But other people have:
As of Monday, the CDC reported that deaths from covid-19 in the week ended May 2 (Saturday) were 138 nationwide. That is 1% of the 12,516 covid-19 deaths for the week ended April 11, which was the peak week of this pandemic.Like I said in yesterday's post, we're on the other side of the mountain.
Now then, the CDC cautioned readers.
It said, "Death counts for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. Covid-19 death counts shown here may differ from other published sources, as data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks."
The week ended April 25 initially was reported as 461 covid-19 deaths.
Now it is listed at 3,699 -- a nine-fold increase.
A nine-fold increase in week ended May 2 would mean a 90% drop from the peak week. Clearly the time has come to re-open the nation.
Anyone who wants to keep the lockdown in place (with the possible exception of the New York City metropolitan area) needs to do some justification that includes data showing that there is an existential crisis. Just saying that "people will die" isn't enough to keep 30M (and counting) out of work.
At this point the government is doing nothing but immiserating the working class and going full frontal fascist. Oh, and destroying the health care system. Enough.
Up our way, a 90+ year old man fell at home and had a severe head injury that he died from. Because he tested positive the news media stated that his death was due to the virus.
ReplyDeleteOur media keeps focusing on the number of cases, which of course, continues to rise. They used to report how many died today, but mow, since that number continues to get smaller, instead of reporting that fact, now they no longer report it, instead they focus on the total dead which of course gets larger.
ReplyDeleteYou would think they would be worried about their own credibility, but they are convinced their audience is stupid. ….. or the current class of news readers is stupid.
IF it bleeds, it leads... sigh Note that they have never covered the amount of folks recovered...
ReplyDeleteThe press has been using this counting method for decades. Started with Vietnam and then modified slightly for this situation. Totally designed to gin up panic and dismay.
ReplyDeleteThey are a propaganda machine, not news.
The root problem with the CDC data is that those filling out death certificates have been incentivized to list Covid-19 as a cause of death. The most familiar example of this is the death "with" covid instead of "from". In that case, the first comment (from Brigid?) about the 90 year old falling and since he tested positive for the virus it counts as a death with. There are financial incentives for the states to lie. When you incentivize something you get more of it.
ReplyDeleteSo they're taking garbage data from death certificates everywhere, throwing them in the Cuisinart and hoping to get useful information out of them. Garbage In Gospel Out. That has never worked and never will.
This whole thing is the biggest Fustercluck I've ever seen in my life.
The hidden text of the CDC's message reads:
ReplyDeleteOriginal -
"Death counts for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. Covid-19 death counts shown here may differ from other published sources, as data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks."
With hidden text unobscured -
"Death counts for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. Covid-19 death counts shown here may differ from other published sources, as data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks. But mostly because we got caught fudging the figures for political reasons and suddenly all these trumped-up coroners and nurses and doctors, who should all know to bow to we at the CDC because we are much better and more liberal than they are, have forced the actual numbers and causes of death to be released, sometimes going so far as to actually openly question the CDC's stats on the internet. Silly peasants. We are the CDC, we will assimilate and use you. Resistance is futile, and makes the resister an inbred sexist, racist, right-wing, science-denying Nazi."
Nota bene my ire had nothing to do with continuing lockdowns or not. We're long past the point of lifting them, with a bare modicum of common sense.
ReplyDeleteBut claiming the CDC had "revised the death numbers downward" some recockulous percentage, and treating data listed as provisional - with blistering clarity - as though it was the final word, to bootstrap the argument for ending lockdowns, was simply more GIGO. As if there's any shortage of that.
And the people going hog wild to kill as many people as possible, by doing nothing sensible, and adopting NYFS's "who cares?" approach to this, is even stupider than continuing the lockdowns.
As I suspect a number of states spared the NYFC treatment originally, are going to find out in due course. Not all of them, thank a merciful deity, but neither will every one of them get this right.
As a result, you're going to be dealing with this damned pandemic, like it or not, through the entire summer, if not the entire rest of the year, because of the idiots at both ends of the political spectrum, but all of them from way over on the left-most edge of the IQ bell curve.
You're not going to get what you like, and you're not going to like what you'll get.
You’re not going to win any arguments with idiots, BP. I am done arguing with them too. Open it up, we need to get our countries rolling again.
ReplyDeleteThe bed welters will just have to deal with it.
Remember …. the purpose of the lockdown was to "flatten the Curve" . We did that so well that the hospitals were underwhelmed not overwhelmed to the point that people are now afraid to go to the hospital and so are dying at home from things that can be treated.
ReplyDeleteHospitals are swimming in red ink because all the elective surgeries that paid the bills are not being done. Nobody is dying of doing stupid stuff so emergency rooms are empty.
Open things up again, the cure is worse than the problem ever was.
Here in our county in central Ohio, our sole COVID death was an elderly man who died in a Florida hospital but his permanent address is Ohio so it counts on Ohio.
ReplyDeleteHere in western Arkansas my county has had 8 positive cases leading to 8 recoverys.As of now no cases.
ReplyDelete"doing nothing sensible"
ReplyDeletehttps://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white
"the people going hog wild to kill as many people as possible"
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-emotion
Rick, neither of those are fallacious when they describe the actual situation among some people, exactly as noted. Maybe the web site you consulted forget to tell you that?
ReplyDeleteI can pull the quotes, likely just from comments on this blog, without breaking a sweat, to illustrate both points if you like. You don't get to deny reality and then try to call it logic, despite any number of tries.
But prove me wrong:
Show us that no one wants to do nothing sensible, and then show us that no one wants to kill as many people as possible.
That's how you win the end of the logical argument you've just chosen to defend. You've bet your whole rhetorical farm on the premise that everyone is sensible and altruistic. Having some nodding acquaintance with human nature, I'll simply wish you good luck with that. Or, was that not what you'd intended when you grabbed that tar baby?
I bring this up because now you'll have to carry your own water, instead of trying to let cut-and-paste from elsewhere suffice.
Have at it.
When you fail to do any of that, tell us again how your prior logical prowess concluded this would stop at a mere 67K dead - three months from now. Show your work on how you derived that conclusion.
Then, by all means, point to anywhere you've expressed what sensible precautions now ought to look like.
I mean, to be so sure, you must have published your ideas somewhere, right? Post the links to that, if you have any.
That would demonstrate your hitherto unsuspected mastery of the logical and rhetorical arts, and your cool, clear-headed impressions of the best approach for handling this. I'll wait right here for that to happen.
Failing that, it would seem all you have left to rely on is diaper-mining, and a twitchy pitching arm with poor impulse control.
Again.
As your last screed demonstrated, you can't even back up your assertions about what I said, so I'm not particularly surprised that after failing to engage on that, all you bring to the table this time is bile, butthurt, and ham-fisted ad hominem.
Noted, but none of those are illuminating, helpful, nor particularly in any short supply. Even among the comments here.