Posted on 11/26/2020 4:24:45 PM PST by grundle
Johns Hopkins University has just reported the following:
“Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”
Although the people who conducted this study find the results “surprising,” I myself do not.
Anyway, this is proof that the panic and hysteria over COVID-19, as well as the lockdowns, closures, cancellations, restrictions, and other authoritarian actions on the part of political leaders, were all completely unjustified.
Which is exactly what I have been saying all along.
Black death was more localized in Europe, due to the fact that travelling outside of Europe at the time generally took weeks or months, far longer than it took to get sick and die of the plague.
The 1918 flu pandemic was a true global pandemic, hitting as soldiers from around the world were returning from WWI.
40% average mortality, with some cities up to 80%, with the black death. I think you have a hard case to even broach comparing the two.
The black death was in the 1300s, when the average life expectancy was in the mid 30s. The mortality rate was so high because the mortality rate of everything was high. If you got the plague you would die. If you got the flu you would die. If you got cholera, tuberculosis, or diarrhea you would die. If you got just about any disease you would die.
The black death killed millions of people in Europe. Most of the rest of the world was unaffected. The 1918 flu was the first truly global pandemic. Millions of people died in every continent on Earth, roughly 5% of the world’s population at the time.
Thanks so much for posting!!!!! Republicans need to start shouting this from the rooftops!
Spanish flu maybe killed as many people as the black death, but was not as catastrophic, as you point out, given the lower population in the 1300s.
What would you know about the rest of the world back then, given that they couldn’t read or write?
which means that a good number of deaths are of people that were probably going to die this year anyway...
If it’s the one I saw earlier it was published in the student paper. If the same study, why was it published in a student paper rather than a professional journal? If not the same study then the point is moot. It was retracted, anyway, so there were some issues with it.
Regardless, if the claim is as stated, that there is no abnormal distribution of deaths, i.e., the same percentage of dead people fall into each age bracket as normal, then that does not speak to whether or not there are excess deaths. There could be 10 times as many dead with the same distribution, or half as many. Or just 110%. The covid mortality curve follows the general age mortality curve, like most ailments. There wouldn’t be an abnormal spike. But with more premature deaths in each age group, life expectancies would go down.
You have mail
“The data is in but your figure of well over 4 million deaths is wrong.”
Yep, you’re right. I did an off-the-cuff estimate based on life expectancies and neglected the still-relevant population growth. My bad.
My point that the covid deaths are distributed like all the other causes of death and therefore the distribution would not change is valid. We could have 10 times as many deaths with the same distribution and the proportions would not change. That is the claim the paper made, was it not? That there had been no abnormal distribution of deaths?
Don’t see a curve on there for covid, which has reportedly killed 8,000 to 9,000 people this past week (past seven days, 6,000 in the past three days).
“Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”"But it turns out, the same number of deaths would have happened with or without Covid 19."
That's not what that says. It says there wasn't an abnormal spike in any age group; the distribution among age groups was not significantly different. Covid behaves the same as almost every other fatal malady: it kills the weak, which usually means the old. So the covid deaths look just like all the other deaths, distribution-wise. It says nothing about excess deaths.
A 6% increase in deaths, or a 600% increase in deaths, if distributed the same across age groups as other causes of death, would maintain the same proportions. You're just reading something into that article that is not there, i.e., proof of your covid-hoax fantasy.
And it is interesting that the Spanish flu killed most victims with bacterial pneumonia from wearing masks, not actually the flu.
Odd that the almighty medical doctors forgot to warn people of that.
“Libs go all apoplectic if you compare COVID to the flu, but the 1918 flu is still the worst pandemic in the history of mankind.”
[US only stats]: Spanish Flu killed 824 people per day, average, over its 26 month run (including people that died of other ILIs, since they couldn’t reliably tell them apart). 824 people in a day is a ‘good’ day for covid. The last three days we lost 6,000 altogether, and that does NOT include non-covid deaths from ILIs. Sure, we have 3 times as many people, but we also have 100 years better medical technology. And if you consider that a significant chunk of those Spanish Flu deaths occurred in one month - God forbid we have a spike like that with covid - covid is doing more damage, proportionately. At our current pace we hit the Spanish Flu total in six months, a full year faster than the Spanish Flu. That’s with our 100 years of medical advancements. Let’s hope that those vaccines are as effective as claimed.
Also, Black Plague killed both more people numerically and a higher proportion compared to the Spanish Flu.
The Black Plague recurred many times over the centuries. In fact it was also the plague that hit earlier in one of the later Roman eras, I think Justinian.
But just because any disease was dangerous to get back in the Medieval era, does not mean the disease does not pack a punch.
The death rate of BP is STILLL a mammoth 11%, TREATED. Untreated is like 30%! This is a very dangerous Plague.
Meanwhile, let’s double the apparent rate of COVID. Nope, doesn’t compare.
The BP killed at least 30% of the POPULATION, never mind those infected. It was no slouch compared to this scamdemic.
Did you read the article?
The claim that the paper makes is that the number of deaths from other causes during the period of the COVID-19 epidemic reportedly decreased, suggesting that the reported COVID-19 deaths may represent a substitution of that cause for other causes:
Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.“This is true every year. Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes,” Briand pointed out.
When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.
“She’s a PhD who teaches microeconomic theory, statistics, and econometrics.”
Probably not for long. Publishing this, regardless of whether it is or is not true, is a major academic error that even tenure will probably not protect. Actually, she’s probably in more trouble if she is correct.
Her numbers should be easy to verify unless the CDC pulls the information down quickly.
“That is the claim the paper made, was it not? That there had been no abnormal distribution of deaths?”
Actually, I think the reverse. She seems to claim that the death rate stays about the same by age group. But the distribution of causes of deaths changes dramatically. COVID as cause up, heart attacks as cause down.
That said, if: (1) COVID was actually causing a lot of deaths in addition to normal death rates and (2) Those COVID deaths were disproportionately affecting the elderly; then one would predict the distribution of deaths as between age brackets to change. If the actual data do not show that change, it suggests that either or both of the assumptions listed above are false.
I don’t know. There are still some honest people in academia - and it’s not as if Briand’s paper was without reservations.
(On this thread, I think some people here initially made the mistake of assuming that the author of this article from a University newsletter, was the same person as the Professor who actually wrote the paper which the article discusses.)
(1) The deleted article comes from the Johns Hopkins "News-Letter," which is "Published by the Students of Johns Hopkins."
(2) A JHU professor - Genevieve Briand - is quoted:
"All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary," Briand concluded.
(3) That quote absolutely contradicts the CDC estimate for excess USA deaths since 01 Feb 2020...
Total USA Excess Deaths (Estimate) - 360,198
Total USA Excess Deaths Above Upper Bound (Estimate) - 260,982
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Whoops!
Since the COVID death toll for healthy people under age 50 is essentially ZERO, the data would absolutely have to show a HUGE death spike in the 50+ age group.
The data does not show that. That means something is wrong with the data.
However, we do agree on one point.
JHU professor Genevieve Briand states:
“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary.”
The CDC disagrees. CDC estimates 360,000 excess deaths, and 261,000 deaths above the upper bound excess estimate.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
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