Actually, the data don’t suggest anything unusual about Florida’s excess death toll

washingtonpost ^ | 03/31/2021 | Philip Bump

[ChicagoConservative27]

For months, critics of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) have suggested that his administration is underreporting the effects of the coronavirus pandemic in his state. The high-profile firing of (and subsequent investigation into) Florida’s top data manager contributed to such questions. Shortly before the 2020 election — in which DeSantis’s political ally, President Donald Trump, was being judged in part on his pandemic response — the state’s reported death numbers suddenly dropped.

[ChicagoConservative27]

DeSantis is hiding thousands of covid cases per Charlie Crist. Loser.

[rarestia]

And this clown wants to come back and challenge DeSantis for governor next year. Bring it on, suntan!

[ScubaDiver]

"There is no real question that the number of deaths from covid-19 recorded in the United States is too low."

Um, wut? While it's surprising that an article marginally supportive of DeSantis' record in FL appeared in the Washington post, the above line is simply insane.

The government wasn't incentivizing hospitals to UNDERCOUNT COVID deaths. Quite the opposite, in fact.

1 in 3 excess deaths in the US not directly caused by COVID-19

[ScubaDiver]

We’re not undercounting COVID deaths. We are undercounting LOCKDOWN deaths.

Big difference.

[babble-on]

It’s a good article and shows how little the government policies affected the course of the pandemic, at least on a state by state basis. Maybe a “shutdown” in one state was meaningless if the adjacent state didn’t shut down, and vise versa.

But there is one point in here that is very contrary to Freeper conventional wisdom: Bump says the deaths from Coronavirus are almost surely UNDER-stated, due to lack of testing in the early months. Freeper conventional wisdom is that the death toll is OVER-stated because deaths from other health issues should not be counted as Covid deaths even if the deceased did have the virus. If he was a fatso, he died of obesity, not Covid, etc.

[kiryandil]

"Philip Bump"

of The Stolengrad Post

[Captain7seas]

There are bodies piled everywhere here in Florida. Stay away.

[JimRed]

When I was a kid, Florida was known as “God’s waiting room”. It seemed that old folks went there to die.

[absalom01]

Well, it may well be a “good article”, but it contains a deliberate lie in the very first sentence (typical for Blow). Rebekah Jones was in no sense of the word the state’s “top” anything, and certainly not a “top data manager”.

She worked on the graphics for the state’s corona virus web site, and got transferred, and then fired, for insubordination. And not to mention she has multiple misdemeanor and felony complaints in her recent record, something that is not indicative of a stable mind.

My only point is this: if Blow is willing to lie right out of the gate, how can anything else he says be taken at face value?

[Little Ray]

Especially along the Forgotten Coast.
Enter at your own peril.

[lastchance]

I can hardly get out me front door, can I. Yeah.

[babble-on]

The “excess deaths” numbers in the article clearly show me that the Coronavirus killed a lot of people.

Add to that, that a lot of deaths that normally happen seasonally fron the influenza did NOT happen this winter, because social distancing, masking etc completely shut down the virus and the data is compelling.

If all those deaths were from mental health disorders stemming from the shutdown you’d have to convince me that those disorders correlated directly to the waves of when virus caseloads were highest, with a 25 day lag adjustment for the time it takes for the virus to kill those it’s going to kill. To me that strains credulity.

[Mouton]

Don’t forget the flies and attack gaters plus the daily hurricanes.

[Boogieman]

“The “excess deaths” numbers in the article clearly show me that the Coronavirus killed a lot of people.”

That’s a non sequiter. You can only conclude that if you’ve eliminated every other possible source of increased deaths that could account for it, such as the increased rate of suicides from lockdown-induced depression, increased deaths from heart disease and obesity from people not getting out and exercising, increased deaths from domestic violence from people being cooped up together 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and increased deaths from the year full of unchecked crime and rioting as the police stepped back and let happen.

If you can account for all of that, and probably some other unique situations that I haven’t listed that also happened over the last year, then and only then can you say that the leftover excess deaths are likely coronavirus deaths.

[DPMD]

The liberal use of the term “underreporting” is identical to their use of the term “budget cut,” which just means the left didn’t the full increase it demanded. So underreporting means that Florida didn’t assign COVID as the cause behind every single death that occurred in Florida for the entire period of time that reporting was in effect. And, of course, the charge can’t be proven, as it has been in the case of Andrew “The Butcher” Cuomo’s mandated underreporting.

[babble-on]

Why would those increased deaths from other sources peak at the exact times the virus caseloads peaked? You’re not being rational.

[Boogieman]

“Why would those increased deaths from other sources peak at the exact times the virus caseloads peaked?”

Oh, you have accounted for all those causes and somehow found that they “peaked” at the “exact time” the viruses peaked? How did you figure that?

[BatGuano]

Hey JimRed!
We don’t have to shovel snow and that allows us to live longer and warmer. Florida is great!

[absalom01]

That’s a different topic.

My point was just that if you see an obvious untruth, which the writer had to know was untrue, repeated as truth, right at the start of the piece, one would be wise to exercise extreme skepticism of any other claims made.

And a correct: I had the wrong liar. I mistakenly called the writer “Blow”, meaning Charles blow, the lying liar who works for the NYT. This piece was penned by Phillip Bump, a different lying liar who works for the Washington Post. My bad.

[daniel1212]

Indeed:

" Um, wut? While it's surprising that an article marginally supportive of DeSantis' record in FL appeared in the Washington post, the above line is simply insane. The government wasn't incentivizing hospitals to UNDERCOUNT COVID deaths. Quite the opposite, in fact. 1 in 3 excess deaths in the US not directly caused by COVID-19"

The CDC allows for probable/presumed cases based upon as little as having having shortness of breath and having traveled to or lived in an area with sustained, ongoing community transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Or shortness of breath and and just being a senior citizen or having “close contact” with another probable case.

Below are the pertinent excerpts far that criteria from the CDC page Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Bold emphasis is sometimes added by me:

…CSTE realizes that field investigations will involve evaluations of persons with no symptoms and these individuals will need to be counted as cases.

Probable

• Meets clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19.
• Clinical Criteria
• At least two of the following symptoms: fever (measured or subjective), chills, rigors, myalgia, headache, sore throat, new olfactory and taste disorder(s)

OR

• At least one of the following symptoms: cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing

Epidemiologic Linkage

One or more of the following exposures in the 14 days before onset of symptoms:

• Close contact** [ being within 6 feet for at least a period of 10 minutes] with a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19 disease;

OR

• Travel to or residence in an area with sustained, ongoing community transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
• Member of a risk cohort as defined by public health authorities during an outbreak.[1]

The above provide minimal criteria by which a person can be classed as being having Covid-19 and dying of the same. And for which hospitals can indeed obtain more gov. funding for them.[2]

Based upon this criteria of clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence, then even just a cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing counts as clinical criteria, while epidemiologic evidence can mean as little as close contact with a probable case of COVID-19 disease, or travel to or residence in an area with sustained, ongoing community transmission of SARS-CoV-2, or close contact with a aged person during an outbreak. Thus we can easily surmise that many cases and deaths are being classed as Covid-19 when in reality they are something else, including the flu (cases of which are very low).

It is true that many Covid-19 cases and deaths are not reported, however, I think it is far more likely that there are more deaths being reported as by Covid-19 then that are missed. The reason for this is because those with symptoms are much more likely to have been tested and diagnosed as having Covid-19 and those with symptoms of the ones most likely to die.

Footnotes

[1] Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

[2] Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators