Over 440 jobs lost for every Coronavirus death--while missed cancer screenings kill far more

Precious Roy wrote:

But for the lockdowns, the virus would have spread unchecked and completely overwhelmed the health care system for a period much longer than any lockdown. So, far more cancer tests would have been missed and 2-3 million people would have died from COVID 19.

There is absolutely no evidence of a rise in mortality of non-COVID 19 deaths due to the lockdowns. If anything, people have been safer and healthier during lockdown. Streets are empty. The number of deaths and injuries from traffic accidents has plummeted (I am an attorney and this is a big concern among the plaintiff's bar). Air quality has improved substantially. A lot of people are getting out and going for walks or taking up running who had previously been completely sedentary. People are cooking real food at home instead of eating garbage fast food. No bar fights, shootings, drunk driving.

BUT, we never even created a curve in most areas of the country....so hospitals went unused and now are laying people off and we still don't know if when we come out of hiding if there will be a huge spike or not. The process put in place either worked too well, or the virus just wasn't as bad as most thought for the majority of the world.

The whole thing has been a farce from beginning to end. Here in the UK, 2 young men have been arrested for posting flyers on lamp posts with the message; ''PUBS CLOSED BORDERS OPEN''

They have been charged with a ''hate crime'' for vile and racist comments, even though everything about the message is 100% correct.

Here are the total excess death numbers from the 24 countries that participate in the Euromomo survey.

Week 17 just released today.

These totals for Weeks 1-17 are from the years 2018 and 2020- we must keep in mind that this is all during a described global pandemic of historical proportions that has been the stated cause for the lock down of 3-4 billion people and the shutting down of numerous economies across the world- not to mention the immense suffering caused <i>by</i> both <i>of</i> those reactions to this pandemic.

Europe Excess Death Totals Weeks 1-17- All Ages: 2018: 1,244,275

Europe Excess Death Totals Weeks 1-17- All Ages: 2020- 831,679

Can someone explain how in the world, if we are in the midst of the equivalent of the Black Plague there are over 400,000 less deaths in 2020 than in 2018.

There is no amount of "social distancing" or fewer cars on the street or the wearing of masks or...that can account for a full reduction in total excess deaths of a full 33%.

Anyone want to try to explain this?

Suicide Sucks wrote:

SDSU Aztec wrote:

These types of threads imply that we should have taken no precautions. Would most people have been comfortable with 2M or more deaths?

We should always take precautions. Unfortunately even the supposed experts didn't know what to do with this last virus issue. What is your recommendation for drinking and driving, texting and driving, vaping, teen pregnancy, cyber bullying?

The OP is suggesting that, at a minimum, there has been an overreaction to the coronavirus, but how do you split the difference between an overreaction and just letting the virus run its course? I believe the stay at home and ramping up testing is probably the best strategy. Other posters have claimed it's not by citing that the cure be worse than the problem or that there will never be a vaccine. The former is not a blueprint for a strategy and the latter is not an indisputable fact.

It's irrelevant anyway as a recent poll shows that 87% believe the stay at home restrictions are necessary which includes many Republicans. If nonessential retail is reopened, there probably won't be enough customers to justify doing so.

I don't know about the other items on your list, but the penalties for a DUI are quite severe.

Was it worth it? wrote:

I don't even live in the same state as him anymore, idiot.

So you admit you make him up

Your numbers are wrong.

2018: 111,335

2019: 56,498 (funny how you left this year out)

2020: 159,484

2018 was a very bad year for the flu in Europe due to a record cold snap in February of 2018. 2019 was more mild both for temps and flu outbreak. 2020 was going along quite well as far as the flu season with about half the excess mortality as 2019 until COVID 19 hit.

And when you look at a three year average instead of cherry picking one year, you actually see that the current COVID 19 death count is probably off by tens of thousands.

Hospital layoffs have been due to elective procedures being cancelled. Those are the money makers. Things like knee replacements, vasectomies, etc. People who need emergency care have been able to get emergency care during the lockdown. Any slight rise in death due to people putting off tests for a few weeks will be vastly offset by the huge reduction in traffic accidents, etc. And it makes absolutely no sense to let the virus run rampant because of some slight and speculative harm from delays in treatment and testing.

My father died from COVID 3 days ago. He could not be tested because our fed government was more worried about making themselves look good instead of serving the people.

My wife works in Gov. Hogan's office and knows first hand how his hands were tied by Trump-hole to get testing in the state. Hogan went out and got tests on his own and then Trump-hole made it so he could not get reagents.

This will all come out in the wash.

What we should have done is made sure that Trump, Pence and Kushner all got the disease and see how their politics helped kill my father and maybe your family should have been given the disease and see how your view would change about you having to go to work at McDonalds so you can pay for your video game.

And to think "we the people" put all these idiots in office!

I think another important point of reference over a 2 month period in the US 1.45 people would die per thousand of all causes. About 470K total countrywide because I like whole numbers. This disease has killed 60K so far with some creative counting in certain localities. I don't think we have great data yet on the overall deaths by population in the US compared to past years but I'd love to see it to see the actual increase. If anyone could link it that would be great. Everything I've seen is at a locality or state level.

trumpgoesdown wrote:

My father died from COVID 3 days ago. He could not be tested because our fed government was more worried about making themselves look good instead of serving the people.

My wife works in Gov. Hogan's office and knows first hand how his hands were tied by Trump-hole to get testing in the state. Hogan went out and got tests on his own and then Trump-hole made it so he could not get reagents.

This will all come out in the wash.

What we should have done is made sure that Trump, Pence and Kushner all got the disease and see how their politics helped kill my father and maybe your family should have been given the disease and see how your view would change about you having to go to work at McDonalds so you can pay for your video game.

First of all, sorry to hear about your loss. Where specifically did this happen? Have you secured legal help?

There was no need to have job losses in the tens of millions. Had the Republicans agreed to the measures taken in Europe, which guaranteed jobs by backstopping businesses with 80% or so of pay during the shutdown, there would be a much, much lower increase in unemployment and businesses would be able to re-open when society re-opens. Considering that COVID-19 mortality has produced a new and previously non-existent 2nd or 1st leading cause of death in places that have been hit with it and that mortality has risen anywhere from 13% to 225% (in NYC) over normal in the past month, the shutdown was eminently reasonable. Had Trump acted much faster and wiser, like in Taiwan, we'd have had a fraction of the cases and deaths. If you banged the drum for war in 2001 after 3,000 people were killed in 9/11, why do you think that the 62,000 already known dead from coronavirus, and possibility of far, far more with widespread transmission, in just over a month weren't worth it?

He could have walked laps around his shack if he'd wanted to do so.

Getting the reaction to this pandemic exactly correct was always going to be nearly impossible. All predictions are based on quickly changing and uncertain models. Look at weather prediction. It is also based on models and is not 100% accurate 100% of the time.

Given the danger of this virus I would rather a slight over reaction to a slight under reaction. Jobs come and go, the economy cycles, but you don't come back from death...at least not for the last 2,000 years.

Just a thought unrelated to the pandemic. If there is a number being tracked as the excess death toll and we are exceeding it every year doesn't that make is a pretty crappy metric? Shouldn't the baseline of an average years number of deaths mean that some years there should be a negative excess death toll?

Such a refreshingly rational response (even with the tongue in cheek 2020 AD/CE reference).

Perhaps wrote:

Getting the reaction to this pandemic exactly correct was always going to be nearly impossible. All predictions are based on quickly changing and uncertain models. Look at weather prediction. It is also based on models and is not 100% accurate 100% of the time.

Given the danger of this virus I would rather a slight over reaction to a slight under reaction. Jobs come and go, the economy cycles, but you don't come back from death...at least not for the last 2,000 years.

deaths.html[/quote]

Just a thought unrelated to the pandemic. If there is a number being tracked as the excess death toll and we are exceeding it every year doesn't that make is a pretty crappy metric? Shouldn't the baseline of an average years number of deaths mean that some years there should be a negative excess death toll?[/quote]

Excess mortality is the number of deaths (or rate) above the number of people we would normally expect to die each year. It is by definition always an amount above the normal mortality each year because it is a metric used to calculate the effect of death from disease, natural disaster, war, etc. if Ralph Nader became president and made everyone eat a Mediterranean diet and walk around all day in a padded suit, excess mortality would be reduced to zero, theoretically.

Precious Roy wrote:

deaths.html

Just a thought unrelated to the pandemic. If there is a number being tracked as the excess death toll and we are exceeding it every year doesn't that make is a pretty crappy metric? Shouldn't the baseline of an average years number of deaths mean that some years there should be a negative excess death toll?[/quote]

Excess mortality is the number of deaths (or rate) above the number of people we would normally expect to die each year. It is by definition always an amount above the normal mortality each year because it is a metric used to calculate the effect of death from disease, natural disaster, war, etc. if Ralph Nader became president and made everyone eat a Mediterranean diet and walk around all day in a padded suit, excess mortality would be reduced to zero, theoretically.[/quote]

I think you missed my point. I understand the definition. If the number is always above 0 then the metric sucks. The problem isn't more people dieing than expected. The problem is our expectations are too low. Unexpected events are a regular occurrence and there should be a certain contingency for them built-in.

The elderly and immuno compromised can and should be protected, quarantined, whatever you want to call it. But the rest of us need to live our lives. Here in Virginia, we are essentially closed until June 10th. We have 3,000 ventilators, only 600 are in use currently. Only 200 of those are being used for COVID patients. There are over 5,000 empty hospital beds. Our Flu + COVID death total is still several hundred less than flu deaths in 2018 over the same time frame. I do not believe our hospital system was ever in danger of being overwhelmed. The hospitalization rate has never risen to the level that warrants this prolonged shutdown of our state.

https://www.vhha.com/communications/virginia-hospital-covid-19-data-dashboard/