wrecks waiting to happen. If it isn't CoVid that knocks them off, it will be something else. . . and soon. The significance of this fact is that we could shut down our economy and hide under our desks for the next 30 years, and the outcome won't change in any meaningful way.

[Maddy]

That's a relief to know!. So in light of this new information I'm assuming you are going around licking door handles and breathing deeply in crowded rooms? After all, we aren't getting any younger, better to catch it sooner rather than later!

Why would you say something like this?

[Mark Leavy]

The significance, at least to me, is that people with severe comorbidities are, more often than not, train wrecks waiting to happen. If it isn't CoVid that knocks them off, it will be something else. . . and soon. The significance of this fact is that we could shut down our economy and hide under our desks for the next 30 years, and the outcome won't change in any meaningful way.

I think you nailed it, Maddy. Most of the deaths are highly correlated with metabolic syndrome or senescence. MS is entirely reversible with weight loss. Even vegans (shudder) can cure metabolic syndrome by losing weight. Senescence, well that will get you in the end no matter what. I have sympathy for those that have been misled by nutrition experts, but I don't have any sympathy at all for shutting down the world because we've made the world so fragile that a significant percentage of the population is endangered by a coronavirus. That is the real crime.

[jalanlong]

I have a hypothetical.

--A person with high blood pressure, mid 40s, get Covid and dies. Listed as Covid plus a comorbidity.

What's the thinking behind a very large percentage of those dying from Covid having had co-morbidities? Most of these, possibly except for weight loss, can't be resolved in any reasonable timeframe.

Are we saying, hey, you had high blood pressure, too bad, you would have lived another 40 years with medication, but Covid cut that short.

But that wasn't Covid's fault? Not following the logic.

The significance, at least to me, is that people with severe comorbidities are, more often than not, train wrecks waiting to happen. If it isn't CoVid that knocks them off, it will be something else. . . and soon. The significance of this fact is that we could shut down our economy and hide under our desks for the next 30 years, and the outcome won't change in any meaningful way.

I feel like the way that Covid has been covered by most media outlets implies that it is like a tsunami that is indiscriminate in its death. Hence why so many parents in my area are scared to death to send their kindergartners back to school despite numbers that say that a 5 year old's chance of getting hospitalized or dying from the virus are infinitesimal. Society then made decisions based on the fears made off of those implications.

If the news stories had been focused on telling us each and every time that 94% of people who died were elderly or had diabetes, respiratory issues etc, it is certainly possible that everyone involved would have made different decisions or at least would have had to justify shutting down a gym or preschool in a different way than they had to before. It is a major piece of information that was missing or left out of most news headlines.

[Kriegsspiel]

That's a relief to know!. So in light of this new information I'm assuming you are going around licking door handles and breathing deeply in crowded rooms? After all, we aren't getting any younger, better to catch it sooner rather than later!

Why would you say something like this?

doodle and Libertarian666 secretly LOVE antagonizing each other.

[Mark Leavy]

doodle and Libertarian666 secretly LOVE antagonizing each other.

And here I was thinking it was a jilted love affair. But you might be right.
Mark

[pp4me]

I was just watching Tucker and he said that a tweet that Donald Trump shared referring to this information from the CDC was taken down because it was "misinformation".

Hopefully, I',m missing some of the details because it's one of the damnest things I've heard of it true.

[Libertarian666]

This place has become absurd to a degree that it's actually becoming somewhat entertaining....I love how the man advocating for a private judicial system and posting bitchute articles as truth is diagnosing mental illness. There is no bridging the gap anymore I'm afraid. The kooks in this country have garbled common sense to a degree that people now protest for the government to keep their commie hands off of their Medicare.

I decided this weekend to either keep doing this or stop posting, and mentally the only way I could justify continuing is to treat it as a diversion, vs. getting mad.

Off topic----

We were riding bikes around this weekend, and passed a house that had two signs in front:

0% Socialist
100% American

Got me thinking, what % actually are we socialist and people, (even some here!), are fine with it? Are services socialist, like fire and police? Public schools, roads, parks, libraries certainly seem to be socialist as well. Social security, medicare, unemployment ditto.

There is nothing more funny/frustrating to me as a Libertarian than seeing polls where people say the government is too big and too intrusive and spends too much and then the same people answering "yes" to should the government do more for education, creating jobs, helping the poor etc.
As much as it pains me to say it, I feel that most people who complain about socialism are complaining specifically about "welfare" and there is probably a decent amount of racism built in there. Because if you question them on anything else like social security or Medicare they will tell you "I worked for that!" with no understanding of what they actually paid in vs what they have gotten back.

My mother is a big anti government, stop giving my money to welfare queens person. But she never actually worked a private sector job in her life. She worked for a public school district for 30 years, retired at 50 and has drawn full salary and insurance since that time. In another 7 years she will have drawn a salary from them for longer than she actually worked there. What other job out there in the private sector would have given her that sort of retirement at that age? But lord don't call her a welfare queen!

Personally I am a pretty close to a pure Libertarian and I do not see any difference between food stamps, libraries, public television, National Endowment for the Arts or public schools. If the government is forcibly taking money for those services from citizens who do not use those services then it is "socialist" to me. Maybe not by pure definition of "socialism" but by the meaning most people accept these days.

Works for me.

[jalanlong]

I was just watching Tucker and he said that a tweet that Donald Trump shared referring to this information from the CDC was taken down because it was "misinformation".

Hopefully, I',m missing some of the details because it's one of the damnest things I've heard of it true.

They did indeed. They are saying his tweet implies Covid wasn’t the reason they died which is not what the CDC meant. Like what Cortopaasi said earlier in the thread, an obese person could live for years but Covid came along and they died. They are saying Trump’s tweet is claiming they died of obesity, not Covid.

Seems nitpicking to call it misinformation. Its just a different interpretation of the data.

[Kriegsspiel]

I'm glad they're starting to publicize this type of information more, so people can stop being so afraid. Like Maddy said, it's been out there for a while, but it's a good thing that people see this good news more often, as opposed to only seeing bad spin on the news about it all the time that skews their perception of reality. It should help them be able to handle unlocking the country and going outside, and eventually they'll forget why they were so afraid.

In my completely unqualified opinion, if you're young and healthy, you don't have any reason to be more afraid to be alive than you usually would.

Maybe even less, since all those old people causing car accidents are staying home.

[Maddy]

This morning I received an e-mail from a committedly progressive friend with whom I recently shared some thoughts about the political underpinnings of the whole CoVid thing. Quite out of the blue this morning, she mentioned that an increasing number of people she knows are becoming sick and tired of the politicization of CoVid, as well as the accompanying climate of social unrest. Although purely anecdotal, this suggested to me that the latest news bombshell (about only 6% of CoVid 19 deaths being caused by CoVid alone) has finally breached the soundproofing surrounding the "rank and file" democratic mind. The fact that this news story continues to spread and gain traction tells me that, for whatever reason, the message that they've been duped has finally gotten through to the progressive wing.

[WiseOne]

In other words, the whole pandemic WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!! turned out to be completely wrong:

" The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data last week that depicts how many Americans who have died from COVID-19 also had contributing conditions.

According to the report, only 6% of deaths have COVID-19 as the only cause mentioned, revealing that 94% of patients who died from coronavirus also had other “health conditions and contributing causes.”"

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/new-c ... onditions/

So it looks like anyone who is healthy can go about their lives normally.
Not medical advice, etc.

@WiseOne?

Talk about conjuring up news out of thin air....can I clear up some of the confusion on this?

First: That co-morbidities (basically a laundry list of metabolic syndrome manifestations plus respiratory issues) are strong predictors of COVID-19 mortality and hospitalizations has been known since practically the start of the pandemic - certainly by early May. There is no new information on that front.

Second: You all need to understand how hospital discharge summaries and death certificates work. A discharge summary starts with a list of diagnoses on admission and at discharge. They are in no particular order. For example, you might see: 1. COVID-19, 2. Morbid obesity, 3. Diabetes type 2, 4. Renal failure. And so forth.

The discharge summary then proceeds to a text description of what happened during the hospitalization. It's usually written by an exhausted intern, and almost always by someone who wasn't involved in most of the events. There are also a large number of checkboxes imposed in recent years by hospital administrators for things like fall risk, flu shot, med reconciliation etc. As those things have increased, the quality of the text description - the most informative part of the summary - declined.

When a patient dies, there is a death summary instead of a discharge summary. It's an abbreviated version, although it includes the list of admission and discharge diagnoses. There is also a death certificate, which asks for "cause of death". This is again filled out by the exhausted intern. It's pretty random what they'll put down. In the era of COVID, COVID-19 will be listed if it appears anywhere on the diagnosis list, for many reasons. It's an easy choice, plus the hospital gets extra $$. Nowhere in this process is there any systematic effort to determine the true cause of death - or what that even means. It's often quite difficult to figure out, and no one has the time. The sole exception is when there is an autopsy and report from a medical examiner or pathologist - and even then it's often a guessing game. And in the COVID era, there are not many autopsies because of the fear of launching a ton of virus into the air.

The CDC then gets this paperwork and has to make sense of the data and figure out who died of COVID-19, vs. who died of something else and just happened to test positive, vs. someone who caught COVID which then tipped an already sick person into the "cascade of badness" which then resulted in death. Good luck with that. I imagine they just look at the diagnosis list to see if it includes COVID. That's how ridiculous stuff happens like the guy who died in a motorcycle accident being counted as a COVID death.

This is why I suspect the most reliable data are statistical excess deaths. I did a detailed post about that some time back. In short, deaths were lower than average (for the past 20-25 years) going into COVID, because this past flu year was an unusually mild one. That meant there was a correspondingly high incidence of people just waiting for the next virus to knock them off. During the height of COVID at any one geographic location, there was a higher death rate than average. This lasts about 6-8 weeks, and is followed by a drop in the death rate to BELOW average levels. That speaks to a situation where this year's deaths were compressed into a short period of time because of COVID - but the AVERAGE for the entire year may well prove to be within normal range at the end.

I also took a peek at Trump's tweet and the yellow-journalism article reporting on it. Both were full of misinformation IMHO. Sigh...wish Trump would keep his twitter-mouth shut!!!!!

[GT]

In other words, the whole pandemic WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!! turned out to be completely wrong:

" The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data last week that depicts how many Americans who have died from COVID-19 also had contributing conditions.

According to the report, only 6% of deaths have COVID-19 as the only cause mentioned, revealing that 94% of patients who died from coronavirus also had other “health conditions and contributing causes.”"

https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/new-c ... onditions/

So it looks like anyone who is healthy can go about their lives normally.
Not medical advice, etc.

@WiseOne?

Talk about conjuring up news out of thin air....can I clear up some of the confusion on this?

First: That co-morbidities (basically a laundry list of metabolic syndrome manifestations plus respiratory issues) are strong predictors of COVID-19 mortality and hospitalizations has been known since practically the start of the pandemic - certainly by early May. There is no new information on that front.

Second: You all need to understand how hospital discharge summaries and death certificates work. A discharge summary starts with a list of diagnoses on admission and at discharge. They are in no particular order. For example, you might see: 1. COVID-19, 2. Morbid obesity, 3. Diabetes type 2, 4. Renal failure. And so forth.

The discharge summary then proceeds to a text description of what happened during the hospitalization. It's usually written by an exhausted intern, and almost always by someone who wasn't involved in most of the events. There are also a large number of checkboxes imposed in recent years by hospital administrators for things like fall risk, flu shot, med reconciliation etc. As those things have increased, the quality of the text description - the most informative part of the summary - declined.

When a patient dies, there is a death summary instead of a discharge summary. It's an abbreviated version, although it includes the list of admission and discharge diagnoses. There is also a death certificate, which asks for "cause of death". This is again filled out by the exhausted intern. It's pretty random what they'll put down. In the era of COVID, COVID-19 will be listed if it appears anywhere on the diagnosis list, for many reasons. It's an easy choice, plus the hospital gets extra $$. Nowhere in this process is there any systematic effort to determine the true cause of death - or what that even means. It's often quite difficult to figure out, and no one has the time. The sole exception is when there is an autopsy and report from a medical examiner or pathologist - and even then it's often a guessing game. And in the COVID era, there are not many autopsies because of the fear of launching a ton of virus into the air.

The CDC then gets this paperwork and has to make sense of the data and figure out who died of COVID-19, vs. who died of something else and just happened to test positive, vs. someone who caught COVID which then tipped an already sick person into the "cascade of badness" which then resulted in death. Good luck with that. I imagine they just look at the diagnosis list to see if it includes COVID. That's how ridiculous stuff happens like the guy who died in a motorcycle accident being counted as a COVID death.

This is why I suspect the most reliable data are statistical excess deaths. I did a detailed post about that some time back. In short, deaths were lower than average (for the past 20-25 years) going into COVID, because this past flu year was an unusually mild one. That meant there was a correspondingly high incidence of people just waiting for the next virus to knock them off. During the height of COVID at any one geographic location, there was a higher death rate than average. This lasts about 6-8 weeks, and is followed by a drop in the death rate to BELOW average levels. That speaks to a situation where this year's deaths were compressed into a short period of time because of COVID - but the AVERAGE for the entire year may well prove to be within normal range at the end.

I also took a peek at Trump's tweet and the yellow-journalism article reporting on it. Both were full of misinformation IMHO. Sigh...wish Trump would keep his twitter-mouth shut!!!!!

Thank you WiseOne!
Question: Is this why I see data presented as confirmed COVID 19 cases and then COVID Deaths versus "confirmed" COVID 19 deaths?

[Maddy]

My understanding of the term "confirmed," when used in the context of CoVid, is that these relate to cases confirmed by actual testing as opposed to cases that are "presumed." Apparently a lot of the statistics have been based upon "presumed" cases, having been attributed to CoVid based solely upon symptomatology or--in many cases--upon nothing more than a historical contact with a person believed to have CoVid. (Not that the distinction matters a whole lot when it's not even clear what the tests are measuring. . .)

[Cortopassi]

I had my review with my manager, and we were discussing Covid, of course, and all the goalposts shifting and such. We did not agree on excess deaths being indicative of something going on. I think it is, he thinks it could be noise or due to other factors. Here's the CDC graph again. It seems pretty obvious that's there's been an increase in deaths this year, right?

[Xan]

It'll be interesting to see whether in the next year or two the death numbers are below normal. I don't have any way to predict whether that will be the case, but if it is, then the excess deaths from Covid were just moved up a bit.

[I Shrugged]

One problem is that according to anecdotal accounts from cardiologists and such, many people have stayed home rather that get treated for life threatening things. How many excess deaths arose from this?

[Cortopassi]

One problem is that according to anecdotal accounts from cardiologists and such, many people have stayed home rather that get treated for life threatening things. How many excess deaths arose from this?

You could argue that's from Covid as well, but then should subtract them off, if it's determined they would still be alive if they came to the hospital. In my opinion.

Excess deaths do seem to be there. I don't know if these curves are normalized for population increases or not, but it sure would be cool to see this data as far back as possible, to the Swine flu, 1968 flu, 1957 flu, and see what the overall comparison looks like.

I would bet we'd see higher incidences of excess deaths from the earlier ones, and a lot less shut it down mentality. Maybe we were just more ignorant. Maybe less scared. Too much tech now to think we can fix it all.

There is a Human Mortality Database (not coming up for me) that supposedly has data back to 2000 on many countries.

[WiseOne]

One problem is that according to anecdotal accounts from cardiologists and such, many people have stayed home rather that get treated for life threatening things. How many excess deaths arose from this?

You could argue that's from Covid as well, but then should subtract them off, if it's determined they would still be alive if they came to the hospital. In my opinion.

Excess deaths do seem to be there. I don't know if these curves are normalized for population increases or not, but it sure would be cool to see this data as far back as possible, to the Swine flu, 1968 flu, 1957 flu, and see what the overall comparison looks like.

Yes, some of the excess deaths will be from "collateral damage" of the mass unemployment, cancelling of elective procedures, reluctance to go for urgent medical care, the increase in crime in large cities etc. You won't easily separate those out. On the other hand, it probably is the case that there will be fewer deaths from things like car accidents because people have been traveling less.

Ivor Cummins (on his youtube channel) has studied this issue quite thoroughly if you want to take a look. He has found that the excess deaths this year (compared to the 25 year average, corrected for population growth) is not as much as in some of the years in that time frame.