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I'm not sure if you genuinely believe the extreme hyperbole in the second paragraph of your post or if you're just trying to counteract the people who act like

I'm not sure if you genuinely believe the extreme hyperbole in the second paragraph of your post or if you're just trying to counteract the people who act like the virus is nothing at all. If it's the former, you should probably find some more reliable information sources. If it's the latter, truth and accuracy are a better counterpoint than taking the opposite extreme of misinformation.

jacobolus 6y ago
What do you think is the hyperbolic part? That millions of people have died and millions more were extremely sick is a simple statement of fact. As far as I can tell there is nothing even slightly controversial in what I wrote. Your response is a weird combination of vague and rude/patronizing. I’m not sure what your point is.
- shadowprofile77 6y ago
  Well, just for starters, millions of people haven't died of the virus. At last count, the death toll so far is just over 1.5 million. A terrible number, to be sure, but if you claim to not be engaging in hyperbole or misstatement of facts, it would be good to back that by not making your very first statement completely non-factual.
  - jacobolus 6y ago
    There have been 1.5 million confirmed Covid deaths, but the total number of people who have died from Covid is far higher than that, I would guess at least 1 million more, but possibly higher. Even wealthy countries with developed healthcare/government infrastructure are missing a significant fraction of deaths (in the USA alone, we have probably missed about 100k Covid deaths from the confirmed count). In many less developed countries, a majority (in some cases an overwhelming majority) of Covid deaths are never counted as such. It will be hard to get a total estimate until at least a year or two after the pandemic is over, because even in developed countries death reporting can lag by up to a year (that’s leaving aside cause-of-death attribution). If you check back in a year or two WHO, CDC, etc. will have much better estimates for the total death toll in 2020, with (possibly wide) error bars you can largely trust. Beyond that, this is weak pedantry about the definition of “millions”. People commonly use this plural to mean >1 million; we’re talking about the order of magnitude here, not the precise count.
    - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
      "Died with Covid", not "died from Covid". Regular old respiratory infections are a frequent indirect cause of strokes and heart attacks, but we've never claimed before that common colds cause "millions" of deaths.
      - watwut 6y ago
        I love how the assumption is always that confirmed covid death that were actually unrelated to covid are more frequent then covid death that were not confirmed. But, chances are that latter are more frequent. Covid tests are not done on all deaths precisely in places where situation is worst.
        otabdeveloper4 6y ago
        > I love how the assumption is always that confirmed covid death that were actually unrelated to covid are more frequent then covid death that were not confirmed. There is no such assumption. Read my post again: millions and millions of people died from the common cold before 2020. The media never reported those deaths as 'common cold deaths', though, even though it would have made just as much sense as reporting 'Covid deaths' does.
        read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        I think in the first world the former is more likely. I personally know someone whose grandma died of entirely unrelated causes and the hospital offered to pay for the funeral if they agreed to report her as a COVID death. Our governments are setting perverse incentives.
      - jansan 6y ago
        No the common cold, but the flu. The official death toll in Germany from the 2017/2018 flu season is still higher than deaths from COVID-19 so far. And I suspect that if we used the same method for COVID-19 deaths that was used for the flu (indirect measurement), the flu of 2017/18 would surpass COVID-19 by far.

jacobolus 6y ago

What do you think is the hyperbolic part? That millions of people have died and millions more were extremely sick is a simple statement of fact. As far as I can tell there is nothing even slightly controversial in what I wrote. Your response is a weird combination of vague and rude/patronizing. I’m not sure what your point is.

shadowprofile77 6y ago
Well, just for starters, millions of people haven't died of the virus. At last count, the death toll so far is just over 1.5 million. A terrible number, to be sure, but if you claim to not be engaging in hyperbole or misstatement of facts, it would be good to back that by not making your very first statement completely non-factual.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  There have been 1.5 million confirmed Covid deaths, but the total number of people who have died from Covid is far higher than that, I would guess at least 1 million more, but possibly higher. Even wealthy countries with developed healthcare/government infrastructure are missing a significant fraction of deaths (in the USA alone, we have probably missed about 100k Covid deaths from the confirmed count). In many less developed countries, a majority (in some cases an overwhelming majority) of Covid deaths are never counted as such. It will be hard to get a total estimate until at least a year or two after the pandemic is over, because even in developed countries death reporting can lag by up to a year (that’s leaving aside cause-of-death attribution). If you check back in a year or two WHO, CDC, etc. will have much better estimates for the total death toll in 2020, with (possibly wide) error bars you can largely trust. Beyond that, this is weak pedantry about the definition of “millions”. People commonly use this plural to mean >1 million; we’re talking about the order of magnitude here, not the precise count.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    "Died with Covid", not "died from Covid". Regular old respiratory infections are a frequent indirect cause of strokes and heart attacks, but we've never claimed before that common colds cause "millions" of deaths.
    - watwut 6y ago
      I love how the assumption is always that confirmed covid death that were actually unrelated to covid are more frequent then covid death that were not confirmed. But, chances are that latter are more frequent. Covid tests are not done on all deaths precisely in places where situation is worst.
      - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
        > I love how the assumption is always that confirmed covid death that were actually unrelated to covid are more frequent then covid death that were not confirmed. There is no such assumption. Read my post again: millions and millions of people died from the common cold before 2020. The media never reported those deaths as 'common cold deaths', though, even though it would have made just as much sense as reporting 'Covid deaths' does.
      - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
        I think in the first world the former is more likely. I personally know someone whose grandma died of entirely unrelated causes and the hospital offered to pay for the funeral if they agreed to report her as a COVID death. Our governments are setting perverse incentives.
    - jansan 6y ago
      No the common cold, but the flu. The official death toll in Germany from the 2017/2018 flu season is still higher than deaths from COVID-19 so far. And I suspect that if we used the same method for COVID-19 deaths that was used for the flu (indirect measurement), the flu of 2017/18 would surpass COVID-19 by far.