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> Given the political climate surrounding COVID I find it difficult to trust any numbers from any source Just look at all-cause mortality, and assume that the

by sampo 3y ago

> Given the political climate surrounding COVID I find it difficult to trust any numbers from any source Just look at all-cause mortality, and assume that the observed excess mortality is because of covid.

natpalmer1776 3y ago
The government sources that I was able to find for mortality statistics 'revamped' their reporting and data gathering around 2019/2020, which leaves me with enough doubt. I was quite a bit more rigorous than I usually am when trying to formulate my position on the matter, and even still the only conclusion I could come to was that (for me at least) the information I could gather was simply not trustworthy without specific expertise that I lack. To this day, I simply let the scope and impact of COVID remain an 'unsolved mystery' in my broader world views. To add on to the start of my response, correlation does not imply causation. I can postulate numerous circumstances that, to a layman such as myself, could plausibly explain why there was an increase in all-cause mortality. Things such as an increased scrutiny on data collection pertaining to this specific circumstance could feasibly result in a change in data gathering practices favoring over-reporting, or even an improvement in report accuracy.
pdonis 3y ago
> assume that the observed excess mortality is because of covid This depends on what you mean by "because of covid". If you just mean "the primary cause of death was covid", this is not a valid methodology. But if you mean "the primary cause of death was something that wouldn't have happened without the covid pandemic and the responses to it that were mandated by governments", then yes, this is probably a valid methodology--but then you can't lay all those deaths at the door of covid itself, you have to also hold governments responsible for their incompetent handling of the pandemic. (Btw, all cause mortality in countries that did mass vaccinations with mRNA vaccines is still above the pre-pandemic baseline, even though covid deaths in those countries are minimal. So there's another item that would need to be taken into account when looking at the overall all cause mortality numbers.)

by sampo 3y ago

natpalmer1776 3y ago

The government sources that I was able to find for mortality statistics 'revamped' their reporting and data gathering around 2019/2020, which leaves me with enough doubt. I was quite a bit more rigorous than I usually am when trying to formulate my position on the matter, and even still the only conclusion I could come to was that (for me at least) the information I could gather was simply not trustworthy without specific expertise that I lack. To this day, I simply let the scope and impact of COVID remain an 'unsolved mystery' in my broader world views. To add on to the start of my response, correlation does not imply causation. I can postulate numerous circumstances that, to a layman such as myself, could plausibly explain why there was an increase in all-cause mortality. Things such as an increased scrutiny on data collection pertaining to this specific circumstance could feasibly result in a change in data gathering practices favoring over-reporting, or even an improvement in report accuracy.

pdonis 3y ago

> assume that the observed excess mortality is because of covid This depends on what you mean by "because of covid". If you just mean "the primary cause of death was covid", this is not a valid methodology. But if you mean "the primary cause of death was something that wouldn't have happened without the covid pandemic and the responses to it that were mandated by governments", then yes, this is probably a valid methodology--but then you can't lay all those deaths at the door of covid itself, you have to also hold governments responsible for their incompetent handling of the pandemic. (Btw, all cause mortality in countries that did mass vaccinations with mRNA vaccines is still above the pre-pandemic baseline, even though covid deaths in those countries are minimal. So there's another item that would need to be taken into account when looking at the overall all cause mortality numbers.)