Looking at the numbers

[Vee]

Recently the CDC published the mortality statistics for 2020. I checked the WHO’s website but the worldwide numbers are not out yet, so using the CDC as a reference, we can see that Covid 19 was not the leading cause. It scored number 3 with 345 000 deaths, which is very high, but there are two other things that killed a lot more Americans than Covid.
Hearth disease killed almost 690 000 people and cancer killed around 598 000. That's a combined total of 1 288 000 people!

There is one thing that keeps puzzling me. How come we closed down the world and have to wear masks and have all sorts of restrictions in place for Covid, but so little is done about the two leading causes of death is the US, and probably most of the world?

Why is it okay to keep selling processed food to people, including millions of children, when we now know for sure that it causes obesity, diabetes, and all the metabolic issues that come after that? I wonder how many people could still be alive and well if they ate proper food, slept enough and exercised half an hour a day.

I don’t understand the fact that smoking remains legal when according to WHO, 8 million people die because of cigarette smoking in the world every year (Tobacco.)

How come there is so little being done to reduce pollution worldwide, to clean the oceans and rivers, to preserve forests, and to eliminate chemical products that cause so many direct and indirect illnesses, including cancers of all types?

Covid is very serious, that’s true. Now imagine if the world took the other leading causes of death seriously too.

I would love to understand the double standards.



Quarterly Provisional Estimates for Mortality Dashboard

 

[Thief]

There is one thing that keeps puzzling me. How come we closed down the world and have to wear masks and have all sorts of restrictions in place for Covid, but so little is done about the two leading causes of death is the US, and probably most of the world?

restart this thread and give it a better title......PRIORITIES

 

[Left Coast]

Recently the CDC published the mortality statistics for 2020. I checked the WHO’s website but the worldwide numbers are not out yet, so using the CDC as a reference, we can see that Covid 19 was not the leading cause. It scored number 3 with 345 000 deaths, which is very high, but there are two other things that killed a lot more Americans than Covid.
Hearth disease killed almost 690 000 people and cancer killed around 598 000. That's a combined total of 1 288 000 people!

There is one thing that keeps puzzling me. How come we closed down the world and have to wear masks and have all sorts of restrictions in place for Covid, but so little is done about the two leading causes of death is the US, and probably most of the world?

Why is it okay to keep selling processed food to people, including millions of children, when we now know for sure that it causes obesity, diabetes, and all the metabolic issues that come after that? I wonder how many people could still be alive and well if they ate proper food, slept enough and exercised half an hour a day.

I don’t understand the fact that smoking remains legal when according to WHO, 8 million people die because of cigarette smoking in the world every year (Tobacco.)

How come there is so little being done to reduce pollution worldwide, to clean the oceans and rivers, to preserve forests, and to eliminate chemical products that cause so many direct and indirect illnesses, including cancers of all types?

Covid is very serious, that’s true. Now imagine if the world took the other leading causes of death seriously too.

I would love to understand the double standards.

Quarterly Provisional Estimates for Mortality Dashboard

COVID has pushed us to think outside the box in certain ways when it comes to public health crises. We were told for years that we just couldn't possibly afford to publicly house our homeless population. Now Project Room Key has housed a huge number of them and is a national success story. When we have the political will, we can accomplish quite a lot. I'm hopeful that the same mentality we used to tackle COVID will be used to tackle the other issues you mentioned.

Smoking, thankfully, has been steadily declining for a couple decades. Tobacco Trends Brief | American Lung Association

The unfortunate issue with a lot of these things (and I would add the inevitable disastrous effects of climate change to the list) is that their consequences are long-term. Humans are really bad at making rational short-term decisions for long-term consequences. We want immediate gratification. We have a difficult time seeing the large scale and downstream impacts of our actions. I'm not sure there's a simple solution to that problem, other than educating children from a young age in the need for social responsibility and healthy behaviors.

 

[Thief]

We want immediate gratification.

there you go......you got it

 

[PureX]

I would love to understand the double standards.

There is no 'double standard'. There is only one standard - money. It's all and always about the money.

 

[sun rise]

How soon we forget. COVID became a priority when hospitals started getting overwhelmed with cases. The initial priority was to bend the curve to allow everyone who needed treatment to get it.

The priority shifted to slow the spread to allow time for treatments to be developed and to come up with vaccines.

Cancer and heart disease are partly genetic, partly environmental and partly personal habits. They're hard to deal with and a lot of money is being spent on them.

A pandemic is susceptible to a concerted effort.

I've also noted what @Left Coast wrote. We're seeing all sorts of positive side-effects to the focus on the pandemic. One could be the use of mRNA vaccines to deal with other medical issues including cancer mRNA technology promises to revolutionize future vaccines and treatments for cancer, infectious diseases

The media does not focus on this. There are some stories but not many. But looking at what is going on instead of what the media focuses on is helpful

 

[Vee]

There is no 'double standard'. There is only one standard - money. It's all and always about the money.

I'm afraid you're probably right.

 

[McBell]

There is one thing that keeps puzzling me. How come we closed down the world and have to wear masks and have all sorts of restrictions in place for Covid, but so little is done about the two leading causes of death is the US, and probably most of the world?

COVID nearly destroyed the US Medical System.
The reason for the lock downs, masks, etc. was to slow the spread enough to let the Medical System catch back up.

Why is it okay to keep selling processed food to people, including millions of children, when we now know for sure that it causes obesity, diabetes, and all the metabolic issues that come after that? I wonder how many people could still be alive and well if they ate proper food, slept enough and exercised half an hour a day.

How many people would not eat at all if processed foods were not available?

I don’t understand the fact that smoking remains legal when according to WHO, 8 million people die because of cigarette smoking in the world every year (Tobacco.)

What is the magic number?
Do we make vehicles illegal when the number of vehicle related deaths reaches that magic number?
Why not?

How about alcohol?
And then...
**shudder**
alcohol combined with vehicles....

How come there is so little being done to reduce pollution worldwide, to clean the oceans and rivers, to preserve forests, and to eliminate chemical products that cause so many direct and indirect illnesses, including cancers of all types?

Good question.
No idea.
But I bet it is not the quick easy scapegoat "money" that so many people want to oversimplify it to.

Covid is very serious, that’s true. Now imagine if the world took the other leading causes of death seriously too.

On what basis are you claiming they are not taken seriously?

I would love to understand the double standards.

What double standard?
Be specific.

 

[exchemist]

Recently the CDC published the mortality statistics for 2020. I checked the WHO’s website but the worldwide numbers are not out yet, so using the CDC as a reference, we can see that Covid 19 was not the leading cause. It scored number 3 with 345 000 deaths, which is very high, but there are two other things that killed a lot more Americans than Covid.
Hearth disease killed almost 690 000 people and cancer killed around 598 000. That's a combined total of 1 288 000 people!

There is one thing that keeps puzzling me. How come we closed down the world and have to wear masks and have all sorts of restrictions in place for Covid, but so little is done about the two leading causes of death is the US, and probably most of the world?

Why is it okay to keep selling processed food to people, including millions of children, when we now know for sure that it causes obesity, diabetes, and all the metabolic issues that come after that? I wonder how many people could still be alive and well if they ate proper food, slept enough and exercised half an hour a day.

I don’t understand the fact that smoking remains legal when according to WHO, 8 million people die because of cigarette smoking in the world every year (Tobacco.)

How come there is so little being done to reduce pollution worldwide, to clean the oceans and rivers, to preserve forests, and to eliminate chemical products that cause so many direct and indirect illnesses, including cancers of all types?

Covid is very serious, that’s true. Now imagine if the world took the other leading causes of death seriously too.

I would love to understand the double standards.



Quarterly Provisional Estimates for Mortality Dashboard

The answer is obvious, though. There are huge efforts, and gigantic sums of money, spent on combating heart disease and cancer, and there have been for decades now. But neither is an infectious disease.

"Closing down the world" (which has NOT been done, by the way) is a specific response to controlling a highly infectious and dangerous disease.

So that's why.

 

[icehorse]

Covid is very serious, that’s true. Now imagine if the world took the other leading causes of death seriously too.

I'm not 100% happy with how data about covid has been made public.

That said, I think the logic here is that - unlike the other killers you mentioned - viruses spread, and left unchecked they spread exponentially. Not linearly, EXPONENTIALLY.

 

[Wandering Monk]

The answer is obvious, though. There are huge efforts, and gigantic sums of money, spent on combating heart disease and cancer, and there have been for decades now. But neither is an infectious disease.

"Closing down the world" (which has NOT been done, by the way) is a specific response to controlling a highly infectious and dangerous disease.

So that's why.

Some people are so blinkered they just can't see the blindingly obvious. I hear the same stupid question from so many people.

 

[Vee]

I'm not 100% happy with how data about covid has been made public.

That said, I think the logic here is that - unlike the other killers you mentioned - viruses spread, and left unchecked they spread exponentially. Not linearly, EXPONENTIALLY.

I'm not saying the contrary. I'm just questioning the fact that other conditions that kill far more people and are preventable, at least to a certain degree, aren't being treated as seriously as they should. Are the lives of people with Covid more important than others? If so many measures have been taken in the case of this illness because it's contagious, and that makes sense, why aren't more measures being taken to prevent for example the spread of Type 2 diabetes, that is an absolute disgrace, given that it occurs exclusively due to lifestyle? With some education and prevention actions many people wouldn't be suffering and dying with Type 2 diabetes. And that's one one example, there are many others.

 

[icehorse]

I'm not saying the contrary. I'm just questioning the fact that other conditions that kill far more people and are preventable, at least to a certain degree, aren't being treated as seriously as they should. Are the lives of people with Covid more important than others? If so many measures have been taken in the case of this illness because it's contagious, and that makes sense, why aren't more measures being taken to prevent for example the spread of Type 2 diabetes, that is an absolute disgrace, given that it occurs exclusively due to lifestyle? With some education and prevention actions many people wouldn't be suffering and dying with Type 2 diabetes. And that's one one example, there are many others.

No, it's that - left unchecked - a virus with a transmission rate and mortality rate like Covid's would end up killing 1000s of times more people than the cancers and heart diseases and so on, that don't spread.

 

[exchemist]

I'm not saying the contrary. I'm just questioning the fact that other conditions that kill far more people and are preventable, at least to a certain degree, aren't being treated as seriously as they should. Are the lives of people with Covid more important than others? If so many measures have been taken in the case of this illness because it's contagious, and that makes sense, why aren't more measures being taken to prevent for example the spread of Type 2 diabetes, that is an absolute disgrace, given that it occurs exclusively due to lifestyle? With some education and prevention actions many people wouldn't be suffering and dying with Type 2 diabetes. And that's one one example, there are many others.

But these other conditions are being treated seriously.

Billions are spent every year on cancer treatments and research into the causes. Billions are spent every year on drugs to control blood pressure and lipid content of blood, surgery on blocked arteries and so forth. The problem with cancer and heart disease is that there are a myriad factors and causes involved, not just one. So you can't point to any one thing - or even a handful of things - and say, if we can just control that, we can stop people dying. Type 2 diabetes is similar. There is a range of lifestyle issues involved, not to mention the accident of individual genetics. There is no one thing you can point to.

But with SARS-CoV-2 you can. It's an infectious virus. So if we can slow down the rate of transmission, and we can vaccinate against it, we can get on top of it.

 

[SomeRandom]

Recently the CDC published the mortality statistics for 2020. I checked the WHO’s website but the worldwide numbers are not out yet, so using the CDC as a reference, we can see that Covid 19 was not the leading cause. It scored number 3 with 345 000 deaths, which is very high, but there are two other things that killed a lot more Americans than Covid.
Hearth disease killed almost 690 000 people and cancer killed around 598 000. That's a combined total of 1 288 000 people!

There is one thing that keeps puzzling me. How come we closed down the world and have to wear masks and have all sorts of restrictions in place for Covid, but so little is done about the two leading causes of death is the US, and probably most of the world?

Why is it okay to keep selling processed food to people, including millions of children, when we now know for sure that it causes obesity, diabetes, and all the metabolic issues that come after that? I wonder how many people could still be alive and well if they ate proper food, slept enough and exercised half an hour a day.

I don’t understand the fact that smoking remains legal when according to WHO, 8 million people die because of cigarette smoking in the world every year (Tobacco.)

How come there is so little being done to reduce pollution worldwide, to clean the oceans and rivers, to preserve forests, and to eliminate chemical products that cause so many direct and indirect illnesses, including cancers of all types?

Covid is very serious, that’s true. Now imagine if the world took the other leading causes of death seriously too.

I would love to understand the double standards.



Quarterly Provisional Estimates for Mortality Dashboard

Call me a leftist, but I blame the dreaded Capitalism.

Seriously though, how much does the tobacco industry make in a day, never mind a year.
Although I will say America’s food safety standards are pretty appalling, imo.
I mean here we literally sell US children’s cereals in lolly shops because they can’t be classified otherwise. Which should tell you something

 

[Twilight Hue]

Recently the CDC published the mortality statistics for 2020. I checked the WHO’s website but the worldwide numbers are not out yet, so using the CDC as a reference, we can see that Covid 19 was not the leading cause. It scored number 3 with 345 000 deaths, which is very high, but there are two other things that killed a lot more Americans than Covid.
Hearth disease killed almost 690 000 people and cancer killed around 598 000. That's a combined total of 1 288 000 people!

There is one thing that keeps puzzling me. How come we closed down the world and have to wear masks and have all sorts of restrictions in place for Covid, but so little is done about the two leading causes of death is the US, and probably most of the world?

Why is it okay to keep selling processed food to people, including millions of children, when we now know for sure that it causes obesity, diabetes, and all the metabolic issues that come after that? I wonder how many people could still be alive and well if they ate proper food, slept enough and exercised half an hour a day.

I don’t understand the fact that smoking remains legal when according to WHO, 8 million people die because of cigarette smoking in the world every year (Tobacco.)

How come there is so little being done to reduce pollution worldwide, to clean the oceans and rivers, to preserve forests, and to eliminate chemical products that cause so many direct and indirect illnesses, including cancers of all types?

Covid is very serious, that’s true. Now imagine if the world took the other leading causes of death seriously too.

I would love to understand the double standards.



Quarterly Provisional Estimates for Mortality Dashboard

I blame a lot of it on politics and people's desires to control other people.

Covid, imo is the most weaponized pandemic I've ever seen.