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The right currently controls all three branches of governmnent in he US. (Or well maybe not Congress, but they have more control than the democrats). The right

The right currently controls all three branches of governmnent in he US. (Or well maybe not Congress, but they have more control than the democrats). The right controls the major media source for most Americans (Fox news) and uses it to establish a false narrative that they're being censored when, by many accounts, the us right has shifted more and more in the direction of authoritarianism. Can you give specific examples of the ways that the American left is succeeding and the right is failing at, like, their actual policy/political goals? > Coronavirus Compare the US covid deaths per capita is in the top 10, and pretty much all of the countries doing worse than us are in a clear downswing in cases so the number of fatalities won't increase much. The US's new case rate is flat, so deaths will continue at the same rate of 750-1000 per day for the near future. And that's despite some states (Georgia and Florida for example) appearing to lie about their covid deaths, instead misattribting them as pneumonia deaths. These states, suspiciously, governed by Republicans who downplayed coronavirus and want to reopen quickly. Much of this was avoidable.

thu2111 6y ago
And that's despite some states (Georgia and Florida for example) appearing to lie about their covid deaths, instead misattribting them as pneumonia deaths It's really the other way around - unusually for this type of virus governments have mandated drastic over-reporting of COVID. All kinds of deaths that have nothing to do with the virus have been reported as "died of COVID" for dubious reasons, which is how the New York Times managed to fill its front page with the names of 1000 COVID "victims", the 5th of which turned out to have been murdered. Some states describing a death as pneumonia is probably just normal medical practice re-asserting itself. Unless you're arguing that no death should ever be recorded as pneumonia (as that's an outcome of a problem, not the underlying root cause itself).
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  It's really not. > All kinds of deaths that have nothing to do with the virus have been reported as "died of COVID" for dubious reasons, which is how the New York Times managed to fill its front page with the names of 1000 COVID "victims", the 5th of which turned out to have been murdered. This is a big right wing talking point, but isn't actually backed up by evidence. On the other hand, Georgia and Florida so far this year have reported Pneumonia deaths at something like 4x the rate of any prior year. This increase happened oddly and suddenly in early to mid April.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    There's a large amount of evidence that COVID deaths tolls are hugely inflated. Just consider the problematic of/with confusion. The average age of the deceased in most countries is over 80 i.e. greater than the average life expectancy. About 1/3rd of the excess deaths in the UK don't mention COVID anywhere on the death certificate at all. Of those that do, many of them have been reported as "caused by COVID" although when examined more closely the death certificate actually said something like "died of X, tested positive for COVID" or even "died of X, suspected COVID" where X is unrelated to the virus. This is possible due to significantly relaxed reporting standards, especially in care homes. And that's before you get into the cases just openly misattributed by the press. Georgia and Florida so far this year have reported Pneumonia deaths at something like 4x the rate of any prior year Ironically enough that's a left-wing talking point, but it's not actually backed up by evidence. In fact it's fake news. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new-theory-about-florida-coronavirus-and-pneumonia-deaths-read-this-first/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new... "A theory that spread on Twitter and Reddit this week insinuating Florida health officials have masked the toll of the coronavirus by labeling thousands of deaths as caused by pneumonia is not supported by facts, said experts who study morbidity statistics. Nevertheless, the idea has spread rapidly, appearing to originate with a couple of widely shared and poorly sourced screenshots. It was picked up and swallowed along partisan divisions" "In an analysis he ran for the Times using publicly available data, Andrew Noymer, a professor who studies population health and disease prevention at the University of California Irvine, did not find major discrepancies between pneumonia and influenza deaths in early 2020 compared to recent years. He found about 1,485 such deaths in 2020, which was within a few hundred of the same period in any year since 2015." The of/with confusion is highlighted in this story as a key problem: "People, [Howard, the University of Texas at San Antonio professor] said, frequently die from multiple causes. It’s hard to attribute a death to just a single reason. Some Floridians might be avoiding needed medical attention out of fear, he said, and then they could die of an untreated illness or condition like heart disease."
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > There's a large amount of evidence that COVID deaths tolls are hugely inflated. Just consider the problematic of/with confusion. This is not evidence. This is a conjecture. It isn't borne out by evidence. > https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new.. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new.... From the same article: > That doesn’t the state’s coronavirus death toll is complete. Working with a University of South Florida researcher, the Times last week published a more complicated picture when it comes to excess deaths. That work found the pandemic might have already led to a toll between 17 percent and 58 percent higher than what had been reported. Which is this article: https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/20/coronavirus-may-have-caused-hundreds-of-additional-deaths-in-florida/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/20/coronavirus-... > They found that during the 5-week period ending April 25, there had been hundreds of unexpected deaths from illness and disease across Florida, more than can be explained by the coronavirus death count. Indeed these kinds of analysis have been done in multiple nations (http://archive.md/EBmj5 http://archive.md/EBmj5), and show that, without looking at cause at all, death rates are above official figures. Please explain how covid death tolls are hugely inflated if an analysis that entirely ignores cause of death, and only focuses on population level statistics, shows that there's been an unexplained increase in death rate beyond what has been attributed to COVID. Is there some other global pandemic that would be inflating death rates? To phrase this another way, population level mortality in 2020 is greater than average population level mortality over the past few years + deaths attributed to COVID-19. This gap appeared only after the pandemic began. If COVID-19 were being overreported, we'd expect the opposite effect. The evidence points to it being underreported. > Just consider the problematic of/with confusion. Your weekly reminder that while the life expectancy at birth is 78 years, the life expectancy of an 80 year old person is usually still 5-10 years. Statistics can be weird like that.
- naasking 6y ago
  > All kinds of deaths that have nothing to do with the virus have been reported as "died of COVID" for dubious reasons This is overstated. SARS-COV2 causes clotting which can lead to cardiac arrest, pulmonary embolism, stroke, and a host of other issues. The medical community tracks most of these as deaths caused by potential complications from the infection because we know it happens, so it's a reasonable precaution. No doubt the reporting around these numbers is overblown, because, surprise, science reporting in the midst of a panic is even more abysmal than usual.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    I'd be very skeptical about all of that. Pathologists aren't digging in to discover why people died and the amount of medical misinformation about what this virus does or does not do is crazy. However we can safely say the virus doesn't cause death by gunshot wound, leukaemia, suicide or many of the other deaths that were initially reported as "caused by COVID" and later turned out ... not to be.

thu2111 6y ago

And that's despite some states (Georgia and Florida for example) appearing to lie about their covid deaths, instead misattribting them as pneumonia deaths It's really the other way around - unusually for this type of virus governments have mandated drastic over-reporting of COVID. All kinds of deaths that have nothing to do with the virus have been reported as "died of COVID" for dubious reasons, which is how the New York Times managed to fill its front page with the names of 1000 COVID "victims", the 5th of which turned out to have been murdered. Some states describing a death as pneumonia is probably just normal medical practice re-asserting itself. Unless you're arguing that no death should ever be recorded as pneumonia (as that's an outcome of a problem, not the underlying root cause itself).

joshuamorton 6y ago
It's really not. > All kinds of deaths that have nothing to do with the virus have been reported as "died of COVID" for dubious reasons, which is how the New York Times managed to fill its front page with the names of 1000 COVID "victims", the 5th of which turned out to have been murdered. This is a big right wing talking point, but isn't actually backed up by evidence. On the other hand, Georgia and Florida so far this year have reported Pneumonia deaths at something like 4x the rate of any prior year. This increase happened oddly and suddenly in early to mid April.
- thu2111 6y ago
  There's a large amount of evidence that COVID deaths tolls are hugely inflated. Just consider the problematic of/with confusion. The average age of the deceased in most countries is over 80 i.e. greater than the average life expectancy. About 1/3rd of the excess deaths in the UK don't mention COVID anywhere on the death certificate at all. Of those that do, many of them have been reported as "caused by COVID" although when examined more closely the death certificate actually said something like "died of X, tested positive for COVID" or even "died of X, suspected COVID" where X is unrelated to the virus. This is possible due to significantly relaxed reporting standards, especially in care homes. And that's before you get into the cases just openly misattributed by the press. Georgia and Florida so far this year have reported Pneumonia deaths at something like 4x the rate of any prior year Ironically enough that's a left-wing talking point, but it's not actually backed up by evidence. In fact it's fake news. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new-theory-about-florida-coronavirus-and-pneumonia-deaths-read-this-first/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new... "A theory that spread on Twitter and Reddit this week insinuating Florida health officials have masked the toll of the coronavirus by labeling thousands of deaths as caused by pneumonia is not supported by facts, said experts who study morbidity statistics. Nevertheless, the idea has spread rapidly, appearing to originate with a couple of widely shared and poorly sourced screenshots. It was picked up and swallowed along partisan divisions" "In an analysis he ran for the Times using publicly available data, Andrew Noymer, a professor who studies population health and disease prevention at the University of California Irvine, did not find major discrepancies between pneumonia and influenza deaths in early 2020 compared to recent years. He found about 1,485 such deaths in 2020, which was within a few hundred of the same period in any year since 2015." The of/with confusion is highlighted in this story as a key problem: "People, [Howard, the University of Texas at San Antonio professor] said, frequently die from multiple causes. It’s hard to attribute a death to just a single reason. Some Floridians might be avoiding needed medical attention out of fear, he said, and then they could die of an untreated illness or condition like heart disease."
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > There's a large amount of evidence that COVID deaths tolls are hugely inflated. Just consider the problematic of/with confusion. This is not evidence. This is a conjecture. It isn't borne out by evidence. > https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new.. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/29/theres-a-new.... From the same article: > That doesn’t the state’s coronavirus death toll is complete. Working with a University of South Florida researcher, the Times last week published a more complicated picture when it comes to excess deaths. That work found the pandemic might have already led to a toll between 17 percent and 58 percent higher than what had been reported. Which is this article: https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/20/coronavirus-may-have-caused-hundreds-of-additional-deaths-in-florida/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/20/coronavirus-... > They found that during the 5-week period ending April 25, there had been hundreds of unexpected deaths from illness and disease across Florida, more than can be explained by the coronavirus death count. Indeed these kinds of analysis have been done in multiple nations (http://archive.md/EBmj5 http://archive.md/EBmj5), and show that, without looking at cause at all, death rates are above official figures. Please explain how covid death tolls are hugely inflated if an analysis that entirely ignores cause of death, and only focuses on population level statistics, shows that there's been an unexplained increase in death rate beyond what has been attributed to COVID. Is there some other global pandemic that would be inflating death rates? To phrase this another way, population level mortality in 2020 is greater than average population level mortality over the past few years + deaths attributed to COVID-19. This gap appeared only after the pandemic began. If COVID-19 were being overreported, we'd expect the opposite effect. The evidence points to it being underreported. > Just consider the problematic of/with confusion. Your weekly reminder that while the life expectancy at birth is 78 years, the life expectancy of an 80 year old person is usually still 5-10 years. Statistics can be weird like that.
naasking 6y ago
> All kinds of deaths that have nothing to do with the virus have been reported as "died of COVID" for dubious reasons This is overstated. SARS-COV2 causes clotting which can lead to cardiac arrest, pulmonary embolism, stroke, and a host of other issues. The medical community tracks most of these as deaths caused by potential complications from the infection because we know it happens, so it's a reasonable precaution. No doubt the reporting around these numbers is overblown, because, surprise, science reporting in the midst of a panic is even more abysmal than usual.
- thu2111 6y ago
  I'd be very skeptical about all of that. Pathologists aren't digging in to discover why people died and the amount of medical misinformation about what this virus does or does not do is crazy. However we can safely say the virus doesn't cause death by gunshot wound, leukaemia, suicide or many of the other deaths that were initially reported as "caused by COVID" and later turned out ... not to be.