Coronavirus: When should we be concerned?

[Indy]

I think the graph does a good job of showing what normal death counts would be from week to week and the change since Covid19. This is a way to more accurately figure out what was a covid death and what wasn't approximately. There have been a lot of reports that doctors have been pressured to report a death as covid even though it was maybe only a small factor. Accurate testing is needed. There also have been testing in pockets of areas that suggest that covid infection is much more prevalent than thought and therefore much less deadly than originally believed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... kQB9avLMbA

That’s why excess mortality is the best measure. It avoids subjective judgements about whom to count.

Yes I agree, and it can also debunk or confirm theories of whether the virus started in the US.

wait, who is saying the virus originated in the US?

[Indy]

I think the graph does a good job of showing what normal death counts would be from week to week and the change since Covid19. This is a way to more accurately figure out what was a covid death and what wasn't approximately. There have been a lot of reports that doctors have been pressured to report a death as covid even though it was maybe only a small factor. Accurate testing is needed. There also have been testing in pockets of areas that suggest that covid infection is much more prevalent than thought and therefore much less deadly than originally believed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... kQB9avLMbA

Do you mean listing COVID as the cause of death? Or counting the death in the death toll? I think the vast majority of people that succumb while having COVID-19 have underlying conditions, but I wouldn't exclude them from the count.

[Cap]

I think the graph does a good job of showing what normal death counts would be from week to week and the change since Covid19. This is a way to more accurately figure out what was a covid death and what wasn't approximately. There have been a lot of reports that doctors have been pressured to report a death as covid even though it was maybe only a small factor. Accurate testing is needed. There also have been testing in pockets of areas that suggest that covid infection is much more prevalent than thought and therefore much less deadly than originally believed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... kQB9avLMbA

That’s why excess mortality is the best measure. It avoids subjective judgements about whom to count.

Yes I agree, and it can also debunk or confirm theories of whether the virus started in the US.

wait, who is saying the virus originated in the US?

China.

[Indy]

All +1 billion? Or just Xi's regime? I hadn't read that yet.

[Cap]

All +1 billion? Or just Xi's regime? I hadn't read that yet.

The government and state media. How much of the population believes it I don’t know.

[In2ition]

I think the graph does a good job of showing what normal death counts would be from week to week and the change since Covid19. This is a way to more accurately figure out what was a covid death and what wasn't approximately. There have been a lot of reports that doctors have been pressured to report a death as covid even though it was maybe only a small factor. Accurate testing is needed. There also have been testing in pockets of areas that suggest that covid infection is much more prevalent than thought and therefore much less deadly than originally believed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... kQB9avLMbA

Do you mean listing COVID as the cause of death? Or counting the death in the death toll? I think the vast majority of people that succumb while having COVID-19 have underlying conditions, but I wouldn't exclude them from the count.

What are you saying is the difference? When they are listing COVID as a cause of death, they also add thrm to the death count. This caused an infant in Connecticut to be propped up as the first very young victim of COVID, which raises fear, when in fact the child died of suffocation by the caretaker. Is it good to up the count of deaths artificially? This makes the mortality rate of having COVID as a lot higher than it really is. Also, testing is only counting those deaths against those that have been tested, so the mortality rate again looks extremely grim, when it very well could be up to a tenth of what was originally projected. Making decisions for everyone should be based on accurate data, imo. Don't you agree?

[O_Gardino]

I think the graph does a good job of showing what normal death counts would be from week to week and the change since Covid19. This is a way to more accurately figure out what was a covid death and what wasn't approximately. There have been a lot of reports that doctors have been pressured to report a death as covid even though it was maybe only a small factor. Accurate testing is needed. There also have been testing in pockets of areas that suggest that covid infection is much more prevalent than thought and therefore much less deadly than originally believed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... kQB9avLMbA

Do you mean listing COVID as the cause of death? Or counting the death in the death toll? I think the vast majority of people that succumb while having COVID-19 have underlying conditions, but I wouldn't exclude them from the count.

What are you saying is the difference? When they are listing COVID as a cause of death, they also add thrm to the death count. This caused an infant in Connecticut to be propped up as the first very young victim of COVID, which raises fear, when in fact the child died of suffocation by the caretaker. Is it good to up the count of deaths artificially? This makes the mortality rate of having COVID as a lot higher than it really is. Also, testing is only counting those deaths against those that have been tested, so the mortality rate again looks extremely grim, when it very well could be up to a tenth of what was originally projected. Making decisions for everyone should be based on accurate data, imo. Don't you agree?

It's not an easy nut to crack. I prefer tracking confirmed cases, because it eliminates some of the estimation and guess work inherent in tracking deaths caused by COVID, and because it matters if people have the disease even if they don't die from it.

I think In2 does a good job of pointing out the problems inherent in listing causes of death. As I understand it, it's common to have both COVID and pneumonia. If you list both as causes of death, the numbers are skewed. If you pick just one or the other, you aren't telling the complete truth, and the data isn't as useful. If someone dies of pneumonia and hasn't been tested for COVID, then we just don't know.

On the other hand, if you just look at pure death rate, that's skewed by the fact that we are all staying home. Deaths due to traffic accidents etc are way down.

Either way, you have to do some estimation and interpretation of the numbers. I take CDC and WHO estimations with a grain of salt. They don't have reliable raw data, they are under intense political pressure, and they don't publish their qualifiers. I don't think my guesses are better than their guesses, but I do keep in mind that they may be off by a lot.

[Nodack]

If the Dems are in charge of the count it would be very high. If the Cons are in charge of the count it would be very low. That much I am sure of. How much politics plays in the count I am not sure of.

Nobody gets pneumonia and it leads to Covid-19. People get Covid-19 and it leads pneumonia. People get sick, get pneumonia and it causes heart failure. Did they die of heart failure of pneumonia? They can even drown in their own lungs? Was that death by drowning?

Politically speaking, I am pretty sure the Trump/Republicans are trying to keep the count as low as possible to make the virus seem like a nothing burger as much as possible. The Dems are trying to keep the count as high as possible to make the virus seem like a devastating world wide Pandemic. Both are politically motivated. The blame game is in full swing. It’s Trump, Obama, Fauci, Governors, States, Dems, Cons, China, bats, wet markets and anyone else’s fault we can think of to blame for this.

Is the cure worse than the disease? All I really know is that I cannot trust anyone to tell the absolute truth about anything ever.

[Indy]

I think the graph does a good job of showing what normal death counts would be from week to week and the change since Covid19. This is a way to more accurately figure out what was a covid death and what wasn't approximately. There have been a lot of reports that doctors have been pressured to report a death as covid even though it was maybe only a small factor. Accurate testing is needed. There also have been testing in pockets of areas that suggest that covid infection is much more prevalent than thought and therefore much less deadly than originally believed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... kQB9avLMbA

Do you mean listing COVID as the cause of death? Or counting the death in the death toll? I think the vast majority of people that succumb while having COVID-19 have underlying conditions, but I wouldn't exclude them from the count.

What are you saying is the difference? When they are listing COVID as a cause of death, they also add thrm to the death count. This caused an infant in Connecticut to be propped up as the first very young victim of COVID, which raises fear, when in fact the child died of suffocation by the caretaker. Is it good to up the count of deaths artificially? This makes the mortality rate of having COVID as a lot higher than it really is. Also, testing is only counting those deaths against those that have been tested, so the mortality rate again looks extremely grim, when it very well could be up to a tenth of what was originally projected. Making decisions for everyone should be based on accurate data, imo. Don't you agree?

Can you share the details here? I remember reading last month about it, but I never read any confirmation that the caretaker murdered the child.

And I haven't seen any death certificates yet, so maybe one of our physicians here can help me. I didn't think they listed a virus (especially by name) as the cause of death. You list the primary cause of death (acute respiratory distress) and follow that up with contributing factors like pneumonia, flu, covid-19, etc.

I agree that there are likely hundreds of thousands of people world-wide that have it (or had it) and never were tested. But I wouldn't want to guess at that number. You can say the death rate is lower than that of the flu, but that just isn't backed up. The flu never killed 70k people in 8 weeks in the US alone. And, again with the "untested" folks, there are plenty that have died without ever being tested that could have been covid positive. It goes both ways.

[In2ition]

If the Dems are in charge of the count it would be very high. If the Cons are in charge of the count it would be very low. That much I am sure of. How much politics plays in the count I am not sure of.

Nobody gets pneumonia and it leads to Covid-19. People get Covid-19 and it leads pneumonia. People get sick, get pneumonia and it causes heart failure. Did they die of heart failure of pneumonia? They can even drown in their own lungs? Was that death by drowning?

Politically speaking, I am pretty sure the Trump/Republicans are trying to keep the count as low as possible to make the virus seem like a nothing burger as much as possible. The Dems are trying to keep the count as high as possible to make the virus seem like a devastating world wide Pandemic. Both are politically motivated. The blame game is in full swing. It’s Trump, Obama, Fauci, Governors, States, Dems, Cons, China, bats, wet markets and anyone else’s fault we can think of to blame for this.

Is the cure worse than the disease? All I really know is that I cannot trust anyone to tell the absolute truth about anything ever.

I see what you are saying, but I'm not going to make this political. Otherwise, it should be in the Politics folder. Frankly, I refuse to post in there any longer, so I'm not trying to make this political myself.

[In2ition]

I think the graph does a good job of showing what normal death counts would be from week to week and the change since Covid19. This is a way to more accurately figure out what was a covid death and what wasn't approximately. There have been a lot of reports that doctors have been pressured to report a death as covid even though it was maybe only a small factor. Accurate testing is needed. There also have been testing in pockets of areas that suggest that covid infection is much more prevalent than thought and therefore much less deadly than originally believed.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... kQB9avLMbA

Do you mean listing COVID as the cause of death? Or counting the death in the death toll? I think the vast majority of people that succumb while having COVID-19 have underlying conditions, but I wouldn't exclude them from the count.

What are you saying is the difference? When they are listing COVID as a cause of death, they also add thrm to the death count. This caused an infant in Connecticut to be propped up as the first very young victim of COVID, which raises fear, when in fact the child died of suffocation by the caretaker. Is it good to up the count of deaths artificially? This makes the mortality rate of having COVID as a lot higher than it really is. Also, testing is only counting those deaths against those that have been tested, so the mortality rate again looks extremely grim, when it very well could be up to a tenth of what was originally projected. Making decisions for everyone should be based on accurate data, imo. Don't you agree?

Can you share the details here? I remember reading last month about it, but I never read any confirmation that the caretaker murdered the child.

And I haven't seen any death certificates yet, so maybe one of our physicians here can help me. I didn't think they listed a virus (especially by name) as the cause of death. You list the primary cause of death (acute respiratory distress) and follow that up with contributing factors like pneumonia, flu, covid-19, etc.

I agree that there are likely hundreds of thousands of people world-wide that have it (or had it) and never were tested. But I wouldn't want to guess at that number. You can say the death rate is lower than that of the flu, but that just isn't backed up. The flu never killed 70k people in 8 weeks in the US alone. And, again with the "untested" folks, there are plenty that have died without ever being tested that could have been covid positive. It goes both ways.

I can't find a particular article on it. I believe it was tragic incident and not a murder, but since I can't find anything on it...idk. I'm also not saying that it is the same as the flu, but I'm skeptical on the 70k in 8 weeks when the rest of the death rates have dropped substantially. I'm not saying it isn't high, but probably not 60 or 70k high.

[Indy]

why would doctors be lying about it? I know plenty that have been furloughed because emergency rooms are dead, elective surgeries are dead, etc. And the hospitals are losing money left and right during this. Not sure what they would gain by lying or exaggerating the number of deaths.

[Indy]

On that CT infant, I can only find references to it from Candace Owens. The hospital didn't cite COVID as the cause, only a contributing factor. The articles I read show that the local medical examiner did an autopsy, but the results aren't done yet (no doubt due to the huge backlog of deaths and the labs).

[In2ition]

I don't think they are deliberately lying, just being pressured for some reason. It's only anecdotal, but a lot of drs are reporting this. Why would they be pressured?

[Nodack]

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... ctors-fie/
Candace Owens
April 6, 2020- "Apparently, doctors and nurses around the world are wondering why no one is dying from heart attacks or strokes any more, Owens tweeted April 6. "Flu and pneumonia deaths also went off a cliff. Turns out everyone is only dying of coronavirus now. Gee, I wonder why."

An exaggerated death count is a persistent talking point. On April 4, Owens tweeted "State departments of Public Health are reporting the number of deaths BEFORE the medical examiners have even concluded the cause of death," she said. "There would be no legitimate way to report how many people die daily."

Are Owens’ claims correct? We asked her for evidence but did not hear back. What we found is that her statement is at odds with doctors, who say the data, in fact, reflects an undercount.

Owens is wrong that only medical examiners determine a person’s cause of death. Formal death certificates start with the attending doctor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells physicians to list the immediate cause of death, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest, and then proceed to the underlying disease that caused the heart or breathing to stop.

The underlying cause should be "the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death."

If a person showed up in the emergency room with COVID-19 symptoms and a heart attack, there could be a judgement call as to what goes in as the underlying cause. But Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said there would be strong argument to note the key role of COVID-19.

"I would put COVID-19 as the primary cause," Plescia said. "Because most likely, the heart attack was caused by the fever or a difficulty in breathing."

Death certificates and COVID-19 reports are different
It’s important to note that death certificates are not the only — or even primary way — the states report coronavirus deaths.

New York, which to date accounts for over 40% of deaths nationwide, does not use death certificate data for reporting COVID-19 fatalities. When a person with the virus dies, hospitals or nursing homes tell their local health officials who then notify the state health department, which in turn sends a report to Washington.

The physicians we reached said it’s important to track when COVID-19 triggers a pre-existing heart or lung condition. To meet the need for immediate data, New York sends the CDC summaries of COVID-19 deaths, and not the full death certificates.

People familiar with the tracking system say some victims go uncounted. They told us that the limited supply of testing, the pace of work at hospitals and deaths that take place outside any medical facility point to an underreporting of COVID-19 deaths, not an overreporting.

[In2ition]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... predicted/

[In2ition]

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... ctors-fie/
Candace Owens
April 6, 2020- "Apparently, doctors and nurses around the world are wondering why no one is dying from heart attacks or strokes any more, Owens tweeted April 6. "Flu and pneumonia deaths also went off a cliff. Turns out everyone is only dying of coronavirus now. Gee, I wonder why."

An exaggerated death count is a persistent talking point. On April 4, Owens tweeted "State departments of Public Health are reporting the number of deaths BEFORE the medical examiners have even concluded the cause of death," she said. "There would be no legitimate way to report how many people die daily."

Are Owens’ claims correct? We asked her for evidence but did not hear back. What we found is that her statement is at odds with doctors, who say the data, in fact, reflects an undercount.

Owens is wrong that only medical examiners determine a person’s cause of death. Formal death certificates start with the attending doctor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells physicians to list the immediate cause of death, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest, and then proceed to the underlying disease that caused the heart or breathing to stop.

The underlying cause should be "the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death."

If a person showed up in the emergency room with COVID-19 symptoms and a heart attack, there could be a judgement call as to what goes in as the underlying cause. But Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said there would be strong argument to note the key role of COVID-19.

"I would put COVID-19 as the primary cause," Plescia said. "Because most likely, the heart attack was caused by the fever or a difficulty in breathing."

Death certificates and COVID-19 reports are different
It’s important to note that death certificates are not the only — or even primary way — the states report coronavirus deaths.

New York, which to date accounts for over 40% of deaths nationwide, does not use death certificate data for reporting COVID-19 fatalities. When a person with the virus dies, hospitals or nursing homes tell their local health officials who then notify the state health department, which in turn sends a report to Washington.

The physicians we reached said it’s important to track when COVID-19 triggers a pre-existing heart or lung condition. To meet the need for immediate data, New York sends the CDC summaries of COVID-19 deaths, and not the full death certificates.

People familiar with the tracking system say some victims go uncounted. They told us that the limited supply of testing, the pace of work at hospitals and deaths that take place outside any medical facility point to an underreporting of COVID-19 deaths, not an overreporting.

I'll be honest. I'm a little skeptical when we really don't have accurate counting either way. Either way, it's anecdotal evidence. I didn't see a study in that report, so it's a little convenient to weigh in that it's false.

[Cap]

A mutant coronavirus has emerged, even more contagious than the original, study says

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... n-original

[Nodack]

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2 ... ctors-fie/
Candace Owens
April 6, 2020- "Apparently, doctors and nurses around the world are wondering why no one is dying from heart attacks or strokes any more, Owens tweeted April 6. "Flu and pneumonia deaths also went off a cliff. Turns out everyone is only dying of coronavirus now. Gee, I wonder why."

An exaggerated death count is a persistent talking point. On April 4, Owens tweeted "State departments of Public Health are reporting the number of deaths BEFORE the medical examiners have even concluded the cause of death," she said. "There would be no legitimate way to report how many people die daily."

Are Owens’ claims correct? We asked her for evidence but did not hear back. What we found is that her statement is at odds with doctors, who say the data, in fact, reflects an undercount.

Owens is wrong that only medical examiners determine a person’s cause of death. Formal death certificates start with the attending doctor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells physicians to list the immediate cause of death, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest, and then proceed to the underlying disease that caused the heart or breathing to stop.

The underlying cause should be "the disease or injury which initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death."

If a person showed up in the emergency room with COVID-19 symptoms and a heart attack, there could be a judgement call as to what goes in as the underlying cause. But Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said there would be strong argument to note the key role of COVID-19.

"I would put COVID-19 as the primary cause," Plescia said. "Because most likely, the heart attack was caused by the fever or a difficulty in breathing."

Death certificates and COVID-19 reports are different
It’s important to note that death certificates are not the only — or even primary way — the states report coronavirus deaths.

New York, which to date accounts for over 40% of deaths nationwide, does not use death certificate data for reporting COVID-19 fatalities. When a person with the virus dies, hospitals or nursing homes tell their local health officials who then notify the state health department, which in turn sends a report to Washington.

The physicians we reached said it’s important to track when COVID-19 triggers a pre-existing heart or lung condition. To meet the need for immediate data, New York sends the CDC summaries of COVID-19 deaths, and not the full death certificates.

People familiar with the tracking system say some victims go uncounted. They told us that the limited supply of testing, the pace of work at hospitals and deaths that take place outside any medical facility point to an underreporting of COVID-19 deaths, not an overreporting.

I'll be honest. I'm a little skeptical when we really don't have accurate counting either way. Either way, it's anecdotal evidence. I didn't see a study in that report, so it's a little convenient to weigh in that it's false.

That’s the world we live in today. None of us trust anything anyone says about anything and I think that is by design. Our world has been taken over by propaganda.

[Indy]

I don't think they are deliberately lying, just being pressured for some reason. It's only anecdotal, but a lot of drs are reporting this. Why would they be pressured?

I guess that is what I am asking. These doctors work for the hospital. What does a hospital CEO have to gain by coercing doctors to falsify medical records? This doesn't make a hospital look good to have more deaths associated with COVID than their CEO buddy of a different hospital chain. If anything, there would be a benefit to having lower numbers.