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Delta variant and all future global variant surges (all are free post)

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  • This source deals with continuing undercounting Covid-19 deaths, and possible instances of overcounting.

    Source: https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2023/covid-19-deaths-in-the-us-continue-to-be-undercounted-research-shows-despite-claims-of-overcounts/



    COVID-19 Deaths in the US Continue to Be Undercounted, Research Shows, Despite Claims of ‘Overcounts’

    Following recent claims within the public health community that US COVID death counts are overestimates, Andrew Stokes and colleagues present new excess mortality data in a commentary in The Conversation, revealing the opposite: COVID deaths are widely overlooked or misclassified, with racial, political, and geographical implications.


    January 25, 2023 ANDREW STOKES, DIELLE LUNDBERG; ELIZABETH WRIGLEY-FIELD, YEA-HUNG CHEN
    A version of this article originally published in The Conversation.

    Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020, a recurring topic of debate has been whether official COVID-19 death statistics in the U.S. accurately capture the fatalities associated with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

    Some politicians and a few public health practitioners have argued that COVID-19 deaths are overcounted. For instance, a January 2023 opinion piece in The Washington Post claims that COVID-19 death tallies include not only those who died from COVID-19 but those who died from other causes but happened to have COVID-19.

    Most scientists, however, have suggested that COVID-19 death tallies represent underestimates because they fail to capture COVID-19 deaths that were misclassified to other causes of death.

    We are part of a team of researchers at Boston University, University of Minnesota, University of California San Francisco and other institutions who have been tracking COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. A major goal for our team has been to assess whether the undercounting of COVID-19 deaths has occurred, and if so in which parts of the country.
    Examining excess deaths


    One way to examine the issue is to look at what population health researchers call excess mortality. It’s a measure which, in this case, compares the number of deaths that occurred during the pandemic to the number of deaths that would have been expected based on pre-pandemic trends.

    Excess mortality captures deaths that arose from COVID-19 directly or through indirect pathways such as patients avoiding hospitals during COVID-19 surges. While determining a cause of death can be a complex process, recording whether or not someone died is more straightforward. For this reason, calculations of excess deaths are viewed as the least biased estimate of the pandemic’s death toll.

    As a general rule of thumb – with some important caveats that we explain below – if there are more COVID-19 deaths than excess deaths, COVID-19 deaths were likely overestimated. If there are more excess deaths than COVID-19 deaths, COVID-19 deaths were likely underestimated.

    In a newly released study that has not yet been peer-reviewed, our team found that during the first two years of the pandemic – from March 2020 to February 2022 – there were between 996,869 and 1,278,540 excess deaths in the U.S. Among these, 866,187 were recognized as COVID-19 on death certificates. This means that there were between 130,682 and 412,353 more excess deaths than COVID-19 deaths. The gap between excess deaths and COVID-19 deaths was large in both the first and second years of the pandemic. This suggests that COVID-19 deaths were undercounted even after the pandemic’s chaotic early months.



    Major studies have also concluded that excess deaths exceeded COVID-19 deaths at the national level during the first two years of the pandemic. And preliminary analyses by our team have found that the gap between excess deaths and COVID-19 deaths has persisted into the third year of the pandemic. This suggests that COVID-19 deaths are still being undercounted.
    Making sense of the discrepancy

    Explaining the discrepancy between excess deaths and reported COVID-19 deaths is a more challenging task. But several threads of evidence support the idea that the difference largely reflects uncounted COVID-19 deaths.

    In a recent study, we found that excess deaths peaked immediately before spikes in reported COVID-19 deaths. This was the case even for excess deaths associated with causes like Alzheimer’s disease that are unlikely to rapidly change due to patients avoiding hospitals or other changes in behavior during the pandemic.

    This finding aligns with the observation that COVID-19 deaths may go unrecognized – and be misclassified to other causes of death – at the beginning of COVID-19 surges. At this time, COVID-19 testing may be less frequent in the community, among medical providers and among death investigators. If excess deaths were not caused by COVID-19, they would instead either remain relatively constant during COVID-19 surges or they would peak afterwards when hospitals were overcrowded and deaths may have resulted from health care interruptions.

    Excess deaths related to external causes of death such as drug overdose also increased during the pandemic. However, a preliminary study found that the scale of this increase was small relative to the overall increase in excess deaths. So deaths from external factors alone cannot explain the gap between excess and COVID-19 deaths.

    This evidence is worth considering in light of the prominent opinion piece in the Washington Post mentioned earlier, which suggests that the U.S.‘s tally of COVID-19 deaths is a substantial overcount. The author argues that in some hospitals, widespread COVID-19 testing has led patients with COVID-19 who died of other causes to still have COVID-19 included as a cause on their death certificate. There is a fundamental misunderstanding, however, in generalizing these hospital deaths to the entire country.

    One reason this overgeneralization is flawed is because hospital deaths are distinct from out-of-hospital deaths. In out-of-hospital settings, COVID-19 testing is often lacking and death investigators have less training and less information about the deceased. In fact, our research suggests that COVID-19 deaths are largely undercounted in out-of-hospital settings.

    Investigative reporting among coroners in rural areas has also revealed significant variability in out-of-hospital cause of death assignment. Some coroners have even gone on record to state that they do not include COVID-19 on death records if it contradicts their own political beliefs or if families wish for it to be omitted.

    The other problem with the overgeneralization is geographic. Our preliminary study demonstrates that excess deaths exceeded COVID-19 deaths in the vast majority of counties across the U.S. In particular, counties in the South, the Rocky Mountain states and rural areas had many more excess deaths than COVID-19 deaths. This suggests that COVID-19 deaths were likely undercounted in these areas.

    The idea that COVID-19 deaths are sometimes overreported is, to a very limited extent, supported by our analyses. A select number of large and medium-sized metro areas in New England and the mid-Atlantic states have had more COVID-19 deaths than excess deaths. But most of the country has not followed the patterns of this small group of counties.

    While it is possible that some deaths assigned to COVID-19 in New England and the mid-Atlantic states were not actually caused by COVID-19, other explanations are also possible. First, COVID-19 mitigation efforts could have prevented deaths in these areas via pathways unrelated to COVID-19, reducing excess deaths. For example, some people living in wealthy, urban counties had the privilege to work from home and avoid household crowding, which may have reduced their risk of dying from flu. Flu is typically responsible for as many as 50,000 deaths each year.

    In fact, the 2020-2021 flu season was minimal, likely because of social distancing. Another possible explanation is that later in the first two years of the pandemic, there may have also been fewer deaths than expected in some areas because some of the least healthy people in the area had already died of COVID-19. These alternative explanations imply that, even in those New England and mid-Atlantic counties where more COVID-19 deaths were recorded than estimated excess deaths, many COVID-19 deaths may still have occurred even as other kinds of deaths decreased.
    Why it matters

    Ultimately, figuring out how many people have died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is a major scientific undertaking that has significant political importance. Knowing how many people died and where these deaths occurred has widespread implications for informing how current pandemic response resources are allocated and for preparing for future public health emergencies.

    As a result, in our view, it is critical that the scientific community carefully reviews the rigor of the science behind the counting of COVID-19 deaths. Given the intense politicization of the pandemic, claims of overcounting or undercounting need to be made cautiously.

    Finally, research by our team and investigative reporting conducted in partnership with our team has found that the undercounting of COVID-19 deaths is significantly more common in Black, Hispanic and Native American communities as well as low-income areas. Claims that COVID-19 deaths have been overcounted undermine efforts to reconcile the undercounts in these communities and to ensure resources are being allocated to those most affected. For example, if a person does not have COVID-19 assigned as a cause on their death certificate, their family is ineligible for pandemic social programs such as the FEMA funeral assistance program.

    To understand where the U.S. public health system has succeeded and fallen short during the pandemic, a full accounting of deaths caused by COVID-19 is needed. More than that, families, friends and loved ones of those who have died so far also deserve to know the true toll that COVID-19 has taken.

    © Copyright Original Source


    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by seanD View Post

      That is just absolutely and demonstrably not true. That's outright delusional in fact, and I feel sorry for you if really believe that.
      Nice try, but the paranoid, conspiratorial mindset is that they would not carry it if it was legit. Reality vs Fantasy is not a symmetric relationship. The reality is that most legit, mainstream news organizations still abide by strive towards basic journalistic standards and ideals.
      My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

      If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

      This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post

        I'm not sure if you're native, or unreasonably optimistic. I think if you actually knew just how much social media and the mainstream news is filtering and suppressing information, you would be genuinely shocked.
        I keep an eye on most legit sources, even fox. I'm aware of the differences between them, and the utlra-conservative sources like Breitbart etc. What I said stands.
        My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

        If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

        This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

        Comment


        • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

          I keep an eye on most legit sources, even fox. I'm aware of the differences between them, and the utlra-conservative sources like Breitbart etc. What I said stands.
          In that case, you are willfully ignorant, which is worse than simply being uninformed.
          Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
          But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
          Than a fool in the eyes of God


          From "Fools Gold" by Petra

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post

            In that case, you are willfully ignorant, which is worse than simply being uninformed.
            No - it is being willfully ignorant to only or in a majority look at those ultra-conservative sources. Or to think they offer any sort of glimpse of reality. And it is also being willfully ignorant to think those sources are ever any more than accidentally on to something. They are works of propaganda and that is all they are - by definition. There are no journalistic standards or attempts to be objective on any front on those sites. It's not a matter of them being unable to avoid bias despite attempting to be objective, it is that they represent the most extreme bias possible, and unabashedly so.

            There is a huge difference between a journalist that has some bias, and a propagandist. Different points of view are not all relative MM. There is no symmetry here. There are in fact absolutes wrt what is and is not journalism.
            Last edited by oxmixmudd; 01-27-2023, 09:38 AM.
            My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

            If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

            This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

            Comment


            • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

              No - it is being willfully ignorant to only or in a majority look at those ultra-conservative sources. Or to think they offer any sort of glimpse of reality. And it is also being willfully ignorant to think those sources are ever any more than accidentally on to something. They are works of propaganda and that is all they are - by definition. There are no journalistic standards or attempts to be objective on any front on those sites. It's not a matter of them being unable to avoid bias despite attempting to be objective, it is that they represent the most extreme bias possible, and unabashedly so.

              There is a huge difference between a journalist that has some bias, and a propagandist. Different points of view are not all relative MM. There is no symmetry here. There are in fact absolutes wrt what is and is not journalism.
              "Ultra-conservative sources".

              That just goes to show the extreme bias through which you filter what information you're willing to accept.
              Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
              But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
              Than a fool in the eyes of God


              From "Fools Gold" by Petra

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post

                "Ultra-conservative sources".

                That just goes to show the extreme bias through which you filter what information you're willing to accept.
                That you don't recognize breitbart and others as ultra-conservative sources goes to show the extreme bias through which you filter what information you're willing to accept.

                But again, it's just not at all symmetric MM. 0 bias, though somewhat theoretical, typically lies somewhere between conservative and liberal. Whereas ultra-conservative, or even conservative, lies to the right of that, and liberal to the left. So the more right leaning the bias, the MORE biased it is. If I am to the left of you in your massive conserviative bias, I would be LESS biased than you, unless I crossed into the strongly liberal or farther. The reality is that on most topics I lean either slightly liberal or slightly conservative. But to you and many others here that appears as 'way left' or full on liberal. But that is just because you are so extremely biased to the right Almost all points of view are 'liberal' compared to your own. Maybe neo nazis and white nationalists might be farther right than you but not by a great deal outside of racial issues.

                If you put me, as I am, on a comperably left leaning website to TWEB's right, they will think I am bang on conservative, obnoxiously so. Some ultra-liberals wouldn't be able to tell much difference between the two of us in fact.

                There are absolutes here MM. You are way to the right. i'm middle of the road, taking on slightly liberal view on some things like racism or AGW, but more moderate or conservative views on things like fiscal and moral policies,crime, support for the police, etc.
                My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                Comment


                • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

                  Nice try, but the paranoid, conspiratorial mindset is that they would not carry it if it was legit. Reality vs Fantasy is not a symmetric relationship. The reality is that most legit, mainstream news organizations still abide by strive towards basic journalistic standards and ideals.
                  Just so we're clear, you believed the Hunter laptop story was Russian disinformation because you believed MSM sources. The rest of us didn't because we knew MSM sources were untrustworthy. I'm sure there are quite a few examples I could find of where you were duped (assuming you were unwittingly duped of course) by MSM sources and we weren't.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

                    That you don't recognize breitbart and others as ultra-conservative sources goes to show the extreme bias through which you filter what information you're willing to accept.

                    But again, it's just not at all symmetric MM. 0 bias, though somewhat theoretical, typically lies somewhere between conservative and liberal. Whereas ultra-conservative, or even conservative, lies to the right of that, and liberal to the left. So the more right leaning the bias, the MORE biased it is. If I am to the left of you in your massive conserviative bias, I would be LESS biased than you, unless I crossed into the strongly liberal or farther. The reality is that on most topics I lean either slightly liberal or slightly conservative. But to you and many others here that appears as 'way left' or full on liberal. But that is just because you are so extremely biased to the right Almost all points of view are 'liberal' compared to your own. Maybe neo nazis and white nationalists might be farther right than you but not by a great deal outside of racial issues.

                    If you put me, as I am, on a comperably left leaning website to TWEB's right, they will think I am bang on conservative, obnoxiously so. Some ultra-liberals wouldn't be able to tell much difference between the two of us in fact.

                    There are absolutes here MM. You are way to the right. i'm middle of the road, taking on slightly liberal view on some things like racism or AGW, but more moderate or conservative views on things like fiscal and moral policies,crime, support for the police, etc.
                    I'm not entirely sure what an "ultra-conservative source" even is, but considering that in this day and age, a devout Bible-believing Christian could easily be considered "ultra-conservative", the term doesn't really bother me.

                    And to be honest, your argument is starting to look suspiciously like the genetic fallacy, where you accept or reject information based on who reports it (or in some cases, based on who suppresses it) rather than any consideration for whether it's true or false.
                    Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                    But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                    Than a fool in the eyes of God


                    From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by seanD View Post

                      Just so we're clear, you believed the Hunter laptop story was Russian disinformation because you believed MSM sources. The rest of us didn't because we knew MSM sources were untrustworthy. I'm sure there are quite a few examples I could find of where you were duped (assuming you were unwittingly duped of course) by MSM sources and we weren't.
                      Look at how uncritically he swallowed the dubious findings of the January 6 Clown Show and was apparently shocked that the rest of us weren't willing to do the same.
                      Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                      But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                      Than a fool in the eyes of God


                      From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post

                        Look at how uncritically he swallowed the dubious findings of the January 6 Clown Show and was apparently shocked that the rest of us weren't willing to do the same.
                        I think he still believes it, like he probably still believes Trump was working for the Russians because MSM tells him it's true.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by seanD View Post



                          This is the ramblings of a fearmongering cultist. Covid is your religion, Juvenal. You're almost as bad as Ox, only much more nasty in your adherence.

                          Your smears are nothing new either. They might actually have meaning, and I might have even taken some offense if it wasn't your MO and what you do to everyone here that disagrees with you.

                          So get your fear on, bro. This thread is about free speech. ​​
                          That is one of the more absurd things you've come up with seanD. Over 1 million people dead from this disease in the US alone. And if we hadn't taken the steps we did to curtail spread and create vaccines as fast as possible it would have been much worse. That is something to be concerned about. As is the brain-dead anti-vax misinformation spread by many on this website. These are all things to be concerned about. Things to take the time to argue against, or encourage sanity in. When you watch friends caught up in this inanity die needless deaths because they won't get vaccinated because they listened to the same inanity parroted on this web site, it makes one's blood boil.
                          Last edited by oxmixmudd; 01-27-2023, 06:30 PM.
                          My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                          If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                          This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

                            That is one of the more absurd things you've come up with seanD. Over 1 million people dead from this disease in the US alone. And if we hadn't taken the steps we did to curtail spread and create vaccines as fast as possible it would have been much worse. That is something to be concerned about. As is the brain-dead anti-vax misinformation spread by many on this website. These are all things to be concerned about. Things to take the time to argue against, or encourage sanity in. When you watch friends caught up in this inanity die needless deaths because they won't get vaccinated because they listened to the same inanity parroted on this web site, it makes one's blood boil.
                            It's a year and a half old post?

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by seanD View Post

                              It's a year and a half old post?
                              seriously? Sometimes I hate the UI on this website. Well, a good laugh for all then
                              My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                              If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                              This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                              Comment


                              • Project Veritas later confronted the employee who blabbed about Pfizer mutating the virus, and boy did he have a public meltdown, complete with screaming, assault on numerous PV employees, and destruction of their property (smashing at least one Ipad), when he realized the date had been a setup and that he was very soon going to lose his job.

                                (warning, some language though I think most is bleeped or asterisk-censored(
                                https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas/...37936920633344

                                Comment

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