Official Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Fairview4Life]

Hang on, people are still trying to pretend covid deaths are being over counted? Hahahaha, are you drunk? There is no reason to believe that and large amounts of evidence (hi, all cause mortality numbers!) for the exact opposite.

All these extra people are dying more than in any other average year, even while people are staying home and not driving or working as much. Weird. Guess we can’t explain that.

[Kevin Willis]

Here's the problem with your theory. People sick enough to die from the flu usually find their way to the hospital...and once there they are swabbed for a flu. Flu swabs return quickly so quantifying the numbers of flu deaths is happening. Those that aren't sick enough to be a death's door are usually at home and will pull through. Sooo...there goes your theory.

But think of ALL of the people in the community asymptomatic or symptomatic with covid and they were just never offered a test because the criteria was too stringent or there just weren't enough tests available. There could be thousands more that have or had covid and the case number is probably even higher.

Not sure how your post addresses his. If a 95 year old with a weak heart gets the flu and then passes away a week later from a heart attack, do we say he died from the flu? No. But, if the same person tests positive with COVID, has no COVID symptoms, and passes away from a heart attack, that death is being counted in the COVID numbers.

How about an 85 year old stage 4 cancer patient? If someone in that situation dies while having the common cold, that death isn’t considered caused by the cold, it’s rightly considered caused by cancer. If that cancer patient gets COVID instead of the cold, why is it being counted as a COVID death?

Colorado changed the way they are counting COVID deaths from “died with COVID” to “died due to COVID” and the number of deaths dropped by almost 30%. Would it be that drastic everywhere? No idea, but given the average age of people currently considered COVID deaths is well into the 80s, and so many have other serious conditions, it seems a safe bet the numbers would be pretty similar in most places.

https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2020/05/16/colorado-changes-how-coronavirus-deaths-state-counted/5198485002/

For comparison sake, Canada (and every other country I’ve found the info on) follows the “died with COVID” reporting guidelines instead of only counting deaths that were actually caused by COVID

If you are driving along a road and some careless driver crashes into you causing your car to be on the edge of a cliff. Then someone completely different comes and knocks you off the cliff to your death who is to blame? The person that knocked you off the cliff or the person that put you on the cliff in the first place? What you're saying is the person that put you on the cliff in the first place should be blamed. What others are saying is if the second person didn't knock you over you would still be alive.

Yes you can say almost nobody is dying directly from COVID, the exact cause of death is heart failure or lung collapse or one of the many other causes. You can also say nobody is dying from AIDS as well, the weakened immune system allows other illnesses to take over. It's all semantics and word definitions being used to fit an agenda, the truth is the number of deaths this year globally is very high in the countries with a COVID virus spread. That's not refutable. Whether COVID is the car that puts you on the cliff for a heart attack to put you over OR if diabetes put you on the cliff and COVID was the one that pushed you over is irrelevant. Don't get sucked into people who parse things into categories to get what they want and go with this, if COVID wasn't around and only the flu was here would there still be this number of deaths. If you look at logically you know the answer.

[rapswestofthe6]

CESB is open tomorrow. Students go and get your money, it's going to be tough to find a job.

Seems like most people qualify for CERB anyways. My brother is a business owner and one of his employee's asked to be layed off so he could go on CERB. My brother explained that he needed him and couldn't fire him. The kid phoned the very next day and said he couldn't come in for 14 days because he suspected he had Covid.

[jaymeister15]

If you are driving along a road and some careless driver crashes into you causing your car to be on the edge of a cliff. Then someone completely different comes and knocks you off the cliff to your death who is to blame? The person that knocked you off the cliff or the person that put you on the cliff in the first place? What you're saying is the person that put you on the cliff in the first place should be blamed. What others are saying is if the second person didn't knock you over you would still be alive.

Yes you can say almost nobody is dying directly from COVID, the exact cause of death is heart failure or lung collapse or one of the many other causes. You can also say nobody is dying from AIDS as well, the weakened immune system allows other illnesses to take over. It's all semantics and word definitions being used to fit an agenda, the truth is the number of deaths this year globally is very high in the countries with a COVID virus spread. That's not refutable. Whether COVID is the car that puts you on the cliff for a heart attack to put you over OR if diabetes put you on the cliff and COVID was the one that pushed you over is irrelevant. Don't get sucked into people who parse things into categories to get what they want and go with this, if COVID wasn't around and only the flu was here would there still be this number of deaths. If you look at logically you know the answer.

That analogy doesn’t fit. If you want to compare it to a car accident it, the better analogy would be if you got in a fender bender yesterday with no ill affects, and then got hit by a bus while crossing the street today. Was the fender bender or bus the cause of death?

If someone gets corona and that leads to lung failure, that is definitely a death caused by corona, no issue there. I’m not even disputing the cases where getting corona”pushes someone over the edge”. The issue is if someone tests positive for corona, is completely asympomatic, and then passes away from an entirely unrelated cause, it is being counted in the corona stats.

To take it to an extreme, if I tested positive for coronavirus yesterday and then fell off my balcony today, my death would be counted as a coronavirus death in Ontario. Obviously, that specific situation is extremely unlikely, but it does demonstrate the issue with how they are currently reporting the cases.

[jaymeister15]

Hang on, people are still trying to pretend covid deaths are being over counted? Hahahaha, are you drunk? There is no reason to believe that and large amounts of evidence (hi, all cause mortality numbers!) for the exact opposite.

All these extra people are dying more than in any other average year, even while people are staying home and not driving or working as much. Weird. Guess we can’t explain that.

Nobody is arguing that coronavirus isn’t causing any deaths. It obviously is, but that doesn’t mean that the way deaths are being reported is completely accurate. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

From Ontario’s daily report:

Deaths are included whether or not COVID-19 was determined to be a contributing or underlying cause of death as indicated in the iPHIS field Type of Death.

This isn’t some controversial hot take. It’s been an issue since this whole thing started, and it’s right there in black and white. If someone had it when they died, it is being counted as a coronavirus death, whether or not Coronavirus was actually the cause of death. How many of those deaths were caused by something else is anyone’s guess since they don’t disclose the actual cause of death for each individual. But, considering 1308 of the deaths in Ontario have been people over the age of 80, it’s a pretty safe assumption that some of them were caused by something completely unrelated to having corona.


Again, Colorado’s number of deaths reported decreased by 25+% when they changed from counting anyone that died with corona to the more accurate died due to corona. You really don’t think there would be a decrease in Ontario’s number if they did the same thing?

[Fairview4Life]

Hang on, people are still trying to pretend covid deaths are being over counted? Hahahaha, are you drunk? There is no reason to believe that and large amounts of evidence (hi, all cause mortality numbers!) for the exact opposite.

All these extra people are dying more than in any other average year, even while people are staying home and not driving or working as much. Weird. Guess we can’t explain that.

Nobody is arguing that coronavirus isn’t causing any deaths. It obviously is, but that doesn’t mean that the way deaths are being reported is completely accurate. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

From Ontario’s daily report:

Deaths are included whether or not COVID-19 was determined to be a contributing or underlying cause of death as indicated in the iPHIS field Type of Death.

This isn’t some controversial hot take. It’s been an issue since this whole thing started, and it’s right there in black and white. If someone had it when they died, it is being counted as a coronavirus death, whether or not Coronavirus was actually the cause of death. How many of those deaths were caused by something else is anyone’s guess since they don’t disclose the actual cause of death for each individual. But, considering 1308 of the deaths in Ontario have been people over the age of 80, it’s a pretty safe assumption that some of them were caused by something completely unrelated to having corona.


Again, Colorado’s number of deaths reported decreased by 25+% when they changed from counting anyone that died with corona to the more accurate died due to corona. You really don’t think there would be a decrease in Ontario’s number if they did the same thing?

Colorado's number of covid deaths they are reporting as covid deaths decreased by 25% because of how they decided to classify them. Unfortunately, that didn't bring the dead people back to life. How dead people get classified and counted during a pandemic generally takes years to figure out. The dead people are still dead. If people aren't going to a hospital because they are afraid of getting sick, or if an EMT isn't resuscitating someone because they might have a highly infectious virus, is that a covid death? No? Does it actually matter? What policy decisions should actually be changed because of how anyone reports on covid deaths?

Look at all cause mortality numbers. A lot more people are dying than usual. Significant numbers of people, and that is after we convinced everyone to stay home (reducing other illnesses and things like car crashes). If all you want to count is like "perfectly healthy 35 year old got covid and died after receiving immediate and exceptional care at the hospital", you are missing the forest for the trees.

[Kevin Willis]

If you are driving along a road and some careless driver crashes into you causing your car to be on the edge of a cliff. Then someone completely different comes and knocks you off the cliff to your death who is to blame? The person that knocked you off the cliff or the person that put you on the cliff in the first place? What you're saying is the person that put you on the cliff in the first place should be blamed. What others are saying is if the second person didn't knock you over you would still be alive.

Yes you can say almost nobody is dying directly from COVID, the exact cause of death is heart failure or lung collapse or one of the many other causes. You can also say nobody is dying from AIDS as well, the weakened immune system allows other illnesses to take over. It's all semantics and word definitions being used to fit an agenda, the truth is the number of deaths this year globally is very high in the countries with a COVID virus spread. That's not refutable. Whether COVID is the car that puts you on the cliff for a heart attack to put you over OR if diabetes put you on the cliff and COVID was the one that pushed you over is irrelevant. Don't get sucked into people who parse things into categories to get what they want and go with this, if COVID wasn't around and only the flu was here would there still be this number of deaths. If you look at logically you know the answer.

That analogy doesn’t fit. If you want to compare it to a car accident it, the better analogy would be if you got in a fender bender yesterday with no ill affects, and then got hit by a bus while crossing the street today. Was the fender bender or bus the cause of death?

If someone gets corona and that leads to lung failure, that is definitely a death caused by corona, no issue there. I’m not even disputing the cases where getting corona”pushes someone over the edge”. The issue is if someone tests positive for corona, is completely asympomatic, and passes away from an entirely unrelated cause, it is being counted in the corona stats.

If you understand the intent of the analogy then it's good enough. The quality of analogies will vary depending on the audience and their background.

You give a good example and I can see your point. The only answer I have to that is we don't know enough about the virus to know what asymptomatic means. No symptoms does not mean no damage and to be safe it would be better to consider it. Rudy Gobert was largely asymptomatic and he lost the ability to smell or taste. Did it impact his brain? His receptors? Would it cause him to shorten his lifespan? The only have answer I have is being asymptomatic is a bookmark for future research both medically and statistically.

[mtcan]

Hang on, people are still trying to pretend covid deaths are being over counted? Hahahaha, are you drunk? There is no reason to believe that and large amounts of evidence (hi, all cause mortality numbers!) for the exact opposite.

All these extra people are dying more than in any other average year, even while people are staying home and not driving or working as much. Weird. Guess we can’t explain that.

Nobody is arguing that coronavirus isn’t causing any deaths. It obviously is, but that doesn’t mean that the way deaths are being reported is completely accurate. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

From Ontario’s daily report:

Deaths are included whether or not COVID-19 was determined to be a contributing or underlying cause of death as indicated in the iPHIS field Type of Death.

This isn’t some controversial hot take. It’s been an issue since this whole thing started, and it’s right there in black and white. If someone had it when they died, it is being counted as a coronavirus death, whether or not Coronavirus was actually the cause of death. How many of those deaths were caused by something else is anyone’s guess since they don’t disclose the actual cause of death for each individual. But, considering 1308 of the deaths in Ontario have been people over the age of 80, it’s a pretty safe assumption that some of them were caused by something completely unrelated to having corona.


Again, Colorado’s number of deaths reported decreased by 25+% when they changed from counting anyone that died with corona to the more accurate died due to corona. You really don’t think there would be a decrease in Ontario’s number if they did the same thing?

At what point do you classify a death as strictly a covid-19 death? Are you referring to if the patient got covid-19 and had a heart attack and died from that? Or a stroke? Or a pulmonary embolism? Or Kawasaki's disease-like inflammatory syndrome in children?

So what is it that you would consider strictly a countable death from coronavirus? What is the criteria? Does anyone even know what counts as a covid-19 death and nothing else? If you think coronavirus is strictly a respiratory tract infection...you are wrong. There are so many down-stream effects of having the virus in your body that counting strictly the number of deaths in which patients weren't able to breathe anymore...well...that's how we knew of the disease 3 months ago. You're already out of date in terms of understanding what this virus is and what it can do.

Yes...the virus attacks the lungs and makes it hard to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. BUT...it also weakens the lungs and causes fluid build up which can lead to pneumonia. BUT...it also triggers an immune response and causes the body's immune system to go haywire as what's known as a cytokine storm and the hyperinflammation caused by this can be fatal. BUT...it also seems to have an effect on your blood's coagulability, which is leading to blood clots forming all over your body resulting in heart attacks, strokes (especially unusual in young patients) and clots in lungs (which can be fatal) and legs (that has led to amputation). BUT...it also seems to trigger rare inflammatory syndromes in young children similar to Kawasaki's disease and has been linked to several deaths in NYC alone.

So ya...you should count the number deaths caused by covid-19 and a patient's lungs being damaged to the point where they cannot breathe...but you need to also consider what else can happen to the body in a patient with coronavirus in their body. You can't distinguish covid-19 deaths as just the respiratory-related deaths and ignore the deaths in patients with coronavirus but died due to pneumonia, sepsis due to said pneumonia, heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism, multi-organ failure due to cytokine storm and Kawaski's disease.

These are all the ways covid-19 can kill...it isn't just a respiratory disease any more. And years from now when more autopsy data is available...you will probably see even more deaths attributed to covid-19. That's the thing with a virus that's considered "novel"...we are still playing catch up in terms of knowing exactly how it works and all that it can do.

Watch on YouTube

[ItsDanger]

I'll say this regarding the death statistic accuracy, proving your cause of death from SARS CoV 2 would be difficult given comorbidities. Let alone, litigating a place of business for contracting it on their premises. The latter will certainly go nowhere.

[hankscorpioLA]

Hang on, people are still trying to pretend covid deaths are being over counted? Hahahaha, are you drunk? There is no reason to believe that and large amounts of evidence (hi, all cause mortality numbers!) for the exact opposite.

All these extra people are dying more than in any other average year, even while people are staying home and not driving or working as much. Weird. Guess we can’t explain that.

Nobody is arguing that coronavirus isn’t causing any deaths. It obviously is, but that doesn’t mean that the way deaths are being reported is completely accurate. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

From Ontario’s daily report:

Deaths are included whether or not COVID-19 was determined to be a contributing or underlying cause of death as indicated in the iPHIS field Type of Death.

This isn’t some controversial hot take. It’s been an issue since this whole thing started, and it’s right there in black and white. If someone had it when they died, it is being counted as a coronavirus death, whether or not Coronavirus was actually the cause of death. How many of those deaths were caused by something else is anyone’s guess since they don’t disclose the actual cause of death for each individual. But, considering 1308 of the deaths in Ontario have been people over the age of 80, it’s a pretty safe assumption that some of them were caused by something completely unrelated to having corona.


Again, Colorado’s number of deaths reported decreased by 25+% when they changed from counting anyone that died with corona to the more accurate died due to corona. You really don’t think there would be a decrease in Ontario’s number if they did the same thing?

In reality, there are issues in both directions. On the one hand, you have the issue of determining if a person who dies with COVID did so due to COVID or due to an unrelated factor. On the other, you have people who died with COVID but were never tested or diagnosed and so aren't being counted.

For the US, at least, the CDC offers another way to think about this, which is to look at the change in deaths from all causes.

Keep in mind that this data is not up to date as it can take 1-8 weeks for a death to be officially recorded.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID_excess_mort_05072020/WeeklyExcessDeaths?:embed=y&:jsdebug=y&:toolbar=n&:tabs=n&:display_count=n&:origin=

[Kevin Willis]

For those wondering how CERB impacts mortgages.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/people-receiving-cerb-know-mortgage-100000742.html

[BigLeagueChew]

Rebekah Jones said in an email to the USA TODAY Network that she single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the COVID-19 situation was in real time.

Then, she was dismissed.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/19/florida-covid-19-coronavirus-data-researcher-out-state-reopens/5218897002/

[KrazyP]

CESB is open tomorrow. Students go and get your money, it's going to be tough to find a job.

Seems like most people qualify for CERB anyways. My brother is a business owner and one of his employee's asked to be layed off so he could go on CERB. My brother explained that he needed him and couldn't fire him. The kid phoned the very next day and said he couldn't come in for 14 days because he suspected he had Covid.

CERB/CESB shouldnt be handed it out as free cash. It would make more sense as a loan with no interest for 5 years.

[Salted Meat]

CESB is open tomorrow. Students go and get your money, it's going to be tough to find a job.

Seems like most people qualify for CERB anyways. My brother is a business owner and one of his employee's asked to be layed off so he could go on CERB. My brother explained that he needed him and couldn't fire him. The kid phoned the very next day and said he couldn't come in for 14 days because he suspected he had Covid.

CERB/CESB shouldnt be handed it out as free cash. It would make more sense as a loan with no interest for 5 years.

I disagree. The CERB is an extension of EI, which we all pay into. This is just people getting their money back.

[Courtside]

Seems like most people qualify for CERB anyways. My brother is a business owner and one of his employee's asked to be layed off so he could go on CERB. My brother explained that he needed him and couldn't fire him. The kid phoned the very next day and said he couldn't come in for 14 days because he suspected he had Covid.

CERB/CESB shouldnt be handed it out as free cash. It would make more sense as a loan with no interest for 5 years.

I disagree. The CERB is an extension of EI, which we all pay into. This is just people getting their money back.

Yes. It's something everyone pays into and so everyone - if there is a genuine need - should have access. That's also why it needs to be a temporary bridge and not become a gateway to some sort of universal basic income, as some are calling for. I've heard first hand stories of households that now have more money coming in every month than they did before (family and friends included), which is something that also needs to be addressed if this continues for an extended period of time.

[beanbag]

CESB is open tomorrow. Students go and get your money, it's going to be tough to find a job.

Seems like most people qualify for CERB anyways. My brother is a business owner and one of his employee's asked to be layed off so he could go on CERB. My brother explained that he needed him and couldn't fire him. The kid phoned the very next day and said he couldn't come in for 14 days because he suspected he had Covid.

CERB/CESB shouldnt be handed it out as free cash. It would make more sense as a loan with no interest for 5 years.

You have a problem with the citizens, who have paid into this fund through their taxes for exactly such occasions, getting some of that money back?

[beanbag]

CERB/CESB shouldnt be handed it out as free cash. It would make more sense as a loan with no interest for 5 years.

I disagree. The CERB is an extension of EI, which we all pay into. This is just people getting their money back.

Yes. It's something everyone pays into and so everyone - if there is a genuine need - should have access. That's also why it needs to be a temporary bridge and not become a gateway to some sort of universal basic income, as some are calling for. I've heard first hand stories of households that now have more money coming in every month than they did before (family and friends included), which is something that also needs to be addressed if this continues for an extended period of time.

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

[BigBoss23]

I disagree. The CERB is an extension of EI, which we all pay into. This is just people getting their money back.

Yes. It's something everyone pays into and so everyone - if there is a genuine need - should have access. That's also why it needs to be a temporary bridge and not become a gateway to some sort of universal basic income, as some are calling for. I've heard first hand stories of households that now have more money coming in every month than they did before (family and friends included), which is something that also needs to be addressed if this continues for an extended period of time.

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

One of the loopholes who benefit from CERB being an increase to what they would normally make in a month is part time workers who made over 5K in the last 12 months (see P/T mall employees). This was meant to be a one size fits all subsidy. Part time workers are HUGE beneficiaries in this case.

[Westside Gunn]

I disagree. The CERB is an extension of EI, which we all pay into. This is just people getting their money back.

Yes. It's something everyone pays into and so everyone - if there is a genuine need - should have access. That's also why it needs to be a temporary bridge and not become a gateway to some sort of universal basic income, as some are calling for. I've heard first hand stories of households that now have more money coming in every month than they did before (family and friends included), which is something that also needs to be addressed if this continues for an extended period of time.

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

As a family, combined income.

Husband, wife, the 15 year old, and the 18 year old. 8 grand. How the 15 year old qualifies for the max is beyond me.

They will be coming back hard on people taking advantage of the system.

[beanbag]

Yes. It's something everyone pays into and so everyone - if there is a genuine need - should have access. That's also why it needs to be a temporary bridge and not become a gateway to some sort of universal basic income, as some are calling for. I've heard first hand stories of households that now have more money coming in every month than they did before (family and friends included), which is something that also needs to be addressed if this continues for an extended period of time.

The way I see it, if an individual is now making $2000 a month and that is an INCREASE on what they were making before, the only issue is why we as a society allow some of our citizens to be compensated so poorly to begin with.

One of the loopholes who benefit from CERB being an increase to what they would normally make in a month is part time workers who made over 5K in the last 12 months (see P/T mall employees). This was meant to be a one size fits all subsidy. Part time workers are HUGE beneficiaries in this case.

Good.