Living with certain health issues is still living. Clearly those alone were not enough to kill the people.

When such people contract Covid19 and die, the death is a result of the combination of the two.

To say that they did not die as a result of - FROM - contracting Covid19 is just plain false. They were living with the conditions prior to.

:roll:

:up:

The appropriate analogy is smoking. Not many people die of smoking - quite a lot of smokers die of lung cancer. Do not imagine that smoking is harmless though. Likewise covid - it's early days - but there are hints that it may do permanent damage to the lungs and other organs in significant numbers of survivors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53356593

The long term effects are not well known yet, and definitely something to be concerned about.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351

However, healthy practise like exercising and eating well, usually counts for something in that type of situation.

I do not know that, and neither do you. Fact is, Corona alone is killing very few people. Incidentally, the Spanish flue killed especially young and healthy people (apparently caused of overreaction in the immune system), so it is more like opposite situation of Corona. — Derukugi

Yes, apparently Spanish Flu killed people of all ages, and according to some accounts most especially those younger than 5 those between 20 and 40 and over 65. It does seem highly likely though that those with co-morbitities would have been especially vulnerable. There are probably no reliable statistics on the relative numbers of deaths from Spanish Flu among those with co-morbities versus those without.

In any case, it's not clear what point you are trying to make with this. The latest estimates are that Covid kills 6 times as many as the seasonal flu.

"Fauci and other public health experts have put the COVID-19 death rate at about 0.6% -- six times that of a typical flu season -- which is the latest CDC projection."

From here.

Also this figure is the death rate among those infected; if Covid kills six times more of those infected than the seasonal flu (on average obviously) does; this does not take into account the apparently much greater infectiousness of the Coronavirus. Have we ever seen, apart from the Spanish Flu, medical systems overwhelmed by seasonal flu deaths and people, out of necessity, being buried in mass graves?

Willfully negligent mass murder? :shade:

FOX Noise: fu45 to Bob Woodward, 2.7.20

https://youtu.be/5Z8nV10dFcw

Mayor Trump's advisors:
There's a fire raging towards us and it might destroy our town.

Mayor Trump:
That's terrible! But I love my town and I don't want to scare the people. So we should downplay the fire. Tell them to stay calm, it will go away.

Later...

Townspeople:
A fire burned through our town and, devastatingly, we lost people and property. Shouldn't we have taken a precautionary approach to the fire?

Mayor Trump:
Nobody could have predicted something like this.

--

From the New England Complex Systems Institute, January 26, 2020 - on Coronavirus:

Conclusion: Standard individual-scale policy approaches such as isolation, contact tracing and monitoring are rapidly (computationally) overwhelmed in the face of mass infection, and thus also cannot be relied upon to stop a pandemic. Multiscale population approaches including drastically pruning contact networks using collective boundaries and social behavior change, and community self-monitoring, are essential.

Together, these observations lead to the necessity of a precautionary approach to current and potential pandemic outbreaks that must include constraining mobility patterns in the early stages of an outbreak, especially when little is known about the true parameters of the pathogen.

It will cost something to reduce mobility in the short term, but to fail do so will eventually cost everything—if not from this event, then one in the future. Outbreaks are inevitable, but an appropriately precautionary response can mitigate systemic risk to the globe at large. But policy- and decision-makers must act swiftly and avoid the fallacy that to have an appropriate respect for uncertainty in the face of possible irreversible catastrophe amounts to "paranoia," or the converse a belief that nothing can be done. — Joseph Norman, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Systemic risk of pandemic via novel pathogens – Coronavirus: A note, New England Complex Systems Institute (January 26, 2020).

:up:

What you seem to be implying is that COVID-19 is an epiphenomenon of sorts, that it happens to accompany these deaths but does not actively play a role in them. This is unsubstantiated. COVID-19 does in fact play a causal role in these deaths.

That is something you`d have to show in each individual case, and even than it is not clear.
Fact is, for the young and health, Corona is a practically non-existant danger. For the old and healthy, it is a small danger. For the obese, diabetic, supersized-junkburger and dietcoke consuming crowds waddling through Walmart it is a very big danger. They already should take some responsibility for their health, Corona just amplifies that.

My prediction stands: By and large, general population health will be the biggest factor.

For the obese, diabetic, supersized-junkburger and dietcoke consuming crowds waddling through Walmart it is a very big danger. They already should take some responsibility for their health, Corona just amplifies that. — Derukugi

In other words, fat people deserve to die.

k.

The statistics for COVID coming from various countries are not directly comparable because collection and reporting of data depend on the cooperation of the population, the facilities, and the politicians.

However, charts coming from Western Europe a coarser indicator of mostly reliable data suggest that COVID is here to stay for generations, just as many other viruses that regularly afflict mankind.

One can hope that some protective measures can be discovered but that has not worked for other corona viruses like SARS. Then again, we've never had a president before who could will prevention and cure to any disease just prior to election.

That is something you`d have to show in each individual case, and even than it is not clear. — Derukugi

It is, in the death certificate, filled out by a health professional. I'm sure if someone presented you with statistics for other causes of death, you would accept them at face value, as you no doubt do with "the flu" when you make fallacious comparisons to it. The reality is that if coronavirus is medically deemed to be a contributing factor to a person's demise, then they record it on the death certificate. The medical community relies on this type of data all the time. So if the general totality of trained medical personnel find these numbers compelling, you should probably assume they are right and accept it because you personally have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Fact is, for the young and health, Corona is a practically non-existant danger. — Derukugi

This is a deeply ignorant and dangerous statement. For one, you seem to be one of these people who is only looking at death numbers and thinking that is all that matters. If you at some point become inclined to be informed about the disease and make good decisions about it, you need to look much further than that. The long term effects of the disease remain completely unknown and will for years. Current information suggests that people of all ages are showing long-lasting effects including cardiovascular problems, chronic fatigue, and diminished brain function. Many of these are people who had only mild or moderate symptoms from the virus itself. Previous physical health and age are similarly not good indicators as these effects are being seen in people of all ages and regardless of prior physical health or underlying conditions. A study in Germany has shown that among ALL hospitalized cases (regardless of age) the rate of long-term heart problems may be as high as 80%. That means young, healthy people are getting this and ending up with heart problems that are likely to dramatically shorten their life expectancy.

What you have said is not based on the evidence surrounding this disease. It is based on a fantasy that you are choosing to believe, most likely for purely political reasons. Hopefully, the majority of the damage this does when it is all said and done will be to the selfish people who won't listen to reality and are currently responsible for extending the duration and severity of this outbreak. Currently, you sound like one of those people.

The statistics for COVID coming from various countries are not directly comparable because collection and reporting of data depend on the cooperation of the population, the facilities, and the politicians. — magritte

True, official statistics underestimates COVID mortality almost everywhere, for various reasons (not necessarily nefarious), but the extent of undercounting varies widely. However, in retrospect we can always look at excess mortality (difference between this year's deaths from all causes and the average number over the same period in the last several years) and get a measure of what's going on. It's a crude measure, but when the excess is pronounced, it's hard to argue with. (Though some try: Russian authorities threw a screaming fit when several prominent news organizations published their analyses based on official mortality data that showed that Russian COVID statistics were way off.)

Excess mortality in 24 European countries by week

Masks are making my face itch and I'm tired of it. So I am hoping for a vaccine soon enough.

a vaccine for itching?

covid [...] there are hints that it may do permanent damage to the lungs and other organs in significant numbers of survivors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53356593 — unenlightened

Most early deaths of the elderly were probably due to COVID followed by a secondary bacterial infection which drew strong immune response from the patients' system which killed damaged and too many undamaged lung cells. Younger, much more active people have greater lung capacity to work with, helping to outlast the infection.

I don't think they forge them either. You don't need to forge anything to get true statistics that can spin to what you like. The overall number of cases in the UK is going down in general, BUT since easing the lockdown there's obviously been an uptick in the growth of new cases since the lockdowns were eased. When it was the apocalypse the same newspapers alternatively underplayed it or mined coronavirus for doomy clickbait while presenting it as a force of nature, now it's not the apocalypse everything is fine. — fdrake

Guess we're in for another round of mismanagement and downplaying.

Guess we're in for another round of mismanagement and downplaying. — fdrake

To see the future, compare the GB chart to France which is perhaps a month ahead in development.

Successfully brainwashed minions:

You sound a bit judgy. Name-calling like this has been going on forever. It just encourages tribalism

They're so devoted to their tribe that they're willing to kill and die for it, apparently.

I suppose there be somewhat of a legitimate basis for the Trumpian anti-maskers, being:

A) They’re incapable of thinking for themselves.

B) They’re mouth breathers.

They’re mouth breathers — praxis

Not a good thing to be without a mask.

Here the central bank upped it economic forecast of annual GDP growth from -7% to only -4.9%. Yet that still is a horrific plunge and as the global economy crashes, I think it's hilarious that anybody would be talking about a V-shaped recovery. (Or actually, nobody is talking about a V-shaped recovery...)

The US GDP is estimated to drop something like -3%, but let's see what the reality will be. As Fauci has said (if I remember correctly) that the likely timetable with vaccines etc. would put us in control of the pandemic in middle or late 2021, then you are bound really to have the economy simply to fall to a lower level and then start climbing back.

Far too many people will have lost their jobs for the economy and demand to somehow bounce back up.

:up:

My dear god man, will we survive these people? Will we? Wait until Trump's Storm Troopers hit the streets. These people rally behind violence, they are the very worst of America. We get what we deserve, the Left retreated into the Ivory Tower over the last fifty years. This allowed the Right to seize the culture. We have not hit bottom yet, hold on everybody because the fireworks are just about to begin.

These people rally behind violence, they are the very worst of America. — JerseyFlight

No, they’re just easily lead, for whatever reason. I doubt they can be lead to significant violence by the orange fool. His weird charisma isn’t nearly strong enough.

This allowed the Right to seize the culture. — JerseyFlight

It allowed the Right, or rather capital, to gain power. Practically all of us are caught in the trap of capitalist culture though, I agree.

I doubt they can be lead to significant violence by the orange fool. — praxis

You doubt this? They have already killed people.

So has the Left, in the same manner.

So has the Left, in the same manner. — praxis

What? You are sore mistaken about the nature of Left violence. Vast research has been done on authoritarian personalities. The Left favors democracy, the right, monarchy and a violent system of law. Do some research, you will be surprised.