Posted on 04/22/2020 2:06:29 AM PDT by grundle
Real world evidence shows that the fatality rate of COVID-19 is far, far lower than what has been portrayed by the mainstream media. Examples of this can be read here, here, here, here, here, and here.
It has also been predicted that the shutdowns will kill more people than they save. Examples of this can be seen here, here, and here.
If the COVID-19 virus was truly as big of a threat as is being claimed by the mainstream media, then supermarket employees would have a much higher death rate than that of the general population. But there is no evidence that their death rate is higher. Therefore, if it’s OK for the supermarkets to be open, then it should also be OK for just about everything else to be open too.
So how does the COVID-19 death rate of supermarket employees compare to that of the general population?
On April 12, 2020, the Washington Post published this article.
It says that the U.S. has three million people who work in supermarkets, and that at least 41 of them had died from COVID-19. The Washington Post refers to this as a “war zone.”
The same article also says that more than 21,000 people in the U.S. had died from COVID-19.
The article is from April 12, so those numbers are somewhat out of date. However, I am more interested in the ratio of those numbers, so the fact that the article is somewhat out of date does not really matter.
The U.S. has 328 million people.
Supermarket employees make up approximately 1% of the U.S. population.
But they account for approximately only 0.2% of the country’s COVID-19 deaths.
If supermarkets were truly a “war zone,” then the death rate of their employees would be higher, not lower, than that of the general population.
I’d be curious to know how many supermarket employees died from the flu during the same time period. But I’m not holding my breath for the Washington Post to publish such a comparison.
In 2018, 36,560 people in the U.S. died from automobile accidents. I think it’s likely that somewhere between 300 and 400 of those were supermarket employees. It’s possible that during this COVID-19 “war zone,” more supermarket employees have been killed by automobile accidents than by COVID-19.
The best way to avoid dying in an automobile accident is to take mass transit instead of driving yourself. (The buses used for mass transit are bigger and heavier than cars, and often move more slowly than cars, so fatality rates are much lower than for cars.)
But the best way to avoid getting COVID-19 is to drive yourself instead of using mass transit. (Nearly half of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are in New York, and its overcrowded subway system seems to be the main reason for that.)
Quite a conundrum, I suppose.
Life is full of risks. And we need to acknowledge these risks, and act accordingly.
COVID-19 is real. And it is deadly.
But it is not nearly as deadly as many in the media have been trying to portray it.
Don’t go spreading truth around now! Hysterics will get angry!
There are plenty of supermarket workers who have little to no contact with the public. Cashiers and baggers would be front line. Stockers mostly work when the stores are closed.
I would suggest that journalists review how the virus moved through Europe, and no....there is factual data to show that grocery workers are at more risk. Most grocery operations did put up a plexiglass shield between the customer and the clerk.
You’d need to look at the deaths in the working age population for this to make sense. That’s only, what, about 10% of the total deaths? If that is correct, then the rate would be approximately 10x what you are projecting.
> COVID-19 is real. And it is deadly.
>
>But it is not nearly as deadly as many in the media have been trying to portray it.
It’s worth pointing out that national media elites are heavily concentrated in NY City. NYC and nearby has nearly 1/3rd of the cases in the country. Their reality is simply not the reality that the vast majority of the country is experiencing. We don’t have anything like the same case load. Nor do we have the same population density, nor the same dependence on mass transit and shared spaces. This matters. It’s a lot easier to maintain social distance out here in the rest of the country. This is an important reality our national media elites don’t fully perceive due to their geography, their local environs.
The result is that the coverage is skewed for their reality in NYC. Add in that the journalist class isn’t very number-oriented in general. “Innumerate” is a term I tend to apply to them, largely accurately I believe. How often have you seen news articles and reports that were 1/2 as good as Doughty One’s daily reports? How many make you aware that 1/3rd of US cases are in the NYC area?
We’re not getting good information in part because of the skewed numbers in NYC combined with the innumeracy of the reporters.
I disagree. Supermarkets have much better control over their environments than the general population. They can promote spacing, and control the number of people in the store. Most of the companies now require employees to wear masks, gloves, and make hand sanitzer and/or wipes available to the employees and customers. They also disinfect the carts for customers before each use, and undertake extra cleaning measures inside the store. All this makes a big difference.
Ecomonic depression saves lives. So do “do not travel” orders.
“Normal” is more risky.
As a matter of simple logic, if saving lives is paramount above all else, we should limit our travel and work to that which produces subsistence living conditions.
Dr. Scarf showed a bar chart of deaths per 100,000. This is the one that has China at 0.33, the US at 11.5, and Italy around 45. The point of the chart was to brag about the high quality of US health care, and to knock China for cooking the books.
She left off New York state. At that time, it was clocking in at 60.
The look on Trump’s face is priceless.
Ongoing lamestream media fear propaganda, misinformation, etc.
They are so desperate to see this country utterly wrecked.
“Real world evidence shows that the fatality rate of COVID-19 is far, far lower than what has been portrayed by the mainstream media. Examples of this can be read here, here, here, here, here, and here.”
First link - study of only 800 people in LA by a USC professor of public policy who is not even a doctor, and who provides only a press release, not an actual study document.
Second link - nonsense Santa Clara study, see below
Third link - Economist article behind a paywall
Fourth link - article from 6 weeks ago which says Covid death rate may be closer to “seasonal flu” death rate of .1% than “SARS and MERS” which have death rates of 10% and 36%. A 1% death rate is 10 times the death rate of the flu but still “more akin to” .1% than to 10%.
Fifth link - extrapolating data from Iceland to the US, absurd garbage.
The Santa Clara study is flawed for several reasons.
1. The participants self-selected, and someone who has symptoms or has been in close contact with an infected individual is more likely to want a Covid test.
2. The tests have a false positive rate supposedly 2/371 or .5% - this data is from the manufacturer of the test
3. This sample was 4,000 people, but there are facts relating to 243,000 people in a city of 9 million which prove that Ioannidis is wrong.
NYC has 14,427 Covid deaths already which is .16% of the population of 9,000,000. This is the lowest possible infection mortality rate assuming every single person in NYC is infected.
243,047 people have been tested and 132,467 tested positive,
Only people with symptoms are being tested in NYC and only 54% of those with symptoms are positive. The rate of infection for those without symptoms is obviously lower than the rate of infection in those with symptoms of the disease.
If 54% of the entire city is infected (implausibly high) then the infection fatality rate is .3% (.16%/.54)
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-data-map-04202020-1.pdf
The quoted death rate of .1% for seasonal flu is the number of deaths over the number of SYMPTOMATIC flu cases. Those without symptoms are not part of the denominator. It is estimated (see link below) that 75% of regular flu cases show no symptoms. This brings the infection fatality rate for regular flu from .1% to .025% if you count infected people instead of just symptomatic people. Covid19 is at least 10 times deadlier than the flu, you can distort the numbers however you want, you can believe whatever you want, but no one can make a plausible argument that Covid19 isn’t 10 times deadlier than the seasonal flu, no matter how hard they try.
https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html
Yep. Plus all the buyers, HR, marketing and accounting staff.
It is also more like 2.7 million in total supermarket and grocery employees. Plus, again, the comparison would have to be with working age deaths.
Too many grocery employees dying here in the Northeast.
Yeah, and that 0.33 bar is not to scale. It should be 1/20th as long as the "6" bar. Picture stacking 20 of those 0.33 bars up.
Great point.
dear ETS,
how extensive a sampling have you done?
Re; post 7
True, the Toilet Paper panic of 2020 demonstrates a lot of people caught the virus, and thankfully very few die of the virus
Thank you for sense, and math. In my county, not the hardest hit by a long shot, 1 in 2000 people have died, only 0.05 %, but I estimate only 3 to 4 percent infected yet. Granted it got into the nursing homes, but we will see 10 times as many deaths without effective, plentiful treatment or a vaccine.
Every major grocery store in my county. There aren't that many. But, they are all part of larger chains that advertise their procedures to battle the virus. So, it's no secret as to what measures they are taking. Walmart seems to be doing the most to combat the virus.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.