Many more Americans are dying weekly from COVID, and yet many Americans refuse to cooperate with fighting this much more deadly enemy. It confounds me as usual.
I appreciate people remembering the people who died on and after 9/11. However, I would prefer if they would show that much concern over saving the lives of 10's of thousands of Americans today.
78 comments:
The last things are always the hardest to do. And especially in this polarized political environment, where pollitics always played a role in virus policy, at some point a denialist segment of the population would emerge. It was always a race between getting enough of the population vaccinated to herd immunity would be reached before the vaccine resistent population would organize itself in sufficient numbers to stop that from happening. We appear to have lost the race. The evil spirits that rose out of Pandora's Box when we opened weren't all that fast or elusive but that didn't matter because we just never did get around to quite closing the box. In all likelihood, the virus and it's various variants will be with us forever. a chronic cause of illness and death. Oh well.
--Hiram
Well hopefully the 1800 citizens that are dying daily are those anti-science folks who put their fears ahead of the well being of their fellow citizens.
We citizens who get the shot, wear our masks and use common sense when gathering are like the heroes of 9/11.
While all the others are like those who ran and hid during and after 9/11. Self centered cowards.
Wow. What a terrible conceit, that you can wish misery and death on your fellow citizens, while claiming yourself a hero. It is those "self-centered cowards" who actually stood up and took the fight to the enemy, rather than moaning about the "tragedy" of 9/11.
Actually the soldiers who took the fight to the terrorists will all be COVID vaccinated like real heroes.
It is only the cowards who are not getting vaccinated, wearing masks where appropriate, etc. And a few folks who have real medical reasons for avoiding vaccines.
I am trying envision if another enemy was killing 1,800 Americans per day.
What kind of American would avoid doing everything they could to stop the deaths?
It is disturbing that ~80 million Americans are that kind of human. :-O
Deaths from all causes are actually DOWN from normal, and COVID is significant but not a majority of that. Average from all causes is about 8,000/day, and we don't stop the world or demand everybody give up fried foods or plastics to prevent that. Nor do we mandate that murderers stop murdering 500 people every day.
Your whole premise seems to be that, like Climate Change, it is within our puny power to stop this disease. Other than being vaccinated (thanks to Trump) like we do with the flu, as an individual choice, nothing else much matters.
You are amusing... Maybe you should checkout Figure 1 and some real data
Or even provide your own for a change... :-O
If you think humans are unable to manage a basic virus and save human lives through vaccines, masks, and good hygiene... You have a very dismal view of our capabilities as a race.
Maybe you should read your own data. From January-October 2020, there WERE excess deaths due to COVID. After that, there were LESS total deaths than expected. The simple explanation is that COVID killed the old people who would probably have died in the next year anyway, and once they were gone, there weren't enough deaths to come up to average.
I SAID, except for Trump's vaccines, and I will give you good hygiene as an add but in most places that's already true. But repeated studies have shown that mask mandates and even mask-wearing has a negligible effect. You seem to think it some sort of magic talisman, that works best if demanded by the "gods" in DC.
Apparently you are unable to read a graph or provide a source.
I added the excess death graph to the post. No where in the last 18 months have we gone below the upper bounds of "normal deaths".
Just remember to tell the surgical staff to not scrub up and wear masks the next time you are in surgery... :-O
Now tell us that the lack of a flu season was because everybody who would have gotten it had already died.
Moronic.
Moose
What "lack of a flu season"? Is not a more likely explanation that flu deaths were mis-characterized to bolster the COVID panic?
John, analysis by Rice University shows what I said, which is that excess deaths were below normal for much of 2021, once the increases in the individual components of "normal" are taken into account. For example, suicides went up during COVID. We can argue that is an "excess death due to COVID," but it seems to me more reasonable to call that an "excess death due to government over-reaction." Same with frightening people away from, or failing to perform, things like heart surgeries or cancer screenings.
Moose, you can disagree without being disagreeable. Or can you?
Jerry,
Comments without sources are opinions.
Sources without knowledge are idle chatter. "Analysis by Rice University" IS a source, but you will not bother to look it up. You prefer your pre-conceived bias and want it confirmed, not challenged.
Jerry,
You have a history of parroting some incorrect summary of their research, like you did here.
If anything, it seems that they are concerned that we are undercounting the number of deaths that are occurring due to COVID cases overwhelming our healthcare resources.
Wrong research. You could just believe me when I tell you things.
hahahahahahahahahaha!!!
"Is not a more likely explanation that flu deaths were mis-characterized to bolster the COVID panic?"
Sure, if you believe in conspiracy theories.
Intelligent people don't. Perhaps you could try being intelligent?
Moose
"conspiracy theories," eh? Perhaps you should try to think before pulling that old ace out of your sleeve. IF the government offers financial incentives to do one thing and not another, what do you think will be the natural result, with no "conspiracy" necessary? Real people react rationally to incentives. Those who think otherwise are not looking rationally at the situation.
Well your source institution says COVID related deaths are being under counted.
Anecdotally the opposite is true-- motorcycle and auto accidents, gunshot wounds, etc., setting up the by-now-old question of "did she die OF Covid or WITH Covid"? Or because of starvation, depression and suicide from government-imposed "health measures"?
Just the Facts Ma'am...
I strangely know of 2 people who died of sepsis because they could not get surgery because the hospital was full of COVID patients...
Seems like a COVID related death.
How many of those suicides were because they brought COVID home to their parent, who then died with a tube down their throat?
It's anecdotal, which means it cannot be quantified. It also says that the numbers you rely on to prove your political point are highly suspect.
Almost everything can be quantified / proven...
You simply do not have sources to support your opinions.
Oh, I see. YOUR interpretation of the data is unassailable fact, but mine is an "opinion"? I am finally starting to see how things work around here. You have sources, you have SOME data. What you lack is perspective, and refuse to see any other.
Well if you ever make a rational argument with respectable sources, I will happily listen.
You acknowledge that vaccines work and are in the best interest of the recipient, and yet you fight against them...
It is so unique.
"I will happily listen." LOL! Yet YOU get to decide what is "rational" and which sources are "respectable."
You are right, it is a unique form of argumentation, where no matter what is advanced against your preconceived conclusion, it gets dismissed out of hand. Seems rather pointless.
Jerry,
The only source you provided recently is Rice Univ.
I researched it and found that they disagree with your opinion.
Not sure how much more open minded I can be.
If not more open-minded, how about a little healthy skepticism? There is another Rice paper which takes the opposite tack, interpreting deaths above average from things like, for example, diabetes to diabetes, rather than counting them as COVID deaths, and when you do that, there is still a spike in total deaths last year, after which it fizzles out but has now risen above the "revised" average again. Oh, and don't forget that deaths from suicide, depression, lack of medical treatment and other causes due to COVID restrictions are NOT included.
And I am still hanging my hat on the CDC, which says we are at 83%, close to herd immunity. I must assume that means some local zones are above 90%, others closer to 70%. A little higher and we can all begin to "live with" this disease, just like we do with the flu and common cold. Once the panic porn peddlers find something else with which to alarm the public.
Send me the links...
Your opinions have no ability to convince anymore.
Even if I did send you the links, you will never practice the critical reading necessary to wiggle your confirmation bias. I did it with your link, and formed my "opinion." Does that make your opinion wrong? No. Does it make your opinion the only one? No.
As for the CDC link, that's pretty obvious, if you think about it. IF...
Latest CDC models (not that they can be trusted, but) say the winter will see rapidly declining COVID problems, essentially "gone" by March. Panic?
Now I know you know how to leave a link...
Or to just copy a web address here...
For some reason you are scared to do so?
a little lazy, maybe, or just don't care to make the effort for something you could and can find easily if I tell you about it. These things pop up in my regular reading. And why should I take the time since you routinely simply dismiss what I do provide?
Why would anyone believe you when you can not prove your simplest opinion or belief?
Would believe Moose when he claims something is true, that you disagree with?
Or would you insist that he provide proof?
If it wasn't a matter of simple logic and basic knowledge, I would go look it up for myself. For example, I do not need a "source" or "proof" to dismiss statements calling me a coward for not demanding that government force a specific medical treatment on everybody. If I wanted to know about the specific medical treatment in question, I would go looking for information, or maybe find it in my daily reading. With what I find, plus other knowledge and logic, I form an opinion. It is the same process I use when you post some "proof," which is to employ the critical reading skills I once taught to my students, that the alleged "proof," on critical examination, offers support of the opposite conclusion.
You have said (something like) you offer "convincing evidence and logic" in your arguments. So why am I not convinced? Is that logical?
Actually I noted that apparently fear for your own life / health motivated you to get the vaccine. (self interest)
And you apparently do not care enough about the lives of your fellow citizens to pressure others to make the same rational choice you did.
Because for some reason you wish to down play the lethal nature of COVID, even after ~630,000 Americans have died. Even when your own source institution indicates it may be indirectly even higher.
I really have no idea why you are so resistant to acknowledging the stacked cardboard coffins, the over whelmed emergency rooms, mobile morgues, etc?
It seems that you got it in your head that COVID = FLU. And that is stuck there no matter what the data shows.
And what makes you think that a seasonal respiratory virus like COVID is NOT similar to the seasonal respiratory virus that is the flu? Seems to me they are all part of the same virus "family." And remember that past episodes of the flu have [each] killed =millions= of Americans. We seem to have lost perspective, thanks to the panic porn peddlers.
"I really have no idea why you are so resistant to acknowledging the stacked cardboard coffins, the over whelmed emergency rooms, mobile morgues, etc?" Perhaps because they are a phantasm concocted by the panic porn peddlers?
Confirmation Bias is when you can not believe your own eyes...
Oh well...
Very good! Confirmation bias is also when you believe what CNN and the LA times try to tell you, without looking for the underlying facts. Like this one:
"At the end of November, the beginning of the most recent COVID-19 surge in deaths, the containers held only about 60 bodies."
Much of what you found shows, with a few exceptions, PREPARATIONS that were never or only lightly used, like the emergency room capacity, or the empty "emergency morgue" in Minnesota, or the hospital ships in NYC.
I think you had better look more closely at the photos I provided.
And really think about why you work so hard not to see those dead stacked bodies and struggling healthcare workers?
I looked closely. I saw a lot of anecdotal evidence, mostly of precautions being taken but only a few actually being used, just as ICU beds in MN never were over capacity, just as the governor's high-priced overflow morgue wasn't needed, just as the hospital ships were turned away from NYC as not needed, just as the 70,000 deaths WITH the mandates in place were predicted but never came close to being realized. Just as "two weeks to flatten the curve" turned into 18 months of economic misery that had little effect on "the curve." was shown to be a chimera by the real data. A picture isn't worth a 1000 words if those words are an attempt to deceive.
Then you are really in denial.
The photos show lots of bodies in bags and stacked on racks.
The photos show over whelmed hospitals and workers garbed for a pandemic.
Any idea why you want to deny such a large loss of life?
It is certainly real to those who live it daily
Maybe these healthcare workers are in on the made up story
And the states preparing for healthcare rationing?
Read your own headlines, at least: "FEAR OF rationed care."
Again: "lots" "overwhelmed" "pandemic" "large" Are exactly the words you would use for an arm-waving exercise when you lacked quantitative evidence and could not put what you did have in perspective.
I have great sympathy for the health care workers, some I know, and the double "load" they carry these days. But "preparing," as with so many other of your boot-strapping arguments, is not the equivalent of "needing."
You really can skip headlines and look at the photos.
Or actually listen to the words of the suffering and/or the healthcare providers.
That is IF you truly care about the suffering or the healthcare providers.
Personally I think you care more about protecting your opinion for some reason?
Here is another study the impact of full hospitals.
A Rationing Lawsuit
"Personally I think you care more about protecting your opinion for some reason?"
Think what you want. I think I am searching for truth, and you are not helping.
If you can not see the wrapped and stacked bodies in these photos...
Some real serious confirmation bias is at play.
Maybe you can develop empathy and concern by looking at these pics.
I can see it. What I cannot do is to extrapolate the tiny few tragic deaths in those photographs into a massive nationwide death toll that would justify the most extreme government response. Photographs are more often meant to distort reality than to properly depict it. Show me a picture of that huge empty morgue in Minneapolis, and I will reach a different conclusion.
"few tragic deaths" ?
You have a funny definition of FEW.
4,550,000 worldwide.
688,000 in the US alone.
So keep looking where the bodies are not...
You will be able to keep denying the sorrow, pain, suffering of millions of people.
While staying in your safe little deluded world.
"A confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms your previously existing beliefs or biases."
It is amazing how the mind blocks what it does not want to acknowledge.
And I am happy to acknowledge that sometimes communities over prepared, and I am thankful for that.
It is much better than communities that did not take COVID seriously.
So what you are saying is that government ordered up a miracle whereby millions were saved? And yet you keep presenting the evidence that millions were not?
Again with your flawed logic...
680,000 have died and it could have been much worse.
And if all citizens had masked up and gotten their shots there could have been ~60,000 fewer dead Americans.
However since they were not vaccinated... They died... And as you know. I am okay with that.
Again with your arm-waving. "could have been much worse" "if masked up" "60,000 fewer"
are all statements with no evidence whatsoever, merely unfounded assertions. And again you show a callous heartlessness to your fellow human beings, mostly black people.
I am still waiting for an explanation as to how "two weeks to flatten the curve" turned into MONTHS of rising caseloads and hospitalizations. There seems to be a total disconnect between actual results and what government told us would happen. Remember the prediction of 70,000 deaths in MN, WITH the lockdowns? And how months later we hit only 1/10 of that?
"had masked up and gotten their shots"
Unvaccinated 11 times more likely to die
The facts are pretty clear. 60,000 of the last 66,000 deaths were unvaccinated folks.
Blacks are only 13% of the population. Mostly it is Caucasian FOX News watchers dying...
Yes. I remember Trump saying in FEB2020 that we had nothing to worry about. They got it wrong... Let's live in the here and now.
Forecast Update
More rationing news
Please try to apply a little critical thinking. You wrote "had masked up and gotten their shots" and then "Unvaccinated 11 times more likely to die" Do you see the disconnect there? Yes, vaccinations have proven effective. Masks, despite all the hoopla, are still iffy. And nowhere does it say that those who had no contact whatsoever with the virus did fine, or that 99.98% of those who DO contract the disease, in most age cohorts, survive. The case fatality rate, CFR, is over 1%, but the "non-case" fatality rate must be zero. 680,000 people dead sounds like a lot. But out of 330 million people, that's 0.22%. Each tragic, but not a reason to WISH death on our neighbors (even if black people are the most reluctant to be inoculated), nor to deprive them of their livelihoods or education.
As for your "forecast," I just told you how the U of M forecast that supposedly justified the lockdowns, to hold deaths in MN to "no more than" 70,000, essentially immediately, has turned out to be about 8000, 16 months later. If I predicted football point spreads that badly, nobody would listen. Rightly so.
Well you keep supporting the continuation of tragic deaths...
I will keep hoping that the cowards and idiots are the one's who pay the price...
Again, you insult black people and want them to die. Shame.
I support the continuation of sensible, voluntary health measures based on individual circumstance, rather than government one-size-fits-all mandates. You seem unable to recognize the vast difference.
Give Them Liberty... And a More Likely Death...
Isn't that how the saying goes...
How about liberty and no consequences whatsoever, since that is the most likely scenario? Not everyone who catches COVID dies, far from it, and those who never DO catch it are even less likely to die from it. Just heard an NBA player say he will refuse the mandated vaccine because he already has natural immunity, is young and very healthy. But because he is black, you would DEMAND he get the shot anyway?
Yes... Mostly the old pig headed FOX News watchers are the ones dying.
As I said. I am okay with that.
Wrong. Mostly the young healthy black people are refusing the vaccine outright. And old people dying? Gee, why didn't government recognize that 18 months ago, lock down the nursing homes and leave the rest of us alone, rather than deliberately putting COVID spreaders INTO those places? You keep insisting that government is smart and The People are stupid. That's near impossible to believe, given the evidence.
And yet most of the hospitalized and dying people are in the red states and rural areas with few mandates...
And the rationing is in the same areas.
Why do you keep living in the past?
First "source": I don't and can't read the NY Times.
Second source: You are drawing a vast,unwarranted conclusion from one part of one tiny state and it's small amount of trouble. First off, Idaho has had mandates for lockdowns, strongly "recommended" masks and social distancing. Their vaccination rate is about at the national average. They have a strong government response and guidelines. If they are representative of all "red and rural states" then we do NOT have a problem, despite most Idahoans being free to get on with their lives. And NO, patients are NOT being "allowed to die" in Idaho hospitals.
As for "living in the past," you apparently are not aware of the rapid drop-off of hospitalizations and deaths over the last month. Some predict the pandemic will end next spring, or sooner. If you weren't so gleeful at the prospect of black people and Republicans dying off, you would think that good news.
Oh, and if you are concerned about "rationing" of health care then you must be applauding the decision to FIRE health care workers who refuse to comply with the mandate to be vaccinated? Makes a lot of sense to reduce supply in the face of (supposed) increased demand, just to satisfy some tyrannical whim.
The maps are not behind the pay wall, since I can see them.
Both sources are current and yes things are getting better, but no idea why the waves would stop.
The rationing is in several states, if you read the article fully.
And of course people die when rationing occurs. Or that is what GOPers usually say.
I am fine firing vaccine cowards. You are either with those fighting COVID, or you are with the enemy. (ie COVID)
Idaho has a lot of unvaccinated folks, so they paying the price...
I found the charts elsewhere, and they are wholly unconvincing-- seemingly random results-- or certainly not dependent on "red/blue" or "stupid/smart" or whatever bloody distinctions you are trying to wring out of that stone of data. So, are you OK firing necessary medical professionals to HELP fight the disease, just because they may have natural immunity, limited risk, or sound medical reasons for their objection? Really, calling them cowards is beyond the pale, just because they don't agree with YOU and oppose your tyrannical edicts? You trust medical professionals to help you with your health decisions and problems, but don't trust them with their OWN health decisions?
"no idea when the waves would stop"? Then why are you pontificating and demanding specific courses of action that may be irrelevant or even harmful? The data trend is definitely positive, and many experts are agreeing the "pandemic" is cratering. Even the CDC admits that 83% of us have immunity, either natural or acquired, and that is rising. The Mu variant is extinct, and so herd immunity is kicking in. THAT is an idea. You should try it.
Anti-bodies
Maybe some Red States will be Purple After this blood letting :-)
Most purple states will go hard red with all this unnecessary, hateful and baleful fear-mongering. Keep it up.
Maybe Maybe Not
Which? Biden and Democrats tanking in approval, or you will continue the fear-mongering?
No fear mongering here...
Just facts and data...
It is the anti-vaxxers doing the fear mongering...
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