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From the article, number of alcohol deaths > rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year Covid deaths in the US: 300k in 2020 Looks like anoth

From the article, number of alcohol deaths > rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year Covid deaths in the US: 300k in 2020 Looks like another misrepresentation by the "covid skeptics"

dijonman2 5y ago
Regardless of which side you’re on I think everyone needs to be willing to engage in civil discourse. We’re more divided than ever and should actively work to fix it. It’s true that some people are anti lockdown and there may be merit. There may not be. The truth is we won’t know for a few years until we have more information.
- raverbashing 5y ago
  There's no debate to be had with blatant incorrect facts This is not about "maybe the person is right" or "these are debatable" it's about A > B but being claimed otherwise with one of the numbers being in TFA to push an agenda
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    There are ways to correct inaccurate facts that don't lower discourse. Adding a pithy comment to the end of a correction is not productive and only serves to add emotion and tribalism to the discussion. Adding a source for the data helps too since there's no reason to believe one set of data over another if they're both unsourced. This instead invites tribalism to be the determinate of which set of data is correct and ignores the possibility that both are wrong.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  No, the truth is immediately apparent, and the post you're replying to is mentioning part of it: we know how many people died, and have good enough data on causes. Lockdowns caused some deaths, with alcoholism being part of it. It also saved quite a few lives by reducing the number of traffic accidents. And no matter how you slice it, nothing comes close to the number of actual COVID deaths, let alone the number of deaths we would have seen if we had let the first waves infect everyone. That would have been abut 5x as much, or 1.5 million, not including the problem that medical care and the economy would have completely collapsed in such a scenario. Anyway... "let's wait until we have all the data" has been my favorite losing argument starting in like week 5 of the pandemic, when the deaths started mounting in Sweden.
  - cloutchaser 5y ago
    > That would have been abut 5x as much, or 1.5 million Is this some sort of scientific fact or your opinion? Frankly if you look at say the death rate difference between Florida, Texas (hardly any lockdowns), and California, or New york, your 5x number makes no sense. There were nowhere near 5x as many deaths in Florida, despite an older population. Peru had massive lockdowns, and they've topped the deaths per million list. Australia are creeping up the list despite being locked down the no covid, and fully vaccinated. China are struggling to keep omicron under control with lockdowns. Their death rate will probably rise a lot soon. It is not at all obvious that lockdowns do actually help with the death rate.
    - ethanbond 5y ago
      In what alternate universe did Texas have “hardly any lockdowns?” They shut down restaurants, bars, gyms, social events just like everywhere else. And yes it is obvious (derivable from germ theory) that lockdowns are effective at slowing the spread of disease exactly in proportion to how complete/total/rigid the lockdowns are. Whether they were worth the cost is obviously more complex to answer.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    > [Lockdowns] also saved quite a few lives by reducing the number of traffic accidents. Not in the US, they didn't. Traffic deaths in 2020 were around 7% higher than in 2019, after a multi-decade general downtrend. There were more traffic deaths in 2021 than in any year since 2007. Final tabulation isn't ready for 2021, but from the first 9 months' figure 2021 was on pace to be materially higher than even 2020 was.
brigandish 5y ago
Deaths from alcohol != deaths from lockdown. Have you factored in the deaths from cancer, for instance? In the UK, the Macmillan Trust, a cancer charity, have estimated that there are 50,000 missing diagnoses that will be a possible 17,915 deaths in the 12 months following the report[1]. Precision is often as important as accuracy. [1] https://www.macmillan.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/we-make-change-happen/we-shape-policy/covid-19-impact-cancer-report.html https://www.macmillan.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/we-make-...
- raverbashing 5y ago
  This is an important debate to have but the actual number is not directly measurable now. This can go both ways as well as in: more burdened health system because of less restrictions can't deal with cancer patients Increased consumption of alcohol can of course lead to more cancers in the future as well
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  It’s a pointless argument because the only way to prove that lockdown resulted in more deaths is to spin up a parallel universe and see how many more people would have died if we didn’t go into lockdown. Since we cannot do that you are all comparing the COVID deaths despite lockdown (which is still an order of magnitude higher then any of the estimates provided for deaths resulting from the lockdown). So you’re not making a like for like comparison. And since you raise the point that precision is often as important as accuracy, it should be noted that those MacMillan figures are due to COVID as a wider concern, not lockdown in isolation. Hospitals were already cancelling appointments even before lockdown happened because of staffing issues. This would only have been a bigger problem if we hadn’t gone into lockdown (remember that the U.K. only went into lockdown to slow the burden on the NHS). So you cannot really use that estimated figure in its entirety given it wasn’t solely contributed to by the lockdown. And in fact if we hadn’t gone in lockdown the NHS might have been further overwhelmed resulting in even worse care for cancer patients. Once again, we can only prove your figures here by spinning up a parallel universe.
  - Izkata 5y ago
lbj 5y ago
Try calculating "Dead with water" and tell me how dangerous you think water is. Looksl ike another misrepresentation by the "covid fanatics"
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Water is dangerous. That why you have life guards, rules at swimming pools et al, guidelines about reducing your speed when driving in wet conditions etc.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    And if you're spending a lot of time underwater, you have to .. wear a mask!

dijonman2 5y ago

Regardless of which side you’re on I think everyone needs to be willing to engage in civil discourse. We’re more divided than ever and should actively work to fix it. It’s true that some people are anti lockdown and there may be merit. There may not be. The truth is we won’t know for a few years until we have more information.

raverbashing 5y ago
There's no debate to be had with blatant incorrect facts This is not about "maybe the person is right" or "these are debatable" it's about A > B but being claimed otherwise with one of the numbers being in TFA to push an agenda
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  There are ways to correct inaccurate facts that don't lower discourse. Adding a pithy comment to the end of a correction is not productive and only serves to add emotion and tribalism to the discussion. Adding a source for the data helps too since there's no reason to believe one set of data over another if they're both unsourced. This instead invites tribalism to be the determinate of which set of data is correct and ignores the possibility that both are wrong.
IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
No, the truth is immediately apparent, and the post you're replying to is mentioning part of it: we know how many people died, and have good enough data on causes. Lockdowns caused some deaths, with alcoholism being part of it. It also saved quite a few lives by reducing the number of traffic accidents. And no matter how you slice it, nothing comes close to the number of actual COVID deaths, let alone the number of deaths we would have seen if we had let the first waves infect everyone. That would have been abut 5x as much, or 1.5 million, not including the problem that medical care and the economy would have completely collapsed in such a scenario. Anyway... "let's wait until we have all the data" has been my favorite losing argument starting in like week 5 of the pandemic, when the deaths started mounting in Sweden.
- cloutchaser 5y ago
  > That would have been abut 5x as much, or 1.5 million Is this some sort of scientific fact or your opinion? Frankly if you look at say the death rate difference between Florida, Texas (hardly any lockdowns), and California, or New york, your 5x number makes no sense. There were nowhere near 5x as many deaths in Florida, despite an older population. Peru had massive lockdowns, and they've topped the deaths per million list. Australia are creeping up the list despite being locked down the no covid, and fully vaccinated. China are struggling to keep omicron under control with lockdowns. Their death rate will probably rise a lot soon. It is not at all obvious that lockdowns do actually help with the death rate.
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    In what alternate universe did Texas have “hardly any lockdowns?” They shut down restaurants, bars, gyms, social events just like everywhere else. And yes it is obvious (derivable from germ theory) that lockdowns are effective at slowing the spread of disease exactly in proportion to how complete/total/rigid the lockdowns are. Whether they were worth the cost is obviously more complex to answer.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  > [Lockdowns] also saved quite a few lives by reducing the number of traffic accidents. Not in the US, they didn't. Traffic deaths in 2020 were around 7% higher than in 2019, after a multi-decade general downtrend. There were more traffic deaths in 2021 than in any year since 2007. Final tabulation isn't ready for 2021, but from the first 9 months' figure 2021 was on pace to be materially higher than even 2020 was.

brigandish 5y ago

Deaths from alcohol != deaths from lockdown. Have you factored in the deaths from cancer, for instance? In the UK, the Macmillan Trust, a cancer charity, have estimated that there are 50,000 missing diagnoses that will be a possible 17,915 deaths in the 12 months following the report[1]. Precision is often as important as accuracy. [1] https://www.macmillan.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/we-make-change-happen/we-shape-policy/covid-19-impact-cancer-report.html https://www.macmillan.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/we-make-...

raverbashing 5y ago
This is an important debate to have but the actual number is not directly measurable now. This can go both ways as well as in: more burdened health system because of less restrictions can't deal with cancer patients Increased consumption of alcohol can of course lead to more cancers in the future as well
hnlmorg 5y ago
It’s a pointless argument because the only way to prove that lockdown resulted in more deaths is to spin up a parallel universe and see how many more people would have died if we didn’t go into lockdown. Since we cannot do that you are all comparing the COVID deaths despite lockdown (which is still an order of magnitude higher then any of the estimates provided for deaths resulting from the lockdown). So you’re not making a like for like comparison. And since you raise the point that precision is often as important as accuracy, it should be noted that those MacMillan figures are due to COVID as a wider concern, not lockdown in isolation. Hospitals were already cancelling appointments even before lockdown happened because of staffing issues. This would only have been a bigger problem if we hadn’t gone into lockdown (remember that the U.K. only went into lockdown to slow the burden on the NHS). So you cannot really use that estimated figure in its entirety given it wasn’t solely contributed to by the lockdown. And in fact if we hadn’t gone in lockdown the NHS might have been further overwhelmed resulting in even worse care for cancer patients. Once again, we can only prove your figures here by spinning up a parallel universe.
- Izkata 5y ago

lbj 5y ago

Try calculating "Dead with water" and tell me how dangerous you think water is. Looksl ike another misrepresentation by the "covid fanatics"

hnlmorg 5y ago
Water is dangerous. That why you have life guards, rules at swimming pools et al, guidelines about reducing your speed when driving in wet conditions etc.
- pjc50 5y ago
  And if you're spending a lot of time underwater, you have to .. wear a mask!