COVID deaths still declining

[Stoic]

The CDC has a history of overcounting deaths, even to diseases that we know a lot about, like the flu.

Just look at the 2017-2018 flu season. The CDC, etc., claimed there were 80,000 flu deaths, with all sorts of headlines about record number of flu deaths. It was only a good year later that they revised that number down. Down to 52,000. A decrease of 35%. That's absolutely massive, and in any other profession being off on your numbers by that large a margin would have you fired, or at least be questioned on your capabilities.

Yeah, that would be horrible, IF the information available at the time was sufficient to support a more accurate estimate.

Now add that history of being absurdly off in estimates and add in at least a half a year if not a year of a virus that we knew very little about and had little testing for

The difference with COVID is that the CDC is notified of any deaths where COVID is listed as a cause of death on the death certificate. That's not the case with the flu.

[Mountain Man]

Your comments also don't seem to address the fact that the excess deaths counts have the same spikes at the same times as the CDC was reporting covid deaths of a similar magnitude. If just over a million more Americans than usual have died in the last couple of years, and the CDC has received notifications of just under a million covid deaths in the last couple of years, and if the spikes in covid deaths match to spikes in excess deaths, that would seem to indicate that they're getting it right.

You mean the same time the CDC was grossly exaggerating the actual number of China flu deaths, they were also adding that total to the "excess deaths" tracker?

Think really hard about this one and see if you can figure out the flaw in your argument.

[Stoic]

You mean the same time the CDC was grossly exaggerating the actual number of China flu deaths, they were also adding that total to the "excess deaths" tracker?

Think really hard about this one and see if you can figure out the flaw in your argument.

You don't seem to understand how excess deaths are measured.

[Mountain Man]

You don't seem to understand how excess deaths are measured.

I know how it's measured. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the phrase "garbage in; garbage out".

[Stoic]

I know how it's measured. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the phrase "garbage in; garbage out".

They have a pretty good count of how many people die every year. No garbage.

[Starlight]

They have a pretty good count of how many people die every year. No garbage.

"But how can the CDC be trusted to count corpses? They might count the same corpse a million times!" -MM probably.

[Mountain Man]

They have a pretty good count of how many people die every year. No garbage.

If you say so.

One thing we learned during the pandemic is that the CDC is not a particularly reliable organization.

[Bill the Cat]

When Southern Californians in a major city basically stop wearing masks, you know the pandemic is coming to a close...

[Stoic]

If you say so.

One thing we learned during the pandemic is that the CDC is not a particularly reliable organization.

What we've learned is that Democrats have a much higher opinion of the CDC than Republicans do.

[oxmixmudd]

You don't seem to understand how excess deaths are measured.

Though it has been explained to him multiple times ...

[Mountain Man]

What we've learned is that Democrats have a much higher opinion of the CDC than Republicans do.

Because Democrats and the CDC have the same political agenda. The CDC let the mask slip some years ago when they put out gun control propaganda under the guise of a "scientific study" that played fast and loose with the data the same way we saw them do during the pandemic.

[Stoic]

Because Democrats and the CDC have the same political agenda.

Yeah. Have fewer people die.

[Mountain Man]

Yeah. Have fewer people die.

If that were true then they would tell us the truth about the vaccines instead of hiding the data with the excuse that it could be "misinterpreted".

[Stoic]

If that were true then they would tell us the truth about the vaccines instead of hiding the data with the excuse that it could be "misinterpreted".

I think their fears are well justified, given how hard you and your compadres have worked to misinterpret data so far.

[Starlight]

I think in New Zealand we're way too generous with the covid death counts - e.g. earlier this week there was a day when 5 people died with covid (which is about the highest it gets here), and looking through the information that was released about the cases it was abundantly clear all 5 had died of other causes and had happened to die with covid and not of covid. This over-generous reporting of covid deaths has been an issue here since the start of the pandemic, when someone was reported as having died of 'covid' over a month after recovering from covid.

The New Zealand government announced today it's addressing this issue, and will now report people dying of covid, not those who happen to die while happening to have covid.

It's applied this metric to past covid deaths, and so changed the covid death count from 65 to 34. So negative 31 covid deaths today, since there were no additional covid deaths today (in the middle of the omicron outbreak).

The comparison between highly-vaccinated NZ and unvaccinated Hong Kong remains stark, with similar case numbers but massively different death rates:

CovidCases10March.JPG

CovidDeaths10March.JPG