The Coronavirus thread

[elrodvt]

1 hour ago, Dale said:

Tens of billions of private dollars suggests the Olympics will go on. But the Japanese public seems terror-stricken. Upwards of 80% want them cancelled. 

So they should if things aren't under control.

1 hour ago, Dale said:

My favorite Covid death was the 35 year old FL roofer. Struck by lightening. Thrown to the ground. Many bones broken. Massive internal injuries. Severed spine. Brain dead. Died of Covid. Honorable mention: the dozens of hanging deaths attributed to Covid.

https://alachuachronicle.com/local-covid-19-death-certificates-all-show-multiple-co-morbidities/

It's my belief (I haven't had time to research if correct and I'm not even sure it's possible to do so due to the poor quality of medical data) that there are many more examples of covid-19 being in large part responsible despite the person not having it.

Do you agree though that is just as plausible as your over count theory? 

Finally, it's hard to have much faith in anything coming out of Florida given the governor's really poor handling of the crisis. What better way to hide his incompetence than to spew confusing facts all around to see what sticks.

[Dale]

15 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

So they should if things aren't under control.

It's my belief (I haven't had time to research if correct and I'm not even sure it's possible to do so due to the poor quality of medical data) that there are many more examples of covid-19 being in large part responsible despite the person not having it.

Do you agree though that is just as plausible as your over count theory? 

Finally, it's hard to have much faith in anything coming out of Florida given the governor's really poor handling of the crisis. What better way to hide his incompetence than to spew confusing facts all around to see what sticks.

No, I’m more inclined to believe that Covid deaths are wildly exaggerated than slightly undercounted. Death certificates are accessible to the public. The attacks on DeSantis are bizarre, given that FL is the second-oldest state, but with the eleventh fewest excess deaths over 70. FL has outperformed states like NY and CA on every metric. Back to Covid estimations: attribution of death is often challenging in the best of times. A wildly unreliable testing regime, not to mention psychological sunk costs, had the world looking for Covid everywhere and in everyone. Never in history has there been an hysterical, monomaniacal focus, on one perceived health concern, to the exclusion of all else. Back to FL ...

https://rationalground.com/florida-death-certificate-review-raises-questions-about-official-number-of-covid-19-deaths/

[elrodvt]

It's just opinions at this point.

Someone needs to do the hard work of establishing criteria and then running a study using new and existing data.

The FL gov is no trustworthy. He's established that.

[Dale]

Just now, elrodvt said:

It's just opinions at this point.

Someone needs to do the hard work of establishing criteria and then running a study using new and existing data.

The FL gov is no trustworthy. He's established that.

When hating Trump is what you do ... everybody begins to look like Trump. 

BTW: I follow the U.K. for two reasons: (1) its contours are uncannily like ours and (2) they have better medical data. 

Their hospitalizations were WAY down during the worst month of April. Remember bored nurses dancing on TikTok ? 

At the same time, at-home deaths spiked. No doubt Brits were taking “Stay Home, Protect NHS” to heart. Deaths from untreated heart attacks, strokes, etc., likely contributed a greater share of ‘excess deaths’ than Covid deaths in hospitals.
 

 

 

[elrodvt]

4 hours ago, Dale said:

When hating Trump is what you do ... everybody begins to look like Trump. 

BTW: I follow the U.K. for two reasons: (1) its contours are uncannily like ours and (2) they have better medical data. 

Their hospitalizations were WAY down during the worst month of April. Remember bored nurses dancing on TikTok ? 

At the same time, at-home deaths spiked. No doubt Brits were taking “Stay Home, Protect NHS” to heart. Deaths from untreated heart attacks, strokes, etc., likely contributed a greater share of ‘excess deaths’ than Covid deaths in hospitals.
 

 

 

 

Your and others acceptance of Trump  is inexplicable and I have no respect for people who went through those 4 years plus Jan 6 and came out of them with anything but loathing.

You heading up to DC in March for his inauguration? ;-) 

Bye again. Should have known better than to engage.

Edited February 22, 2021 by elrodvt

[Dale]

14 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

 

Your and others acceptance of Trump  is inexplicable and I have no respect for people who went through those 4 years plus Jan 6 and came out of them with anything but loathing.

You heading up to DC in March for his inauguration? ;-) 

Bye again. Should have known better than to engage.

Science: “Thanks for that observation. I’ll take it into account.”  Science in 2020: “WTAF ??? You ******** Trump supporter!!!”

I’ve never been a Trump-lover. But it’s obvious that Trump-haters are gnashing their teeth that FL is outperforming NY, CA and other blue states. First-ever politicized virus.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Dale

[kermit]

11 hours ago, Dale said:

 The attacks on DeSantis are bizarre...

I dunno, his repeated manipulation of reported death data (the subject at hand) seems pretty egregious:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/16/how-far-did-ron-desantiss-loyalty-trump-go/

There are also some questions about how your rationalground blog got access to those death certificates:

https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/11/06/its-crap-desantis-office-leaks-state-records-to-fuel-covid-19-death-conspiracy/

I think that the evidence suggest it might be quite reasonable to be suspicious of Ron's motives, intent and veracity.

[DEnd]

13 hours ago, Dale said:

No, I’m more inclined to believe that Covid deaths are wildly exaggerated than slightly undercounted. Death certificates are accessible to the public. The attacks on DeSantis are bizarre, given that FL is the second-oldest state, but with the eleventh fewest excess deaths over 70. FL has outperformed states like NY and CA on every metric. Back to Covid estimations: attribution of death is often challenging in the best of times. A wildly unreliable testing regime, not to mention psychological sunk costs, had the world looking for Covid everywhere and in everyone. Never in history has there been an hysterical, monomaniacal focus, on one perceived health concern, to the exclusion of all else. Back to FL ...

https://rationalground.com/florida-death-certificate-review-raises-questions-about-official-number-of-covid-19-deaths/

Your inclination is wrong.  I can't say for sure if they are overcounted or undercounted right now, but we have a better estimate on it than we do flu cases and deaths, and the deaths that I've seen have not been "wildly exaggerated" and we've (My work) have seen a large portion of the COVID deaths in Mecklenburg County.  

Also be careful when you say Never in History, because history is a long damn time, and we humans are pretty dang fond of being idiotic and repeating the same mistakes again, and again, and again...

 

1 hour ago, kermit said:

There are also some questions about how your rationalground blog got access to those death certificates:

That's because it is a political blog, not a COVID blog.  They are pushing for their specific outcome rather than looking at the data and trying to make educated decisions based on that.  That place is kinda of like saying I'm gonna get all my knowledge of evolution from https://arkencounter.com/blog/ 

A decent COVID blog is: https://www.erinbromage.com/  (OK it's actually quite a bit better than "Decent") 

Edited February 23, 2021 by DEnd

[elrodvt]

Laughing at your ark blog. Good 'un.

[Dale]

9 hours ago, DEnd said:

Your inclination is wrong.  I can't say for sure if they are overcounted or undercounted right now, but we have a better estimate on it than we do flu cases and deaths, and the deaths that I've seen have not been "wildly exaggerated" and we've (My work) have seen a large portion of the COVID deaths in Mecklenburg County.  

Also be careful when you say Never in History, because history is a long damn time, and we humans are pretty dang fond of being idiotic and repeating the same mistakes again, and again, and again...

 

That's because it is a political blog, not a COVID blog.  They are pushing for their specific outcome rather than looking at the data and trying to make educated decisions based on that.  That place is kinda of like saying I'm gonna get all my knowledge of evolution from https://arkencounter.com/blog/ 

A decent COVID blog is: https://www.erinbromage.com/  (OK it's actually quite a bit better than "Decent") 

We’ve not witnessed the monomaniacal focus, on a perceived health concern, as we have on Covid. In 2009 the CDC ordered something on the order of a million testing kits. At one point, in 2020, Americans were up to TWO-MILLION tests a day. Given the spectacular unreliability of HT-PCR > 35 CT, Covid was being assigned to nearly everyone, living or dead.

Science: “Appreciate that observation. Had not anticipated that. I’ll make the correction.” 

Science in 2020: “BWA-HA-HA! I’ll bet you believe there were dinosaurs on the ARK!!!”

[Dale]

“Regardless the severity of the pandemic, under no circumstances do we recommend quarantining the healthy. There is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the virus. Everybody hide. Stay home and pretend you’re sick. We must be brave. We will fight them in the air. We will fight them on the beaches. Don’t go to the beaches. The public has no business wearing masks. Everyone must wear a mask. Wear two. Wear goggles if you have them. All we’re asking is two weeks to help the hospitals. We must eradicate the virus. We’re now in day 335 of 14 days to flatten the curve.”

”And if you disagree with the above, you’re being POLITICAL.”

Edited February 23, 2021 by Dale

[davidclt]

11 hours ago, DEnd said:

[Re: Rationalground]

That's because it is a political blog, not a COVID blog.  They are pushing for their specific outcome rather than looking at the data and trying to make educated decisions based on that.  That place is kinda of like saying I'm gonna get all my knowledge of evolution from https://arkencounter.com/blog/ 

A decent COVID blog is: https://www.erinbromage.com/  (OK it's actually quite a bit better than "Decent") 

Rational Ground - Media Bias Fact Check 

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE

A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source. See all Questionable sources.

• Overall, we rate Rational Ground right biased and Questionable based on a lack of transparency, poor sourcing, and false or misleading information regarding the coronavirus that does not align with the consensus of science.

[Dale]

Alternative perspectives pilloried and de-platformed. Then derided as ‘poorly sourced’ because they’re reduced to delivering findings via horseback.

CDC reports “Deaths Involving Covid.”

In all, lightening deaths involved Covid. Hanging deaths involved Covid. Accidental injuries and poisonings involved Covid. Car crashes involved Covid. Gunshot wounds involved Covid. 
 

Basically, nobody died before. Then Covid came and everybody started dying from it.

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Dale

[kermit]

23 minutes ago, Dale said:

Alternative perspectives pilloried and de-platformed. Then derided as ‘poorly sourced’ because they’re reduced to delivering findings via horseback.

CDC reports “Deaths Involving Covid.”

In all, lightening deaths involved Covid. Hanging deaths involved Covid. Accidental injuries and poisonings involved Covid. Car crashes involved Covid. Gunshot wounds involved Covid. 
 

Basically, nobody died before. Then Covid came and everybody started dying from it.

 

So, for the sake of argument lets stipulate that COVID deaths are being over counted.  Are they being overcounted by 50%? If so, that is still 250,000 deaths from COVID in a year. Are you suggesting 250,000 deaths per year is an insignificant number?

What kind of overcount number are you suggesting here?

[Dale]

1 minute ago, kermit said:

So, for the sake of argument lets stipulate that COVID deaths are being over counted.  Are they being overcounted by 50%? If so, that is still 250,000 deaths from COVID in a year. Are you suggesting 250,000 deaths per year is an insignificant number?

What kind of overcount number are you suggesting here?

Fair question. I’m saying that, owing to a deeply-flawed testing regime, we cannot know and perhaps will never know.  The test cannot distinguish between active infections and dead remnants, so attribution of death is dubious. Also, deaths due to public strategies have to be factored into excess deaths. I would say that insofar as death counts are being used to justify NPI’s ... sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Or what would Americans had been told, in March, that 2020 might end up looking like a bad flu season ?

[Dale]

On problems accruing from faulty test ... https://blog.plan99.net/pseudo-epidemics-7603b2da839

Implications of the Covid Peak anomaly ... https://www.researchgate.net/profile/D-Rancourt/publication/343775235_Evaluation_of_the_virulence_of_SARS-CoV-2_in_France_from_all-cause_mortality_1946-2020/links/5f3ee787299bf13404d860dc/Evaluation-of-the-virulence-of-SARS-CoV-2-in-France-from-all-cause-mortality-1946-2020.pdf?origin=publication_detail

[kermit]

25 minutes ago, Dale said:

Fair question.

but apparently you are unwilling to answer it...

[Dale]

2 minutes ago, kermit said:

but apparently you are unwilling to answer it...

To the contrary, I fairly answered it. We know it’s inflated but cannot know the number. Do you want me to just throw something out ? And if you do, give me fair warning. How low can I go without getting one of those tearful laughing videos or a tin foil hate GIF ?

[kermit]

52 minutes ago, Dale said:

To the contrary, I fairly answered it. We know it’s inflated but cannot know the number. Do you want me to just throw something out ? And if you do, give me fair warning. How low can I go without getting one of those tearful laughing videos or a tin foil hate GIF ?

You know me well enough to know I am too old to know how to use gifs.

I am just looking for a proportion -- what do you think the over count rate is?

FYI: the researchgate paper cited above was not peer reviewed. Researchgate is a web site where researchers can post working projects without review of any kind. The only place that technical report appears on a google scholar search is at this self-identified "Red Pill" site: https://muchadoaboutcorona.ca/ The report was "published" in August and has not garnered any citations in peer review work (and the publication cycle for covid research is fast enough that citations of it would have appeared by now if the scientific community found the report to be useful)

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by kermit

[Dale]

1 minute ago, kermit said:

You know me well enough to know I am too old to use gifs.

I am just looking for a proportion -- what do you think the over count rate is?

FYI: the researchgate paper cited above was not peer reviewed. Researchgate is a web site where researchers can post working projects without review of any kind. The only place that technical report appears on the web is at this "Red Pill" site: https://muchadoaboutcorona.ca/

 

Peer review is an old boy’s club. “Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.” — Richard Feynman —

If I were to guess - and that’s all it is - at least 50%. That’s just squaring the difference between estimates I’ve seen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kermit]

6 minutes ago, Dale said:

If I were to guess - and that’s all it is - at least 50%. That’s just squaring the difference between estimates I’ve seen.

Thank you

[Dale]

1 minute ago, kermit said:

Thank you

You’re welcome.

[urbanlover568]

8 hours ago, Dale said:

There is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the virus.

Really? I guess we should let it happen and those who die are collateral damage, right?

I see people in store without masks, they all know what they are doing is selfish and wrong, but like teenagers they try and push their limits with their tantrums. 

[Dale]

49 minutes ago, urbanlover568 said:

Really? I guess we should let it happen and those who die are collateral damage, right?

I see people in store without masks, they all know what they are doing is selfish and wrong, but like teenagers they try and push their limits with their tantrums. 

Uh, that’s what Biden recently said. After hanging every Covid death, around Trump’s neck, in the run-up to the election. 

Oh, was your loved one murdered by people not wearing masks ? Did you answer that question ?
 

 

[urbanlover568]

41 minutes ago, Dale said:

Uh, that’s what Biden recently said. After hanging every Covid death, around Trump’s neck, in the run-up to the election. 

Oh, was your loved one murdered by people not wearing masks ? Did you answer that question ?
 

 

You clearly are not in a right mental state of mind to have this debate.