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COVID-19 Check-in 2.0

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Comments

  • KaseyKasey Posts: 29,311 mod

    So I try to post the daily numbers with no spin. Admittedly, testing has been setting records which means positive tests has as well. But the last few weeks positive % has been higher than it was which is troublesome. Deaths have slowly started to inch up. Hopefully, deaths can stay under 1K but over the last few days it’s been going up.

    Me personally, I’m concerned. Taking politics and conspiracy theories about hospitals profiting off of this, if the deaths continue to rise...we could be in trouble. Hopefully it’s nothing and we can all soon get on with our lives.

  • AnotherDawgAnotherDawg Posts: 6,762 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    I've stayed out of the political debates entirely. In fact, I think this my first post on this thread. I looked up the info and was surprised by what I found.

  • YaleDawgYaleDawg Posts: 7,186 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
    edited July 2020

    This is a good read and explains the reimbursement system for COVID-19. Basic gist is that hospitals get paid for the care provided and the increased payment only applies to medicare patients. There is no financial incentive to mark everything as a covid death.

    Edit: if a medicare patient tests positive and is being treated by the hospital, the hospital will get an increased payment. Doesn't matter if they live or die.

  • Boss_DawgBoss_Dawg Posts: 87 ✭✭✭ Junior

    Apolitically, to me a reasonable way to measure Covid's actual impact on death is the excess death rate, one measurement which is here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm. Compared to expectations, somewhere between 125k to 169k extra deaths in 2020 so far.

    So, is there fudging of data because of hospital incentives? I don't know. But there is a significant increase of expected deaths in 2020 so far. We will see if it continues to increase going forward.

  • texdawgtexdawg Posts: 11,581 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    @YaleDawg I do appreciate the information you continue to provide. I really do.

    And I really don't disagree with most of it. And quite honestly . ...how could I. The reality is.....I simply don't possess the knowledge about covid that you do.

    And much of what I have learned from people I know and trust ... seems consistent with what you have been saying.

    My big differences.....

    1. I don't doubt that shutting down the country for a few weeks would work. But I believe that it is absolutely impossible with the size of this country(mass) and size (populatuon) and because of the freedoms we have as Americans. People came to this country for freedom.......and it's in our citizens DNA. The thought of shutting down is ridiculous.

    2. And regardless of the info you provide. .....I trust my friends when they talk about how covid deaths are reported and compensated.

    But I absolutely mean no disrespect to you and certainly don't believe you have ulterior motives in what you post or believe.

    As is obvious to everyone.....I'm just simply extremely frustrated because of the experiences my kids are .... and will continue..... to miss out on because of certain policies.....I realize I'm selfish and not alone in my frustrations.

    I apologize if I come across as disrespectful to your knowledge and beliefs... it isn't intentional.

  • BankwalkerBankwalker Posts: 5,348 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate


    It is impossible not to “spin the numbers.” People spin the numbers just by which numbers they choose to present.

    As it pertains to percentages, why is the increasing positive test rate important if you are going to dismiss/ignore the declining fatality rate?

    Deaths, as a percentage of cases, have declined sharply. Nate Silver cherry picks the same way in his daily posts that you share. It seems like CFR was the most important statistic when this thing started, but it continually gets dismissed in importance as the percentage continues to shrink.

    If someone were to chime in again with a post about automobile deaths, the response would be “but the number of deaths vs the number of miles driven is small, so the hard number of actual automobile deaths is misleading.”

  • BankwalkerBankwalker Posts: 5,348 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Rhetorical questions: How many of those excess deaths are covid related but the person did not have the virus? In other words, how many are more lockdown related than covid related?

    Excess deaths also have a way of balancing out in future years, particularly when the excess deaths are weighted toward the elderly and compromised.

  • JayDogJayDog Posts: 5,560 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    How does anyone “know” anything about this virus they personally didn’t experience? We rely on reports that at best are limited in scope. People on both sides can shoot holes in every thing we call evidence. We are only four months into this pandemic and do not have enough to prove much.

    The people who want to open up full throttle believe there is no danger it seems. That is opinion, not established fact. Many of them have been saying there’s no danger since January—which makes their conclusions now suspect.

    My first question is, if this were Ebola, would you still argue that we should open everything up to protect the economy— despite how many people could die? My second question is if you lost a child to COVID would your position on it change?

  • PerroGrandePerroGrande Posts: 6,198 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
    edited July 2020

    https://off-guardian.org/2020/07/07/second-wave-not-even-close/


    I just read this interesting article on herd immunity and thought the board would be interested (especially @texdawg 😎). No doubt, there will be disagreement, but it makes some fascinating and potentially encouraging points. Executive summary: herd immunity for CV 19 is achieved at much lower thresholds than originally posited, and many places are already seeing a drop due to burnout of the virus. A lot of people have criticized Sweden for not shutting down, but their rates are dropping dramatically as if they might have achieved HI already. Were the scientists who advised Sweden right after all?


  • BankwalkerBankwalker Posts: 5,348 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    No, if someone had lost a child then THAT person would not feel the same way; however, only 14 children under the age of 14 have been coded as Covid-related, and given what we know those could also be suspect. We aren't protecting children.

    If this were Ebola, 1) we now have a vaccine, but 2) there would have been a shutdown for one month and that would have been all there was to it because it would have been a total shutdown instead of this halfassed shutdown that hasn't accomplished anything except destroy the economy and small businesses. The people who say to open back up aren't saying there is no danger. They are saying 1) it is inevitable, and 2) the risk to the vast majority is small, which is a FACT, not an opinion - statistically speaking.

  • PerroGrandePerroGrande Posts: 6,198 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
    edited July 2020

    Let me add one comment about the Sweden graphs above: as I have argued, I believe the reason for the recent drop in death rates in the N. Hemisphere is actually due to increasing vitamin D levels in the population. The increasing death rates at high latitudes in the S. hemisphere show that vitamin D is the key reason. However, I totally missed the evidence right in these Sweden graphs. Note the large increase in cases through the month of June, peaking late in the month. What we should have seen was a corresponding spike in deaths 2-4 weeks after the spike in cases, but that isn't at all what we see here. The death rate plummets despite the increased case load. The death rate appears to be controlled by something independent of the case load. Could it be vitamin D? I would also argue that there might be more than one HIT. HIT could be dependent on a number of variables, particularly vitamin D levels in the population. Exactly like we see with cold and flu-like illness season at high latitudes. Consequently, we could see another wave this fall and winter as vitamin D levels fall in the population. That assumes our scientists won't figure this out. I'm not confident they will.

  • KaseyKasey Posts: 29,311 mod
  • JayDogJayDog Posts: 5,560 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    You say the risk to the majority is small, but dismiss the effect of the lockdowns in mitigating the spread of the virus and it’s effect on national numbers.

    You argue that this is not about protecting children, dismissing that the point is losing someone you hold dear—could be a parent, spouse or sibling.

    You argue ebola would have been eradicated by a total shutdown of the nation—and there is a vaccine, but dismiss that it is just as inevitable as this virus. A “total” one month shutdown would have been violated by people just as the mitigation measures have been violated in this pandemic. Even in the case of Ebola, you gave reasons not to comply.

    What people call fact is just a piece of a larger puzzle that is still only partially out of the box. There are too many variables to act without extreme caution.

  • PerroGrandePerroGrande Posts: 6,198 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    I think it is mostly hypothesis and no proof at this point, so I don't know. My guess would be that it should make the disease shorter, not longer.

This discussion has been closed.