4 ms·

FWIW, 93% of people who died from COVID in the US were age 55 or older. https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/ http

FWIW, 93% of people who died from COVID in the US were age 55 or older. https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/ https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/c...

dimitrios1 5y ago
It's pretty apparent at this point that COVID was heavily politicized, which would explain its dominating prevalence in media and culture. An American has a heart attack every 40 seconds, and it's been this way for almost two decades.
- javagram 5y ago
  Feels like your own comment explained why “heavily politicized” had nothing to do with it. (There’s a reason almost every country in the world took action against covid-19, despite vastly differing politics and influences) People have about the same number of heart attacks every year. In the USA, Covid-19 added about a half million deaths additional to what normally would be expected. People get used to what normally happens but when a new additional source of death comes up, they’ll be more concerned. Especially because covid is contagious and heart attacks aren’t.
  - jb775 5y ago
    > Covid-19 added about a half million deaths additional to what normally would be expected. Not true. Death rates aren't a linear scale. The total number of deaths last year was already set up to be significantly higher than in previous years (not accounting for covid). The actual death rates were lower than expected the past 4-5 years, which tells us there were many additional people on the brink of death. Also, there's a significantly higher number of baby boomers reaching the likelihood-of-death-from-strong-illness age over the past year. These are the types of people who more easily die from the normal flu, so the common sense explanation is that they wouldn't stand a chance with a stronger flu-like illness. That also explains why normal flu deaths were basically non-existent last year. (No, it's not because the normal flu didn't happen last year, or because of masks, it's obviously because covid wiped those susceptible people out) My guess is we'd be in about the same situation had we done nothing at all (no masks, no vaccines, etc). It's all political theater, cash-grabbing corporations, and there's lots of suckers in the world who believe everything they're told.
    - culturestate 5y ago
      > The total number of deaths last year was already set up to be significantly higher than in previous years...That also explains why normal flu deaths were basically non-existent last year...it's obviously because covid wiped those susceptible people out. I honestly can't tell whether or not this is meant to be satirical, but if you're being serious then I would be interested to see your sources for this data.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  If you know anyone who’s been sick with Covid when hospitals were overwhelmed in a foreign country, deaths and bad outcomes are highly different when hospitals can’t help you. They also every single time chose to save younger patients, for obvious reasons.
- culturestate 5y ago
  > It's pretty apparent at this point that COVID was heavily politicized, which would explain its dominating prevalence in media and culture It seems to me that its "dominating prevalence in media and culture" came as a result of being a once-in-a-generation global plague that killed millions of people, shut down much of the world, and fundamentally altered the way humans live their lives for the better part of two years.
  - dimitrios1 5y ago
    Lockdowns and the mass hysteria began somewhere around March. Everyone believed the virus spread from major points of entry around sometime in January. Yet we now have evidence that this was widespread as early as December 2019 (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-offers-new-evidence-early-sars-cov-2-infections-us https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-offe...) and the study is undergoing replication as we speak. So were people just not dying in December? I am not a denialist. I personally known quite a few people that have caught it. It's a real, terrible illness. But I have always remained skeptical about the true risks, the approach to handling the virus, and the testing numbers. Not helping the case was how much we've been lied to or misinformed by public health officials.
- dgfitz 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. COVID was and is heavily politicized. Baltimore Maryland, for example, is still very strict about masks, yet they are closing schools because of lack of air conditioning and Fells Point seems to be disturbingly close to requiring assistance from the National Guard, violence is quite literally out of control. Crime and children be damned, better put a mask on! edit: punctuation
- didibus 5y ago
  The difference is you can clearly do something about Covid and prevent all those deaths, where-as cancer and heart disease we still don't know how to prevent, and what we do know, we are similarly vocal and annoying about: lose weight, exercise, eat healthier, etc. So it makes sense to mobilize in order to stop the spread of Covid and save all those people from dying from it. On top of that, Covid has actually outpaced cancer and heart disease to become the number 1 cause of death (https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-is-the-number-one-cause-of-death-in-the-u-s-in-early-2021/ https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-is-the-nu...) in the US. Another aspect is long Covid, where it could be 2 to 20 percent especially younger people, have long lasting symptoms. We don't know the real long term risks here. Not knowing is always scarier, people don't want to risk things. Heart Disease and Cancer to some extent are well understood. Then you have to consider that the Covid death numbers are with all the measures that were put in place to stop it, and with a lot more people getting intensive care which would have died without. What's still unclear is what would death numbers look like if we'd done nothing to stop the spread and breached medical capacity. Finally, I think Covid is scary, because as a virus it can mutate, and again, that fear kicks in, where you think it's only killing older people, but maybe at anytime there could be a variant that is more lethal and starts skewing things to younger people. I don't think any of this is related to politics. It all just seems like expected reaction, a contagious disease that kills lots of people, but can be stopped if you could prevent its spread, which has unknown long term effects, and could possibly grow more lethal any day, and which will still screw you over for a few days even as a young lad. I think that's enough to explain the reaction the world over.
  - jb775 5y ago
    > I don't think any of this is related to politics I seriously urge you to check your cognitive dissonance to the situation as a whole. This is literally the definition of political theater. > Covid has actually outpaced cancer and heart disease to become the number 1 cause of death Not true at all. Did you miss the months of heated discussion when it was found out that hospitals received lump sums of additional money if they checked off "covid" as the "cause" of death? Then they clarified that by making it acceptable to consider covid as the "cause" of death if the patient had any "flu-like symptoms"...aka coughing, shortness of breath. Is it even possible to die without at least one of those "flu-like symptoms"? I hate to break it to everyone, but we did absolutely nothing to slow down covid. Everything we've seen over the past year has simply been placebos, population control, and political opportunism. Buy hey, can't wait to read Fauci's new book!
gorjusborg 5y ago
Lethality is not the only metric of interest for any disease, including COVID. There have been reported long term health effects, which matter to people who contract the disease. Further, if the best you can find for source data is a conservative interest group, you should ask yourself if you are looking for truth, or pushing an agenda.

dimitrios1 5y ago

It's pretty apparent at this point that COVID was heavily politicized, which would explain its dominating prevalence in media and culture. An American has a heart attack every 40 seconds, and it's been this way for almost two decades.

javagram 5y ago
Feels like your own comment explained why “heavily politicized” had nothing to do with it. (There’s a reason almost every country in the world took action against covid-19, despite vastly differing politics and influences) People have about the same number of heart attacks every year. In the USA, Covid-19 added about a half million deaths additional to what normally would be expected. People get used to what normally happens but when a new additional source of death comes up, they’ll be more concerned. Especially because covid is contagious and heart attacks aren’t.
- jb775 5y ago
  > Covid-19 added about a half million deaths additional to what normally would be expected. Not true. Death rates aren't a linear scale. The total number of deaths last year was already set up to be significantly higher than in previous years (not accounting for covid). The actual death rates were lower than expected the past 4-5 years, which tells us there were many additional people on the brink of death. Also, there's a significantly higher number of baby boomers reaching the likelihood-of-death-from-strong-illness age over the past year. These are the types of people who more easily die from the normal flu, so the common sense explanation is that they wouldn't stand a chance with a stronger flu-like illness. That also explains why normal flu deaths were basically non-existent last year. (No, it's not because the normal flu didn't happen last year, or because of masks, it's obviously because covid wiped those susceptible people out) My guess is we'd be in about the same situation had we done nothing at all (no masks, no vaccines, etc). It's all political theater, cash-grabbing corporations, and there's lots of suckers in the world who believe everything they're told.
  - culturestate 5y ago
    > The total number of deaths last year was already set up to be significantly higher than in previous years...That also explains why normal flu deaths were basically non-existent last year...it's obviously because covid wiped those susceptible people out. I honestly can't tell whether or not this is meant to be satirical, but if you're being serious then I would be interested to see your sources for this data.
thatfrenchguy 5y ago
If you know anyone who’s been sick with Covid when hospitals were overwhelmed in a foreign country, deaths and bad outcomes are highly different when hospitals can’t help you. They also every single time chose to save younger patients, for obvious reasons.
culturestate 5y ago
> It's pretty apparent at this point that COVID was heavily politicized, which would explain its dominating prevalence in media and culture It seems to me that its "dominating prevalence in media and culture" came as a result of being a once-in-a-generation global plague that killed millions of people, shut down much of the world, and fundamentally altered the way humans live their lives for the better part of two years.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Lockdowns and the mass hysteria began somewhere around March. Everyone believed the virus spread from major points of entry around sometime in January. Yet we now have evidence that this was widespread as early as December 2019 (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-offers-new-evidence-early-sars-cov-2-infections-us https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-offe...) and the study is undergoing replication as we speak. So were people just not dying in December? I am not a denialist. I personally known quite a few people that have caught it. It's a real, terrible illness. But I have always remained skeptical about the true risks, the approach to handling the virus, and the testing numbers. Not helping the case was how much we've been lied to or misinformed by public health officials.
dgfitz 5y ago
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. COVID was and is heavily politicized. Baltimore Maryland, for example, is still very strict about masks, yet they are closing schools because of lack of air conditioning and Fells Point seems to be disturbingly close to requiring assistance from the National Guard, violence is quite literally out of control. Crime and children be damned, better put a mask on! edit: punctuation
didibus 5y ago
The difference is you can clearly do something about Covid and prevent all those deaths, where-as cancer and heart disease we still don't know how to prevent, and what we do know, we are similarly vocal and annoying about: lose weight, exercise, eat healthier, etc. So it makes sense to mobilize in order to stop the spread of Covid and save all those people from dying from it. On top of that, Covid has actually outpaced cancer and heart disease to become the number 1 cause of death (https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-is-the-number-one-cause-of-death-in-the-u-s-in-early-2021/ https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-is-the-nu...) in the US. Another aspect is long Covid, where it could be 2 to 20 percent especially younger people, have long lasting symptoms. We don't know the real long term risks here. Not knowing is always scarier, people don't want to risk things. Heart Disease and Cancer to some extent are well understood. Then you have to consider that the Covid death numbers are with all the measures that were put in place to stop it, and with a lot more people getting intensive care which would have died without. What's still unclear is what would death numbers look like if we'd done nothing to stop the spread and breached medical capacity. Finally, I think Covid is scary, because as a virus it can mutate, and again, that fear kicks in, where you think it's only killing older people, but maybe at anytime there could be a variant that is more lethal and starts skewing things to younger people. I don't think any of this is related to politics. It all just seems like expected reaction, a contagious disease that kills lots of people, but can be stopped if you could prevent its spread, which has unknown long term effects, and could possibly grow more lethal any day, and which will still screw you over for a few days even as a young lad. I think that's enough to explain the reaction the world over.
- jb775 5y ago
  > I don't think any of this is related to politics I seriously urge you to check your cognitive dissonance to the situation as a whole. This is literally the definition of political theater. > Covid has actually outpaced cancer and heart disease to become the number 1 cause of death Not true at all. Did you miss the months of heated discussion when it was found out that hospitals received lump sums of additional money if they checked off "covid" as the "cause" of death? Then they clarified that by making it acceptable to consider covid as the "cause" of death if the patient had any "flu-like symptoms"...aka coughing, shortness of breath. Is it even possible to die without at least one of those "flu-like symptoms"? I hate to break it to everyone, but we did absolutely nothing to slow down covid. Everything we've seen over the past year has simply been placebos, population control, and political opportunism. Buy hey, can't wait to read Fauci's new book!

gorjusborg 5y ago

Lethality is not the only metric of interest for any disease, including COVID. There have been reported long term health effects, which matter to people who contract the disease. Further, if the best you can find for source data is a conservative interest group, you should ask yourself if you are looking for truth, or pushing an agenda.