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It would be reasonable to say, today, that the dominant varieties of SARS-CoV-2 are basically similar to an average to not great flu season, particularly for th

It would be reasonable to say, today, that the dominant varieties of SARS-CoV-2 are basically similar to an average to not great flu season, particularly for the vaccinated, where there is still a mortality benefit. In fact, I was at a talk 2 weeks ago where Sir Jonathan Van-Tam said exactly this. However. This is a long way from where things started. *> that's not to dismiss the threat of covid’ Actually, I think what you’re doing is worse. As a doctor I’m happy to treat current covid as something we need to live with and get on with, but you’re actually dismissing the prior threat of COVID as well. Dismissing all the people who did die. Dismissing the 140,000 children who were orphaned in the US alone. Dismissing the real contribution of COVID to actual deaths - your distinction of ‘deaths from covid to deaths with covid’ is meaningless when excess mortality clearly shows that without the impact of covid the US population would be 1m higher than it is today. The fact that you choose to see the COVID information as having sowed division speaks more to the bizarre information landscape you have in the US. Many other countries found the last couple of years intensely frustrating but managed to forge a sense of national spirit in fighting it, and as a result have significantly lower excess deaths, significantly less orphaned children, and significantly lower societal scars to bounce back from.

clairity 4y ago
so where are the heartwrenching anecdotes about heart disease or cancer deaths? otherwise you're just projecting a recency and availability bias. but none of that matters for how we, and especially the press, should have handled the topic. no country has "significantly lower"-ed anything. at most, we have slightly different diffusion curves, but mortality and morbidity rates are going to be pretty similar regardless of how we were "fighting it". every single person on earth will get covid at some point. at best, we've delayed that point a little bit for some people, not to mention some shifting of mortality. note that liver disease and chirrosis deaths rose last year - why aren't we making video montages and pouring one out for them, or their orphaned children, again?
- robbiep 4y ago
  Every untimely death is a tragedy. That's why every country has widespread public health campaigns extolling the virtues of stopping smoking, healthy diets, exercise, maintaining a healthy weight. But these are background noise to most people, and most people don't change their behaviour anyway. If your point is the news should be plastered with images of people suffering heart attacks or cancer wards, i'm not sure what the utility of that argument is. The hospital system has capacity for steady state burden of disease. If Heart disease and cancer patients were dying in hospital corridors, or at home unable to get to hospital, can you actually tell me with a straight face there wouldn't be widespread outrage? >no country has "significantly lower"-ed anything. at most, we have slightly different diffusion curves, but mortality and morbidity rates are going to be pretty similar regardless of how we were "fighting it". This is simply not true. Countries that avoided early surges, avoided overrunning hospitals and were able to get their populations vaccinated and dealing with lower virulence covid strains have had lower overall deaths over the 2 and a half years of the pandemic. Australia for example, had largely flat excess deaths in 2020 & 2021 (actually a reduction in 2020, due to no covid, reduced travel, no flu season). Australia started dealing with the actual burden of COVID in late 2021 and 2022, and has seen 10,000 COVID deaths so far. Excess deaths in 2022 is 17.5% above average for the year to end of May. [0, 1]. If the US had of been able to pull together, instead of, as you have, variously dismissing it as 'nothing more than the flu', 'no more important than Cancer and Heart disease deaths', or moving the goal posts and declaring that, essentially, the area under the curve will be the same but the timing will be different (which is at conflict with earlier points) - ie if the US had of been able to pull an Australia (or one of many other countries that didn't just totally shit the bed and hide their heads in the sand) than COVID deaths, scaled for population, could have been in the 150-200k range. Or, to put it another way, if Australia had of shit the bed as badly as the US did, then Aus would have had 60,000 deaths. [0] https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/measuring-australias-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/measuring-australias-excess-... [1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provisional-mortality-statistics/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provis...
  - clairity 4y ago

clairity 4y ago

so where are the heartwrenching anecdotes about heart disease or cancer deaths? otherwise you're just projecting a recency and availability bias. but none of that matters for how we, and especially the press, should have handled the topic. no country has "significantly lower"-ed anything. at most, we have slightly different diffusion curves, but mortality and morbidity rates are going to be pretty similar regardless of how we were "fighting it". every single person on earth will get covid at some point. at best, we've delayed that point a little bit for some people, not to mention some shifting of mortality. note that liver disease and chirrosis deaths rose last year - why aren't we making video montages and pouring one out for them, or their orphaned children, again?

robbiep 4y ago
Every untimely death is a tragedy. That's why every country has widespread public health campaigns extolling the virtues of stopping smoking, healthy diets, exercise, maintaining a healthy weight. But these are background noise to most people, and most people don't change their behaviour anyway. If your point is the news should be plastered with images of people suffering heart attacks or cancer wards, i'm not sure what the utility of that argument is. The hospital system has capacity for steady state burden of disease. If Heart disease and cancer patients were dying in hospital corridors, or at home unable to get to hospital, can you actually tell me with a straight face there wouldn't be widespread outrage? >no country has "significantly lower"-ed anything. at most, we have slightly different diffusion curves, but mortality and morbidity rates are going to be pretty similar regardless of how we were "fighting it". This is simply not true. Countries that avoided early surges, avoided overrunning hospitals and were able to get their populations vaccinated and dealing with lower virulence covid strains have had lower overall deaths over the 2 and a half years of the pandemic. Australia for example, had largely flat excess deaths in 2020 & 2021 (actually a reduction in 2020, due to no covid, reduced travel, no flu season). Australia started dealing with the actual burden of COVID in late 2021 and 2022, and has seen 10,000 COVID deaths so far. Excess deaths in 2022 is 17.5% above average for the year to end of May. [0, 1]. If the US had of been able to pull together, instead of, as you have, variously dismissing it as 'nothing more than the flu', 'no more important than Cancer and Heart disease deaths', or moving the goal posts and declaring that, essentially, the area under the curve will be the same but the timing will be different (which is at conflict with earlier points) - ie if the US had of been able to pull an Australia (or one of many other countries that didn't just totally shit the bed and hide their heads in the sand) than COVID deaths, scaled for population, could have been in the 150-200k range. Or, to put it another way, if Australia had of shit the bed as badly as the US did, then Aus would have had 60,000 deaths. [0] https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/measuring-australias-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/measuring-australias-excess-... [1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provisional-mortality-statistics/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provis...
- clairity 4y ago