Covid-19 Deaths Rose In US College Towns When Students Returned (deccanherald.com) 264
The New York Times reports:
As coronavirus deaths soar across the country, deaths in communities that are home to colleges have risen faster than the rest of the nation, a New York Times analysis of 203 counties where students compose at least 10 percent of the population has found... [S]ince the end of August, deaths from the coronavirus have doubled in counties with a large college population, compared with a 58 percent increase in the rest of the nation.
Few of the victims were college students, but rather older people and others living and working in the community.
Health officials and family members of some people who died in such counties described large surges of cases involving students followed by subsequent infections and deaths in the wider community. "When the rate of transmission in the surrounding community is high and increasing," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, "you are going to see more deaths...." [I]n September and October, when deaths were well below earlier peaks and fairly steady, they were already rising in many college communities. That trend highlighted a central fear of health officials — that young adults with limited symptoms may unwittingly transmit the virus, increasing the possibility it would ultimately spread to someone more vulnerable...
"All it really takes is one cavalier interaction," said Tali Elfassy, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami.
Few of the victims were college students, but rather older people and others living and working in the community.
Health officials and family members of some people who died in such counties described large surges of cases involving students followed by subsequent infections and deaths in the wider community. "When the rate of transmission in the surrounding community is high and increasing," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, "you are going to see more deaths...." [I]n September and October, when deaths were well below earlier peaks and fairly steady, they were already rising in many college communities. That trend highlighted a central fear of health officials — that young adults with limited symptoms may unwittingly transmit the virus, increasing the possibility it would ultimately spread to someone more vulnerable...
"All it really takes is one cavalier interaction," said Tali Elfassy, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami.
Ground wetter when it rains (Score:3)
In what way is this news for anyone?
Re:Ground wetter when it rains (Score:5, Insightful)
A sizable percentage of the population seems to legitimately think that children and young adults getting exposed is fine, because they rarely develop complications. For 49 of the last 50 years parents have been blaming their kids for getting sick, but in 2020 we collectively forgot that diseases can jump from younger people to older people or they think that if Timmy has a mild case, so will Granny when she caches it from Timmy.
This falls under the same category of science as "things we all kind of knew but we needed to prove anyway'" except this time it's a variation in the form of "things we all kind of knew, but were inconvenient, so we chose to believe in something else."
Re:Ground wetter when it rains (Score:5, Insightful)
This falls under the same category of science as "things we all kind of knew but we needed to prove anyway'"
There is literally a world of proof that's accumulated for almost a year.
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Re: Ground wetter when it rains (Score:2)
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Sure. If someone says "average" it's usually reasonable to assume they mean "mean." Thing about pedantry though, is that if you're gonna do it, you've got to make sure you do it *right*. The reason the term "mean" exists is because "average" is not specific.
If you're talking colloquial usage, means almost always work the way the OP stated anyway. The majority of the world, including an awful lot of scientists, regard non-normal distributions, never mind asymmetric ones, as hopefully mythical dragons and se
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Re: Ground wetter when it rains (Score:3)
The long-term effects part of your statement is starting to see some serious challenges in data. I recommend keeping your opinion open on that... as todayâ(TM)s kids enter puberty, thereâ(TM)s growing concern we will see a spike in heart failure from this virus, matching what happened after the 1918 flu. No conclusive data yet, but several papers out there raising reasonable concern.
Re: Ground wetter when it rains (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep. As someone whose first vote was for W for round 2, every time I've had a Republican canvasser come by my house this election cycle I've told them I could not in good conscience vote for any Republican until the party repudiated Trumpism. Until then I prefer to refer to them as Trumpistas, in honor of the followers of another populist, autocratic leader: Chavistas, followers of Chavismo/Chavez (of Kraken fame, but before he became all zombieified to meddle in the 2020 election)
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You don't like Donald Trump, you say? That's a pretty radical opinion. Mod parent up!
It should be a completely mainstream, totally non-radical opinion. The fact that a large minority of the country disagrees with that opinion is rather disheartening.
Re:Ground wetter when it rains (Score:4, Insightful)
We have a major, often ruling, political party which has decided to call into question, when it suits their campaigns, the conclusions of good peer reviewed science with nothing but innuendo.
The No Nukes, No GMO party, the one that can't even build a research telescope on a Hawaiian mountainside next to all those other telescopes? To be fair, the Republicans also have their anti-science wing
When you politicize an issue, any issue, you ruin it for science.
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It is news to the people who do not watch mainstream news.
There has been a trend of us getting news from more timely and targeted sources.
Your a Republican who wants to know about what is happening in politics you watch Fox News and go to conservative news sites, and social media will be happy to direct you there.
Your a Democrat who wants to know about what is happening in politics you watch MSNBC and go to liberal news sites, and social media will be happy to direct you there.
We are missing traditional mai
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One of the messages that seemed to be taken out from the normal discord, is the fact that the Masks are not to protect the wearing from catching the virus, but for someone who might have it and not know it from spreading it.
Yeah, I've noticed that too.
Opening grade schools has also caused deaths? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes, this is absolutely a real path for disease spread. We see it time and again.
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Colleges are slightly different in that the students are from outside the community. While its not true of metro areas a lot of rural American towns don't probably have somewhat limited contact with the outside. Farmers taking produce to market, retailers receiving inventory, etc. The rest of the folks mostly interact within a small set of surrounding communities. The people the do frequently travel further a field probably are the ones most willing and capable of taking appropriate precautions.
However you
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So if this is happening with colleges, is it also happening with grade schools?
Of course it is. Grade school kids are vectors of illness every day.
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Tons of schools have opened up only to close again because of positive cases. You couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher right now. Being stuck in a small room with 30 children? Outbreak city.
Selfish kills (Score:3)
The hypocrisy... (Score:3, Insightful)
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I have a very high suspicion, that a great deal of those college students, were the same ones posting on their social media, that Trump was a monster for not imposing stricter pandemic measures.
It's true, jbssm is hearing this from many, great people.
The college experience (Score:3)
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So many parents are willing to foot the bill because they have been propagandized into the belief that if they children doing go directly from high school to university (no some community college) they are destine to be wage slaves in some Amazon warehouse or burger flippers their entire lives; with no hope of improving their station EVER.
The vast majority of 18 year olds have no practical experience with large five figure sums let alone six figure sums. They don't have a sense of what 30 years is only bei
Phases of Development (Score:3)
Plenty of kids act stupid (their age) but it doesn't stay the same for the whole time. Most will grow out of that 18-20 phase and a few might get stuck in it... Maturity is not strictly tied to AGE; experiences, environment and parenting ....maybe some genetics are involved.
We simplistically assign arbitrary ages and linear progressions to everybody and judge those who do not fit in like the rest the sheep. Some kids need years of military experience either to force them to grow up and get some measure of
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes correlation actually is causation. The "second wave" did NOT happen world over at the same time.
Re:Correlation is not causation (Score:5, Insightful)
outbreaks even if fairly large are easily controlled.
Have you been drinking? How are the outbreaks in the US being "easily controlled"?
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Re: Correlation is not causation (Score:2)
That was sarcasm? I think thatâ(TM)s a pretty easily probable statement of fact. We can cite lots of the leaderâ(TM)s speeches where he says the virus is under control.
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Schools and Colleges all return Septemberish. Second wave happened world over at same time.
Schools returning had other effects, parents who were working from home or not working could return. The weather gets poorer and nights get darker so less time spent outside.
You failed to understand even the headline, much less the summary.
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Our home had 3 patients, including my dad, who is 77. It was difficult, but we all pulled through. We all drank half cup of hot water every hour, I mean pure water. Maybe that helped a lot.
I'm sure all the people who have died now wish they drank half a cup of hot water every hour. What does drinking half a cup of hot water every hour actually do? Would it be better to drink a whole cup every hour?
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It's amazing just how many people are vulnerable to magical thinking
Re:Our home had 3 patients (Score:5, Funny)
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What do you mean by "pure water"? A good local spring? Distilled water? Or simply tap water?
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PURE. From the spring of eternal life. But it has to be got. And only half a cup, not a full cup. Injection is better as well
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Oh, no need to be harsh. It can be difficult for people who are ill to stay well hydrated.
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Personally I use heavy water but damn is it expensive.
Re: Our home had 3 patients (Score:2)
Drink from an empty cup for a better, homeopathic water cure!
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You should try with a half-dose of water. I have heard from scientific studies that it's an extremely effective strategy.
Amateur. Drink from an empty glass. It has the strongest concentration.
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Ahh. Homeopathic medicine. Water can, indeed, help with the flue. According to the CDC, dehydration can be a very real problem for flu sufferers with all forms of the flu. and their recommendations include "Offer clear fluids such as water, broth, or sports drinks"
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pdf/fr... [cdc.gov]
It's a useful and legible guideline: I'm impressed that it mentions being cautious about fluids for people with kidney issues: I'm old enough that more and more of my acquaintances have
Re:Our home had 3 patients (Score:4, Funny)
Water can, indeed, help with the flue.
The last time I used water with the flue my fire went out.
Re: Our home had 3 patients (Score:2)
McDonald's coffee hot. I assume the idea is that if you cauterize the tissue sufficiently then the virus can't enter that way?
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So why not stick a blow torch down your throat?
Well, you obviously don't want to completely close off your throat, that's just silly. You just want to scar up the outer layer of tissue to build that wall in your throat.
Re: Our home had 3 patients (Score:2)
On the plus side, cauterizing your throat will help prevent you from speaking, thereby reducing the spread of bad flu advice, thus helping stop flu spread. Is there a thing we can do to likewise prevent hands from typing? I hear a hammer pulverizing knuckles can stop spread of flu!
Re:COV-Insanity (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a flu strain. It's a disease caused by a coronavirus. The "flu" is caused by the influenza virus.
Re:COV-Insanity (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh fuck off. You used the term "flu" deliberately to make it sound like this is same-old, same-old, and thus no big deal and everyone is just over-reacting. And you did that because you're too cowardly to own your arguments enough to say what you mean directly. And that makes you pathetic.
Just as your assertion that "we are not seeing any progress toward a solution" is a deliberate blind eye you are turning towards the many countries and varied policies that have delivered progress toward a solution, including for example New Zealand, Vietnam and South Korea. It's just general cuntery on your part, and it's risible. Grow the fuck up.
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I wish you didn't post anonymously because I'd really like to know who you are. I couldn't have said it better.
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Oh go fuck off youself you would have the said the very same thing if he had more correctly compared it a "new clold" and you fucking know it you worthless troll
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No, if you want to be correct, you'd say "the new SARS". The common cold is in most cases caused by the rhinoviruses.
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Perhaps because "new cold" would have been equally asinine?
"A cold" is a description of a set of signs and symptoms of a mild respiratory infection that can be caused by any number of viruses. When "a cold" gets severe enough it becomes things like "bronchitis" or "pneumonia", which are descriptions of the location of an infection.
It's sort of like how "an infected boo boo" is something you put alcohol and a band aid on, but if it gets bad enough it's no longer a boo boo, it's "blood poisoning," or "sepsis.
Re:COV-Insanity (Score:4, Insightful)
You didn't make any points. You waffled on trying to say that COVID was the same as the "seasonal flu".
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Here is what you said:
People are losing their minds trying to figure out a way to blame everything on this new flu strain.
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Re: COV-Insanity (Score:2)
Your post contributed directly to a major disinformation campaign that many people are running. You might not have intended to contribute to the "covid=flu" mistake, but you did nonetheless. If you do not have time to review your post for such considerations on such a dangerous topic, please consider delaying your post until you have more time. People are dying from misinformation on this topic.
Re:COV-Insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is not that "it's not technically a flu" - the point is that it doesn't behave like any flu that we have dealt with in living memory either. With normal flu, there's some spread in the community but most people aren't badly harmed. Basically the society continues to function and people just take a couple of weeks off work for the most part.
With Coronavirus, a much bigger percentage of the people that get it need hospitalization than flu. Essentially it blocks up the hospitals. If you don't give people hospital treatment then the death rate increases massively, up to e.g. 10% depending on the health and age profile of the population. That means that if you just let it carry on with it's natural course, at some stage,once hospitals are overwhelmed people start locking down of their own accord because they see their relatives and friends are dying. With a normal flu, instead, they just carry on with their lives and so your economy can continue.
Given that people naturally lock down, this means that there is no successful strategy which manages SARS-COV-2 like flu. You have three choices - a) repeated legal lockdowns b) an ongoing lockdown caused by death or c) almost complete elimination of the virus. Again, this is not at all like flu.
AC probably said it better than me though.
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CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018â"2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza
So that would be a NO on about everything you just said about flu. Based on this it looks like more than half of flu cases resulted in some kind of medical intervention. Compare that with covid-19 that requires no treatment at all for the vast majority of people infected. Nope looks like getting the flu is in fact much more dangerous. Its just that
1) People with the flu usually get sick enough to stay home when they are most contagious
2) The flu might be less infectious generally,
3) People tend to distanc
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Unlike flu it has a higher chance to kill you if untreated, it also has a higher chance to cause severe complications even if it doesn't kill you. We'll be paying the economic costs of Covid for decades, even if there were zero deaths it would make sense to be much more proactive than we have been in this country. Unfortunately, most Americans give zero fucks about anyone else, and that problem is compounded by Republican senators giving zero fucks about anyone who doesn't give them money — and thus d
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You want to look at the CDC detailed numbers - they show the opposite.
One of the typical reasons people get this wrong impression is that normally we don't track asymptomatic flu. This means that the correct number to get an approximate number from is the CFR (Case Fatality Rate) not the IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) because the latter is unknown for flu since nobody knows how many people get it without reporting in.
There are several other problems that you may come across. E.g. if you take the numbers no
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CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018Ã"2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza
So that would be a NO on about everything you just said about flu. Based on this it looks like more than half of flu cases resulted in some kind of medical intervention.
"Going to a health care provider" is not the same as "medical intervention." In a lot of those cases people are just going to the doctor and complaining that they don't feel well and are being sent back home with some antivirals or recommendations to rest, drink lots of liquids, and maybe get some sudafed. Even aside from the fact that people are far less likely to go into the doctor for "minor" issues in the current situation, i haven't seen any numbers about how many have seen a health care provider abou
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The degree to which you ignore the facts tells us that you are a troll whose game is to ignore facts, or a spectacular knob who is incapable of absorbing them, and there's no third option.
Either way, anyone engaging with you honestly is just wasting their time.
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Your vocabulary choices don't make you sound any smarter.
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"Basically the society continues to function and people just take a couple of weeks off work for the most part." This would be true with COVID too, except the media and social media has hyped it above reality. If the Internet wasn't around you wouldn't even fucking know about COVID. There would be a lot of deaths in the old people, but they would be dismissed as "pneumonia".
In all my life, I've known zero people who died of influenza. I've known multiple people who have died of coronavirus this year, and not all of them were old.
So no, this isn't the media hyping it above reality. Rather, what we have is a bunch of foreign operatives trying to convince the American people that it is a hoax so that they will do nothing, in hopes that the virus will cripple the American economy.
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You are demanding that we learn to live with the infection. The first thing to achieve that is to know what to live with, and that's something you refuse to learn.
PS: Yes, dog and gnat w
High relevance of the virus family (Score:3)
I will cede the technical point of exactly which seasonal virus this is and/or is similar to, because it is entirely irrelevant.
Is absolutely entirely relevant:
- influenza virus family:
has been known and well studied for quite some time. By now, we have a couple of anti-viral therapeutic options (with various levels of success).
we can treat a great deal of the complication (e.g.: sur-infections by bacteria that take advantage of the disease to join the party),
and we have a very well established pipeline (RD, production facilities, and logistics) that can provide twice per year a vaccine against the strains deemed most likely
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The US states never implemented a lockdown. You don't get to have ~33% of your workforce defined as essential and still get to call it a lockdown.
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Obviously the lockdowns don't work, or they take longer than 10 months to be effective.
Obviously people have to observe them for them to work. If we could just throw all the denialists into the south and let them stew in their own coronavirus we would, but that's not really feasible, so the anti-science selfishists are just going to keep killing everyone else.
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I'm not sure why you have so much hate towards your countrymen, but I hope you feel better soon.
I hate anyone willing to kill me so that they can go socialize. You know what we do with traitors.
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How are they killing you if you are free to not associate with them? Who is forcing you to be in proximity with anyone you don't wish to be?
As you well know, they can spread the virus to people who can spread the virus to other people, who can — I know this is complicated, but hear me out — spread the virus to still other people. Still following along at home?
I am an essential worker. If people like me don't work, people like you don't eat. I need to be going to work, where I am exposed to other people. The people who don't need to be rubbing elbows with other people are putting my life in danger for their own amusement. Fuck those
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Lock downs work because logically they MUST work. Covid-19 and any other disease for that matter does not spead via magic, is spreads via contact.
However the idea of lock downs fail in practicality. People are social animals and simply won't put up with it forever. We don't grow our own food on the homestead anymore or have deep pantries, so most of us ARE headed to the grocery store. People rely on public transport and don't posses private means.
So it becomes a question of how contagious is it. The answer
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I am suggesting what I have suggested all a long. We try to solve the problem the opposite. We isolate the most vulnerable and make sure they get the things they need in a safe way a let everyone else go about their business until herd immunity (both via recovery and vaccination)
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The general thrust of your statement is that you're an idiot. This isn't the flu. It's far more communicable and far more dangerous
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I will cede the technical point of exactly which seasonal virus this is and/or is similar to, because it is entirely irrelevant. The general thrust of my statement was that we are not seeing any progress toward a solution,
Sure we are. Vaccines are rolling out, we know simple measures that are cheap and widely available that stop the spread (socially distance, wear masks, avoid crowds). What we are lacking is leadership. We had a "leadership" that was so focused on having a good economy to boost election prospects that they denied the existence of the pandemic, told us it was going to go away in a few months, refused to let American citizens enter the country because he "didn't want the numbers to go up", pushed against ad
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I will cede the technical point of exactly which seasonal virus this is and/or is similar to, because it is entirely irrelevant.
It is not a "seasonal" virus. You keep posting factually incorrect information.
The general thrust of my statement was that we are not seeing any progress toward a solution, but rather fear mongering from all angles.
By "fear mongering" you mean finding an explanation why infections are spreading so appropriate actions could be taken, then you would be right.
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Unless the store shelves actually go bare, where staple food stuffs are concerned or some country has a disproportionate success dealing with one of these crisis .
The virtue of these globalization is its it globalizes these crisis in terms timing and severity. That means there isnt giant capital flights from one currency to others. As long as everyone is printing nobody really suffers the usual (short term) consequences of debasement.
On the other hand there are real competitors like China. Now they could b
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You're concerned about the "explosive inflation of all the world currencies"? Citations please
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No I haven't actually. Is that a Newsmax exclusive? Since when do "central banks" print money?
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Mints print money you moron.
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Printed digitally you say? How can I take advantage of this new technology at home?
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Leaving aside pedantry, the political problem is that a portion of the general public has been scared by this to the point that they don't want to leave the house - it's a relatively small percentage that feel this way, but they are out there and will need to be addressed. Vaccination will provide the fig leaf to cure the unreasoning fear.
Yeah, all those dead people are just being unreasonable.
You fuckwit.
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Rather than assuming you're just a complete asshole, maybe you haven't actually looked at real data [archive.org]
Briand was quoted in the article as saying, “All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers.” This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. According to the CDC, there have been almost 300,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19. Additionally, Briand presented data of total U.S. deaths in comparison to COVID-19-related deaths as a proportion percentage, which trivializes the repercussions of the pandemic. This evidence does not disprove the severity of COVID-19; an increase in excess deaths is not represented in these proportionalities because they are offered as percentages, not raw numbers.
Briand also claimed in her analysis that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may be incorrectly categorized as COVID-19-related deaths. However, COVID-19 disproportionately affects those with preexisting conditions, so those with those underlying conditions are statistically more likely to be severely affected and die from the virus.
Because of these inaccuracies and our failure to provide additional information about the effects of COVID-19, The News-Letter decided to retract this article. It is our duty as a publication to combat the spread of misinformation and to enhance our fact-checking process. We apologize to our readers.
So, yeah. Thanks for the link to some rambling crackpot.
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So, yeah. Thanks for the link to some rambling crackpot.
I know I always prefer to get my medical advice from an economist. For viral diseases it's best to use someone who specialized in microeconomics though, since virus particles are so small.
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Here is a better link. From the CDC directly. Nice and simply presented. The graph shows very clearly that this year is far deadlier than last year and when Covid-19 case counts go up, death rates are also go up (I realize that case-counts in the early days are not really comparable to case-counts more recently). I don't think it is ambiguous at all. It gives the death counts and gives a trend line of the normally expected rates and shows data from 2017 - 2020. (On that page, they give you the option to als
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Same people that would have died from another cause in other years, more or less.
Oh, well, that's all right then. I suppose if it was your mother you would produce that innane shite at the funeral as part of your touching "oh well, she was over 50 so who cares" speech?
Fuckwit, you were saying?
Yes. I might add "stupid cunt" to the list.
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How about a college basketball player who is in the ICU from heart damaged caused by Covid? He collapsed on the court. https://www.espn.com/mens-coll... [espn.com]
Even when you recover from the virus its still causing long term damage.
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This is bullshit. Just about every developed nation on the planet is showing excess deaths. I don't know whether youre lying because you're a coward, or because you're trying to offer cover for some inept politician, but you're claim is trivially falsifiable.
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This is bullshit. Just about every developed nation on the planet is showing excess deaths. I don't know whether youre lying because you're a coward, or because you're trying to offer cover for some inept politician, but you're claim is trivially falsifiable.
Clearly all of those excess deaths are from suicide or depression over unnecessary, draconian lockdowns over some fake pandemic.
Damn you Obama!
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Yes, everybody dies at some point. Are you making the argument that therefore there is no point in stopping people from dying now?
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Apparently, spending (borrowing) like drunken sailors to pay for people to sit at home is considered valid in perpetuity.
People received a one-time check of $1,200 and several weeks of unemployment payment totaling, roughly, $784 billion. Meanwhile, businesses received several different aid packages totaling over $1.85 trillion dollars [npr.org]. And this is on top of the yearly billions the taxpayers pay to subsidize businesses in this country.
So yes, you are correct. Apparently spending (borrowing) like drunken
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Apparently, spending (borrowing) like drunken sailors to pay for people to sit at home is considered valid in perpetuity. You can presume I don't agree, and will be proven right in time.
Sure give businesses billions in tax breaks when there isn't a national health or economic emergency, while during a pandemic "give" workers a payroll tax deferment that has to all be paid back in a few months. Yeah, no, that side lost any argument towards fiscal responsibility.
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Apparently, spending (borrowing) like drunken sailors to pay for people to sit at home is considered valid in perpetuity.
No one with half a clue gives half a fuck about that when it's compared to borrowing like rabid voles in order to pay for bombing brown people for the benefit of oil companies and their shareholders.
Being willing to borrow money to blow up brown people for profit but not being willing to borrow it to support one's own citizenry in its greatest time of need since the great depression is a sign of psychopathy.
You can presume I don't agree, and will be proven right in time.
I can presume that you will declare victory in time, on a completely specious basis. This blaming the
Solutions (Score:4, Informative)
Where are the actual solutions?
It's a virus that relatively easily transmits when people breath each-other's air.
The actual solution, it to prevent people to breath each-other's air.
- The simplest is to try to get as many people work from home, stay at home (e.g.: order your groceries instead of physically spending time at the shop) except for individual outdoor activities (going out biking or on a hike on your own is okay), reducing social contact (call all your friends on video calls, instead of trying to see each other inside confined spaces such as bars) and avoiding confined spaces in general (e.g.: take away food and outdoor picnic or eating at home, instead of packing restaurants. e.g.: just avoid cinema theatres), get around by bike or foot instead of using public transport (okay, that is a very European-specific solution, as none of these words would be understood on your side of the ocean).
This would need to be paired with the appropriate social security nets (such as unemployment benefits) to compensate with some loss of activity (a restaurant doing takeaway will pay less waiting staff). The problem is that one of the largest economic power on this planet still considers that "social" is a horrible cuss word and is riddled with politicians (with their own profits-driven interests) that want to persuade you that its "giving free money to lazy slackers who are not working".
- Masks would be a solution to reduce transmission when coming into contact with others can't be avoided.
But there are still people feeling hurt in their personal freedoms when they are simply asked to use a piece of cloth to avoid being walking geysers of germs.
- Vaccines would be a long-term solution to make the virus unable to circulate if enough people have anti-bodies.
But somehow antivaxxers will pop-up trying to rev up fears about some rare freak accidents (despite the disease it self killing at a ~0.5-1% rate and will keep plowing through the population until at least (and probably more than) 60% have survived it with working antibodies).