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The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

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Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#81

Post by Gwypaas »

0-_-0 wrote: post #56
fairity wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden basically did a lockdown - it just wasn't state-mandated. If you look at the mobility data [1], you'll see that Sweden followed a very similar trend to its neighbors, and actually maintained lower mobility after other state-mandated lockdowns let up. [1] https://www.teliacompany.com/sv/om-foretaget/uppdatering/mob...

The arbitrary choice of the reference point makes that bad data.

Either way, using Stockholm as the geographical reference point the chosen point correlates against dark cold Januari/Februari with average temperatures of -1°C and 7-8 hours of twilight. Considering that keeping the relative number below at the height of summer is quite impressive.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#82

Post by fpgaminer »

anewguy9000 wrote: post #50

what these numbers and the media and your average joe terrified of dying seem to miss is something thats qualitative, not quantitative: quality of life. length of life could be enhanced for many, safe and securely shackled to a bed in a quasi-coma with a feeding tube down your throat. such a person may very well ask to die. it pains me to see ederly and terminally ill people saying goodbye to loved ones on zoom conne…

If _everyone_ wore masks and followed very basic guidelines, the virus would be dead in the water and we could go about living mostly normal lives. People could visit their loved ones, say goodbye to the terminally ill, work, have outdoor dining, see drive in movies. Scarce little impact on quality of life.

Instead vast swathes of the U.S. and other countries flout even the most basic precautions making it impossible for the rest of us to live normal lives.

The argument that being safe == poor quality of life presents a false dichotomy. The truth is that we can be safe _and_ have the same quality of life. Instead many have chosen the third option: they believe that their "right" to shop at Walmart without an extra piece of clothing is more important than people being able to say goodbye to loved ones; more important than their neighbor's wellbeing; more important than the economy.

I would further argue that not only would quality of life not suffer if everyone took basic precautions, in many ways QoL would be _better_. As the statistics are showing we've seen a massive dropoff in cold/flu related deaths, even with poorly implemented COVID protections. Less auto accidents and less pollution. A rise in work from home. The list goes on.

Contrary to the doom and gloom of this year, COVID was really a chance to build a better world. We might just yet do it in small ways. But much of the potential good is being squandered, as it always is, by selfish, ignorant, hateful people.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#83

Post by rurban »

Might be true, and likely is for England, but not for Wales. The data presented on this website doesn't show the flu death curves for 2017 - 2020, only the spike of this year. And you cannot compare a spike with a 5 year average. You either compare the absolute numbers or the curves.

Here are some proper curves where you can see the UK (England) problem: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country

And compare to other countries with a similar failing nursing system, to the ones with a proper one.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#84

Post by anoncake »

pmiller2 wrote: post #55
anoncake wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The brain is an organ, not a span of time.

Well, now you're being deliberately obtuse, didn't bother to read the link, or perhaps both. The link I posted above compared the symptomology of COVID-related brain damage to moderate TBI. As the American Association of Neurological Surgeons says at https://www.aans.org/Patients/Neurosurgical-Conditions-and-T... : > Patients with moderate head injuries fare less well. Approximately 60 percent will make a positive re…

Lack of sleep also significantly impacts the performance on neuropsychological testing. The question is not what kind of symptoms Covid can cause, but how long they last.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#85

Post by CryptoPunk »

fpgaminer wrote: post #82
anewguy9000 wrote: post #50

what these numbers and the media and your average joe terrified of dying seem to miss is something thats qualitative, not quantitative: quality of life. length of life could be enhanced for many, safe and securely shackled to a bed in a quasi-coma with a feeding tube down your throat. such a person may very well ask to die. it pains me to see ederly and terminally ill people saying goodbye to loved ones on zoom conne…

If _everyone_ wore masks and followed very basic guidelines, the virus would be dead in the water and we could go about living mostly normal lives. People could visit their loved ones, say goodbye to the terminally ill, work, have outdoor dining, see drive in movies. Scarce little impact on quality of life. Instead vast swathes of the U.S. and other countries flout even the most basic precautions making it impossible…

Extripating the virus completely from the population, and keeping it out through total physical isolation of that population from the rest of the world, is a tall task. The question of whether it's an achievable or practical goal to pursue needs to be answered before that is made the objective, and the lifting of lockdown restrictions is made conditioned on the goal being reached.

Anyone advocating that as the goal for society needs to present a plan that has a high chance of succeeding without an unreasonable burden being placed on society. I think maybe the development and mass-deployment of rapid tests for the virus could achieve that, but ironically we don't see much emphasis on this strategy by lockdown advocates. It's almost as if the opposition to the lockdown is all the proof needed to convince some of its advocates that it's the right strategy.

On a side note, we now we see that the lockdown advocates have simply switched their rationale for the lockdown, from "flatten the curve", to "eliminate the virus from the population", once the curve was flattened. For those who believe society is better off being tightly controlled, with heavy restrictions on individuals to achieve larger goals that benefit the public, the coronavirus is the gift that keeps on giving.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#86

Post by thedrbrian »

fpgaminer wrote: post #82
anewguy9000 wrote: post #50

what these numbers and the media and your average joe terrified of dying seem to miss is something thats qualitative, not quantitative: quality of life. length of life could be enhanced for many, safe and securely shackled to a bed in a quasi-coma with a feeding tube down your throat. such a person may very well ask to die. it pains me to see ederly and terminally ill people saying goodbye to loved ones on zoom conne…

If _everyone_ wore masks and followed very basic guidelines, the virus would be dead in the water and we could go about living mostly normal lives. People could visit their loved ones, say goodbye to the terminally ill, work, have outdoor dining, see drive in movies. Scarce little impact on quality of life. Instead vast swathes of the U.S. and other countries flout even the most basic precautions making it impossible…

> As the statistics are showing we've seen a massive dropoff in cold/flu related deaths

Is that not because we’ve stopped recording cold/flu deaths and started labelling them all as corona virus deaths?

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#87

Post by fpgaminer »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #85
fpgaminer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If _everyone_ wore masks and followed very basic guidelines, the virus would be dead in the water and we could go about living mostly normal lives. People could visit their loved ones, say goodbye to the terminally ill, work, have outdoor dining, see drive in movies. Scarce little impact on quality of life. Instead vast swathes of the U.S. and other countries flout even the most basic precautions making it impossible…

Extripating the virus completely from the population, and keeping it out through total physical isolation of that population from the rest of the world, is a tall task. The question of whether it's an achievable or practical goal to pursue needs to be answered before that is made the objective, and the lifting of lockdown restrictions is made conditioned on the goal being reached. Anyone advocating that as the goal f…

> Extripating the virus completely from the population, and keeping it out through total physical isolation of that population from the rest of the world, is a tall task.

Note that I wasn't arguing for that. My argument is that a few simple, low impact measures would be enough to drop the effective infectivity of the virus low enough that it would fizzle out. There's reason to believe that a simple combination of limiting high-risk social engagements coupled with _strict_, enforced universal face mask requirements would be enough.

That wouldn't 100% eliminate the virus, as it would continue to spread and pool in countries without those guidelines. But for countries that do maintain them it would never gain a foothold.

Keep that up until a vaccine is deployed.

Easy. Low impact on quality of life. That's all I'm arguing.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#89

Post by bagacrap »

mcguire wrote: post #62
majkinetor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 100% certain that bunch of so called covid deaths were due to other things non covid related.

And a bunch of non-COVID deaths were COVID related. This is why you look at all-cause mortality---where in the US/UK at least, things look worse, not better.

Some of the excess deaths this year were due to the way we handled covid and not the disease itself. Suicides are up. Medical care is being skipped or postponed (cancers are not found as early). So no, I don't think you can look at all cause mortality and say that any excess means the lockdown should be stricter.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#90

Post by CryptoPunk »

fpgaminer wrote: post #87
CryptoPunk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extripating the virus completely from the population, and keeping it out through total physical isolation of that population from the rest of the world, is a tall task. The question of whether it's an achievable or practical goal to pursue needs to be answered before that is made the objective, and the lifting of lockdown restrictions is made conditioned on the goal being reached. Anyone advocating that as the goal f…

> Extripating the virus completely from the population, and keeping it out through total physical isolation of that population from the rest of the world, is a tall task. Note that I wasn't arguing for that. My argument is that a few simple, low impact measures would be enough to drop the effective infectivity of the virus low enough that it would fizzle out. There's reason to believe that a simple combination of lim…

>>Note that I wasn't arguing for that. My argument is that a few simple, low impact measures would be enough to drop the effective infectivity of the virus low enough that it would fizzle out.

What's the difference between a virus being extripated from a population, and a virus "fizzling out"?

If it's not extripated, then it will immediately start spreading again as soon as those measures are lifted.

>>That wouldn't 100% eliminate the virus, as it would continue to spread and pool in countries without those guidelines.

Note that I didn't say that you argued for eliminating the virus from the entire world. I said that you are advocating extripating the virus from one particular country, and I argued that that would be extremely difficult to pull off and then maintain by physically isolating that country from the rest of the world.

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