How unique is COVID-19?
A lot of the COVID-19 coverage posits or implies its uniqueness. And of course, every virus is somewhat unique. Is this one that much more unique than others?
It resembles regular seasonal flu in its age distribution of deaths, although it seems to spare the youngest group much more. It may be somewhat more contagious than flu, but flu is very contagious as well, and by a similar mechanism (as far as we know, and we don’t know nearly enough although we don’t lack for speculation). As for the possibility of asymptomatic spread of COVID-19, which is strongly suspected but still unproven as far as I can tell, flu is also supposedly spreadable before symptoms occur, although (as with COVID) we are not 100% sure of that.
“Ah,” you say, “but what about the fact that so many people with COVID never have any symptoms at all?” Well, guess what? Same for flu:
“‘77% of flu infections’ have no symptoms, say experts,” reports ITV News.
The news is based on a large community-based study carried out in England, which found that most people with influenza (“flu”) don’t have symptoms, and even if they do, only a small proportion go to a doctor.
Of course, “flu” is not just one thing, not by a longshot, although it is caused by viruses of a certain type that are related to each other and are different from COVID-19, which is a coronavirus. H1N1 in 2009 killed a much different and younger demographic, as did H1N1 in 1918 (which also was highly contagious and incredibly lethal). Even without those pandemic years, each flu year tends to be at leat somewhat different than the others.
And then there are rare but possible effects of COVID-19 that we’re just starting to learn about, such as the possibility that it can precipitate strokes in young adults. Frightening indeed. But it is not unique in having that effect; several other viruses can increase the risk of stroke even in young people. It’s just not widely known or publicized.
But everything about COVID is being publicized as though it’s uniquely able to cause certain things. Each virus is unique, of course, but some of these supposedly unique characteristics of COVID are not actually so unique.
For example, there’s something called a cytokine storm with COVID-19 that’s been much talked about and is responsible for one of the main ways it can kill. It’s a terrible terrible thing. But when flu kills (including H1N1), the cytokine storm is one of the common ways it kills, also. How many people know that? How many knew that in 2009-2010, when H1N1 was going round – and 80% of its victims were under 65 – that a cytokine storm was the way if killed many of its previously healthy victims?:
…[E]very year, flu carries away perfectly healthy young adults and children, and tens of thousands of people over 65.
How does flu kill, and why does it sometimes kill so quickly?
Doctors who study the body’s immune response say there are three main reasons: co-infection with another germ, usually bacteria such as strep; aggravation of existing conditions such as heart disease and asthma; and a so-called cytokine storm, marked by an overwhelming immune system response to infection…
“In certain individuals there can be a very pronounced immune response that can result in a lot of damage to the cells in your body including the cells in the respiratory tract,” Adalja said.
When a virus is new, like the 1918 strain of H1N1 and the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu”, it usually kills far more people. One theory is that the immune system can become overwhelmed by the never-before-seen invader and sends so many troops to fight it that perfectly healthy tissue in the lungs and other organs gets killed, too.
That article appeared in January of 2018, long before COVID-19 reared its ugly head. I knew something about all of this because I had a very good friend who died that way and another who came within a hair of dying but recovered. But I know that most people weren’t aware, and although the press covered it somewhat, it was subdued.
Now, though, just about everyone who follows the news knows about the cytokine storm. And I suppose that’s a good thing in general. But it’s bad in that many people have the false impression that COVID-19 is unique in this respect.
We don’t know nearly enough about COVID-19, but we’re learning more every day. I doubt we’ll ever know everything we’d like to know, though – just as with flu, which has been studied far longer.
To quote a not so great woman ‘at this point what difference does it make?’
I’m being sarcastic and obviously it matters to those that have it or are vulnerable to it but it seems to be decided it’s the worst thing ever and we have to destroy ourselves to save ourselves.
United States 2017 Influenza and Pneumonia deaths – 55672
Source – https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_09-508.pdf pg 6 table B
United States 2017 Influenza Type A and Type B positive test cases – 158362 from 1165923 tested (13.58% positive test rate)
Sources – https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2017-2018/data/whoAllregt_cl39.html
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2016-2017/data/whoAllregt_cl39.html
I had to download and break the 2016 – 2017 season and the 2017 – 2018 season data up to get just 2017 weekly numbers.
The calculated Case Fatality Rate of the flu for 2017 was 35.15%. What the Infection Fatality Rate was is anyone’s guess. The CDC generates a range for influenza cases based on a model and know case data.
WuFlu is not the flu. The effects are worse, it may, or may not, spread more. The experts seem pretty certain that it kills better than just plain old flu, but if we kept score for the Flu like we are keeping score for WuFlu people would freak out. Every year.
The score keeping aspect of this can not be overstated. It allows government officials to manipulate uninformed people with information totally lacking in any context.
The blood clotting symptom is freaky. I have an autoimmune blood clotting disorder where sudden catastrophic blood clots over the entire body can -rarely- (they tell me not to research it;-) occur, (oh, joy) similar to what is reported sometimes happening with covid19. So I’m interested in what they figure out about that. Btw, warfarin, aspirin and hydroxychlorophine is the treatment I’m given for it.
I am so tired of the new revelations and as said above stating numbers and statistics comparing populations with completely different geography and demographics. The desire to bring this down to zero risk, no deaths while economies are becoming more destroyed every day makes no sense to me at all. I am old, and in a multiple high risk situation so I need to wear a mask and be careful when I go out, risk probably not too different than driving I-35 from San Antonio to Dallas which is our Texas civilian NASCAR race track, I have seen some bad accidents along that road but I still drive it at the usual 80 mph with two car lengths separation like the rest of the drivers.
Life is risk and I am ready to see things open up.
My friends the Witch Doctors they told me what to say
My friends the Witch Doctors the told me what to do
My friends the Witch Doctors said it’s much worse than the flu
My friends the Witch Doctors said you’re locked in ’till it’s through
Who gave the Witch Doctors this power over you
Of course, “flu” is not just one thing, not by a longshot, although it is caused by viruses of a certain type that are related to each other and are different from COVID-19, which is a coronavirus.
Right.. which is why i am tired of correcting that corona virus cause colds..
arrrrggggghhhhhhhh!!!
and colds have similar outcome as flu, and most cant tell the difference either
maybe i died and I only believe i am typing here and moving pennies for my wife
How many people know that?
People today, thanks to the ladies remaking school, are dumber than fence posts of yesterday… some can stand in front of the Lincoln memorial in Washington dc and not be able to name who the first president was.. (see Prager U)
They are so dumb the Democrats think the president cant speak freely for fear they will kill themselves..
Lets take a bit measuring how dumb feminism has made our schools since pre-feminist patriarchal evil times…
Two-thirds of millennial’s and four in 10 Americans overall don’t know what Auschwitz was – half thought Adolf Hitler came to power in a coup, rather than in Germany’s democratic election. – A poll commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
37 percent could not name a single right protected by the Bill of Rights
Only 26 percent could name all three branches of government
More than half — 53 percent — said undocumented immigrants have no rights under the Constitution
Don’t ask how many believe this is a ‘rape culture’
28 percent (post feminism take over of education) were able to name the chief justice of the Supreme Court, compared with 43 percent (early days of the takeover) who were able to name the chief justice in a 1986
One in four Americans thinks the sun orbits the Earth, according to a National Science Foundation study (but that’s just a mathematical convenience actually, but dont think they know that – there are now wonderful simulations that let you put any celestial body as the center and compute motions around it)
six in 10 young adults couldn’t find Iraq on a map of a Middle East
75 percent of those surveyed could not identify Iran or Israel.
Only about half could find New York State on a map.
and dont think the brits are doing much better, they suffer the same western disease clobbering their schools, though the people who are cutouts have different names and invent the same things (socially)
47 per cent of respondents dismissed the 12th-century crusading English king Richard the Lionheart as fictional.
A fifth of British teenagers believe Sir Winston Churchill was a fictional
27 per cent thought Florence Nightingale, the pioneering nurse who coaxed injured soldiers back to health in the Crimean War, was a mythical figure [boy did she have some interesting things to say about the movement]
King Arthur is the mythical figure most commonly mistaken for fact – almost two thirds of teens (65 per cent) believe that he existed and led a round table of knights at Camelot.
58 per cent of respondents believe that Sherlock holmes really lived at 221B Baker Street.
Fifty-one per cent of respondents believed that Robin Hood lived in Sherwood Forest, robbing the rich to give to the poor. [which is a modern change from the original]
47 per cent believed Eleanor Rigby was a real person rather than a creation of The Beatles.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
So is it any wonder that they believe women can bench press the same as men?
That trans men are actually women, which is why they are destroying women’s sports?
That communism is goodness writ large (and is required for womens complete liberation)?
that there is enough money and more so for everything they want?
that jobs didnt have to fire people, like they have safes full of money in the basement like scrooge mcduck?
That women score higher, even though their competition has left the building and the system as they required huge sums and a revamping of the social realm to make men hated to do so?? [you should see their faces when someone explains how the government nationalized student loans, it cant be forgiven by bankruptcy, so there is no reason for the schools NOT to over charge the ladies for useless courses that dont prepare them to earn a living – genius]
one of the most interesting thing is to watch Prager U vids and a few others ask college students on the street really simple questions…
[meanwhile, you need a bachelors degree to be considered for a job that a high school diploma or an associates 25 years ago would do… which is great, cause they cant answer questions, and the desire for it filters out the old evil people who didnt go back to school to add degrees!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
The uniqueness seems to be in the SPIKE this virus often (inevitably?) produces—at some point along the curve.
Thus the questions:
1. Does a spike ALWAYS occur? If not, what are the conditions wherein a spike is most likely—and least likely—to occur.
2. Can one one prevent the spike? Or reduce it? If so, how?
3. What are the political/social ramifications of NOT trying to reduce the spike?
(IOW. If one doesn’t prevent the spike, does it cause an even larger spike?)
4. And of course: what are the political/social/economic ramifications of measures taken to reduce–or not reduce—the spike?
Tryng to answer these questions IN ADVANCE has been shown to be not possible, and so the emphasis has typically been placed on erring by caution (or over-caution).
And so, 5. Do we REALLY have a better idea of this virus than we had before?
IMO, the response to COVID19 is outrageously hysterical. We didn’t shut down the economy for previous, serious flu seasons. The response to our current we’re all going to die from a virus is political. Period. And I’m speaking as someone that came close to death due to H1N1 in 2009.
Everyday people in my area are becoming angry and ready to defy the powers that seek to control them in order to promote their political agenda. We may be heartland deplorables, but we are not fools. Our present circumstances will reach a tipping point very soon unless the economy is reopened.
Must watch videos Covid-19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfLVxx_lBLU
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb6j7o1pLBw
We are starting to know more about this. I think we will eventually conclude that we overreacted to this one.
It’s not a criticism. The people in charge didn’t know. But, now that we are starting to know, we need to change our strategies based on that new knowledge.
I don’t know if this proves that it can be spread before symptoms happen but there are a couple of cases which are publicly known. One is that reporter from NYC-NJ who was infected but had not yet developed symptoms when she threw a birthday party for her mother and infected 7 people 3 of whom died.
The other is this case study from China in late Jan. where a person who hadn’t yet developed symptoms ate at a restaurant and infected a number of people there.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article
In both cases they developed symptoms within 24 hours of spreading the disease.
Many of us probably have strong frontline defenses against novel viruses from the common human respiratory viral families. It is entirely possible that over half us wouldn’t get sick even if you dump the virus in our throats. This doesn’t mean we can’t shed the virus for a time and infect others, and it doesn’t mean we won’t develop antibodies against it, it just means that a lot of us are highly resistant to new influenza-, rhino-, adeno-, and corona-viruses. We get infected, but our frontline defenses keep the virus from ever getting out of hand in our bodies. All of us have enormous numbers and kinds of antibodies to all the different viruses that we have been infected with, and those, while not specific for a new member of the family, probably do offer some modest amount of protection.
Is there a much much larger phenomena playing out? We had the revolt of the deplorables in 2016, and the uprising of the hopelessly indebted recent graduates where one of the Two Broke Girls was elected to the House.
Many Neo readers might find this interesting https://www.kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/searching-for-the-anti-virus-covid-19-as-quantum-phenomenon/
I don’t agree with the proposed solutions but the impulse is definitely going to be a factor in this decade. The possibility of Projection being at least mentioned by one of this group is very positive. Michael Moore’s turning on WInd and Solar is also very positive.
And this from the linked article:
In the century preceding the Black Death, he argues, the Catholic Church began advising mothers to separate from their babies during day and night. Children growing up in the 13th and 14th centuries thus suffered a collective trauma of primal abandonment. Renggli shows that regions in which mothers continued to practice close physical contact with their children were spared from the plague. Might we be experiencing something similar right now?
How has the specter of Covid-19 been able to haunt 7.5 billion people and bring the world to a standstill in no time at all? Because the narrative massively resonates with something latent that is both teeming and deeply suppressed in people’s subconscious.
The Hive is reeling. In suburban and rural Texas where I live it is barely noticeable except for the inability to get a haircut and meet for coffee. The Deplorables are out in their pickups doing what they usually do. In the suburbs gardens are being planted and homes are being painted and fixed up. Online multi-player computer games are keeping kids in their rooms hardly noticing anything unusual.
What is unique about covid is that this cold virus has the uncanny ability to cripple the entire country and destroy its economy when a Republican president happens to be in office in an election year.
We will also find out that the virus has the unique ability to become completely harmless and not warrant mention the day after said president is voted out of office.
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494034-the-data-are-in-stop-the-panic-and-end-the-total-isolation
“Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.”
“Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.”
“Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.”
“Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.”
“Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.”
The risk is still real and consequences can be severe, Doug and Sharon are an example. Even so, these policies of economic lockdown from the governors and the media are not helping.
Om, you left out…
Ooh, eeh, ooh, aah aah, ting, tang, walla walla, bing bang.
Roy:
I’m not that talented. Different Witch Doctor?
Years ago, Mens Health ran a feature about the cytokine storm. The graphics they used told the story. And it made perfect sense. I had my own trial in ’73 when my immune system was at its peak. It nearly killed me and took months for me to recover.
Roy:
My friends the Witch Doctors they told me what to say
My friends the Witch Doctors the told me what to do
My friends the Witch Doctors said it’s much worse than the flu
My friends the Witch Doctors said you’re locked in ’till it’s through
Who gave the Witch Doctors this power over you
Ooh, eeh, ooh, aah aah, ting, tang, walla walla, bing bang.
Ooh, eeh, ooh, aah aah, ting, tang, walla walla, bing bang.
My friends the Witch Doctors they told me what to say
My friends the Witch Doctors it’s different every day
My friends the Witch Doctors have such a plan for me
I won’t be out of lock down ‘till 2033
Ooh, eeh, ooh, aah aah, ting, tang, walla walla, bing bang.
Ooh, eeh, ooh, aah aah, ting, tang, walla walla, bing bang.
I’m way beyond the “stop when you are ahead.”
Dick Illyes,
Great line about “two broke girls.”
Tangential to your comment, I always thought it was odd that we are conditioned culturally to have babies sleep alone, even young children. After getting married I noticed that I soon found it hard to sleep alone when I would travel on business, and my wife had the same issue at home. When born, babies have spent 100% of their time attached to their mothers. It seems unnatural to detach them so abruptly. I don’t think any other mammal does that. I think infants do sleep with parents in some cultures. It would be interesting to see if there are any discernible, developmental differences in kids raised under each approach.
It’s rather fascinating that you can have obviously non-living chemicals like ribose, thymidine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil and phosphorous, and some protein, arranging themselves such that they start replicating whenever they get inside a living cell of a certain species. And also some prion proteins in the brain do the same thing. Why did the universe create chemicals in the big bang (and the stars and novae) that would want to duplicate themselves? What survival advantage do our cells have by assisting these chemicals in this replication?
Rufus T. Firefly:
Even in the US, a lot of people have their babies sleep with them in the room or even in their bed (although the latter isn’t recommended). But there are indeed more babies here sleeping in a room by themselves. Each culture is fostering the values and habits deemed important in that culture, and individualism and independence are more desired here than in most nations.
I heard about cytokine storm for the first time with the 2011 flu. I remember being very concerned about it, so I pricked up my ears when I heard it was the dangerous syndrome with COVID-19, too.
Dnaxy,
If not THE big question, that is among the top ten of BIG questions.
Have you read Larry Gonick’s “Cartoon History of the Universe?”
Dick Illyes,
That was a very interesting essay. Thank you for sharing it. It’s been a few hours since I read it and I can tell I will ruminate on several of its themes for quite some time to come.
The author cherry picks his facts, and some of his statements are incorrect, but more of us should think about whether this pandemic is an indication that we have not been on an optimal path.
For decades now I have been trying to determine if agriculture has been a net positive or negative for the human race. No agriculture, no cities. No cities, no plagues or pandemics. Maybe we never evolved to live this way?
Like the author, many will use this crisis to try to institute new social and political systems. AOC has already stated we should not go back to work when our states open back up.
“One theory is that the immune system can become overwhelmed by the never-before-seen invader and sends so many troops to fight it that perfectly healthy tissue in the lungs and other organs gets killed, too.”
Friendly fire flu?
Om & Roy –
We always used to partner the Witch Doctor song with “One-eyed, One-horned Flying Purple People Eater.”
I was never entirely sure if it was a purple people-eater, or a purple-people eater.
santan on April 26, 2020 at 11:19 am said:
What is unique about covid is that this cold virus has the uncanny ability to cripple the entire country and destroy its economy when a Republican president happens to be in office in an election year.
We will also find out that the virus has the unique ability to become completely harmless and not warrant mention the day after said president is voted out of office.
* * *
You must have been paying attention to what happened with Code Pink and the anti-war movement once Obama replaced Bush.
AesopFan:
And Ruth BG must be kept safe at all costs until the virus is able to remove the Orange Man Bad, even if the entire economy must be sacrificed.
Russia and Ukraine were not sufficient, virus must succeed (cue Borris and Natasha voices).
OT: I vaguely remember the “Purple People Eater” song from my childhood.
Prager U has a very great – and by that I mean a rational – Q&A with a doctor about COVID19:
What you need to know about COVID19
It is rather refreshing to hear someone, other than Neo, talk rationally about this situation we find ourselves in.
I know this is going to sound like a cliche – but, it really is worth listening to the whole thing. All 28 minutes.
“Maybe we never evolved to live this way?”
That’s not how evolution works. We don’t adapt to evolutionary changes. We evolve to adapt to the way we live.
AesopFan,
He ate purple people.
rechill,
I know how evolution works, but I don’t understand your criticism of my statement. Domesticated dogs, for example, have changed evolutionarily to coexist symbiotically with humans in captivity. Bring a wolf into your home and things won’t go very well.
Agriculture and civilization did not happen due to evolutionary changes in humans; they were cultural innovations. And they were not that long ago, based on the pace of genetic mutation in the human species. To state the problem in your terms; we changed the way that we live with minimal time to adapt to the change. Our DNA may still be churning out hunter-gatherers optimized for life in small, hereditary tribes with minimal contact with other tribes, especially over great distances.
rechill: “Maybe we never evolved to live this way?” / That’s not how evolution works. We don’t adapt to evolutionary changes. We evolve to adapt to the way we live.
How 1960s Mouse Utopias Led to Grim Predictions for Future of Humanity
John Calhoun studied behavior during overcrowding in mice and rats
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/
What does utopia look like for mice? According to a researcher who did most of his work in the 1950s through1970s, it might include limitless food (of course!), multiple levels and secluded little rodent condos. These were all part of John Calhoun’s experiments to study the effects of population density on behavior. But what looked like rat utopias and mouse paradises at first quickly spiraled into out-of-control overcrowding, eventual population collapse and seemingly sinister behavior patterns.
The mice were not nice.
For io9, Esther Inglis-Arkell writes about Calhoun’s twenty-fifth habitat and the experiment that followed:
the secret of NIMH….
something to think about.
Sweden and Michigan have about the same population; about 10 million.
MI has a lockdown, Sweden does not.
Sweden has fewer corona virus deaths then MI.
Note that the vast majority of deaths in MI are within a 35 mile radius of Detroit; the vast majority of MI has no pandemic.
The epicenter of Swedish cases is in Stockholm
The vast majority of cases in NY and NJ are within a 35 mile radius of NY city. Most of NY State and NJ are not experiencing a “pandemic.”
In Italy, the epicenter was the Lombardy region (where Milan is located). This region has many textile mills and other soft good factories with many Chinese workers; and as luck would have it, mostly from Wuhan Province. There were daily direct flights from Wuhan to Milan prior to Italy’s shutdown.
In the USA there are about 5 to 10 “hot spots” in which the majority of deaths are occurring; e.g. NYC, Detroit regions, etc.
the purpose of the efforts to flatten the curve was to avoid inundating hospitals with virus cases. Well, the curve has indeed been flattened. But flattening the curve was the REASON for the shutdown.
So why is there a still a shutdown???
Does anybody really believe that the response we are witnessing to this virus would have been no different if an Obama had been president??
After all, who remembers the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic?
That was a media non-event (like Biden’s sexual assaults).
Artfldgr,
That is fascinating! Thanks for posting that. I will research that more. What an interesting experiment to run.
rechill,
I went for a run after typing my comment and while running realized I left out an important piece. Dogs are not the result of random selection. They have been bred by men over thousands of years for desired traits. It’s likely they are better suited to live in civilization than homo sapiens, as our breeding and selection follow a more haphazard course.
JohnTyler,
I think we’ll learn the answer to your thesis with wave 2. My hunch is Sweden’s approach was correct, except for the U.S. hotspots you mention, but if that’s the case the U.S. is in for a rockier road ahead, which, for selfish reasons (I live here), I do not want.
The vast majority of cases in NY and NJ are within a 35 mile radius of NY city. Most of NY State and NJ are not experiencing a “pandemic.”
[eye roll]. 65% of New York State’s population lives in the nine Downstate counties. About 75% of New Jersey’s population lives in the 10 counties within the New York commuter belt. Over 80% of the core city and suburban tract populations of both states live in that commuter belt. About 40% of Michigan’s population lives in the four counties around Detroit, including 80% of Michigan’s urban-metropolitan population.
Everything’s AOK, except where it’s not.
See MBunge’s argument if the death predictions for NYC are projected for the entire USA ….. So all of NY and the north east should be in thrall to NYC area’s particulars? [drum roll, following eye roll]
Art Deco,
Not so speak for JohnTyler, but it’s population density vs. geographic area. If you make his argument for the U.S. focused on square miles it’s even more obvious.
You and he are making the same point: most cases happen where most people live. He is making the additional point that if you do not happen to live in a 50 mile radius of 5 – 10 spots in the U.S. (3,797,000 sq. miles in area) where a lot of people live, maybe you can go to a park and swing on a swing, or grab a beer at the local pub.
om,
I think someone already quoted it here, and I forget which pundit originally stated it (and I forget the actual state and blight used in the example), but to paraphrase:
If there were a corn borne pestilence infecting 20% of the good folks in Iowa, and killing 5% of those infected, do you think for one minute anyone in New York would tolerate shuttering Broadway, or Tavern on the Green, or MoMA? Or would they have a single complaint if the NYPD put cars at the heads of the tunnels and bridges to turn back vehicles with Iowa plates, or shut down all incoming flights from Iowa at Kennedy and LaGuardia?
Nope, they wouldn’t, and there is this stereotype ….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_World_from_9th_Avenue
A writer really should know that there is no such formulation as “more unique”, since unique is an absolute condition that can’t be “more”. It’s sort of like “more pregnant”.
Some governors are saying it will take two years to reopen the country..
really? i think people have other plans
and wait till the lawsuits over their orders unconstitutionality start collecting funds
See MBunge’s argument if the death predictions for NYC are projected for the entire USA ….. So all of NY and the north east should be in thrall to NYC area’s particulars? [drum roll, following eye roll]
Officials Have Inflated COVID-19 Death Count
Pennsylvania has had to remove hundreds of coronavirus deaths from its official death count [last] week, following questions of accuracy and highlighted discrepancies by area coroners.
The PA health department decided to include “probable” coronavirus deaths, or an assumed COVID-19-related death without testing for the virus, to their death tolls, dating back days and even weeks ago. …
Health Secretary Rachel Levine, who decided to include “probable deaths” in the department’s total count, acknowledged to the Philadelphia Inquirer that such deaths may change over time.
=========================================================
As noted by The Daily Wire last week, New York City is also including untested patients into their COVID-19 death totals: “New York City added a huge number of deaths to the total number of deaths caused by the coronavirus after deciding to include over 3,700 victims who had not tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have the virus because of their symptoms and medical history.”
Earlier this month, White House coronavirus task force leader Dr. Deborah Birx explained that COVID-19 deaths in the United States have “very liberal” recording guidance, noting that anyone who tests positive for the virus and dies would be included in their numbers of coronavirus deaths.
=========================================================
i guess he will be upset not enough are dying to make his idea right..
Click,
Of course something can be “more unique.”
If one thing is 1:1,000 and another is 1:100 the first is more unique than the second.
Click:
No, no, and no.
The definition of “unique”:
Note these usage examples at the link, for definition #3:
A virus has many many characteristics. How “unique” it actually is depends either on its being unusual and/or different in a great number of characteristics, or utterly unique in one very important characteristic.
John Tyler:
To compare Sweden with Michigan seems bizarre to me because they are so very unalike in so many ways. Just to take one example, the black population of Sweden is very small, whereas the black population of Michigan is large. We know that for a number of reasons (probably mostly a high number of pre-existing conditions that increase vulnerability), black people are dying in higher percentages from COVID-19 than white people.
And that’s just one difference, but it’s a difference that could make a big difference.
The better comparison is of Sweden with Norway. You can see that the Swedish death rate per million is 225, whereas in Norway it’s 38. In Michigan it’s 342.
The population density of Sweden is 64 people per square mile, and for Michigan it’s 177 per square mile. You can see the difficulty here with any attempt to compare Sweden and Michigan.
Related:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8260779/Why-young-patients-infected-coronavirus-dying-strokes.html
Barry Meislin:
That article you linked is the sort of thing that makes me gnash my teeth. And it’s not at all unusual in the way it’s written. My beefs are as follows: there’s no attempt to compare to other viral illnesses that can increase the risk of stroke in young people (see the link in my post above). The whole thing mentions other symptoms like the incidence of heart arrythmias in ICU COVID patients, but doesn’t compare them to the incidence of heart arrythmias in ICU patients in general. There is no context into which to put the numbers.
The article refers to a study this:
That’s a startling number. But there is no link to the study. I’ve been unable to find it, although I assume it exists. Why no link?
More:
And even though that gives some numbers, the numbers are inadequate to tell us what is really happening.
For example, during those 12 months, were there spikes in the cases that resembled the current spike? There was a average of 2 a month, but was that just an average? Plus, COVID has been going on for quite some time now. Is this 10 in 2 weeks spike typical? Has that been happening right along? Or is it just the past 2 weeks?
The reporter doesn’t even seem curious about such things.