I hesitate to share this story because of the misinterpretations doing so may inspire. However, if it is true that life insurance companies are observing unexpected death-rate spikes, this is something to know about.
“Dowd cited fourth quarter rises in death claims, compared to the 2019 rate, of 57% for Lincoln National, 41% for Prudential, 32% for Hartford, 24% for MetLife and 21% for RGA.”
The analyst (Edward Dowd) thinks the Covid vaccines are the cause. I think we need more information before jumping to that conclusion.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
Once again, speculation without data. Blaming the vaccines for increased death rates without any kind of actual evidence is irresponsible. – IMO
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You should have stuck with your first instinct.
The insurers cited attribute the increase in deaths to Covid and its indirect effects. Period. But the author – while relying on their death numbers – rejects their attribution to Covid WITHOUT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE and blames the vaccines. Irresponsible and dangerous nonsense. It puts the lives of people like you at risk because they seize such stories to justify the foolishness of remaining unvaccinated.
These excess deaths are nothing new. They have been evident in the statistics since the pandemic began. The mechanisms that cause them are readily understood.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
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The analyst considers the excess death reports notable because the range exceeds three standard deviations. The effect on the life insurance industry is likely to be significant.
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Sure, excess deaths are significant for life insurers, but that says NOTHING in support of YOUR headline – ‘It’s the jab’
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It is not my headline. Also, I disclaimed it.
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“It is not my headline.”
Uh, Yes it is. YOU chose to cut and paste the headline from WND. That makes it YOUR headline. YOUR headline could have been – “WND spreads vaccine nonsense” but it wasn’t.
You hardly “disclaimed it.” You called for more evidence. Not the same.
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RE: “YOU chose to cut and paste the headline from WND.”
Big deal. I always copy the headline of a source article verbatim. That doesn’t make it mine.
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“Big deal. . .”
Okay, sure. I get it.
You want to spread dangerous and ignorant anti-vax garbage, but you don’t want to accept any responsibility for it.
Some ideas are so removed from reality that they do not deserve an airing. The claim – WITHOUT EVIDENCE or even a plausible mechanism – that hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from the jab is such an idea. In my opinion, of course.
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I don’t regard the source or my comments on it as dangerous or ignorant. Your reaction, however, is exactly the misinterpretation I expected.
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Consider what you want, but the FALSEHOOD that the Covid vaccines are killing hundreds of thousands of people IS actually ignorant and, for the reason mentioned above, dangerous.
What is it that you think I have “misinterpreted?”
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You apparently think the story as presented is anti-vax.
Since I specifically disclaimed that angle and emphasized, instead, the insurance company data, you have misinterpreted the post.
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Uh, Bullshit.
You choose the headline. It blames the vaccines for megadeaths. THAT is anti-vax. Duh.
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You don’t know how quotation marks work? Or perhaps you need some help understanding these two sentences I wrote: “The analyst (Edward Dowd) thinks the Covid vaccines are the cause. I think we need more information before jumping to that conclusion.”?
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Do you really think that 300,000 deaths by a vaccine would go unnoticed? Even if there were a massive conspiracy by thousands of people, hiding that many dead bodies, along with grieving families kicking up a storm of protest, it would not have lasted this long. Not in the era of gotcha journalism, book advances and investigative reporters.
This is like Pizzagate. Unverified rumors turned into “fact” by those who might profit politically, yet, with even a modicum of inspection it falls apart. As in there is no basement at the pizzeria where the kids were hidden and abused.
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With all due respect, you are ridiculous. There is no misinterpretation here. There is you shucking and jiving when the nonsense is called out. You pollute this forum with all kinds of anti-vax nonsense on a regular basis. This post is clearly part of that ongoing campaign attempting to rationalize the irrational.
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During war, there are often an excess of cardiac arrests? Speculation about some conspiracy or bullets and bombs?
Since the vaccinated are not filling morgues at the rate of unvaccinated, there must be a secret location where they are dying.
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I suspect the stress of being home with the wife and kids and possibly unemployed and under financial stress is the more likely culprit.
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Another aspect that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the aging of our population. Lot’s more older people are around and they do tend to die. Mostly of natural causes or other age-related diseases.
Because it is just percentages and does not take into account ANY other info, this article remains dangerous to those gullible enough to believe it HAS to be true.
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Well, thanks to governors like Cuomo and Northam, there are a lot fewer old people.
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“Well, thanks to governors like Cuomo and Northam, there are a lot fewer old people.”
Typical nasty comment.
And, as always, it ignores the hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths attributed to Trump’s incompetence, dishonesty, and failed leadership. Deaths that continue to this day due to the anti-mask, anti-vax nonsense that he continues to energize.
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Even were that true, it does not excuse the choice to delay vaccinating the elderly who wanted the vaccine by an average of 3 months while much younger teachers and other government employees went to the front of the line.
Hundreds, if not thousands, died in Virginia alone as a result.
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“Hundreds, if not thousands, died in Virginia alone as a result.”
You have no evidence of that. You just made it up.
What you leave out of your “analysis” is how people behave. Old people who were not yet vaccinated did what I did – self isolate at home to avoid infection. People who HAD to go out in public – such as teachers – did not have that option. Personally, I had no problem waiting while those who were required to be exposed got a little bit of preference. You, on the other hand, have expressed your resentment at every opportunity. Sad.
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About 9000 Virginians died in the time period, 70% were over 60. Estimating hundreds of needless deaths is extremely conservative. My actual guess would be very close to 5000.
Not all elderly people have the option of isolating, and many more had unavoidable contact with younger family members.
And even had they been able to isolate to that extent, is it not wrong to demand that of them so that younger people with almost no risk of death were vaccinated first? There is a huge difference between someone risking a bad cold and risking dying alone on a ventilator.
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“Even were that true”…
Wow. So Paul makes a point and you question it while standing by your assertion that ONLY your point IS true.
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What point would that be?
Trump had no part in Northam’s delaying the vaccination of the elderly in VA until after the Governor’s base had the front of the line.
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Typically, you talk about the relative risks with the benefit of hindsight. In the real world at the time, public officials dealing with the pandemic were – by comparison – flying blind. That is more than obvious, but in your eagerness to condemn them you pretend otherwise.
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Nope,
We knew long before the vaccines became available that young people rarely died but that older people were at grave risk. We had 10 months of data by then.
Perhaps you are having memory problems?
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“Perhaps you are having memory problems?”
Hardly.
The problem here is that you think “facts” that you pull out of your ass ought to be taken seriously. Sorry, no can do.
In this case, you claim thousands of dead Virginians caused by the evil vaccination priorities of Governor Northam. You have ZERO evidence to support it. You just want it to be true.
You completely ignore that the risk an individual faces is a function of BOTH their age and the amount of exposure they encounter.
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No, it isn’t.
Older people face a much higher risk regardless of exposure, Once infected, because their immune system responds more slowly, they develop a much higher viral load before their immune response kicks in.
Their own viral production dwarfs any external exposure.
As far as knowing AT LEAST hundreds of deaths resulted, there were about 9000 deaths in that time period. 70% were over 60, The vaccines, against the original strain, were 95% effective at preventing deaths.
As they say, do the math. just under 7000 elders died for lack of vaccination. Compliance among the elderly was very high. So, 5000 preventable deaths is a pretty solid estimate.
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Yes it is.
“Older people face a much higher risk regardless of exposure”
No, they don’t.
An “exposure” is an interaction with a person who might infect me. A teacher interacts with dozens of people every day. A store clerk with hundreds. A retired person staying home nearly or actually zero.
If I keep my exposure to zero by self-quarantining, masking and social distancing I keep my risk of death from Covid at zero even if I am much more likely to die IF I become infected. This is not hard to understand.
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And yet thousands of old people died,
For most people, zero exposure is not an option. And in any case, there is no correlation between how exposed you are and how sick you get as long as you get the threshold exposure to become ill.
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“For most people, zero exposure is not an option.”
For most retired people living on their own it certainly was an option. Where there is a will, there is a way.
But overall, your damning guesstimates are nowhere near the ballpark.
About 85% of the people who have died were high priority being in category…
1a Health care workers and people living in care, or
1b People Aged 65 years and Older, people 16-64 with co-morbidities, essential workers.
Our cumulative deaths are 18,000 so the mathematical MAXIMUM number of people who MIGHT have died because of vaccination priority policies is about 2,700 and MOST of those had died before vaccination was possible or died long after vaccination was available to all.
And, as bad as you say that Virginia’s vaccination policies were, the FACT is that we have done better than about forty other states in the rate of Covid deaths. In many cases MUCH, MUCH better.
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Please explain how you derive that 2700?
Approximately 9000 people died during the time between the total vaccine supply allocated to Virginia was sufficient to vaccinate the elderly and when the vaccines were actually made available to Elders not in nursing homes. The supply was separate from the allocations for nursing homes and health care workers.
70% of those who died were over 60. That would be 6300 deaths by elders in that period.
The vaccines were initially 95% effective in preventing death.
Certainly some would have declined vacination, but not many.
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The 2700 . . .
Our TOTAL cumulative deaths in Virginia are 18,000. Our cumulative deaths are 88% people age 60 or older. I rounded that down to 85% to approximately match those in categories 1a and 1b. Those two categories had top priority and therefore were not hurt by the priority system. Those two categories leave 15% of the deaths that MIGHT have been related to vaccine policies or 2,700 deaths. Those deaths are spread over the entire pandemic. Those who died before vaccination was possible were not affected by priorities and the large number in the later half of 2021 and since are mostly people who chose to remain unvaccinated. That leaves very few who MIGHT have been hurt by the priorities. Very few.
And we do not know how many were saved because those younger workers and teachers you obsess about did not get infected and therefore did not spread the disease even as they moved actively in public.
And, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Our policies got better results than the results of most other states.
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1a and 1b are nursing home residents and frontline healthcare. They had their own vaccine allocations and were not dependent on the general population’s supply.
Those in nursing homes make (1a) up a small fraction of those over 65 and less than half the total deaths for all months, (4844, most before vaccines were available.). Their share of deaths during the period other elders were waiting while Northam vaccinated his younger supporters could not have been even 1000 of the 9000.
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The math is relentless. Your “analysis” of blame is bullshit. You are trying way too hard to find “corruption” where there was none.
Unvaccinated people willing to get vaccinated died unvaccinated because there was not enough vaccine and not because they were denied available vaccines by the state’s priority system. 85% of the dead were in the categories that had their own allocation. They were not affected by the priority system. You seem to understand that. The rest is simple mathematics.
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That is simply untrue. Restating it 100 time will not change that.
In Virginia 4484 nursing home residents died, most before the vaccines were available. That is less than 30% of total deaths.
9000 people died during the period Northam was vaccinating you government employees and withholding vaccine from retirees. At least 75% of those were over 65.
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I have given you hard facts. Your extravagant claims of Northam-caused deaths do not fit those hard facts – not even close.
The essential but easy idea that you cannot grasp is that more than 85% of the people who have died were in age groups that had top priority when vaccines were scarce. Since they had top priority, they were helped, not hurt, by the state’s priority system. Their being unvaccinated when they fell ill was either their refusal or the lack of supplies and had NOTHING to do with the priority system. This is not hard to understand if you try.
These numbers are not changed by your wishes. They are what they are.
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Repeating a lie over and over does not make it true.
Only those who are senile enough to be in a nursing home had priority. They are a tiny fraction of the total population over 65, who had no priority. You could be 100 years old and if not in a nursing home, you would not get priority. They waited while Northam vaccinated his public employee base.
Only 4484 nursing home residents died, and most of those before the vaccines were available to anybody. 9000 people died during the period Northam withheld the vaccine from retirees. at least 70% of those were over 65.
Retirees over 65 who were not in nursing homes had no priority and did not get their vaccinations through the health dept until mid to late April to June after all the government employees who were willing to get vaccinated had their chance.
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“Repeating a lie over and over does not make it true.”
The state’s vaccine priority system was based on phases. I have already shared what those phases were. I did not make it up. Those are the facts that you can check for yourself. People 65 and over were in the first phases – 1a and 1b.
Whatever imperfections you may see in the guidance offered by the state from the favored position of hindsight, there is zero reason to believe it was anything but a good faith effort to save lives. But that does not stop your laughable but truly ugly slanders about “corruption” or “payoffs.” And, you continue to ignore the fact that Virginia has done very well compared to most other states.
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I think I see what may be confusing you. Virginia labeled its phases differently. The CDC had 3 Tiers, which each had phases 1a and 1b within them. The CDC Tier 1 had frontline health care as 1a and nurising homes as 1b, Teir 2 was essential workers and those over 65.
Phase 1a in Virginia was frontline health care workers and nursing home residents.
1b was “essential workers,” those over 65 and those under 65 with serious comorbidities, and ‘congregate living’ meaning prisons, homeless shelters and migrant labor camps.
Click to access Phase-1b-In-Depth.pdf
Within phase 1b, ‘essential workers’ had priority over retirees. 1b comprised about 60% of the adult population. The invitation only prioritization within 1b put the elderly after most essential workers. In practice, government employees of all ages came before the elderly.
The numbers are immutable. a total of 4484 deaths occurred in nursing homes, most before the vaccine came out. 9000 people died during the invitation only phase, at least 60% were elderly, nearly all of whom would have survived had they been vaccinated before younger government employees.
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I am not in the least confused. I posted who was in 1a and 1b some days ago now.
People 65 and over were in the same 1b phase as essential workers. And the guidance was to reserve at least half of the doses for the elderly. Read your own link as I did days ago. Your statement that older people had to wait until all essential workers were done is not accurate.
You further claim that the vaccination of older people could not happen until late April or June. That is false. I was in phase 1b and, unlike you, I waited until I could get the vaccine within the system without jumping the queue and taking the place of someone in another state. My first vaccination was March 5th. Furthermore, the state began Phase 2 (vaccines for everyone) earlier than planned on April 18th because doses were going begging. Your imaginary seniors languishing without access to vaccine up to June is bogus.
Bottom line, there were a few weeks when essential workers and the elderly were both drawing from the same pool of very limited vaccines. That simple and NECESSARY fact you blow up to a claim that Northam killed 5,000 people to pay off supposed political debts. Utter nonsense that you support with fibs.
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60% of adult Virginians are in 1b. Elders were greatly outnumbered and dilution in that pool assured that some would wait months even if the allocation in the group were random, and there is no indication it was.
While Dr Avula said 50% of the vaccines would go to elders after he was appointed, invitations were still required until the vaccines were on demand at pharmacies. There is really no way to know since the selection criteria was kept secret.
But even simple dilution in 1b was enough to kill a lot of elders. Good for you that you got your invitation only a month late, I didn’t get mine until mid April, and the elderly couple next door to the compound didn’t get theirs till the end of the month.
And what I wrote was that Northam certainly killed hundreds and maybe thousands. 5000 is not that unliely.
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You are immune to evidence and to common sense. You are going to believe what you want to believe. And, as always, what you really, really want to believe is ugly. You throw out made up facts to support your ugly beliefs and only back off from those made-up facts as much as you have to when they are shown to be bogus.
Or you throw out anecdotes. Golly, you know some old folks who waited until June and just ignore the fact that all phase restrictions were lifted two months earlier.
Summing up what you want to believe with a verifiable fact yields this nonsense. . .
In spite of wantonly killing 5,000 people, Governor Northam led the state to one of the lowest overall death rates from Covid.
Remarkable.
The reality is that you cannot provide ANY evidence for ANY extra deaths arising from vaccination priority policy. We have no way of knowing how many infections and deaths were prevented by public-facing essential workers getting vaccinated in group 1b. But the best evidence at the time was that vaccinating them was important to slow the spread.
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