Why are COVID number messed up?

[Rational Agnostic]

I do disagree. The government has a constitutional obligation to see to the welfare of the citizens of the nation. That's why people can be quarantined and it's not a violation of their rights. If everyone was willing to act responsibly, it wouldn't be necessary, but sadly far too many people think they have rights but no responsibilities.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. As for me, I sincerely hope every cop who targets people for having private gatherings or hugging friends/family gets coughed on and gets COVID.

 

[QuestioningMind]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. As for me, I sincerely hope every cop who targets people for having private gatherings or hugging friends/family gets coughed on and gets COVID.

How very patriotic of you.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

See my other post. You can't cherry pick tiny countries with far lower square mileages than the US and compare them to the US. Of course it's easier to control a virus in a smaller geographical area. For instance, the state of Maine is averaging around 8-30 new COVID cases a day in a population of almost one and a half million. They've managed to contain the pandemic, just like some small countries have. But, geographically, if we look at areas similar in size to the United States, we don't see anyone doing much better, unless you believe China's numbers, which I don't.

Yeah, there is also this:
The Graphic Truth: Are new US COVID deaths surging vs EU?

Now how do you explain the difference in those numbers?

 

[wellwisher]

The same way that a patient who dies from liver failure can have their cause of death listed as alcohol abuse. They didn't die of alcohol poisoning, but the excessive use of alcohol directly led to the failure of their liver. In the same way a person can die of heart failure, but the reason for the failure of the heart can be directly linked to COVID19.

It also has to do with money. A COVID related death gives hospitals an extra rate of return. There is incentive to tag everything with corona, even if Corona was a secondary or only a contributing factor.

This may have been useful at first when the virus was new and the learning curve was steep. This exhaustive approach could be useful for further studies and correlations. Now, this is about reimbursement, since we know much more. The economy had been on life support, so there is a incentive to catch up for the share holders.

The analogy of dying of liver damage and alcohol, for corona, can be expressed in another way. Say there was preexisting liver damage, and the person had their first beer, just one week before they died, Like corona, most hospitals would try to attribute that to alcohol, if this was how to play the money game. Corona was not with that person long enough to explain the preexisting condition that usually ends in death. It only contributed but did not start anything.

In Florida some labs were only reporting positive cases but not report both positive and negative cases to give these numbers proper context.. The former is easier to spin and would benefit a wide range of industries and narratives.

For example, some labs reported 98% positive when it was 9.8% if you add the negatives. Their industry benefits by higher numbers, since this will drive fear and increase demand for more testing. Government likes a one size fits all solution, and the free market innovates on the fly to divide the generous pie.

 

[QuestioningMind]

It also has to do with money. A COVID related death gives hospitals an extra rate of return. There is incentive to tag everything with corona, even if Corona was a secondary or only a contributing factor.

This may have been useful at first when the virus was new and the learning curve was steep. This exhaustive approach could be useful for further studies and correlations. Now, this is about reimbursement, since we know much more. The economy had been on life support, so there is a incentive to catch up for the share holders.

The analogy of dying of liver damage and alcohol, for corona, can be expressed in another way. Say there was preexisting liver damage, and the person had their first beer, just one week before they died, Like corona, most hospitals would try to attribute that to alcohol, if this was how to play the money game. Corona was not with that person long enough to explain the preexisting condition that usually ends in death. It only contributed but did not start anything.

In Florida some labs were only reporting positive cases but not report both positive and negative cases to give these numbers proper context.. The former is easier to spin and would benefit a wide range of industries and narratives.

For example, some labs reported 98% positive when it was 9.8% if you add the negatives. Their industry benefits by higher numbers, since this will drive fear and increase demand for more testing. Government likes a one size fits all solution, and the free market innovates on the fly to divide the generous pie.

RIGHT... because it's all just a big hoax! Amazing how the entire world is willing to let the economy tank, just to make Trump look bad.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

RIGHT... because it's all just a big hoax! Amazing how the entire world is willing to let the economy tank, just to make Trump look bad.

Well, if Biden gets elected, watch how the media changes its tune. They will say things are improving when they are not. Then when the (likely ineffective) vaccine gets released, there will be no more talk of masks. Why? Because the need to wear masks would imply the vaccine doesn't work. Wearing masks could save 50,000 lives every flu season. Wonder why the CDC and WHO never recommended it? Because then they'd have to admit that the flu shot is damn near worthless.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Well, if Biden gets elected, watch how the media changes its tune. They will say things are improving when they are not. Then when the (likely ineffective) vaccine gets released, there will be no more talk of masks. Why? Because the need to wear masks would imply the vaccine doesn't work. Wearing masks could save 50,000 lives every flu season. Wonder why the CDC and WHO never recommended it? Because then they'd have to admit that the flu shot is damn near worthless.

Of course! And the ENTIRE world got together and decided we'd make this whole thing up JUST so Biden could get elected. Clearly such delusional thinking is required to continue supporting the clown in the White House. Bet you also think he's a 'stable genius' and knows more about EVERYTHING than the silly experts.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Of course! And the ENTIRE world got together and decided we'd make this whole thing up JUST so Biden could get elected. Clearly such delusional thinking is required to continue supporting the clown in the White House. Bet you also think he's a 'stable genius' and knows more about EVERYTHING than the silly experts.

No I don't. I can't stand Trump. But I can also clearly see that the media wants to demonize EVERYTHING he does. Trump is a major idiot. Biden could beat him if he asks him questions about the actual issues that will expose his ignorance. But instead, he's gonna try to play dirty, attack Trump's character, call him a racist, etc, and Trump will win again. As long as the Democrats try to play Trump's game of personal attacks, he will beat them every time.

 

[Yazata]

The demographic cohort in which coronavirus deaths are most prevalent is the elderly. Particularly the elderly with other serious health problems, such as COPD or cardio-vascular problems, any one of which could prove fatal. So a great many coronavirus fatalities are actually cases of death by multiple causes. These are people who were hanging on by a thread, and coronavirus pushed them over.

It didn't help that Governors and other officials in a number of America's largest states issued state orders that nursing homes could not reject coronavirus patients, along with orders that acute care hospitals transfer less serious coronavirus patients to nursing homes to clear beds for an anticipated overwhelming surge in cases that never materialized. Nursing homes are precisely where the most fragile elderly are congregated. So an appalling percentage of coronavirus fatalities occurred among nursing home residents. This is something that most of the media doesn't really want to cover and it's a story waiting to be told. (I believe that close to 50% the fatalities in my California county were associated with nursing homes).

The June 27 New York Post wrote:

"In at least 24 states, the majority of deaths were nursing-home-related. New Hampshire recorded the largest percentage of nursing-home COVID-19 deaths, with 80 percent, or 293, of the state's fatalities coming from the facilities. Rhode Island and Minnesota followed, each with 77 percent, according to the database, which includes stats from the facilities, along with local, state and federal governments."

It's probably even worse than that, since reporting rules vary from state to state. Some states (including New York State) don't require nursing homes to directly report coronavirus deaths. (It's probably on the death certificate, but it isn't collated.) And many nursing home residents are moved to regular hospitals before they finally die and probably aren't recorded as nursing home deaths because they didn't actually die in a nursing home.

But today I don't think that legal requirements requiring nursing homes to take coronavirus patients are in widespread effect any longer, and belated efforts are finally being made to protect these populations from infection, so the numbers of coronavirus fatalities is way down (like 75% off its peak). That's happening as the number of cases rises, to record levels in some cases. How is that? How can cases rise as fatalities fall?

A couple of reasons. First, medical professionals have long suspected that there were lots of asymptomatic and minor cases out there, that might not present as anything worse than a cold. Now with much more widespread testing, that's being confirmed. I still remember Deborah Birx saying in one of those briefings that people shouldn't panic when numbers of cases rise with increased testing. It's something they expected.

And second, the demographic cohort that's most likely to violate social distancing these days are the young. We see it everywhere. Whenever a crowd congregates, it's typically kids. The people throwing crowded parties are kids. The crowds rioting in the streets are kids. So while cases are indeed rising, the rise is most pronounced in a younger age cohort where fatalities are less likely than the populations that produced most of the earlier fatalities.

 

[QuestioningMind]

No I don't. I can't stand Trump. But I can also clearly see that the media wants to demonize EVERYTHING he does. Trump is a major idiot. Biden could beat him if he asks him questions about the actual issues that will expose his ignorance. But instead, he's gonna try to play dirty, attack Trump's character, call him a racist, etc, and Trump will win again. As long as the Democrats try to play Trump's game of personal attacks, he will beat them every time.

All the media has to do in order to demonstrate Trump's lack of character is to report on what he says and does. Biden doesn't have to point out what an idiot Trump is, all he has to do is point out the results of his idiotic policies. Seems like Trump's fellow Republicans are the ones doing such a good job at attacking the clown's character.

 

[Yazata]

So what? Europe and the US are comparable in that both are approximately 4 million square miles.

I think that the European Union is considerably smaller, about half that. The US and the EU (sans UK) do have roughly equal populations though.

True, the populations differ, but you can't compare results in a geographically tiny European country to the entire US, as that would be like picking out certain states with relatively low numbers of COVID cases and calling the United States a success.

As of today, the United States reports 136,699 covid deaths. (And as you correctly say, many of these are probably deaths from multiple causes that are simply being attributed to covid.) Of this total, 32,408 (23.7%) are in New York State. An additional 15,582 (11.4%) are from adjoining New Jersey. 35.1% of total US covid fatalities in just one metropolitan area. Places where governors initially proclaimed the stupid nursing home rule, and were advising their residents to continue going to restaurants, out on the town to see shows and ride the subways without fear until well into March.

Meanwhile, seven of the fifty US states report fewer than 100 covid deaths as of today (July 15). More than half of the fifty states report less than 1,000. Virological studies suggest that the strain of covid infecting most of the US arrived from Europe by way of New York City, where it got its first and strongest foothold and spread from there.

So here in the United States, the reality is heterogeneous and spotty, with different areas struck very differently.

It makes sense to compare areas that are similar in square mileage, which the US and Europe are. Obviously Europe will have more deaths because their population is higher, but the point is that the shape of the curves are basically identical for both landmasses.

I think that the picture in the European Union isn't a whole lot different than in the United States. Numbers of fatalities in the European Union total roughly the same number as in the US, ranging from 34,984 in Italy and 30,032 in France, down to 31 in Latvia. The disease became established in particular urban centers and then spread outward from there, to places where it seems to be less prevalent and relatively well controlled so far.