Corona Virus

[Cam's New Arm]

4 hours ago, 4Corners said:

I didn’t watch the video nor do I plan to watch it. It’s 100% garbage guaranteed. 

How very progressive of you.

[kass]

4 hours ago, stirs said:

 

It's actually not that outrageous of a video.  He does have an opinion that he tries to confirm by listing some videos of people who would seem to confirm his point of view.  Now, if he listed people with the opinions that cases were undercounted, then it would be a better video.

But not a nutjob, just someone who differs from you.  You would make a video of stuff saying end of world is coming because of Trump.

Keep in mind, Trump won't win.  Now, see the forest?  Trees still in the way?

Not outrageous, but neither was it good.

There should be a clear definition of what is counted as a Covid death? Link to an offical source? Quote?

Is it the same definition in all states?

What about excessive death rate in the US? + in different states.

Is there a reliable death register?

Is there a death cause certificate according to WHO guidelines, ICD-10?

Is there a reliable population register? (Not estimates or guessing)
 

Some basic things to be included in the video and some extra stuf.

[Peon Awesome]

18 hours ago, Shufdog said:

 

I'd be willing to address the points made in the video. First let's take that doctor's point that many of these people have other medical problems that made them more susceptible to dying after getting COVID. That's already well known. People with health conditions like diabetes and heart disease are more likely to die if they get infected with COVID than a young person with no medical problems. But people with diabetes don't just randomly develop respiratory failure that kills them. If they never got COVID, they wouldn't have died then. It's that simple. And he loses me by bringing up people dying with flu and pneumonia. Remember how people quote that up to 60,000 people die of flu in the US? How does he think those deaths get counted? The flu virus takes an axe and chops their body up? Those people also had other medical conditions. How about people who die of cancer? The cancer may not have specifically did them in but it was the primary insult. This is the convention of how deaths are counted for any disease. There's no special conspiracy to change criteria for COVID. On the death certificate you have to decide what was the principle insult. In the case of COVID, people die of respiratory failure, heart failure, blood clots, kidney failure. All these things happen due to effect of the virus on the body and those whose organs are already affected by other medical problems have less reserve to survive those effects. That's how it works.

The above also applies to the woman saying we are more liberal in counting our deaths than other countries. If true (which I doubt outside of shady places like China and Russia), that's more of a poor reflection of those other countries. As I alluded to, if you get COVID and it causes your kidneys to fail and you die, you're telling me we shouldn't list that as a COVID related death? If due to the pathologic coagulation associated with COVID you get multiple blood clots into your lungs and die, we should pretend like COVID wasn't the primary underlying cause of death? If we did that, we would be misleading the public in the other direction. Again the basic point is if those people never got COVID, they wouldn't have died like that. COVID can kill you in more than one way. Attributing the cause of death as one of the ways COVID can kill you but leaving out COVID altogether would be terribly disingenuous.

As far as hospitals getting paid more for COVID patients on ventilators, of course that's true. It costs a ton of money to care for them. Not only the additional nursing and respiratory therapy care but all the PPE all the team members have to utilize. Also intubation is associated with higher rates of other medical complications in COVID like kidney failure that costs much more to treat. If we didn't charge more we would go into bankruptcy even faster. You have to cover your costs. That's another stupid thing to point out. Our hospital reported losses of several hundred million dollars related to COVID. It's going to take us a long time just to break even. But sure, we are using COVID as our cash cow.

The Cook county health commissioner, that one was a head scratcher so I had to investigate. Not sure when that video was taken, but here's an article from May saying the opposite: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/coronavirus/dr-ngozi-ezike-refutes-notion-that-illinois-is-over-counting-covid-19-deaths/2270810/

Maybe she realized her error and went back to correct it, but the point is, the current data is accurate. She even brings up the point that they likely undercounted cases from February and March when they didn't know as much about the virus and weren't testing as much. 

And finally as far as New York counting presumed deaths, our infectious disease chief showed us data that demonstrated that New York probably still underestimated by several thousand deaths. They used a model that showed how many people would be expected to die in a normal year factoring in ages and density of medical problems like kidney disease and diabetes and the actual deaths exceeded that by around 10,000. Don't forget that there was so little testing in the beginning. People were dying left and right in nursing homes out of the blue. In a city as huge as New York, 3000 some deaths they didn't get to test is a conservative estimate.

Is the system perfect? No. Could there have been some people who died, had COVID, and their death had little to do with COVID? I can say at my hospital, I haven't seen that whatsoever. And as I demonstrated above, even the one publicized report of that was later refuted. But I'm willing to concede among 130,000+ deaths, there could theoretically be a small number of those that fall through the cracks. But there are undoubtedly people in March before we had enough testing who also died and never got tested and never got added to the totals. So I doubt the true number is much different, and in fact, is just as likely, if not more, to be higher than the published number. Even if you wanted to be ultra conservative and say the numbers are a bit off, is 120,000 bona fide COVID deaths and counting something to sneeze at and assume it's all an overblown hoax?

At this point what is even the point of this? Hardly anyone is advocating for shutting down again. People are just suggesting we need to wear masks and social distance when we can. Do you think that's part of some liberal agenda to control people by inserting mind control chips in everyone's masks? What does anyone else get out of people wearing masks? Just do your part and we can keep the country running. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by Peon Awesome

[kungfoodude]

21 minutes ago, Peon Awesome said:

I'd be willing to address the points made in the video. First let's take that doctor's point that many of these people have other medical problems that made them more susceptible to dying after getting COVID. That's already well known. People with health conditions like diabetes and heart disease are more likely to die if they get infected with COVID than a young person with no medical problems. But people with diabetes don't just randomly develop respiratory failure that kills them. If they never got COVID, they wouldn't have died then. It's that simple. And he loses me by bringing up people dying with flu and pneumonia. Remember how people quote that up to 60,000 people die of flu in the US? How does he think those deaths get counted? The flu virus takes an axe and chops their body up? Those people also had other medical conditions. How about people who die of cancer? The cancer may not have specifically did them in but it was the primary insult. This is the convention of how deaths are counted for any disease. There's no special conspiracy to change criteria for COVID. On the death certificate you have to decide what was the principle insult. In the case of COVID, people die of respiratory failure, heart failure, blood clots, kidney failure. All these things happen due to effect of the virus on the body and those whose organs are already affected by other medical problems have less reserve to survive those effects. That's how it works.

The above also applies to the woman saying we are more liberal in counting our deaths than other countries. If true (which I doubt outside of shady places like China and Russia), that's more of a poor reflection of those other countries. As I alluded to, if you get COVID and it causes your kidneys to fail and you die, you're telling me we shouldn't list that as a COVID related death? If due to the pathologic coagulation associated with COVID you get multiple blood clots into your lungs and die, we should pretend like COVID wasn't the primary underlying cause of death? If we did that, we would be misleading the public in the other direction. Again the basic point is if those people never got COVID, they wouldn't have died like that. COVID can kill you in more than one way. Attributing the cause of death as one of the ways COVID can kill you but leaving out COVID altogether would be terribly disingenuous.

As far as hospitals getting paid more for COVID patients on ventilators, of course that's true. It costs a ton of money to care for them. Not only the additional nursing and respiratory therapy care but all the PPE all the team members have to utilize. Also intubation is associated with higher rates of other medical complications in COVID like kidney failure that costs much more to treat. If we didn't charge more we would go into bankruptcy even faster. You have to cover your costs. That's another stupid thing to point out. Our hospital reported losses of several hundred million dollars related to COVID. It's going to take us a long time just to break even. But sure, we are using COVID as our cash cow.

The Cook county health commissioner, that one was a head scratcher so I had to investigate. Not sure when that video was taken, but here's an article from May saying the opposite: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/coronavirus/dr-ngozi-ezike-refutes-notion-that-illinois-is-over-counting-covid-19-deaths/2270810/

Maybe she realized her error and went back to correct it, but the point is, the current data is accurate. She even brings up the point that they likely undercounted cases from February and March when they didn't know as much about the virus and weren't testing as much. 

And finally as far as New York counting presumed deaths, our infectious disease chief showed us data that demonstrated that New York probably still underestimated by several thousand deaths. They used a model that showed how many people would be expected to die in a normal year factoring in ages and density of medical problems like kidney disease and diabetes and the actual deaths exceeded that by around 10,000. Don't forget that there was so little testing in the beginning. People were dying left and right in nursing homes out of the blue. In a city as huge as New York, 3000 some deaths they didn't get to test is a conservative estimate.

Is the system perfect? No. Could there have been some people who died, had COVID, and their death had little to do with COVID? I can say at my hospital, I haven't seen that whatsoever. And as I demonstrated above, even the one publicized report of that was later refuted. But I'm willing to concede among 130,000+ deaths, there could theoretically be a small number of those that fall through the cracks. But there are undoubtedly people in March before we had enough testing who also died and never got tested and never got added to the totals. So I doubt the true number is much different, and in fact, is just as likely, if not more, to be higher than the published number. Even if you wanted to be ultra conservative and say the numbers are a bit off, is 120,000 bona fide COVID deaths and counting something to sneeze at and assume it's all an overblown hoax?

At this point what is even the point of this? Hardly anyone is advocating for shutting down again. People are just suggesting we need to wear masks and social distance when we can. Do you think that's part of some liberal agenda to control people by inserting mind control chips in everyone's masks? What does anyone else get out of people wearing masks? Just do your part and we can keep the country running. 

They way they are counting Rona deaths is not drastically different than other disease outbreaks. I realize we live in an information age but we really are not going to have 100% solid, indisputable evidence of EXACTLY who died from the virus. That isn't reasonable.

There isn't some grand conspiracy, it's just that people don't understand how those numbers are gathered and what they sometimes mean. The media doesn't help by being as dumb or dumber than the people they are spraying information to.

[NanuqoftheNorth]

Well, if this is study is accurate, the chances of obtaining herd immunity without a vaccine just went out the window.

 

 Mask up!

Edited July 7, 2020 by NanuqoftheNorth

[Wes21]

6 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

They way they are counting Rona deaths is not drastically different than other disease outbreaks. I realize we live in an information age but we really are not going to have 100% solid, indisputable evidence of EXACTLY who died from the virus. That isn't reasonable.

There isn't some grand conspiracy, it's just that people don't understand how those numbers are gathered and what they sometimes mean. The media doesn't help by being as dumb or dumber than the people they are spraying information to.

I think this death count is a little different, to be honest.  A lot of it has to do with technological advances though.  But I would say if we really treat COVID like some other big diseases, years from now they are going to take what they think were the deaths and go x 5 or even 10 on it.  And at that point I can't even get mad at them.  Its not a conspiracy or even unusual.  Its been done before where we take something like this, assign a certain number of deaths we think happened at the time, then years later throw factors of x 5 - 10 onto it.

[kungfoodude]

44 minutes ago, Wes21 said:

I think this death count is a little different, to be honest.  A lot of it has to do with technological advances though.  But I would say if we really treat COVID like some other big diseases, years from now they are going to take what they think were the deaths and go x 5 or even 10 on it.  And at that point I can't even get mad at them.  Its not a conspiracy or even unusual.  Its been done before where we take something like this, assign a certain number of deaths we think happened at the time, then years later throw factors of x 5 - 10 onto it.

Part of that is they are trying to account for lack of full information. Some of it is just they way that study/group/person decided to estimate.

That is why I don't really get upset at some of the ranges of estimates based on the best available data. It is what it is.

[kungfoodude]

59 minutes ago, NanuqoftheNorth said:

Well, if this is study is accurate, the chances of obtaining herd immunity without a vaccine just went out the window.

 

 Mask up!

Perhaps that is the case, perhaps not. Too many unknowns. We'll have a much better idea in 2-10 years.

The mask is an inconvenience. People just need to get over it.

[LinvilleGorge]

1 hour ago, NanuqoftheNorth said:

Well, if this is study is accurate, the chances of obtaining herd immunity without a vaccine just went out the window.

 

 Mask up!

People absolutely should be wearing masks. I'm still not sure how a 5% antibody rate after only one wave of infection would indicate that herd immunity is an impossibility.

[stirs]

If Spain is 5%, what do you think the US rate would be?

[NanuqoftheNorth]

58 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

People absolutely should be wearing masks. I'm still not sure how a 5% antibody rate after only one wave of infection would indicate that herd immunity is an impossibility.

The CNN International article is based on information from Lancet and the European CDC.  Essentially for herd immunity to be achieved 60% of the population would need to be exposed to the virus. 

Quote

 "In light of these findings, any proposed approach to achieve herd immunity through natural infection is not only highly unethical, but also unachievable," said the Lancet's commentary authors, Isabella Eckerle, head of the Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, and Benjamin Meyer, a virologist at the University of Geneva.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/spain-coronavirus-antibody-study-lancet-intl/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_content=2020-07-06T10%3A54%3A04&utm_source=twCNNi&utm_term=link

[LinvilleGorge]

17 minutes ago, NanuqoftheNorth said:

The CNN International article is based on information from Lancet and the European CDC.  Essentially for herd immunity to be achieved 60% of the population would need to be exposed to the virus. 

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/spain-coronavirus-antibody-study-lancet-intl/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_content=2020-07-06T10%3A54%3A04&utm_source=twCNNi&utm_term=link

No, I get that 60% figure. I'm just saying that the assertation that it's impossible based on antibody testing a mere 6 months or so into the outbreak of a new disease when very significant mitigation efforts were taken seems to be jumping the gun big time.

[Devil Doc]

9 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

No, I get that 60% figure. I'm just saying that the assertation that it's impossible based on antibody testing a mere 6 months or so into the outbreak of a new disease when very significant mitigation efforts were taken seems to be jumping the gun big time.

Also, Spain had it months before us. Is there not a certain time frame that anti-bodies do not show up? Like over 6 months or something? I have read were COVID-19 Anti-bodies can disappear after 2-3 months. 

[LinvilleGorge]

Just now, Devil Doc said:

Also, Spain had it months before us. Is there not a certain time frame that anti-bodies do not show up? Like over 6 months or something? I have read were COVID-19 Anti-bodies can disappear after 2-3 months. 

Yeah, what I've seen indicates the antibodies fade fairly quickly but immune resistance if not outright immunity will likely continue beyond the antibodies being undetectable.

I very likely had it in late January after a trip to Seattle. My antibody test in late April came back inconclusive. Antibodies were present, but not enough to meet the baseline for a positive test. The re-test came back negative.