Some people seek out what they want to hear to convince themselves they are the thinking above the rest of the mullets.
When you’re a Hammer, Everything looks like a Nail.
From The Guardian today (Germany is a federal country, where due to the clear reduction of COVID-19 cases and reduction of the reproduction factor, resulting from a 4 weeks long very strict lockdown, measures were relaxed a bit since April 20, and may be relaxed a bit more by the different Länder) :
When pointing the finger at Dr. Yealy’s math and statistical skills, don’t forget about the 3 fingers pointing back the other way. Dr. Yealy was talking about mortality rate. the 7% number cited in your response is the case fatality rate. You’re comparing apples to watermelons.
The actual mortality rate to date in that county, were we to express it as a percentage, would be 102 divided by 1,200,000 times 100 (to move the decimal over 2 places for percent), which equals 0.0085% mortality so far. (If measured in units of ‘deaths per thousand per year’ the resulting number would look even smaller.) Dr. Yealy is being exceedingly generous in his estimation that the mortality (death) rate could eventually wind up as high as 0.25%.
A 7% mortality rate would mean 84,000 casualties in Allegheny County alone, which is beyond absurd.
Ferguson’s track record makes me wonder what variety of mushrooms he indulges in… :laughing: None of his numbers can be trusted. His wild guess of 2.2 million dead “without interventions” is totally, utterly non-credible. Yet some people have latched onto it with almost religious fervor to “prove” that we did the right thing.
They claimed the downward revisions were based on safety measures, however in reality safety measures hadn’t been in place long enough to gauge or calculate any meaningful update. Unless a WAG counts as ‘meaningful.’
Rexlion, I think you have set the record by far in this thread in discrediting science and crediting charlatans, I wonder where this comes from?, is this purpose (politics) or is it too difficult to distinguish for you?
I stopped being not upset because every time people post nonsense and nonsense resources, some people will believe it and repost it elsewhere, this is how the misinformation machinery works and this is how damage (damage=deaths in this crisis) is done. I would wish that it is not important and can just be ignored (which is my natural way with bs). I wished that science need not be defended but it appears neccessary.
Whether people are right or wrong in their beliefs or simply on a journey of experience & learning with no absolute conclusion attainable it should be kept in mind we are all like children, so very small and ignorant in the grand scheme of things.
I try to keep an open mind, admit that I don’t know the absolute extent of anything therefore can’t commit to any belief 100% but the questions and opposing views are interesting to ponder.
Stay cool
No one seems to have noticed this CDC data (or at least no one has commented on it. Look at Covid-only deaths versus pneumonia-only deaths, week by week, in Table 1. These are deaths where doctors coded the cause of death as strictly one or the other, and excludes combinations of those illnesses with or without influenza.
Week Covid deaths Pneumonia deaths
2/1/20 . . . . 0 . . . . . . 3697
2/8/20 . . . . 1 . . . . . . 3676
2/15/20 . . . . 0 . . . . . . 3697
2/22/20 . . . . 1 . . . . . . 3565
2/29/20 . . . . 5 . . . . . . 3644
3/7/20 . . . . 26 . . . . . . 3733
3/14/20 . . . . 49 . . . . . . 3684
3/21/20 . . . . 494 . . . . . . 4166
3/28/20 . . . . 2725 . . . . . . 5649
4/4/20 . . . . 8174 . . . . . . 8788
4/11/20 . . . 12,516 . . . . . 10,035
4/18/20 . . . 10,748 . . . . . . 7931
Following numbers are likely to be incomplete (reporting lag), so I won’t list them.
2 points:
First, pneumonia deaths exceeded Covid deaths in all but two of the weeks. Pneumonia is demonstrably more deadly. Pneumonia typically kills somewhere between 3500 and 4500 people per week in the US during the months of February, March, and April, every year. Yet we don’t shut down the country for fear of pneumonia.
Second, if shutdown and social distancing are so incredibly effective (reducing Covid lives lost allegedly from 2.2M to less than 100k) as some claim, why haven’t these measures worked against this other communicable respiratory illness? Pneumonia continued to kill, and the number of people dying from it (when Covid was not found to be a contributing factor) spiked at about the same time as Covid deaths spiked. In other words, social distancing didn’t work. Is it possible that making people sit around home eating snack food and stressing out about illness as they watch MSM, preventing their soothing daily routine, and not getting much exercise for fear of going out (thus not getting deep breathing for good air penetration into the lungs) might be more harmful to health than we imagined?
Now you’re deliberately twisting the information, untested fatalities with respiratory symptoms are simply being coded as “pneumonia” in many parts of the country (usually home deaths, can’t afford to use tests on the already deceased).
You’re aware that pneumonia is often a secondary co-infection right? And that this is what is killing many infected with COVID-19?
LOL, go look at the CDC page (linked in my original post). There is a totally different column for deaths coded (by the medical personnel) as combination deaths. That’s why I stressed that these numbers are “Covid-only” and “pneumonia-only.” You’re saying the doctors, hospitals, and coroners “simply” coded as pneumonia when the people really died of Covid. My, how sloppy of them! Especially when the hospitals can reap a larger payment if they’d just give it the Covid code. These people must be really inept, eh? Maybe they treated the patients for the wrong illness, too? (Or do you really think that a ton of people who feel like they’re drowning and can’t breathe resist the impulse to seek medical attention and die at home?)
Why do you say the 2.2 million figure is “totally non-credible”?
That number was preliminary, and other epidemiological models have come to other numbers. But that said it is a model based on science.
Once social distancing was started, the IHME model’s predicted deaths were appropriately tuned downwards, getting as low as 60k. Now they’re going back up and their current number is 134k by August 4 (3 months from now).
Some other models give higher numbers. Some predict that due to the premature relaxing of social distancing in many states, we could see as many as 100-200,000 new cases per day and 3,000 deaths per day by June 1. And that’s where the prediction stopped, but the curve was still on an upward trajectory so it would get even higher.
It’s now May 5. We’ll know in a month who was right about how this pandemic would behave in the States: personally, I’d bet on the epidemiologists being right over those who base their decisions on a political agenda.
Note that the ones who advocate reopening early are the same faction who said “the flu kills vastly more people each year”. That argument has been overtaken by facts. I expect their current position based on a political agenda rather than science to also suffer the same fate.
Dr. Yealy was talking about mortality rate. the 7% number cited in your response is the case fatality rate. You’re comparing apples to watermelons.
Maybe they treated the patients for the wrong illness, too? (Or do you really think that a ton of people who feel like they’re drowning and can’t breathe resist the impulse to seek medical attention and die at home?)