Worst deaths among large high-income countries. Note this is not because we're a big country. The graph shows deaths per capita (per 100K). And we all know why -
And we all know who is responsible for that - people like the lady "Trump-World Beauty Queen" who is paying kids at Target to take their masks off.
Addendum: Among the deaths, the culture-war anti-vax hero Robert LeMay, who was repeatedly promoted by FOX News propagandists -
LaMay likely reached his biggest audience the following night when he appeared on Laura Ingraham’s prime-time Fox program. Ingraham has been a relentless critic of the vaccines and efforts to get people like her viewers to take them, and she used LaMay’s story to advance her anti-vaccine narrative, portraying him as one of a host of people who have been ill-used by the government because they don’t want to get their shots. ..Regardless, LaMay’s brief blip of right-wing “celebrity” won’t comfort his widow or help to raise his four children. And Fox’s stars and the executives standing behind them will continue to encourage more of these tragedies.
I'm not going to rant any longer about this. Graphs from the New York Times, where there is lots more information.
He said he could shoot someone on 5ht Ave and get away with it, but COVID gave him a much more efficient way of murdering a whole state of people. With cameras on and plenty of documentation. And yet, he will not pay any price for his biggest crime.
ReplyDeleteThere is no law for (self-proclaimed) rich white men in America.
If we're going off established rules, these are all Biden's fault
DeleteWhy exactly?
DeleteWhat rules?
What is Japan doing to have such good numbers - low death rate, and, low vacc rate?
ReplyDeleteLook at the source article in the NYT. I try to just harvest selected items so as not to deprive the sources of traffic, so I just embedded two graphs (deaths and boosters). There is another graph there showing percent population fully vaccinated (pre-booster). Japan is at the top for that number.
DeleteSurely you've seen it, I'll post it anyway....
ReplyDeletesorryantivaxxer.com
is worth a visit.
Bruce
Yeah, this is why I'm happy to go maskless and skip my booster shot. You guys don't mean well for us.
DeleteIronHorse: I bear you no ill will, but even if I did, how would being less well protected right any wrong? I'm a socialist, but I enjoy your comments and I hope you keep making them. I won't play nanny; I just don't see the benefit in resisting distancing, masks and the jab.
DeleteThanks for sharing that page!
DeleteIt is hard to get over the heavily defended wall of 'Oh, you're an anti-vaxxer !', no matter how often I say 'No, I'm not' people still instantly classify me as such whenever I bring up the question of 'How accurate are those numbers ?'
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it is so in the USA, but here in New Zealand, following WHO dictates, we label every death as a covid death if the person's death was because of covid, hastened by covid, possibly hastened by covid, or there was no other obvious reason (not the official words but you get the picture).
You'd think this wouldn't matter, but when we have had the story of a guy killed by gunshot, bleeding to death in the street from a gang shooting, hitting the front page news as a covid death, you then start to have people asking about other 'covid' deaths.
How many covid deaths were people, say in their 90s, living in a rest home, and already burdened by failing health, other viruses, cancer or whatever ?
The fact that we used to have an average of 130 influenza deaths per year and now we have none is not being addressed in any public forum I can find ... has covid or the vaccine solved the influenza issue ? ... or are those deaths now being labelled covid ?
Such questions result in many people doubting the government released statistics ... and when clarification is wanted, asking about ages and health condition of those that died, the govt/health authorities just say they are unable to release those details because of privacy reasons.
Nobody is asking who they were, just how old, were they already dying, very unhealthy, did they have influenza ?
So you now have a whole bunch of people wondering if the powers that be are pulling the wool over their eyes, or at least, deceiving them with inflated figures for what reason ?
And any voice, any platform, that asks these questions is shut down, labelled conspiracist, ridiculed.
It's like listening to a baseball game on the radio but the announcer is the narcissistic snd desperate coach of one of the teams.
I'm not saying the game isn't happening or the other team isn't getting runs, I'm saying half the story MAY be getting edited or culled.
Anyhow, we now have a community divided, people who have chosen not to get vaccinated (a number of them police, firemen, nurses, doctors et cetera) are now denied entry to cafes, movies, sports events, music gigs, pubs, libraries, vet clinics, and the like ... such businesses are legally required to see people's vaccination passports before allowing them entry.
The only businesses available for those that choose not to be vaccinated are supermarkets, pharmacies and petrol (gas) stations.
And they wonder why there are so many people here in New Zealand spouting conspiracy theories.
- I guess I am being the devil's advocate, always believed one should listen to both sides of a discussion ... but if I have commented on this side of the topic before feel free not to publish.
following WHO dictates
DeleteRecommendations.
The WHO has no power to tell any country what to do. What New Zealand does gets determined by its parliament, elected by New Zealanders. They decide what recommendations to apply to NZ, and how.
You'd think this wouldn't matter, but when we have had the story of a guy killed by gunshot, bleeding to death in the street from a gang shooting, hitting the front page news as a covid death, you then start to have people asking about other 'covid' deaths.
I don't know what happened there, but going from the info you provide here: If the guy was weakened by COVID and would have survived, if he were did not have COVID, should that not count as a COVID death? Can't he have died by bullet and COVID?
If someone crosses the street, gets a heart attack, stumbles and then gets hit by a car, is that a heart attack, car crash, or a drunk driving incident?
Multiple things can be true at the same time.
you then start to have people asking about other 'covid' deaths.
Then figure it out. New Zealand has a wonderful open government that surely defines how it gets to it numbers just like most other developed countries do, right? Dive in the info that's public. Do your research!
has covid or the vaccine solved the influenza issue ? ... or are those deaths now being labelled covid ?
I happen to know that for the US, there are documents gallore discussing this issue. Surely, NZ has too. Or you can read the US ones and extrapolate the data to the situation in NZ.
So you now have a whole bunch of people wondering if the powers that be are pulling the wool over their eyes, or at least, deceiving them with inflated figures for what reason ?
And what I keep wondering about is how all these people can't find answers to the legitimate questions they have for which answers are quite abundantly available, while they do have time to demonstrate repeatedly.
Anyhow, we now have a community divided, people who have chosen not to get vaccinated (a number of them police, firemen, nurses, doctors et cetera) are now denied entry to cafes, movies, sports events, music gigs, pubs, libraries, vet clinics, and the like ... such businesses are legally required to see people's vaccination passports before allowing them entry.
Which is good, right? We don't want potentially sick people infecting others, right? Just like smoking has largely been banned because it also make people other than the smoker sick.
Anti-vaxxers tend to focus on their freedom to do what they want, but leave no thought for the freedom of others to not get infected with a deadly disease. Let alone those who have a weakened immune system because they have an immune disease, are recovering from chemotherapy, old age, etc. Should all those people cower at home because others don't want to undergo the minute inconvenience of getting vaccinated?
Going back to the smoking analogy, should everyone who doesn't want to get lung-cancer just stay home so that smokers can smoke everywhere?
Morally, and economically, that is not a winner.
I guess I am being the devil's advocate,
No, you're an anti-vaxxer.
always believed one should listen to both sides of a discussion
You should. But you should also figure out which side of the discussion can back up their statements, and which side can't. You should figure out which side is willing to change it story when new information becomes available, and which side sticks to its story no matter what.
One is telling the truth. The other is making money of gullible people. And killing them.
Your "points" have been addressed publically, at length in many, many formats and by many, many different organizations/companies. No one is discussing those questions because they are settled matters of established fact. People assume that if you say 'there is no answer', then you are either lying (because there are answers) or you haven't bothered to ask google/bing/duckduckgo and read the results. If you're not willing to run a google search for your question, it is hard for us to believe you are asking in an honest attempt to gain understanding (especially since you ARE willing to comment here).
DeleteI will address one point of yours as an example: the low flu death rate since covid social distancing measures began.
This was the second result in my search for "why are there few flu deaths since covid": https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flu-has-disappeared-worldwide-during-the-covid-pandemic1/
The low flu death rate has been reported on and explained - at length and in many places, by many different organizations/groups/companies/etc. The research on it is not mentioned by people trying to spread misinformation, because it doesn't fit their "story" - that this is all overblown or made up and the benefits of these precautions are either non-medical (government control of sheeple), non-existant, or exaggerated. The low flu death rate shows the social distancing save lives. It shows that masks save lives.
That link, btw, has been out for over 9 months now. And there were other articles in late 2020, too. The first result to my search was a medical journal article (JAMA), as were my third and fourth results (other medical journals). Then I had several results from the north american and european medical organizations, newspapers, newstations, and sites like vox/medium/etc.
What Japan is doing right is wearing masks and limiting public socialization. The difference between me-me-me individualism and believing that one is part of a whole community and thus has a responsibility to act with regard to all.
ReplyDeleteRocket, why are you "bringing it up" to anyone, What you are actually doing is asking people what they believe and a chance to lecture. They’ll take as a challenge and assume you're an anti.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't believe the numbers go to the source and ask them where they got the information.
Shot in the street, in the paper as Covid death? cite
95, rest home, weak, if covid killed him it’s still Covid. A car went off the cliff. Oh well, it was an old car.
With masks and social distancing the flu can’t kill, can’t even spread.
In the US the numbers come from more places than just the government and neither they nor the government have a reason to lie, only snake oil salesmen looking to profit, and internet metric shit stirrers do.
Chris, the Japanese have always worn masks to prevent spreading germs, and nobody looking down on them for being considerate.
As we are fond of saying on this blog... res ipsa loquitur.
ReplyDeleteDeborah Birx in April 2020: "the intent is right now that if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death." This policy was changed in early summer 2020.
ReplyDeleteDeath certificates are fairly uniform nationwide, they state the cause of death and any contributing factors. The attending doctor (or a pathologist) is responsible for the determination of the cause and other factors. There is little or no evidence of any effort to inflate COVID death numbers, but a clear determination of the role that COVID plays in some deaths is not always easy for doctors. Hence, some deaths may be counted as COVID deaths when COVID had nothing to with the death. The instance of that occurring would probably be very low and insignificant to the overall numbers.
On the other hand, many people who die are not tested. A person shot in the head is very unlikely to be tested, as are crash victims who do not make it to a hospital. A person who dies at home is not likely to be tested. There is no financial incentive to attribute a death to COVID.
There is an incentive for hospitals to test everyone who comes in for any reason. The CARES act provides a 20% increase in funding for patients with COVID, meaning people who test positive. This applies to Medicare payments and any other payment that comes from a federal source. Many states provide similar payments. This probably inflates the total numbers of COVID hospitalizations.
On a side note, noted Trump supporters Gavin Newsom, Eric Garcetti and London Breed were seen mingling at SoFi stadium while maskless. They are the Governor of CA, and the mayors of LA and SF, respectively, where mask mandates are in place. Mr. Garcetti asserted that he held his breath when his mask was off.
I think there's an awful lot of "getting bogged down in the numbers"- talk around. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'll put my two cents in.
ReplyDeleteCars aren't new.
Murders aren't new.
Heart disease isn't new, and cancers aren't, either.
The only plausible cause for a massive increase in death rate is the cause which had not previously been accounted for. We can quibble about lockdowns and masking reducing rates of car deaths and pneumonia deaths, or increasing diabetes deaths or alcohol abuse deaths, but the largest (and most novel) cause of death is COVID in any of its iterations.
A macro view is instructive: getting COVID is worse than not getting COVID, and getting COVID while vaccinated, boosted, and masking/distancing is better than not doing those things because they all reduce risk of death from it. Whether one thinks dying a preventable death is a good thing...I can't make a rational argument for that.
Kolo, I'd like you to ponder (and answer) a complicated question: What do you want people to die from? The death rate will always be 100%. If you prevent X, people will die of Y. "Cause of death" on a death certificate is often scientifically not valid. These certificates are not typically completed after an autopsy or investigation. Many of them are signed by someone who notes the deceased is elderly without signs of trauma so they write in "heart disease" because the heart has (by definition) stopped. They have no way to diagnose pulmonary embolus or pneumothorax or ruptured aortic aneurysm or (in TV shows) murder.
DeleteEverybody wants to prevent "heart disease." But they don't want to die instead of chronic renal failure or fractured hip with fat embolism or sepsis from an infected diabetic foot. If you ask people how do you want to die they will say "in my sleep when I'm elderly" and that will be written down as heart disease.
Now, answer the question: What do you want people to die as a result of? "Old age" is not an acceptable answer.
Perhaps we should evolve to a point where "old age" is an acceptable cause of death when there is no evidence of any other cause.
DeleteAt what age do you think people should stop seeing doctors so they can die an acceptable old age death? At what age do you plan to stop seeing doctors so you can die of old age?
This is just stupid.
We can have a debate about how much effort (/health insurance money) should be spend to keep people alive. That's a legitimate debate. It's difficult because that's a debate of religion, morality and finance in one. Good luck with that.
Opinions vary largely across Europe for instance. Sweden for instance, did not enact many COVID measures and just let older people die of "old age", without testing or protecting them from COVID.
The Netherlands is in lockdown because it has remarkably few ICU beds compared to surrounding countries. This is a result of healthy care cuts, typical Dutch cheapness and the lack of the catholic culture to keep people alive at all costs, the Netherlands being a protestant country with deep cultural strains of accepting God's judgement. There is also a considerable effort from elderly to get the 'right to die' when they see fit - putting people in control of their death instead of god or medicine.
However, please be ready to accept the early deaths or your loved ones and yourself, when you say such things and do not force others to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to the nature of their deaths.
Dying of old age didn't happen much before there was proper medicine. People just died young. Mostly before they reached a double digit aged. The reason why there is no word for a parent who lost a child, as opposed to a person who lost a spouse is that even a hundred years ago, it was so common to loose young children. And guess what medicine invented the last hundred years? Vaccines against all the diseases that kill kids!
You are very likely alive because doctors did not accept that kids just died of 'infant diseases'.
I should let Kolo speak for themself, but what I think they were saying is NOT that people should be "allowed" to die of old age, but that the term "old age" should be allowed to be recorded on death certificates when the cause of death is unknown, so that the statistics are not overweighted with presumed "heart disease" diagnoses.
DeleteThere are many other ways to ensure a living wage for your workers, besides taking it from the top earners.
DeleteWhy not? What is people want to die?
that the term "old age" should be allowed to be recorded on death certificates when the cause of death is unknown, so that the statistics are not overweighted with presumed "heart disease" diagnoses.
Citation needed. There is no reason to believe that coroners don't know why someone died. They are under quite heavy regulatory duty to find the true cause of death. They don't get to guess.
Most of us have personal experience with this. Think of the last person that died that you knew well enough. There's always the wait until the coroner signs off.
And this proper investigation is why it sometimes takes a while before a body is released. See for instance the recent death of Bob Saget, where the coroner has said it might take 10-12 weeks to determine the cause of death, as an indication that coroners don't wing it. Was Bob at 65 old enough to declare "old age", or is a proper investigated warranted to make sure he did not commit suicide, or get poisoned?
It is really weird to say we should just not used the knowledge and science we have to better ourselves, but to just ignore that ability and say 'meh, over 65, "old age" will do'.
Furthermore, I can assure you that a lot of (rich) people will start dying of old age on the day after they reach that age, with the children surprisingly ready to inherit.
Finally, how are we supposed to find cures and remedies for the main causes of death if we stop recording them?
Sticking your fingers in your ears and eyes and going LALALALALALA is not a good way to go through life.
I see you've replaced your posts with the content of your argument.
ReplyDeleteQED then, I guess.