4 ms·

"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 claime

"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
  Across every age group (except children) Covid is roughly 5x to 10x deadlier than the seasonal flu. It also spreads faster (higher reproductive number), is much more often spread by asymptomatic/presymptomatic people, and nobody has any apparent pre-existing immunity. (And the seasonal flu is a serious deadly disease which stresses hospital systems every year, not some joke. Even if Covid were only as bad as the flu, it would still be a real threat.) The method used to estimate flu deaths every year is far more expansive than the method used for confirmed Covid deaths. One interesting thing to see is that the social reactions vs. Covid have radically reduced the amount of flu spread this year vs. previous years.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    > Across every age group (except children) Covid is roughly 5x to 10x deadlier than the flu. Two points: a) 'Flu' is a different disease than respiratory viral diseases. (A.k.a. "common colds".) Covid is a kind of respiratory viral disease. b) "Common colds" are also deadly and cause a huge number of deaths each year. They just get classified as deaths from stroke or heart attack, not the common cold: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=does%20the%20common%20cold%20cause%20strokes https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=does%20the%20common%20... So counting mortality rates is not a simple issue and depends a lot on cultural factors, political incentives, etc.

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
Across every age group (except children) Covid is roughly 5x to 10x deadlier than the seasonal flu. It also spreads faster (higher reproductive number), is much more often spread by asymptomatic/presymptomatic people, and nobody has any apparent pre-existing immunity. (And the seasonal flu is a serious deadly disease which stresses hospital systems every year, not some joke. Even if Covid were only as bad as the flu, it would still be a real threat.) The method used to estimate flu deaths every year is far more expansive than the method used for confirmed Covid deaths. One interesting thing to see is that the social reactions vs. Covid have radically reduced the amount of flu spread this year vs. previous years.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  > Across every age group (except children) Covid is roughly 5x to 10x deadlier than the flu. Two points: a) 'Flu' is a different disease than respiratory viral diseases. (A.k.a. "common colds".) Covid is a kind of respiratory viral disease. b) "Common colds" are also deadly and cause a huge number of deaths each year. They just get classified as deaths from stroke or heart attack, not the common cold: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=does%20the%20common%20cold%20cause%20strokes https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=does%20the%20common%20... So counting mortality rates is not a simple issue and depends a lot on cultural factors, political incentives, etc.