This should be in front of a paywall. If not, the gist is that beyond the deaths attributed to the coronavirus, a lot more people have been dying than would otherwise be expected. It appears to be a combination of unrecognized virus deaths and deaths from other causes that would have received medical intervention without the load on the hospitals and the fear of seeking help.
Death toll in this country far worse than has been reported.
Published
All true. I’ve been tracking this aspect of the virus’s effects and the death toll is considerably higher than reported.
While we are more prepared, if/when enough of a surge happens the repercussions will make the current situation pale in comparison.
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I recall reading that early on only deaths that were confirmed to be caused by COVID19 were counted. With testing so precious, if someone dies, they were not tested or counted necessarily as COVID caused.
It seems the more we learn about this particular strain of Coronavirus, the less we know.
57,000 deaths from the first “official” one at the end of February. (San Francisco thinks they have an earlier death on February 7.)
That is a serious surge in less than 8 weeks. That would be equivalent to 642,000 deaths per year. About the same as heart disease, our leading cause.
One thing is for sure, it ain’t the common cold or the seasonal flu no matter what FOX pundits and Limbaugh said, and keep saying for that matter.
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RE: “I recall reading that early on only deaths that were confirmed to be caused by COVID19 were counted.”
Nope. You’re confusing a couple of different factors. One is that only persons suspected of having Covid-19 have been referred for diagnostic testing. The other is that Covid-19 is listed on death certificates if the patient tested positive, even though it may not be cited as the cause of death.
It will probably take years to work through the forensic data to determine the actual Covid-19 death count, although it can certainly be said at present that the virus is more lethal than originally imagined.
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You have a point about the death counts. During the biggest surges, paperwork was not a priority.
The latest disturbing news is the blood clot issue. The presence of micro clots in the deceased may or may not be noticed. And there have been some fatal strokes in young people at rates not observed before. These are still not diagnosed in large numbers, but the virus seems to be much more than just a respiratory disease. The clotting can damage kidneys, the liver, the heart and other organs.
Scary stuff.
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My math is horrible.
Bottom line is that COVID is deadlier than often described.
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RE: “This should be in front of a paywall.”
It isn’t (at least, I’m not able to read the article). I would point out, however, that problems in mortality reporting have been noted and much discussed since the pandemic began. The number of deaths attributed to coronavirus is particularly uncertain. It is literally unknown how many people have died of the virus as distinct from the number of people who have died with the virus. In contrast to the premise of your post, the coronavirus-attributed deaths may well be exaggerated.
I suspect, too, that the number of deaths attributable to the lack of medical intervention is little more than guesswork at this point.
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@JTR
“coronavirus-attributed deaths may well be exaggerated.“
Cite? Since I’ve been following this pretty closely I’d love to see a credible source that supports that…
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No citation, just knowledge gleaned from general reading. But I might ask you for a citation, since I have never read anywhere that coronavirus-attributable deaths are “considerably higher than reported,” as you state.
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https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242049731.html
Here is a clear outline of the death toll counting problems and why many think it is undercounted, not exaggerated.
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There goes the knowledge argument.
He also posted articles about how this virus is not as deadly as we are led to believe.
Proof positive that he lives in his own bubble and refutes (usually badly) or refuses to acknowledge any source that he doesn’t find to fill his narrative.
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Do you have ANY clue how laughable you are?
There are these marvelous software tools called search engines. I attempted to find support for your “general reading” contention and found bupkis.
Search on my point and choose from multiple sources.
Free your mind, and your ass will follow…
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“bupkis.” Proper spelling is bupkEs. Just for future reference.
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bup·kis
/ˈbo͝opkis,ˈbəp-/
noun: INFORMAL•US
noun: bupkis
nothing at all.
“you know bupkis about fundraising”
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English spelling vs yiddish.
All good
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Should have just said “goat shit”…..
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RE: “Search on my point and choose from multiple sources.”
OK. I did. And it is true. I find no shortage of sources claiming the death toll is higher than reported. Many of the links that your contention (“coronavirus death toll higher than reported”) turns up are specific to Italy, Wuhan or Europe, but some address the U.S. death numbers.
The opposite, I find, is also true. There is no shortage of sources claiming the death toll is lower than reported. Searching on that contention (“coronavirus death toll lower than reported”) actually turns up some of the same links.
I used the DuckDuckGo search engine.
There are a number of possible explanations for the apparent discrepancy. One is variation in reporting procedures for deaths attributable to coronavirus. This variation can run both ways, either to over reporting or to under reporting. Another is confusion between the case fatality rate and the infection fatality rate. This confusion has driven expectations in some instances that failed to materialize. Another is that the death toll predictions have been wildly inaccurate. You may recall that originally IHME predicted 2 million Americans would die, only to revise that number down to 65 thousand.
I admit that my reading and posting here in the Forum have led me to a generalized assumption that the coronavirus death tally is lower than we imagine it to be. I contend, however, that this is the more probable case than the proposition that the death tally is higher than imagined, for the very reason of the trends I just listed.
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@Roberts
“In contrast to the premise of your post, the coronavirus-attributed deaths may well be exaggerated.”
So quite a lot of people, contract the virus and then, coincidentally just happen to die of something else as they would have anyway? And those coincidences outnumber the cases where people who did not get tested died of the virus. Can you not see how ridiculous that is? Really, you cannot? Even with the epidemiological evidence that the number of deaths is way above what it should be?
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RE: “Can you not see how ridiculous that is?”
It is not ridiculous at all. Even Dr. Birx has spoken of the difference between dying of coronavirus and dying with it and the distortions this distinction can cause.
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@Roberts
Of course, some dying people get infected. It is a question of numbers and we know that the numbers of people dying has gone through the roof. It is ridiculous to assert that the number directly dying from coronavirus is overstated in the face of that fact and the fact that our testing regime is so poor such that we do not test the dead. New York alone has thousands extra deaths at home since this thing started.
https://gothamist.com/news/surge-number-new-yorkers-dying-home-officials-suspect-undercount-covid-19-related-deaths
And that is just one city.
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While we shouldn’t quibble about the exact toll, we should realize just how bad this is, We have now lost as many Americans in 2 months as we did in the 10 years of the Vietnam War.
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Or, like I posted earlier, about the same monthly rate as the leading cause of death in the US, cardiac arrest.
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