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The grandparent's original point still stands, this is not the disaster that the headlines portray. The U.S stands at 1 in 750 people dead from covid, mostly el

The grandparent's original point still stands, this is not the disaster that the headlines portray. The U.S stands at 1 in 750 people dead from covid, mostly elderly with comorbidities, a rate similar to many other countries. That is 0.13% of the population. That's not 1 in 10, or even 1 in 100. It's not the young and healthy, either. A pretty small number. And if you are old and frail something is going to get you soon, anyways. Per-capita just as many, perhaps several times more, people died of the 1968 Hong Kong flu. New viruses happen, part of nature, people die, that's how it goes, This isn't nearly as bad as a lot of similar situations in the past.

petre 6y ago
Just take a look at Reuters' stats page. It's easy now as we have just passed 100m infections with 2m deaths. That amounts to 2 dead out of every 100, globally. https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m... Death rate is 0.16% in the US though.
- mikem170 6y ago
  I was relating the number who died in the U.S. versus the total population, calculated from published deaths per million per country [0] The link you provided says that 2.2 million people globally reportedly have died of covid. Out of world's population of 7.8 billion that amounts to 1 out of 3545 people who have died, or 0.028%. I wonder if a lot of people have misconceptions about their odds of dying from covid, given the alarmist news coverege. Especially the young and healthy, who are more at risk of dying of other things like suicide for example. Some would say that the reaction and mitigations to covid have been more impactful than the disease itself. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
  - petre 6y ago
    One can't die of a disease without contacting it first, can they?
- thu2111 6y ago
  Those death figures are not deaths from COVID. They are deaths of any cause within 28 days of a positive test, and thus over-count, especially when the elderly who are (to put it coldly) "scheduled" to die get a positive test and then die "on time". It makes the COVID death stats useless because what's actually interesting is not how many people die in vague proximity to a positive result on a trigger-happy test, but rather how many people could have been meaningfully saved. Life years lost, in other words.

petre 6y ago

Just take a look at Reuters' stats page. It's easy now as we have just passed 100m infections with 2m deaths. That amounts to 2 dead out of every 100, globally. https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m... Death rate is 0.16% in the US though.

mikem170 6y ago
I was relating the number who died in the U.S. versus the total population, calculated from published deaths per million per country [0] The link you provided says that 2.2 million people globally reportedly have died of covid. Out of world's population of 7.8 billion that amounts to 1 out of 3545 people who have died, or 0.028%. I wonder if a lot of people have misconceptions about their odds of dying from covid, given the alarmist news coverege. Especially the young and healthy, who are more at risk of dying of other things like suicide for example. Some would say that the reaction and mitigations to covid have been more impactful than the disease itself. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
- petre 6y ago
  One can't die of a disease without contacting it first, can they?
thu2111 6y ago
Those death figures are not deaths from COVID. They are deaths of any cause within 28 days of a positive test, and thus over-count, especially when the elderly who are (to put it coldly) "scheduled" to die get a positive test and then die "on time". It makes the COVID death stats useless because what's actually interesting is not how many people die in vague proximity to a positive result on a trigger-happy test, but rather how many people could have been meaningfully saved. Life years lost, in other words.