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all of the replies to this comment misunderstand the point. if you get hit by a bus and have covid, you are still counted as a "covid death" in the statistics,

by modzu 6y ago

all of the replies to this comment misunderstand the point. if you get hit by a bus and have covid, you are still counted as a "covid death" in the statistics, at least in my province, because there isnt a simple means to separate the two

pwinnski 6y ago
You might be misunderstanding the point. Many people have chosen to promote the lie that the vast majority of COVID deaths can be dismissed using this reasoning, rather than a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. They ignore the overwhelming "excess deaths" number and pretend that unless a person had COVID and COVID alone listed, with no co-morbidity, it doesn't count, and therefore 99+% of COVID deaths aren't COVID at all. This is, of course, not true, as the excess deaths numbers clearly demonstrate. If anything, we're under-counting COVID.
- ravitation 6y ago
  > Many people have chosen to promote the lie that the vast majority of COVID deaths can be dismissed using this reasoning, rather than a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. This is comically illustrated by the examples being used... Hit by a bus? Hospice patients with weeks to live? The truth is that the typical comorbidities, that have a noticeable effect on the actual total number of deaths, are things like obesity, hyptertension, and diabetes... Things that literally will not kill an otherwise healthy adult in the same time period as COVID-19.
  - beaner 6y ago
    The biggest comorbidity by far is old age, which definitely will imminently kill those it affects on its own.
    - ravitation 6y ago
      I mean... No, it won't... Being 75+ doesn't kill someone in weeks like COVID-19 does...
- modzu 6y ago
  oh, well no that is certainly not the point i was making, actually ive never heard this narrative. maybe a cultural difference if this is being purpoted in the usa? nevertheless it doesn't change the point that accurate data > inaccurate data..
rconti 6y ago
Do we not consider this a solved problem? The idea of dying of an illness is not a new one. I don't see why we need to reinvent the wheel. Presumably the folks who tabulate deaths already know how to do this; I don't see why we've suddenly decided to take a microscope to the stats.
- josephcsible 6y ago
  > I don't see why we've suddenly decided to take a microscope to the stats. Because this is the first time that these sorts of stats have been used to curtail everyone's freedom so much.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    You're looking at it the other way around: the stats are huge DESPITE the unprecedented lockdowns. If we didn't have lockdowns, the numbers would have been astronomical. We know this because we have seen how things have unfolded in places like Northern Italy and Iran - the hospital system is quickly overwhelmed, and then people start dying by the dozens in each hospital, because they simply can't get any kind of care anymore.
    - josephcsible 6y ago
      > the stats are huge DESPITE the unprecedented lockdowns Another possible interpretation of this is that lockdowns don't really help much. > We know this because we have seen how things have unfolded in places like Northern Italy and Iran I thought those places did have lockdowns.
      - tsimionescu 6y ago
        They were hit very early, and the lockdowns came far later. Famously, the Iranian health minister was on TV announcing that the country doesn't need to take special Covid19 measure while visibly sweating because of the fever caused by his Covid19 infection. If you want positive proof that lockdowns work, the absolute best example is Vietnam: a tiny country of 100 million people which has experienced 1123 total infections so far, with 37 deaths.
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
But their original argument, that anyone with COVID gets marked as a COVID death and therefore you can't trust that statistics, feels pretty weak - there's no way that we're having a sudden surge in all those causes of death to lead to the excess mortality we're seeing. It's a big leap to assume there have been enough COVID adjacent bus accidents that we can use to in any way explain away COVID's effect on mortality.
matthewmacleod 6y ago
Unless hundreds of thousands of people started getting hit by busses suddenly then this seems to be pretty irrelevant.
- cue_the_strings 6y ago
  True. On the other hand, thousands of people are dying in hospices and care homes, Covid or not. Mortality increase (compared to the average of last n years) seems like the only good measure of Covid impact.
matwood 6y ago
Can you point me to a death certificate where someone was hit by a bus and had the ultimate cause of death be covid? Are they even testing dead people for covid? Or, are you saying someone was hit by a bus, gets/has covid and ultimately dies? If that's the case, I would assume the doctors know what they are doing and would list the ultimate cause of death properly, which covid may have aggravated. What if they would have survived their bus injuries if it was not for covid? Regardless, this hair splitting doesn't matter because it's a very small portion of all cases that end up in an odd case like the above.

by modzu 6y ago

pwinnski 6y ago

You might be misunderstanding the point. Many people have chosen to promote the lie that the vast majority of COVID deaths can be dismissed using this reasoning, rather than a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. They ignore the overwhelming "excess deaths" number and pretend that unless a person had COVID and COVID alone listed, with no co-morbidity, it doesn't count, and therefore 99+% of COVID deaths aren't COVID at all. This is, of course, not true, as the excess deaths numbers clearly demonstrate. If anything, we're under-counting COVID.

ravitation 6y ago
> Many people have chosen to promote the lie that the vast majority of COVID deaths can be dismissed using this reasoning, rather than a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. This is comically illustrated by the examples being used... Hit by a bus? Hospice patients with weeks to live? The truth is that the typical comorbidities, that have a noticeable effect on the actual total number of deaths, are things like obesity, hyptertension, and diabetes... Things that literally will not kill an otherwise healthy adult in the same time period as COVID-19.
- beaner 6y ago
  The biggest comorbidity by far is old age, which definitely will imminently kill those it affects on its own.
  - ravitation 6y ago
    I mean... No, it won't... Being 75+ doesn't kill someone in weeks like COVID-19 does...
modzu 6y ago
oh, well no that is certainly not the point i was making, actually ive never heard this narrative. maybe a cultural difference if this is being purpoted in the usa? nevertheless it doesn't change the point that accurate data > inaccurate data..

rconti 6y ago

Do we not consider this a solved problem? The idea of dying of an illness is not a new one. I don't see why we need to reinvent the wheel. Presumably the folks who tabulate deaths already know how to do this; I don't see why we've suddenly decided to take a microscope to the stats.

josephcsible 6y ago
> I don't see why we've suddenly decided to take a microscope to the stats. Because this is the first time that these sorts of stats have been used to curtail everyone's freedom so much.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  You're looking at it the other way around: the stats are huge DESPITE the unprecedented lockdowns. If we didn't have lockdowns, the numbers would have been astronomical. We know this because we have seen how things have unfolded in places like Northern Italy and Iran - the hospital system is quickly overwhelmed, and then people start dying by the dozens in each hospital, because they simply can't get any kind of care anymore.
  - josephcsible 6y ago
    > the stats are huge DESPITE the unprecedented lockdowns Another possible interpretation of this is that lockdowns don't really help much. > We know this because we have seen how things have unfolded in places like Northern Italy and Iran I thought those places did have lockdowns.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      They were hit very early, and the lockdowns came far later. Famously, the Iranian health minister was on TV announcing that the country doesn't need to take special Covid19 measure while visibly sweating because of the fever caused by his Covid19 infection. If you want positive proof that lockdowns work, the absolute best example is Vietnam: a tiny country of 100 million people which has experienced 1123 total infections so far, with 37 deaths.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

But their original argument, that anyone with COVID gets marked as a COVID death and therefore you can't trust that statistics, feels pretty weak - there's no way that we're having a sudden surge in all those causes of death to lead to the excess mortality we're seeing. It's a big leap to assume there have been enough COVID adjacent bus accidents that we can use to in any way explain away COVID's effect on mortality.

matthewmacleod 6y ago

Unless hundreds of thousands of people started getting hit by busses suddenly then this seems to be pretty irrelevant.

cue_the_strings 6y ago
True. On the other hand, thousands of people are dying in hospices and care homes, Covid or not. Mortality increase (compared to the average of last n years) seems like the only good measure of Covid impact.

matwood 6y ago

Can you point me to a death certificate where someone was hit by a bus and had the ultimate cause of death be covid? Are they even testing dead people for covid? Or, are you saying someone was hit by a bus, gets/has covid and ultimately dies? If that's the case, I would assume the doctors know what they are doing and would list the ultimate cause of death properly, which covid may have aggravated. What if they would have survived their bus injuries if it was not for covid? Regardless, this hair splitting doesn't matter because it's a very small portion of all cases that end up in an odd case like the above.