I'm afraid that I have my doubts about that, SeekAndFind! Your posts here give rather the impression that you are spoiling for a fight.
So, let me repeat my question since you haven’t come close to even answering it...
That's true: I have made absolutely no attempt to provide you with the estimate you have requested. That's because I'm not an epidemiologist (NOTE: You don't have to be a chicken to judge an egg, and you don't have to be a nautical engineer to say that the sinking of the Titanic was a disaster attributable largely to human stupidity and hubris), and don't want to simply pull a number out of my *ss. You should instead do some research yourself (why would you be particularly interested in my personal estimate, anyway?).
[...] assuming the official figures exaggerate the number of deaths due directly to Covid, what in your estimation is the more accurate number?
Please do some research yourself! The "ballpark" estimates of some random FReeper should not concern you. (Though the reasons for his skepticism regarding "official figures" - which he has backed up with valid arguments or at least legitimate questions - are certainly worthy of serious consideration.)
Please consult an Epidemiologist in whom you have trust.
Regards,
Last year sometime around August, the CDC reported that only 6% of the deaths were due to Covid only. The rest all had co-morbidities.
Additionally, death from all causes had increased by about 5% so a good estimate would be 5%-6%.
RE: I have made absolutely no attempt to provide you with the estimate you have requested. That’s because I’m not an epidemiologist.
Well then, the only source I can refer to is still the official CDC source since they do have epidemiologists on their team. I can appreciate your not wanting to simply grab a random number out of thin air, but simply telling me their numbers are wrong doesn’t cut it.
I can’t go by this reasoning: “Because I say so, therefore it must be so.”
You ask me to do my research, well here’s a number the CDC has shown.... EXCESS DEATHS from 2020 to 2021 versus the average of the previous 5 years.
If their Covid numbers are humongously ( EMPHASIS on humongously ) wrong, I would expect the number of deaths from every cause to be close to the 5 year average. Yet, the excess deaths for the pass year exceed the previous 5 year average by over 400,000.
What factor accounts for this huge number?
Here are the CDC Numbers. Now please tell me what’s wrong with the data:
Number of deaths in the US in 2018: 2,839,205 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db355.htm)
Number of deaths in the US in 2019: 2,854,838 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm)
Number of deaths in the US in 2020: 3,389,700 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/index.htm)
So in 2020, there was an increase of 534,862 total deaths. You’ll notice that from 2018 to 2019, there was a 0.5% increase in total deaths in the United States. The normal range is 0.3% - 0.7%. In 2020, there was an 18.7% increase over 2019. That’s unheard of outside of incredibly extreme situations. Like World War II.