No wonder this Johns Hopkins study was deleted after two days:
Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Johns Hopkins University, critically analyzed the impact that COVID-19 had on U.S. deaths. According to Briand, the impact of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States can be fully understood by comparing it to the number of total deaths in the country.
According to the study, “in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”
Wait, what? Really?
That’s what it says. And, it should come as no surprise that the study was deleted within days.
Luckily, a back-up copy remains on The Wayback Machine, and we can still read the study.
So, how exactly did the study conclude that COVID-19 has had “relatively no effect on deaths”? Here’s how the study made this determination:
After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared.
Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.
Go here to read the rest. This is the type of society we are living in now, where inconvenient facts are tossed down the memory hole as soon as possible.
No attempt is made to debate; politically incorrect ideas are simply damned as false and then suppressed. This is the mechanism of authoritarian states from time out of mind, and should be anathema to all people who cherish freedom.
I posted the web archive link on my Facebook page and it took them no time to flag it as false information.
To put it crassly, for the most part, Covid-19 is killing people who were going to die anyways because they were either at or had exceeded their actuarial life expectancy.
I’ll put some numbers to that from South Dakota. As of today, there have been 78,280 cases of covid-19 reported. The median age for the 74,879 of those 78,280 cases whose age is publicly available is is somewhere in the upper thirties. (37,596 people between the ages of 0 and 39 have tested positive.)
As of today, 888 people have died of (or “with,” depending on how the South Dakota Dept. of Health is counting). The median age of death for the 821 of those 888 whose age is known is well into the 80+ age bracket (463 people).
Taking the two numbers together, those 80 and over who’ve tested positive (3,359) account for 11.16% of cases whose age is presently known, while also accounting for 56.39% of all fatalities (463 of 821). The number of fatalities among those below the (rough) median age of 39 is 11, or 1.33% of fatalities. Add the additional 174 deaths in the 70-79 age bracket, and over three quarters (77.58%) of all fatalities are among those 70 and older. At the same time, those 70 to 79 and 80 and older together account for 10.26% of all Covid cases in South Dakota. The remaining 21.09% of deaths are spread out between the 40 to 69 age brackets, who collectively account for 39.54% of all Covid cases. Over half of those fatalities (12.91%) come from the 60-69 age bracket which by itself accounts for 11.12% of all Covid cases. To (finally) put it succinctly, 90.49% of all covid fatalities in South Dakota have happened among those 60 and older, a group which collectively accounts for only 21.37% of Covid cases in the state. (Again talking about those people whose information is available, but I doubt any forthcoming updates to that information will change it substantially).
A quick google search reveals that the average life expectancy in South Dakota is 79.5 years, so the 12.91% of covid fatalities from the 60-69 age bracket, and the 21.19% of covid fatalities coming from the 70-79 age bracket probably had their lives shortened, but for the most part, Covid is killing people whose time had come.*
And we all owe God a death, as Shakespeare is alleged to have said. (I phrase it that way, because my source for the attribution is a line from the movie Only Angels Have Wings, no idea what play that would be from, or even if it’s Shakespeare.)
*Hard to say for certain because “conditions” and “complications” affect life expectancy, and we know Covid is hard on people with pre-existing conditions.
source in case anyone cares to check my math.
More to the original point of the post, we should bless God and His Angels and Saints that this so-called plague isn’t killing the young and healthy like the Spanish Flu of a hundred years ago, and we should curse those in government and “science” and media who’ve exaggerated the threat of this Kung Flu out of all proportion, turning our lives and our country upside down and inside out for their own selfish purposes.
There isn’t enough tar or feathers to go around.
This is the mechanism of authoritarian states from time out of mind, and should be anathema to all people who cherish freedom.
Pretty sure a not insignifact minority of this country thinks freedom consists of not having to work for your next meal, let alone a roof over your head; the ability to self-identify as any one (or more than one) of 57 genders; and the “right” to indulge in bacchanalian excesses that the later Julio-Claudians could only imagine; all on someone else’s dime.
I expect that not insignifant minority will become a near plurality in my lifetime. And then a majority in the lifetime of my children and future grandchildren.
So if you’re not preparing your kids for martyrdom, you’re not doing your job as a Catholic parent.
(In fairness, that’s always been true, because there are many kinds of martyrdom. My personal favorite example was the business owner who offered up paid vacation to his employees to go on his (Protestant) mission trip to Africa, but expected his Catholic employees to burn their own vacation time if they wanted to attend Mass on a Holy Day of Obligation.)
Liberals refuse to entertain contrary opinions. To them they are heresy to their Progressive religion. They also believe that the ends always justify the means.
The fundamental goal of Covid was to dump Trump by any means, i.e., blaming him for the deaths and destroying the economy. Progressive Religion is a creation of the devil.
The censors must be silenced.
If the machine is too big to turn off then the machine must be disassembled.
From the inside.
Plan, infiltrate and execute.
I apologize.
My anger at this totalitarian culture that seeks not the Truth but the agenda is upsetting to say the least.
Twitter, Google, YouTube and now John Hopkins University. How many other institutions of higher learning are squashing the data that doesn’t support the agenda?
I apologize because I’m almost at the stage of asking God to clear the decks. Start from scratch. Farm. Raise gardens. Get out of the metropolis and buy some property with with running water near by.
Our income, combined, is very modest. Under 60k. Yet we have an old apple orchard on 12 acres and clean running water from the headwaters of a creek 3/4 ‘s of a mile away.
The price for technology is a mans soul.
No thank you.
So if you’re not preparing your kids for martyrdom, you’re not doing your job as a Catholic parent.
Or rather prepare them to fight to win and make the members of the other team martyrs for their pathetic causes, if it comes to that.
I prefer Donald’s strategy: “Or rather prepare them to fight to win and make the members of the other team martyrs for their pathetic causes, if it comes to that.”
It all makes sense when we identify the evil factions that gain from over-exaggerating perceived negative China virus impacts.
Real, scientific evidence that does not advance their commie dystopia is DELETED.
They’re out to Make America Poor Again
I also prefer Don’s solution.
“Or rather prepare them to fight to win and make the members of the other team martyrs for their pathetic causes, if it comes to that.”
And General Patton would agree, if this line from the eponymous film is accurate:
“No poor dumb (expletive deleted) ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb (expletive deleted) die for HIS country.”
Pretty sure a not insignifact minority of this country thinks freedom consists of not having to work for your next meal, let alone a roof over your head; the ability to self-identify as any one (or more than one) of 57 genders; and the “right” to indulge in bacchanalian excesses that the later Julio-Claudians could only imagine; all on someone else’s dime.
Fewer than you’d think– the problem is that most folks have also been brow-beaten into being “nice” and not correcting the bullies.
All speaking does is get you targeted, and they never do it when they can’t go nuclear.
That’s why they get so pissed about mockery. That puts it outside of their control, and the stupidity can’t stand on its own.
For example, my husband and I have been friends with a gal for a bit over a year. Gaming– imagine if you had a twice weekly bowling team and this is who you always hung out with. The kind of friend where you tease them about “did you remember to eat today?” (usually, no, she didn’t)
Just last week she realized we’re not “nice.” We’re conservatives/Republicans.
She’s still not very political, but she isn’t actively avoiding political stuff, and she’s got some really good jokes about the more ludicrous excesses.
We got there by being willing to disagree, but still talk to her. She’s been cast out of most social groups because she doesn’t dodge the verbal bombs well enough.
It would be easier to identify which institutions in America haven’t been warped and corroded by political bias.
If I could think of one, that is…
Ave Maria University –
Hillsdale College-
(?)
My understanding is that these two choices are fairly safe.
🙂
OK, I watched that and downloaded the numbers myself. First things first, every university professor in the US should be able to speak clear, fluent English.
Beyond that, here are her claims, and what the data show:
Claim – There was no change in the percentages of deaths by age.
Data – Not true. If you look at her chart (13:00 time stamp) you’ll see the increase beginning in late April, when the NYC area broke out.
Claim: There is no corresponding increase in deaths across causes during the Covid-19 spike.
Data: True. The other spikes are in winter, when we typically see increases across several different types of deaths. The Covid-19 spike occurs spring, when the total deaths always decrease. The heart disease deaths, for example, are about average for the time of year.
Claim: There is no increase in excess deaths.
Not true. The increase is visible in the numbers. The total number of deaths per week jumps during the NYC breakout. To highlight this, here are the death counts from the top ten weeks from 2014-present:
year week total deaths
2020 15 78,996
2020 16 76,660
2020 17 73,793
2020 14 72,213
2020 18 69,197
2018 2 67,664
2020 19 66,726
2018 1 66,317
2018 3 64,820
2020 20 64,392
Claim: Most Covid-19 deaths occur in people over the average life expectancy.
Data: The life expectancy for an American is about 78.5 years, meaning they will on average live to 78.5 years old. At age 60, it’s about 23 years, for a total of 83. The life expectancy of a person who has made it to 70 is about 15 years (total 85). At no point is the life expectancy zero. So yes, people over 78.5 are more likely to die from Covid-19, but their deaths do constitute a shortening of their lives.
My conclusion: If I ran Johns Hopkins, I’d probably pull the video. There’s a place for preliminary research and corrections, but it’s not YouTube.
Pinky-
Excess Deaths is the number they estimate from the change in the population, both total number and age.
Since the Baby Boom is reaching end of life, and the US population goes up about a million a year, of course the raw numbers go up.
Similarly, your argument with most deaths being people over the average life expectancy does not engage the claim, it instead argues that death ends life.
The data says that 33-34% of COVID deaths are 85 and older, solidly beyond the average life expectancy. A further 23-25% are 75-85, so if over ~16% of those deaths are 79 or older, the statement is plain fact.
Sort of like those under 55 being single digit percent of COVID deaths, and thus shutting down the whole country to “protect us” not only is of questionable morality, but it didn’t work.
This long quote, for those who don’t want to hit the Wayback machine:
Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.
“This is true every year. Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes,” Briand pointed out.
When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.
This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19.
Foxfier – Yes, excess deaths is the number above the expectation, which is based on population and age. We have a lot of excess deaths this year, particularly in a few weeks starting in late April.
Yes, most of the coronavirus deaths have killed people, If you want to look at it in terms of number of expected years lost, an older person’s death is less of a tragedy than a younger person’s. That doesn’t alter the fact that a Covid-19 death is a real death. So I’m not sure what your point is.
Seasonality accounts for the decline in heart-related deaths during the coronavirus spike. The underlying data shows it. If you compare winter 2018 to spring 2020, you’ll see that the overall deaths follow the heart-related deaths in the former but not the latter. That’s what we would expect to see with a serious pandemic.
Pinky-
1) you state that, but what you showed was a raw number increase, not an increase over expected.
2) literally nobody talked about the deaths not happing, other than you; the evidence offered is that since all other causes that were expected, including heart disease, went down– and since “dying with COVID” has been conflated with “dying of COVID,” there needs to be a serious evaluation of how dangerous this actually is. They’re just as dead from a novel corona virus as from a normal corona virus, but nobody is shutting down the country for the normal corona viruses.
3) your first sentence says something different than your second to last sentence, and you don’t have support for either one.
It’s well known that heart disease deaths increase when there’s a higher than usual disease load, due to stress on the system and in general. You’d have to dig up a disease outbreak and show the opposite before you can assert it.
You’re right that I have not personally done projections. Consider the following: from 2014 to 2020, the total number of deaths in the US during weeks 14-39 (roughly 2nd and 3rd quarter) have been the following:
2014 – 1199945
2015 – 1242164 (+3.5%)
2016 – 1262989 (+1.7%)
2017 – 1287948 (+2.0%)
2018 – 1295061 (+0.6%)
2019 – 1320488 (+2.0%)
2020 – 1575393 (+19.3%)
If you want to assert that 2020 isn’t an outlier, or can be explained by aging population or population growth, have at it.
Pinky-
I have chased every rabbit you’ve released thus far, pinned them down, and butchered them.
You keep releasing new ones.
So no, I will not let fly yet a third time when you have yet to address what is actually said here, rather than doing the research to build your argument so that I can destroy it and point out it still doesn’t address the arguments you’re supposedly refuting.
These haven’t been different rabbits; I’m simply presenting the same data in different ways to respond to your comments. I’ve actually been kind of embarrassed for you, but it didn’t seem sporting to say so. I can keep posting the numbers that demonstrate what you’re denying, or leave it to the readers to sort it out.
; I’m simply presenting the same data in different ways to respond to your comments
You have, objectively, not responded to the comments.
As I pointed out right from the start.
OK, I was thinking about this, and I want to add one more thing. I’m not trying to take away the last word from you, and if this doesn’t work, feel free to say whatever you want. I just want to address one thing you said.
“It’s well known that heart disease deaths increase when there’s a higher than usual disease load, due to stress on the system and in general.”
The death stats aren’t measuring the degree of heart damage in people who died from (or with) coronavirus. They measure the number of people who died, and secondarily classify whether they had the virus. So we may see an increase in cardio stuff in the individuals who died from it, but that wouldn’t be reflected in the cardio-death stats. And that’s not a criticism of the statistics, either. People died from the virus after it did whatever kind of damage to their systems. If you subtract those people, the same number of people died from heart disease as you’d expect in the past 8 non-winter months.
Pinky, all you’re doing is demonstrating absolutely no ability to understand either what I have said or what the stats you have looked straight at say.
To make it worse, you clearly know, on some level, that you do not have a good argument– because you keep trying to switch to emotional manipulation, first with unpleasant strawmen, then after demonstrating you could not even engage with what was said, with a passive-aggressive appeal to my non-existent respect for your judgement on this matter.
My nine year old daughter does a better job of it.
For the most basic example, you could look at the deaths-from-all-causes broken down by cause, and note the usual pattern during flu season.
And notice they do not match your theory of how a disease outbreak works.
And adjust accordingly.
Once the government started paying hospitals for care of COVID patients the numbers of death by COVID 19 were bound to be skewed. COVID 19 inpatients cost the federal government $3000 and if on a ventilator $39,000. From Dr. Jensen in MN. Not all hospitals have received the same amounts.
Whatever Covid19 is, it is not the Justinian (Black Death, Bubonic) Plague, nor Small Pox, polio, or Spanish Flu.
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My own eyes and common sense tell me this: where are the dead bodies? During the reign of Emperor Justianian, they resulted to throwing them in the sea. It didn’t work. Eventually the dead rotted in the streets and authorities quit counting. People fled the cities.
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Bottlenecks in the funeral industry have occurred because of lockdowns but it seems to have settled down. Cell phones, crass behavior, and stupidity are ubiquitous. I have yet to hear or see a trending video of massive numbers of corpses.
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I have been to two funerals this year. One lady was well into her 90s–one of the few people who died of old age. Another lady, in her 60’s, died of long standing and very significant health concerns. I have seen only one funeral procession this year–and I drive along routes frequented by those processions daily.
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I do not see adverts for caskets, funeral parlors, or cremation businesses on my Instagram or FB feed. Nor on Youtube, or Brave, or Chrome when I read the news. I haven’t heard that Jeff Bezos is making bank on shipping caskets or urns.
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My husband says the obits generally have the same number of announcements. People usually cite this or that cancer related charity as a memorial offering suggestion.
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I have been to two funerals this year. One lady was well into her 90s–one of the few people who died of old age. Another lady, in her 60’s, died of long standing and very significant health concerns. I have seen only one funeral procession this year–and I drive along routes frequented by those processions daily.
We lost a Korean SeaBee– probably to COVID, but he got it a week after the known-infected guy went through SeaTac, so he was never allowed anything but emergency care for his pneumonia. He lasted about six, seven months.
And a cousin in her 30s. Long term health problems, but what killed her was a new health issue that would have been caught, and maybe fought. If she was allowed medical treatment.
I hope we don’t lose more. My sister in law had her “odd lump” exam canceled back when it was still two weeks without the sarcasm quotes. Started chemo first week of October. My husband’s uncle’s annual exam was usually in April or May. He was diagnosed with a different cancer in September, at his rescheduled exam. I don’t know what they’re doing. The family friend that was waiting for heart surgery with a 50/50 chance of making it the two weeks was called up and told his surgery was “elective,” and it was canceled. Thank God, his wife called back and persuaded them it was not.
A family friend lost her grandfather. He was in a nursing home. In New Jersey.
An e-friend lost her mother… never sick, but she was in a nursing home, and one of those people who needs people. No group events allowed.
I know two people who are certified to have caught it– one, we have no idea when because they switched to an antibody test. The other, it was a weekend flu.
Everyone I know or know of, who died or may die from this, was killed more by the response than by a disease.
Something else that’ll get ignored by the media.
https://m.theepochtimes.com/malaria-death-toll-to-exceed-covid-19s-in-sub-saharan-africa-who_3598347.html
Here’s another article on the death tolls and misclassification, this one by a physician.
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https://www.aier.org/article/covid-misclassification-what-do-the-data-suggest/