Shanghai's Low Covid Death Toll Revives Questions About China's Numbers (nytimes.com) 185
China's largest city has recorded just 17 Covid deaths, despite surging cases. How China defines a Covid death may be part of the reason. The New York Times: By the numbers, Shanghai has been an exemplar of how to save lives during a pandemic. Despite the city's more than 400,000 Covid-19 infections, just 17 people have died, according to officials, statistics they have touted as proof that their strategy of strict lockdowns and mass quarantines works. But those numbers may not give a complete picture of the outbreak's toll. China typically classifies Covid-related deaths more narrowly than many other countries, labeling some chronically ill patients who die while infected as victims of those other conditions. In addition, a nearly three-week lockdown of China's biggest city has limited access to medicine and care for other illnesses. A nurse who suffered an asthma attack died after being denied care because of virus controls. A 90-year-old man died of complications from diabetes after being turned away from an overwhelmed hospital.
"If, at the time, he had been able to get treatment, he probably would have survived," said the man's granddaughter, Tracy Tang, a 32-year-old marketing manager. Residents and frontline workers have also been pushed to their limits by the policies. A hospital worker started bleeding internally after long hours conducting mass testing; she, too, died. It may never become clear how many similar stories there are. China does not release information on excess deaths, defined as the number of deaths -- from Covid as well as other causes -- exceeding the expected total in a given period. Public health scholars say that figure more accurately captures losses during the pandemic, as countries define Covid-related deaths differently. But as an example of the hidden impacts, a prominent Chinese physician recently estimated that nearly 1,000 more diabetes patients could die than expected during Shanghai's lockdown, urging the authorities to take a more measured response.
The outbreak there has revived questions about the true toll of Covid in China, which has officially reported fewer than 5,000 deaths from the coronavirus in two years. Beijing is unlikely to waver from its stringent approach. China's leader, Xi Jinping, has made the country's low death and infection rates central to his administration's legitimacy. Officials have been fired after even a few cases were detected in their jurisdictions. Last week, Mr. Xi said that "prevention and control work cannot be relaxed." The focus on minimizing Covid deaths risks incentivizing officials to neglect other causes of death, said Xi Chen, a professor of public health at Yale.
"If, at the time, he had been able to get treatment, he probably would have survived," said the man's granddaughter, Tracy Tang, a 32-year-old marketing manager. Residents and frontline workers have also been pushed to their limits by the policies. A hospital worker started bleeding internally after long hours conducting mass testing; she, too, died. It may never become clear how many similar stories there are. China does not release information on excess deaths, defined as the number of deaths -- from Covid as well as other causes -- exceeding the expected total in a given period. Public health scholars say that figure more accurately captures losses during the pandemic, as countries define Covid-related deaths differently. But as an example of the hidden impacts, a prominent Chinese physician recently estimated that nearly 1,000 more diabetes patients could die than expected during Shanghai's lockdown, urging the authorities to take a more measured response.
The outbreak there has revived questions about the true toll of Covid in China, which has officially reported fewer than 5,000 deaths from the coronavirus in two years. Beijing is unlikely to waver from its stringent approach. China's leader, Xi Jinping, has made the country's low death and infection rates central to his administration's legitimacy. Officials have been fired after even a few cases were detected in their jurisdictions. Last week, Mr. Xi said that "prevention and control work cannot be relaxed." The focus on minimizing Covid deaths risks incentivizing officials to neglect other causes of death, said Xi Chen, a professor of public health at Yale.
What? (Score:3)
A hospital worker started bleeding internally after long hours conducting mass testing;
Someone with real medical experience needs to explain this one. If this is true there should be people all over the world with internal bleeding from doing their job.
Re: What? (Score:5, Informative)
EMT here - I'm possibly stretching the description of internal, but ulcers can be exacerbated to the point if perforation and bleeding through stress, lack of sleep, poor diet, etc. I'll add that the article quibbles about whether someone who died from diabetes but could not get treatment due to the lock down should be counted as a covid death, but I'm not aware of anywhere that used that standard. You died of covid symptoms or covid complications and tested positive for covid - that's a covid death. In the US about 1% of people who contracted covid died despite often excellent medical care - it's as simple as that. That number is finally starting to go down due to advanced antiviral and plasma treatments - oh, and let's not forget the excellent efficacy of horse dewormer /s
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Your profession (Medicine) really deserves a ticker-tape parade when this over. In the earliest stages of the pandemic when doctors and researchers where still trying to figure out WTF this disease was and how to treat it, we saw death rates as high as 10%+ Thankfully it didnt take TOO long for the Docs to finally get their head around treating this thing properly , instead of throwing everything at the wall desparately hoping SOMETHING sticks [and occasionally getting flumoxed when politicans started advo
Re: What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets just pray MERS doesnt figure out how to spread properly amongst humans however. Or for that matter that Ebola doesnt get clever and pick up a nice long incubation time before turning warewolf on us. Between an "Uh oh 60% death toll" doomsday virus and the unfortunate rise of the anti-science brigades resistance to vaccines, lockdowns and masks we'd be potentially in for a civilization ending pandemic.
Another factor that makes pandemics worse, than say, the Spanish Flu a century ago: Technological advancements in travel
People couldn't travel as far, nor as easily back then, so a virus couldn't easily spread as far either.
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Travel was even more restricted in the 14th Century, at the time of the Black Death, but it still managed to cover all of Europe, although it took about seven years to cover the whole continent.
Re: What? (Score:4, Interesting)
If I were a doctor or a nurse I think this pandemic would have broken me.
In the UK we made a big deal of thanking our healthcare workers. Every Thursday at 8 PM we went outside and clapped for them. The whole country was at it, millions of us. They were going through hell, a lot of them dying from it, stretched the limit. Wearing bin bags because they couldn't get the PPE they needed, doing nothing but work and sleep because of chronic staff shortages exacerbated by people off with COVID.
Then when things calmed down after the first wave, the public got lax. The government had lost credibility and seems to have decided it could rely on those healthcare workers soldiering on through the winter. The government didn't want to be the baddies who cancelled Christmas.
It started to emerge that members of the government were using the pandemic to get rich quick. Costing the taxpayer tens of billions. But when it came time to review pay for doctors and nurses and other hospital staff, who had been taking yearly pay cuts for a decade... There was no money left, it had all gone to cronies and they had to take yet another hit to their income. Voters seemed indifferent to it.
The utter betrayal and willingness of the public to do a feel-good clap but not actually protect or pay those healthcare workers, not even to tolerate wearing a mask to keep the numbers down a bit... If I were them I couldn't take it, I'd have put in my resignation by now. It's an absolute disgrace how we treated them.
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It started to emerge that members of the government were using the pandemic to get rich quick
What?
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The troll almost makes a good point - healthcare professionals ARE just literally doing their job. It's an amazing job, and I'm really grateful they do it, but I get a bit sick of all this putting people on a pedestal because of something they're paid to do.
There are millions of people who don't get well paid to do really important jobs (carers for elderly people, parents with disabled kids, teachers) but it's always Doctors who swing in and get all the glory.
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That drives me a little crazy too. A friend of mine has a kid with a heart condition that needs frequent checkups. They meet with a pediatric cardiologist for a few times a year who looks at a scan and decides if they need to do anything. They see the doctor for just a few minutes each time and she charges them several thousand dollars for just her part. (That's not counting all the other people that bill them for each visit).
Several thousand dollars just for her opinion on a CT scan (or whatever it is)
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simple.
you are a god d*** liar
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Uh-huh
https://drasticresearch.org/20... [drasticresearch.org]
Skip the author's interpretation if you want, read the document itself. Note that DARPA rejected this proposal on ethics and safety grounds when they said that it didn't take into account the possibility of the innoculant being accidentally spread out of control, and they didn't establish safety protocols for proper lab handling at the WIV.
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You have got to be kidding. Get the fuck out of here with that pseudo science crap.
Death from Overwork (Score:4)
When you lockdowns are interfering with essential services you've overdone it. Pull back. I get that their dense population centers make a disastrous outbreak possible. People forget China's population density is almost twice that of the US. Also China's healthcare system (which is private and for profit, btw) is worse than even the United States'. I get why they'd want to lock down, but this is incompetence.
But, well, they're a kleptocratic dictatorship. So incompetence is to be expected. Too much power in too few hands. What scares me is the United States came close to going that round this last election cycle. About 30-40% of the voting population seems to think it's for the best.
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In the US about 1% of people who contracted covid died despite often excellent medical care - it's as simple as that.
Not quite that simple. 1% of people who TESTED POSITIVE for COVID died. There have been estimates that for each positive test, there were several (2-5) more undetected infections. The death rate for COVID is not 1%, otherwise you would be looking at millions of deaths in the US alone.
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These Chinese workers doing the covid testing are essentially very low paid, are migrant workers, sleep in very cramped quarters, and in general it's a terrible job even by Chinese standards.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
People do actually. Workplace deaths from over exertion and stress are fairly routine. To the point where work is considered the fifth largest cause of death. The WHO puts it at around 2 million dead per year. Now granted a good chunk of thats going to be accidents, but places with poor workplace safety laws (And unfortunately the US is in that category thanks the bizare power of industry lobbyists) you also get a lot of death from pathogen exposure, radiation from exposure to coal and other radioactibve materials, inhallation, excessive hours and excessive anxiety leading to internal bleeding and so on.
Heart attacks and Strokes acquired from overwork account for 750,000 deaths globally a year.
And we have no way to estimate the death toll from workplace induced suicide, particularly in countries with poor welfare systems that trap people into gruelling work with no safety net. But its estimated to be very high indeed.
So yeah, people really are dying from doing their job.
'China does not release information...' (Score:5, Insightful)
Once more the needs of party propaganda, and of Winnie the Xi to keep the situation stable till he gets reelected later this year, is making the world realise that we need to treat Chinese statistics and claims with very high levels of scepticism.
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The fact they're not actually 0 makes that even more funny, because someone realized that 0 is so incredibly unbelievable as to be impossible that it might not be a good idea to use that number.
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Our own governments to the same stuff. Not quite as brazenly, but still.
In the UK the official death toll includes anyone who died within 28 days of a positive COVID test. Die a day later, or don't get tested, and they don't count. The Office for National Statistics has a different number based on the number of people where COVID was listed on the death certificate as a cause. Guess which one is higher.
The WHO should have worked to create an international standard for these stats.
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How should they have counted covid deaths then?
Bear in mind that whatever system or standard you choose has to actually be achievable in difficult and variable circumstances. Even across the UK the capabilities vary, so trying to work out what the entire planet is capable of is virtually impossible.
> Die a day later, [snip] and they don't count
What's the "timeout" for covid then? What would a more reasonable time be?
> [snip] don't get tested, and they don't count
How else would you know it was covid wi
Re:'China does not release information...' (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK the official death toll includes anyone who died within 28 days of a positive COVID test. Die a day later, or don't get tested, and they don't count. The Office for National Statistics has a different number based on the number of people where COVID was listed on the death certificate as a cause. Guess which one is higher.
You may well guess wrong. From the UK Government's own COVID data page [data.gov.uk], the total number of deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID test is LOWER than the total deaths where COVID was listed on the death certificate as a cause (though the pattern is reversed for deaths over the past week). I recall that the official death toll is also somewhat lower than the total number of excess deaths. The suggestion that the government is using inflated death figures is simply not borne out by the facts.
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I think you misunderstood. As you say, the official government figure is LOWER than the ONS number that looks at death certificates. The government is trying to make its COVID response look *less bad* by fiddling the stats.
In other words the UK government chose a measure that is based on a somewhat arbitrary standard, because it is lower than the one based on a more reliable standard. Some people will die without being tested, some will die from things unrelated to COVID, it's just not a good way of measuri
UK Statistics (Score:2)
There are three sets of statistics published, as shown by the BBC which carefully explains what they do, and don't show. Each of them has its critics, but the fact that all are updated shows a very different attitude to the truth.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-... [bbc.co.uk]
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They are doubtless too low, but also unlikely to be several orders of magnitude out like some people are claiming.
China has very strict lockdowns, so you would expect them to be effective. Of course they enforce them with violence, rather than with legal penalty (like most of Europe) or by building trust and consent (like New Zealand).
Re:'China does not release information...' (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly.
The problem is China wants COVID Zero. To do that, they imposed a mandatory lockdown. They said it was going to be 3 days, and effectively threatened arrest for anyone to suggest otherwise.
It's been two weeks, and no one in Shanghai has been allowed out of their homes. These people prepared for a 3 day lockdown, not a 14+ day one. Imagine you were told to prepare for a 3 day lockdown, and what you might do differently if it was going far longer. Now imagine being told that it was guaranteed it won't be longer than 3 days, and to suggest otherwise would get you jail time.
Now imagine what potential problems might be, and you'll see what's happening in Shanghai right now.
Yes, hunger - because people prepared for 3 days, and basically ran out of food. And the Chinese delivery apps still allowed to deliver, barely work.
You can Google "Shanghai night screaming" on what happens every night as people are desperately crying for food.
If you're lazy, there are plenty of news on it.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19... [cnn.com]
https://www.politifact.com/art... [politifact.com]
https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/... [nypost.com]
A two minute video summarizing what's happening - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
China needs to show people "it's working" so the numbers are suspect, because if the people knew what the real numbers were, they'd riot. They're hungry, they're starving, the lockdown doesn't seem to end, and it's not accomplishing what the government is saying it does.
So the numbers are fake because COVID Zero isn't working, and practically all of the western world has come to accept that and likely will have to have annual COVID shots to go with the flu shots.
There's some hope - the populace is getting unruly enough that belief in COVID Zero is faltering as is their belief that the government has things under control.
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How could it not be working? If you isolate people, how is it still spreading?
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Not only did they botch the lockdown, they now seem to be getting desperate. State news reports spraying the roads and pavements with disinfectant, which clearly is going to have zero effect.
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On the upside obesity numbers are down in Shanghai.
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No, the West had lockdowns too. And shown they did work, to a point.
If we take the US, the main goal of lockdowns was to avoid completely overwhelming the healthcare system. Which because of the way US healthcare worked, was actually to its benefit - there was so much overcapacity that for a while you could get away with fewer restrictions just because hospitals had way too
For good reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Once more the needs of party propaganda, and of Winnie the Xi, [are needed] to keep the situation stable till he gets reelected later this year,
And for good reason. Things aren't all coming up plum blossoms there in the dragon kingdom. Between their Demographic Collapse [youtube.com], their Housing Crisis [youtube.com], and their Water Crisis [youtube.com], the last thing Pooh Bear needs is a crisis #4. Authoritarians in power want more power, not threats to it. Hence, China has to make COVID look like it's under control.
Because Communist China's greatest thing to fear is not the United States, but rather its own countrymen. How many successful revolutions has the United States experienced in the last century? Zero. How many successful revolutions has China experienced in the last century (...well, 111 years, actually)? Not just one [wikipedia.org], but two [wikipedia.org]. Maintaining a civil state with a population of over a billion people is no easy feat.
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And their approach to try to keep the virus under control is an authoritarian one that's built around giving the state ever more power over people's lives.
Excess mortality is only valuable measure (Score:5, Informative)
ourworldindata.org : https://ourworldindata.org/exc... [ourworldindata.org]
which puts China at 300.000+ excess death since Covid, compared to their official "4000" number
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It's kinda funny how fragile the political propaganda machine is there. 300K deaths over a population of 1.4B would be considered a huge success comparitively but they have to keep a wild and completely unreasonable number instead.
"A+?? You know a D turns into a B so easily. You just got greedy. "
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I'll point out that even excess mortality numbers also ultimately come from the national governments. So even the 300,000 number you cite is likely a huge underestimate. The Chinese Communist party isn't stupid- they know people will look at those excess mortality numbers and associate it with Covid.
The truth is we'll never know how many people actually died of Covid because various governments around the world have vested interests in hiding the scale of the problem. That's certainly part of the reason one
Re: Excess mortality is only valuable measure (Score:2)
That doesnt logically make sense. I hope you mean the sum of all deaths including excess deaths and covid deaths.
only 300K (Score:2)
If only we had locked down harder (Score:2, Funny)
we too could have only had 17 covid deaths... ..and millions more non-covid deaths, among government agents who tried to enforce such a lockdown.
The CCP are lying sacks of cow manure (Score:5, Interesting)
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Correct. they do not have checks or use much cash, they use payment apps as those are easier for the state to track...
But I am sure they use balances like other places..
There are several things that the CCP says that are believable.
I opened the front page of Global times, one of their primary mouth pieces and of the front page had 52 story headlines.
And at least following headlines seemed believable:
1) End of an era as streaming giant Netflix faces stagnation issues
2) Composer Harrison Birtwistle dead at 8
Balance (Score:2)
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Re:Balance (Score:4, Interesting)
They might resort to such methods only if the truth has become unfeasible expensive to deny. Because in restoring to such a method it can be interpreted as weakness of the government in protecting the citizens from a threat. So they're usually avoiding that at all cost unless they can find a good external or even internal (think of groups like Uyghurs) scapegoat/boogeyman they can pin the blame on.
Otherwise the modus operandi is going to be playing things down and denial to keep up the political strongmanish facade.
That and cum hoc/post hoc reasoning combined with a bit of "not as bad as" more along time lines of "Look how well our measures are working compared to other countries (cherry pick very bad example). This is because of our measures. Our measures are keeping you safe. Our measures are scientifically justified!".
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China may be overly strict in counting cases, but some western countries are overly generous
Which ones? Point to just one nation whose covid stats show more covid deaths than can be accounted for by looking at excess deaths, at a time when other kinds of deaths were generally down due to reduced activity.
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Looking at excess deaths most countries seem to under count.
Though in case of China, it is hard to say how much they under count(but it is a lot) because the fiction they call statistics does not resemble the truth enough to make any reasonable guesses.
Remember last time they were playing down numbers. (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe it's not such a good idea to ditch the masks everywhere else just yet.
OMFG! Cold War 2.0... (Score:2)
It Works Both Ways (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm absolutely certain the flu deaths those years were reported as Covid deaths.
Re:It Works Both Ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Seasonal flu cases suddenly dropped/disappeared in 2020-2021. Why?
Because everyone was locked down, social distancing, not traveling, and wearing masks.
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I'd want to check the stats, but I wouldn't be surprised if the flu vaccination rate was higher, too. A lot of people skip getting the flu vaccine because they see the flu as less serious and the side effects of the vaccine as bad enough it just isn't worth the trouble. But ordinary people were thinking about it more, and businesses were more vigorous than usual in requiring their employees get vaccinated.
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Because we had barely any flu transmission given that it a virus that is far harder to transmit than COVID. Now here's the kicker: This seasons flu vaccine is effectively worthless, why? Because there were so few actual flu cases (not just your stupid reported as COVID conspiracy) but actual flu cases that we couldn't even build an accurate statistical model of the likely strains which would spread this season, and when guessing they got the strains wrong.
The hallmarks of a good conspiracy is that someone s
Or more likely...they're simply lying. (Score:2)
If there were only 17 deaths out of 400,000 infections. Than, apologies, we need to nuke China off the map. Because the ONLY way that could actually occur is if the China had in fact genetically engineered the virus to target specific genetic markers not commonly found in Chinese ethnicities.
I really do not believe China is able to do such, and am much more likely to believe that China, as seems to be the case with many other totalitarian regimes is reporting false metrics. Occum's razor...
What? (Score:2)
Is this article trying to say that somebody who died of something other than COVID should be counted as a COVID death?
Obviously. (Score:2)
Lockdowns are more dangerous than the virus (Score:2)
Everyone has had to have the DMV, the post office, or City Hall correct some error. It's never an easy fix, given the antiquated or overly-complicated systems government uses, combined with the apathy from and lack of consequences for government workers.
Now, imagine such an error keeping your locked down family from getting food or medicine delivered. That is the scene in China right now. People are starving, even committing suicide, from these lockdown measures. The police enforcing these measures are
politically wrong numbers? (Score:2)
Really? So what - counting the road accident victims infected with "covid" at the time of death as "covid" victims is better? Of course, if you have financial interests in the crisis, then sure...How come the common flu never received the same level of attention while killing (mainly indirectly) so many people every year?
The only way to get the humans out of the mental crisis we are in right now is get back to the objective and scientific way of measuring the crisis. But, of course, if we ever get there, th
From what i seen from Fauci & the MSM (Score:2, Interesting)
Fauci and the MSM have lost what little credibility they had
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Alex Jones of infowars has more credible news & information when it comes to the corona virus pandemic
Fauci and the MSM have lost what little credibility they had
I think you need to ask Fauci how much your mental capacity is affected by whatever you're smoking.
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"revives questions about China's numbers" (Score:2)
Okay, perhaps I have a typically North American outlook, but I'm not aware of ANY numbers provided by China on any topic that aren't immediately questioned - and eminently questionable.
Re: China is correct (Score:2, Informative)
I cannot see how anyone would trust any numbers coming out of China. Everything is controlled by the communist party and all the numbers released are whatever shows them in a good political light. Low numbers? They are so awesome at controlling the virus. Some deaths? It must have been the damn Americans engineering this virus in Ukraine to kill everyone.
Everything they say is a lie.
Re: China is correct (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have too because all the CDC really does is collect the nformation from medical examiners and health departments from each state, who collect it from each county who n turn collect it from each hospital.
If you really want to you can go get all the numbers from all those individual sources. The CDC just collects it one place and has to make a call of interpretation of what can be some very disparite and inconsistent reporting as every area is going to be a little different in how things are reported.
Oh, you didn't do that? You wanted the convienence of a centralized federal number even if it was just to sow FUD about it?
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I cannot see how anyone would trust any numbers coming out of the CDC:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articl... [wsws.org]
LOL. You are using an example of an agency identifying a mistake and publicly adjusting their figures to remediate it as an example of why they are not trustworthy? I have a hard time imagining the lack of insight and intelligence it takes to come to that conclusion.
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[If you don't trust stats from China], do you trust COVID-19 stats coming out of Florida?
Trust is not binary. There are reasons to be wary of data coming from Florida, but it is still far more trustworthy than what is coming from China. The very fact that you have people within the US and even within Florida pointing out the problems with Florida's counting processes shows how much more reliable it is than China. How many high level medical policy professionals within the Chinese government and medical industry are vocally pointing out problems with how China is managing Covid and collecting Co
Re: China is correct (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:China is correct (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone responsible for Medical Reporting, while there is often a degree of wiggle room on on how the reports will show results. Having your numbers outside everyone else's seems fishy.
WIth US based reporting. The simplest way to get the numbers is the Number of patients who died with the primary diagnosis of COVID-19, Or we can get more detailed where we get the cause of death being from organ failures consistent with COVID-19 side effects combined with a positive COVID-19 Diagnosis. Depending on the system recording the data, the Doctor may just put COVID-19 as the cause of death.
There isn't much to gain politically, financially, or any other way by artificially increasing your numbers to be overtly high. While there is more to gain by low baling your numbers. Being China being a very totalitarian state, with a lot of emphasis on trying to give itself the best public image. It comes down to them probably under counting deaths vs other countries over counting.
While the numbers cannot be perfect, because it comes down to if they Didn't get COVID would they be alive where they had died. Is a compex question and not always clear cut. I would expect China is only reporting deaths from COVID-19 Cases with otherwise perfectly healthy people, that are actually very rare group of people in general, as much of us has some sort of condition (often very minor).
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I don't often say this, but China is correct in this. Other countries have artificially increased their COVID death numbers by overly permissive definitions.
While there may be some, I'm not aware of any countries who artificially increased their Covid-19 death numbers. If anything, nations have an incentive to reduce figures to improve the public's perception of their response. Official Covid-19 deaths don't account for the increased mortality rates in any nation I have seen figures for, which is a sign developed nations simply have a hard time attributing all Covid-19 deaths properly.
In the US, for instance, the official Covid-19 related death toll is around 1
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Trying to take a high level view helps to decrease the individual bias but still has its own set of problems which all basically boil down to it assumes COVID is the only thing different. Given all the things that have changed in the last two years we know this isn't true. So the change in death rate can only tell us the sum of everything going on. If you want to use it for almost anything else.. Well as they say; the devil is in the details.
What are all the things which have changed in the last two years which do not have the pandemic as their core cause? This has happened before, such as a bad flu season in 2017/18 which caused tens of thousands of excess deaths in the US. But since early 2020, I am not aware of any non-Covid related sources of excess deaths (in the US at least).
The CDC has done analysis on the likely cause of these excess deaths, and put about 80% of them as being directly Covid related (miscounts) and 20% of them as indirec
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The CDC has done analysis on the likely cause of these excess deaths, and put about 80% of them as being directly Covid related (miscounts) and 20% of them as indirectly Covid related (not enough hospital capacity for immediate and preventative care, increased opioid use during lockdowns, etc). There are not any non-Covid related issues which would be responsible for more than the standard deviation from average deaths in a year.
Personally if one is going to classify increase in drug related deaths, increase in deaths of people failing to seek medical attention simply because they are too scared of hospitals as "covid related" then they've lost me. I don't support or agree with this interpretation of language.
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Personally if one is going to classify increase in drug related deaths, increase in deaths of people failing to seek medical attention simply because they are too scared of hospitals as "covid related" then they've lost me. I don't support or agree with this interpretation of language.
It's not really an interpretation of language, it is basic root cause analysis. One of the biggest dangers Covid represented was overwhelming our medical capacity. The death rate itself was arguably not that high, but too many people visiting hospitals at the same time has huge negative consequences. People weren't just "too scared of hospitals", they had trouble getting adequate medical care.
That is why current CDC recommendations have switched from being focused on virus spread to being primarily focused
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It's not really an interpretation of language, it is basic root cause analysis. One of the biggest dangers Covid represented was overwhelming our medical capacity.
It was a potential danger that only marginally materialized with limited localized effects in time and place. For the most part greatest harms were self inflicted with preemptive canceling of treatments, elective procedures and public failure to seek medical care mostly out of fear. This is evidenced by the insane losses to the tune of countless billions of dollars hospital systems racked up throughout the pandemic. Losses directly caused by a substantial reduction in medical services provided.
Even in th
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You suffer from a level of misinformation which isn't going to be solved with Slashdot forum posts.
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Other countries have artificially increased their COVID death numbers by overly permissive definitions.
Define death numbers. Because excess mortality figures indicate that even when "artificially increased" COVID death numbers are taken into account that *every* western country is still massively undercounting the actual deaths during the past two years.
Or maybe you're saying there was a magic secret second virus killing people we weren't tracking?
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Other countries have artificially increased their COVID death numbers by overly permissive definitions.
That's a bit misleading. There is some misrepresentation of data, e.g. tallies of deaths of patients infected with covid may be presented as deaths caused by covid.
However, in most western countries, the actual excess deaths is close to the counts of covid deaths. Some people with covid would have died anyway for other reasons, while other people without covid died with it as an indirect cause.
Where there is a mismatch between excess deaths and reported covid deaths, covid seems to be under-counted.
https [economist.com]
Re:Covid is not particularly dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
Sweden were forced to abandon their herd immunity strategy and impose restrictions, which reduced their numbers down to about the same as the UK despite them having a society and population density much more conducive to surviving pandemics. This shows that the herd immunity they tried at the start was a terrible strategy.
The UK also did poorly by comparison with similar Countries. It's difficult to sperate whether this was bacause of their delay in locking down or because of their complete failure in protecting the most vulnerable in nursing homes. Probably a combination of the two.
The USA gives us a clearer set of evidence. Those states that avoided lockdowns fared much worse, after adjusting for population density and other factors such as general health and age, than those which imposed stricter measures.
These facts combined show that the method of locking down until a vaccine was developed was the best method of controlling the virus, and was necessary to keep the deaths to a reasonable level
And nobody with any sense believes a word coming out of the current UK Government.
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Oh, and by the way, Sweden never, ever, had a mandatory lockdown. Schools did not close. Universities did not close. Offices did not close. A mature and sensible country.
In reality (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Sweden)
From early 2021 amidst a surge in cases, new legislation was passed limiting visitors to venues, enacting international travel restrictions, banning nursing home visits and closing secondary schools and universities
My emphasis.
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"Locking down" is not a good metric because it is poorly defined. The lockdowns in China are nothing like the ones in America, for example. Taking countermeasures is important, but which countermeasures are the ones that matter?
Is it effective to close down bars?
Is it effective to close down construction sites?
Is it effective to force everyone to wear a mask?
Is it effective to close down schools?
Each of these have a cost associated with them. The goal should be to find a set of responses that will effective
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The USA gives us a clearer set of evidence. Those states that avoided lockdowns fared much worse, after adjusting for population density and other factors such as general health and age, than those which imposed stricter measures.
Um, no, that's not true. Florida did about as well as new York, for example, despite avoiding lockdowns (and despite having a more elderly population).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The USA gives us a clearer set of evidence. Those states that avoided lockdowns fared much worse, after adjusting for population density and other factors such as general health and age, than those which imposed stricter measures.
Um, no, that's not true. Florida did about as well as new York, for example, despite avoiding lockdowns (and despite having a more elderly population).
There are other significant differences between Florida and New York:
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The bottom line is that Swedes suffered grievously from Tegnell’s policies. According to the authoritative Johns Hopkins pandemic tracker, while its total death rate from February 2020 through this week, 1,790 per million population, is better than that of the U.S. (2,939), Britain (2,420) and France (2,107), it’s worse than that of Germany (1,539), Canada (984) and Japan (220).
Sweden has done better than the U.S. and Britain against COVID, but worse than many other countries that imposed strict
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All the contrary evidence you have read was also written by "men with an agenda" just a different agenda, at least I had the honesty to post my source.
What did Norway, Germany, Japan, Canada and Finland do that did work?
Re:Covid is not particularly dangerous (Score:4, Informative)
Covid is way down the list of causes of death.
In multiple countries, Covid was in the top 3 killers in February and the lead killer in multiple age cohorts. See e.g. US data here https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-leading-cause-of-death-ranking/ [healthsystemtracker.org].
The virus, which the UK govt believes was spawned in the Wuhan virology lab (as per scientific papers) has been exploited, by politicians, to remove our freedoms, in the falsehood that our safety is improved.
It is possible that the virus was a lab leak. But whether it was a lab leak is not irrelevant to any of your other claims.
Sweden showed that lockdowns were unnecessary, and even counter-productive to health.
Sweden had about 1785 deaths per a million people due to Covid. thus far. See https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ [statista.com]. That puts Sweden on the lower end of death totals, but that's due in part to a) Sweden gaining an advantage by being near a lot of countries which did pretty serious lockdowns b) Sweden having a very healthy population with a good healthcare system to start with and c) Sweden having an extremely high vaccination rate https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/sweden/ [reuters.com]. Before we had vaccines, when Sweden was not taking precautions while other locations were, it was hit very badly by covid, as you can see in the graphs in the last link.
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In multiple countries, Covid was in the top 3 killers in February and the lead killer in multiple age cohorts. See e.g. US data here https://www.healthsystemtracke... [healthsystemtracker.org]
Whenever an airliner full of people crashes one can also make the argument airline crashes are the worlds leading cause of death within the last few minutes of the crash occurring.
Yearly statistics are used for a reason. They take into account seasonal and short duration variation which would otherwise distort perceptions. Cherry picking specific months in order to intentionally arrive at maximally alarming figures is not helpful or useful.
Re:Covid is not particularly dangerous (Score:4, Informative)
Covid was never in the top 3. You're reading fiddled statistics.
Excess deaths tell another story. What do YOU think was causing excess deaths during this pandemic while most kinds of activity were reduced, and therefore accidental deaths were also reduced?
Re:Covid is not particularly dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
You do realise that because the NHS turned into the National Covid Service plenty of people including cancer patients missed diagnosis and even treatment for almost 2 years?
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I think you're being a bit disingenuous here, as the GP stated "plenty of people, including cancer patients missed diagnosis and even treatment."
I doubt there will ever be a good answer to the debate of "look at all of these excess deaths due to COVID" vs "look at all of these excess deaths because of panic reactions" but I frankly think that anyone that is pinned to either one of these extremes is either intellectually dishonest or lacks critical thinking skills. It's certain there are a non-zero number o
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I think you're being a bit disingenuous here, as the GP stated "plenty of people, including cancer patients missed diagnosis and even treatment."
No, the GP is the one being disingenuous. I'm not questioning whether that happened, I'm questioning whether that number makes any significant difference. And they have offered no evidence that it does.
It's certain there are a non-zero number of excess deaths that can be ascribed to missed doctors appointments, delayed lab work, "elective" surgeries being cancelled, fear of going to the ER during a pandemic, etc
Yeah, nobody including me argued otherwise, so there's frankly no point to your saying that. We all know that. But is that number actually any significant percentage of the excess deaths? That's what's relevant here, and that question is just being hand waved away. That's why I said show your work, which is p
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That's what's relevant here, and that question is just being hand waved away. That's why I said show your work
My quibble was mostly with your wording "all due to cancer." With that said, your comment above raises the point in a much more cogent fashion.
which is presumably why I got modded down by some denialist ding-a-ling.
That's one of the things I dislike about the /. moderation system--while I didn't agree with your phrasing, it certainly wasn't a troll.
If it makes you feel any better, at some point in the past (no idea when) you said something interesting enough that you have enough automatic modifiers that I see even a -1 comment of yours as a +5.
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Yes, anyone doubting the numbers or claiming things were fiddled have to provide an alternative reasonable explanation for the huge outlier in deaths over the past 2 years.
Adjusted for population growth the number of people who die in the US every year is pretty consistent so a huge outlier like we have seen has to be explained (and it's not fiddled numbers since all this data comes in from the local level so someone manipulating it would have had to manipulate a few thousand counties at once)
Excess mortali [ourworldindata.org]
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Covid got the elderly, the obese and the sick. Average age of death WITH Covid (and not necessarily OF Covid) was, in the UK 82, higher than the national life expectancy.
These are talking points standard to people trying to downplay the severity of covid. They do not work. The from/with distinction being made doesn't work. Excess deaths make it extremely unlikely that these people are dying simply with covid. And that's especially the case, because places like Australia which had serious lockdowns but few covid cases saw almost no excess deaths until their covid numbers ticked up. The claim about average age of death is true, but doesn't really make sense. Average age of d
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These are talking points standard to people trying to downplay the severity of covid. They do not work.
The claim about average age of death is true, but doesn't really make sense. Average age of death compared to life expectancy is a terrible way to measure disease severity. To see why, imagine a disease which kills every single Britain over age 85, and also kills a 50,000 people of age 40. That's a pretty serious disease, but it obeys the life expectancy claim.
Or consider two diseases A and B which both kill the exact same age profile except that B kills a few more elderly people. By your metric of average age of death, B will now look less serious than A when it is more of a problem.
Validity of metrics chosen depend upon the question one seeks to answer.
People in their 80s and 90s being nudged over the edge by a virus is a different problem than young children being killed off. Both metrics such as total years of life lost and total deaths provide useful insights into risk and impact on populations.
If I were a policy maker and had to pick one I would select years of life lost over death count if I had to pick one over the other. This is way more relevant to me because it is likely to
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If I were a policy maker and had to pick one I would select years of life lost over death count if I had to pick one over the other. This is way more relevant to me because it is likely to tell me more about both immediate impact and opportunity costs.
Maybe. Old people vote. Unless they're all going to die off, appearing not to care for them will likely have a larger impact on your continued employment than blowing off the young. Most of the people who get that far will make that their primary consideration (history shows...)
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The virus, which the UK govt believes was spawned in the Wuhan virology lab (as per scientific papers)
What?
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which the UK govt believes was spawned in the Wuhan virology lab
[Citation Required]. Because the UK Chief Medical Officer Professor John Watson was on the investigation team and he has so far said that it is *unlikely* that Wuhan virology lab was the source and the investigation team was happy that all checks and processes were in place at the lab well and truly above and beyond what is required for this virus (which could be researched at a lab with far lower safety requirements).
The only real mention in the conclusion of the UK's only full report on the matter was tha