Renzatic on 21/5/2020 at 21:54

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How many were not tested? What percentage of the current estimate is false? How many people die of pneumonia or other flu like illnesses in a three month span? How greatly could these other deaths being misidentified expand the current Covid fatality toll? 1? 10? 100? 1000? 10,000? What?

Okay, I did some rough estimating for you.

According to (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pneumonia.htm) this, we lost about 50,000 people to pneumonia related illnesses in 2017. That's over a 12 month period. So doing some street maff statistics, you could say that 4,100 people die from it per month.

Assuming that things are about equal here in 2020, then from February to now, we've lost about 12,000 people to pneumonia.

Over the last three months, we've clocked in 96,000 coronavirus deaths.
12,000 of these may be pneumonia cases misattributed as Covid-19 deaths due to similar symptoms.
That gives us a margin of error of around 12%.
So we should be saying that Coronavirus has killed anywhere between 84,000 to 96,000 people.

Even in a situation where ALL pneumonia deaths have been misidentified, that's still a fuckton of people in a three month period.

You're picking at nits.

heywood on 21/5/2020 at 22:16

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I get so frustrated with these debates, which are the same all over the internet. People talk like governments can snap their fingers and everything goes back to normal. It's a fantasy. No matter what government restrictions are lifted, the economy isn't going to return to normal as long as the virus is spreading untraceably through communities.

Contrary to popular belief, MOST people do have some common sense. They're not going to flock back into restaurants and bars in the middle of a pandemic just because the government removes it's emergency order. Most people are not going to send their kids off to camps and other summer programs, or get on airplanes or take trips to crowded tourist destinations. Most people are still going to be reluctant to go hospitals and clinics for elective procedures when they are handling COVID-19 cases. People are going to hold off on major purchases for a while because they don't know how long this is going to last. People in the cities are particularly nervous about having their populations double every day with throngs of commuters coming in, and most people are not going to be comfortable packing themselves together like sausages onto public transport.

Many governments will try to coerce people into going back to work by cutting off their unemployment benefits and other COVID-19 relief programs. But if the demand doesn't return, the work won't be there, and the jobs will be permanently lost.

Some governments will also try manipulating the data to convince people there's no longer a threat. It's already happening here in a few US states (VA, GA, FL). But thankfully, most of us have an independent press that will shine light on that.

So when does it end? It ends when the spread of the virus is traceable and controlled. The longer it takes to get there, the slower the economic recovery will be. The faster we control the spread of the virus, the faster we return to normal. I don't understand why that isn't sinking in. The people fighting against virus control measures are saboteurs, wrecking the economic recovery. Even if they're too blinded by political allegiance or too ignorant to understand what they're doing, they're culpable.

Nicker on 21/5/2020 at 22:35

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There are no links in post 2200. I responded to your claims about post 2210, as requested - leave the goalposts alone.

If we can't trust any of the data then your assertions are as BS as any others.

Choosing between data provided by medical professionals for various international sources or the swill concocted by Donald "Per capita relative to WHAT?" and Georgia's "we lie you die" charts, I will choose the former.

Perdustin on 22/5/2020 at 01:50

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I may be repeating someone else, but I thought I should point out that ongoing research studies at Washington University, Columbia University, MIT, Los Alamos, Northeastern University, the University of Texas and the University of Massachusetts--though their modeling methods and results differ--show a slow and steady decline to zero deaths per day in the US from July through September, state by state. I don't think anybody is predicting a second wave except cable news networks. That said, these are computer models that, while complex, can't factor everything in, especially since this is a "moving train". But it is a more optimistic outlook than the narrative being presented by the 24-hour news media.
Thoughts?

Starker on 22/5/2020 at 03:14

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No two viruses are the same and it can be difficult to predict how an infection will behave, but throughout history some of the more infectious outbreaks have come in waves. The Spanish Flu, most notoriously, had a second wave deadlier than the first one (and a third, less deadly one). In more recent history, the Swine Flu also had a second wave, but by that time a vaccine was already available.

Yes, the media tends to sensationalise and exaggerate things, but this is not something made up by news networks. It's something that is known to happen and we have every reason to prepare for it.