Just to keep track of the nonsense that has wrecked our economy and generally made our politicians run around as if their fool heads were on fire, each day I publish the corona virus total death toll in the US based upon the latest data I can find. A single death is an immense tragedy if you love the person. However, we are not talking about love, but rather public policy, which should always involve a sober analysis of risk and cost. Please recall that in a bad normal flu year our death toll in the US can be as high as 90,000.
Note: this will be a total death toll since the beginning of this bad farce, and not a daily toll. As of the beginning of April 21 the death toll is 42,518. May the Perpetual Light shine upon them.
And the thing about the so called actual death count of 42,518 is that is has been significantly inflated for political purposes or out of ignorance. Anyone dying with Covid-19 is presumed to have died because of Covid-19. Perhaps the real death count is more accurately 20,000, if that.
This lower number doesn’t even consider those who died because ventilators which, we are told, kills more than it helps. And, also, how many died because doctors refused to administer Hydroxychloroquine a medicine that has helped many.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the Mercy of God, rest in peace.
True, MD. They’re enslaving us and fomenting an economic catastrophe based on 78+ year-olds with COPD, chronic heart, etc. ‘dying’ of the Wuhan Flu.
Anecdotal. I know a doctor that was hospitalized and he refused to be intubated b/c he knew that was the end. He [Thank God] recovered.
Take out of the US statistics NYC and its surroundings (even leaving in other blue city/state super death traps) and the US is about the ‘safest’ place on the Planet.
Lessons learned: Democrat governors/mayors are totalitarian morons and models are only useful to scare the hopeless and the godless.
“Take out of the US statistics NYC and its surroundings (even leaving in other blue city/state super death traps) and the US is about the ‘safest’ place on the Planet.”
How about two walls? One at our southern border with Mexico, and another surrounding Orange, Rockland, Putnam, Westchester Counties and NYC. Cut everything off from the outside, even the electric power lines. They want to light up the WTC in pink to celebrate infanticide of the pre-born? Then let them reap what they have so willingly sown. And with the electric power lines down from the outside, how long will it be before they rue the day they demanded the twine Indian Point nukes shutdown? Democrats! Let them learn the hard way!
On what basis do we take out NYC? The nature of outbreaks is that they’re localized. We’re fortunate (and we’ve been careful) that they haven’t spread, but an outbreak can hit anywhere. And anyway, if I said “not counting NYC, Islam has shown the US nothing but love since 2000”, everyone would recognize that’s meaningless.
On what basis do we take out NYC?
Because before they started adding in those who died at home from medical neglect, and then added an additional 15% of the nation-wide total of deaths because that change didn’t give a big enough number, their claimed numbers were far enough out of keeping with everywhere else to draw a closer look. Which we can’t do, because they’re not doing an Iowa or Washington State style release of information.
And anyway, if I said “not counting NYC, Islam has shown the US nothing but love since 2000”, everyone would recognize that’s meaningless.
It would also be false, even if we limited it to successful US soil terrorist attacks with explicitly Islamic motivations.
To be fair, at least some of the high NYC numbers seem to be plausible due to the things they’re normally smug about (everybody close together, public transit) and situation-specific bad decisions (go hug people who just got back from Wuhan! reduce the number of public transit runs to keep it crowded! stop bringing people to hospitals!).
Of course, if the media weren’t on their side and they got hammered for their responsibility for the deaths as they deserve, they’d probably be underreporting instead.
To be fair, at least some of the high NYC numbers seem to be plausible due to the things they’re normally smug about
Especially since before it got really ridiculous, and they stopped offering the information, outbreaks mapped very well to specific subway hubs.
I suspect that not long after medicare started paying more for COVID-19 related treatment than the same symptoms with a different label, the numbers suddenly got worse.
On what basis do we take out NYC?
Suppose that I want to know how things should proceed in Pierre, South Dakota. On what basis should I remove the statistics for Lombardy, Italy from my analysis?
Rudolph – If you’re doing local analysis, you’d want to look at something like Pierre. If you’re counting deaths across a nation, you count the deaths across the nation. Don is reporting the US totals – it’s fair to note reporting standards, but it’s not fair to drop the largest numbers.
Sure, if you are counting reported deaths across the US you include the NYC numbers. And if you are counting reported deaths across the world you include the Lombardy numbers. (There’s some question about whether such counts are even meaningful due to large variances in reporting standards, but put that aside).
But if we ask “how well is America doing in response to the virus?” we can mean that in two ways: What are the sum of all effects across the country, or alternatively if we take a random spot in America, how well are things doing in that area? A mean calculation versus a median calculation if you will.
Compare to a town where everyone is below the poverty line except for one man who is a billionaire. In terms of the total amount of money everyone makes the town is doing great, but it’s misleading to say that people in the town are doing well since almost all of them are in poverty. You don’t just look at the total count of dollars earned, you go deeper to understand the situation.
Likewise, it doesn’t make sense to say that everywhere in the US is doing poorly with regards to the Coronavirus when over a sixth of the cases and over a third of the deaths are in New York City (not even New York state as a whole; just New York City).
Don is reporting the US totals – it’s fair to note reporting standards, but it’s not fair to drop the largest numbers.
Unless there are other reasons– such as serious irregularities combined with open statements that they will be reporting using a standard even looser than “died while infected with COVID-19,” and followed by adding three thousand, seven hundred in addition to that.
Again, for perspective, that added number is bigger than the death totals for any state besides NY and NJ. When their numbers were already screwy enough to demand a second look.