Discussion of data from CDC and an article featured in a comment by robc.
It’s important to note that “COVID” deaths below are deaths “of” and “with” COVID-19. I’m not 100% certain if that is simply evidence of infection, or with symptoms. It might be logical to presume that since they use the terminology “COVID,” which means “Coronavirus Disease,” that they mean deaths of people who show signs of disease, not simply infection, but I wouldn’t bank on it. In any case, they are including deaths both caused by, and simply adjacent to, SARS-CoV-2 infection as measured by whatever methods they used (probably the PCR test, as implied/asserted by the original author). Which is fine, as long as we know what rules we’re playing by. Just know that these data don’t do a good job of determining whether COVID was causative in the death.
First, let’s look at the data from the article, formatted for this post:
Here is the first data table. I am copying the data directly from the article, and have not verified that it matches the CDC data. The note that the source is CDC is the original author’s, not mine.
| US Mortality 2020 (Source: CDC) | ||||
| Total Deaths | COVID-19 Deaths | |||
| Number | % of Total | Number | % of Total | |
| Total | 3,358,814 | 100.00% | 377,883 | 100.00% |
| Age Group, Years | ||||
| <1 | 19,146 | 0.57% | 43 | 0.01% |
| 1-4 | 3,469 | 0.10% | 24 | 0.01% |
| 5-14 | 5,556 | 0.17% | 67 | 0.02% |
| 15-24 | 35,470 | 1.06% | 587 | 0.16% |
| 25-34 | 72,678 | 2.16% | 2,527 | 0.67% |
| 35-44 | 103,389 | 3.08% | 6,617 | 1.75% |
| 45-54 | 189,397 | 5.64% | 17,905 | 4.74% |
| 55-64 | 436,886 | 13.01% | 44,631 | 11.81% |
| 65-74 | 669,316 | 19.93% | 80,617 | 21.33% |
| 75-84 | 816,307 | 24.30% | 104,212 | 27.58% |
| >=85 | 1,007,114 | 29.98% | 120,648 | 31.93% |
| Unknown | 86 | 0.00% | 5 | 0.00% |
The original author notes (and it’s one of the main points of his article) that COVID related deaths and total deaths, within age cohorts, are closely correlated once you get to the 45-54 year age bracket and above. This relationship does not hold for age brackets younger than that cohort. The author argues that this is evidence that “The positive Corona-test is a random variable in relation to the observed result ‘death’.”
He then goes on to say:
On average, however, the “COVID-19 deaths” would have left this world at the same time, with Corona or from/with another virus or another disease. (In fact, a high number of them did probably die of something else than COVID-19.) We are not immortal. On average, we die at our average age of death.
As a group, the COVID-19 deaths are part of normal and, in the last resort, unavoidable population mortality.
Why, then, has the US, why have some (but not all!) countries observed significant excess mortality in 2020?
I do not pretend I have a definite answer to this question; it still needs to be analyzed in much further depth, and we can only hope that this will actually happen.
I don’t have an answer to this question, either, but the implication is that perhaps it is something with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused these excess deaths. I wanted to take a look at the data and what they say about these excess deaths, compare them across age cohorts, and see if we can in some way quantify the effects. It should by now be evident to people paying attention that as age increases, the likelihood of dying of/with COVID-19 increases. I’m not going to get into a discussion of comorbidities, because the data I have don’t include any information on them.
Since the table above includes total deaths and COVID deaths, it is trivial to calculate the Non-COVID Deaths in 2020. Note that the percentages by age cohort are match closely with the previous numbers, which they should be. Also, here I’ve calculated the deaths of/with COVID as a percentage of the total deaths within age cohort. For instance, of all the people in the 45-54 year age bracket who died last year, nearly 10% of them died with/of COVID.
| US Mortality 2020 (Source: CDC) | My Calculations | ||||||||
| Total Deaths | COVID-19 Deaths | Non-COVID Deaths | 2020 COVID Deaths as % of All 2020 Deaths | ||||||
| Number | % of Total | Number | % of Total | Number | % of Total | ||||
| Total | 3,358,814 | 100.00% | 377,883 | 100.00% | 2,980,931 | 100.00% | |||
| Age Group, Years | |||||||||
| <1 | 19,146 | 0.57% | 43 | 0.01% | 19,103 | 0.64% | 0.22% | ||
| 1-4 | 3,469 | 0.10% | 24 | 0.01% | 3,445 | 0.12% | 0.69% | ||
| 5-14 | 5,556 | 0.17% | 67 | 0.02% | 5,489 | 0.18% | 1.21% | ||
| 15-24 | 35,470 | 1.06% | 587 | 0.16% | 34,883 | 1.17% | 1.65% | ||
| 25-34 | 72,678 | 2.16% | 2,527 | 0.67% | 70,151 | 2.35% | 3.48% | ||
| 35-44 | 103,389 | 3.08% | 6,617 | 1.75% | 96,772 | 3.25% | 6.40% | ||
| 45-54 | 189,397 | 5.64% | 17,905 | 4.74% | 171,492 | 5.75% | 9.45% | ||
| 55-64 | 436,886 | 13.01% | 44,631 | 11.81% | 392,255 | 13.16% | 10.22% | ||
| 65-74 | 669,316 | 19.93% | 80,617 | 21.33% | 588,699 | 19.75% | 12.04% | ||
| 75-84 | 816,307 | 24.30% | 104,212 | 27.58% | 712,095 | 23.89% | 12.77% | ||
| >=85 | 1,007,114 | 29.98% | 120,648 | 31.93% | 886,466 | 29.74% | 11.98% | ||
| Unknown | 86 | 0.00% | 5 | 0.00% | 81 | 0.00% | 5.81% | ||
Some have made the argument that old people are going to die anyway, and, looking at the rates of death above, we see that the death rates of/with COVID are equivalent to the overall death rate for those cohorts, but others note that the COVID deaths are in addition to the total deaths we would normally expect.
Well, is that true? In order to figure this out, we need to look at historical death rates and make some projections for 2020, since we’re getting into hypothetical territory here. Let’s look at some more data. Thankfully, the original author pulled some more historical data from CDC and presented it.
Here is the original author’s second data table.
| US Death Rates per 100,000 Population | ||||
| Total 2019 | Total 2020 | Change | COVID19 2020 | |
| Age Group, Years | ||||
| <1 | ||||
| 1-4 | 23 | 22 | -1 | 0 |
| 5-14 | 13 | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| 15-24 | 70 | 83 | 14 | 1 |
| 25-34 | 129 | 158 | 29 | 6 |
| 35-44 | 199 | 246 | 47 | 16 |
| 45-54 | 392 | 468 | 75 | 44 |
| 55-64 | 883 | 1,029 | 145 | 105 |
| 65-74 | 1,765 | 2,069 | 304 | 249 |
| 75-84 | 4,308 | 4,980 | 672 | 636 |
| >=85 | 13,229 | 15,007 | 1,779 | 1,798 |
Here, the author compares the death rates per 100,000 population in the years 2019 and 2020. He also shows them alongside the rates of death with/of COVID-19. Following some links in the article, we come to a CDC data brief on Mortality in the United States, 2019. Linked within that data brief are some raw data for death rates per 100,000 population in 2018 and 2019. Using these historical data we can back-calculate the population in each age cohort, as well as a projected population for 2020, since I can’t find 2020 population from the Census Bureau split along the appropriate age cohorts. We can see below, a net projected increase in population from 2019 to 2020 of about 1.37 million, which compares reasonably to the 2018-2019 increase of 1.3 million. It’s almost a 5% increase in the increase, but it’s not out of the ballpark, so we’ll use it.
| US Death Rates per 100,000 Population | Calculation of 2020 Population (Not Available From Census Yet) | |||||||||
| 2018 | 2019 | |||||||||
| Age Group, Years | Number of Deaths | Death Rate per 100k Population | Back-Calculated Population | Number of Deaths | Death Rate per 100k Population | Back-Calculated Population | Population Delta | % Change in Population | Projected 2020 Population | |
| <1 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| 1-4 | 3830 | 24 | 15,958,333 | 3,676 | 23 | 15,776,824 | -181,509 | -1.14% | 15,597,379 | |
| 5-14 | 5450 | 13 | 40,977,444 | 5,497 | 13 | 41,022,388 | 44,944 | 0.11% | 41,067,382 | |
| 15-24 | 30154 | 70 | 42,954,416 | 29,771 | 70 | 42,713,056 | -241,360 | -0.56% | 42,473,052 | |
| 25-34 | 58844 | 129 | 45,686,335 | 59,178 | 129 | 45,945,652 | 259,317 | 0.57% | 46,206,441 | |
| 35-44 | 80380 | 195 | 41,284,027 | 82,986 | 199 | 41,659,639 | 375,612 | 0.91% | 42,038,668 | |
| 45-54 | 164837 | 396 | 41,636,019 | 160,393 | 392 | 40,874,873 | -761,147 | -1.83% | 40,127,640 | |
| 55-64 | 374836 | 887 | 42,273,148 | 374,937 | 883 | 42,447,300 | 174,152 | 0.41% | 42,622,170 | |
| 65-74 | 543778 | 1,783 | 30,492,794 | 555,559 | 1,765 | 31,483,566 | 990,771 | 3.25% | 32,506,529 | |
| 75-84 | 675205 | 4,386 | 15,394,200 | 688,027 | 4,308 | 15,969,802 | 575,603 | 3.74% | 16,566,927 | |
| >=85 | 880280 | 13,451 | 6,544,492 | 873,746 | 13,229 | 6,604,977 | 60,485 | 0.92% | 6,666,021 | |
| Unknown | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
| 2,817,594.00 | 323,201,208 | 2,833,770 | 324,498,077 | 1,296,868 | 325,872,210 | |||||
Please note that the CDC did not include death data for the age groups “<1” and “Unknown” in 2018 and 2019, so they are “N/A” from here on.
So, now what we need to do is to take the number of deaths in 2018 and 2019 and use them to calculate an expected death count in 2020, absent the effects of COVID-19. Yes, Yes, I know, we shouldn’t extrapolate a line from two points, but right now, all I have are the 2018 and 2019 death data, and I don’t have time at the moment to get prior years’ data. Consider this table to be a rightward extension of the previous tables.
| Calculation of Expected Deaths in 2020 and Comparison to Actual | |||||||||
| Age Group, Years | 2018 to 2019 Change in Death Count | Death Count Rate of Change | Expected Death Count Change for 2020 | Expected Total Deaths in 2020, Excl. COVID-19 | Expected 2020 Death Rate per 100k Population, Absent COVID-19 | Actual 2020 Total Deaths | Excess Deaths in 2020 (Actual 2020 Deaths minus Projected 2020 Deaths) | 2020 COVID Deaths | Excess Deaths Not Explained By COVID |
| <1 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 19,146 | N/A | 43 | N/A |
| 1-4 | -154 | -4.02% | -148 | 3,528 | 23 | 3,469 | -59 | 24 | -83 |
| 5-14 | 47 | 0.86% | 47 | 5,544 | 13 | 5,556 | 12 | 67 | -55 |
| 15-24 | -383 | -1.27% | -378 | 29,393 | 70 | 35,470 | 6,077 | 587 | 5,490 |
| 25-34 | 334 | 0.57% | 336 | 59,514 | 129 | 72,678 | 13,164 | 2,527 | 10,637 |
| 35-44 | 2,606 | 3.24% | 2,690 | 85,676 | 199 | 103,389 | 17,713 | 6,617 | 11,096 |
| 45-54 | -4,444 | -2.70% | -4,324 | 156,069 | 392 | 189,397 | 33,328 | 17,905 | 15,423 |
| 55-64 | 101 | 0.03% | 101 | 375,038 | 883 | 436,886 | 61,848 | 44,631 | 17,217 |
| 65-74 | 11,781 | 2.17% | 12,036 | 567,595 | 1,766 | 669,316 | 101,721 | 80,617 | 21,104 |
| 75-84 | 12,822 | 1.90% | 13,065 | 701,092 | 4,311 | 816,307 | 115,215 | 104,212 | 11,003 |
| >=85 | -6,534 | -0.74% | -6,486 | 867,260 | 13,225 | 1,007,114 | 139,854 | 120,648 | 19,206 |
| Unknown | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 86 | N/A | 5 | N/A |
| 16,176 | 16,941 | 2,850,711 | 3,358,814 | 488,871 | 377,883 | 111,036 | |||
Now we are getting to some of what I think are really interesting numbers. Look at the “excess deaths” column. Here we see that there were over 480,000 deaths in 2020 beyond those expected from a simple extrapolation from 2018 and 2019. That is a lot of people–and they account for 17% more than the total deaths in 2019! Also, look at the “excess deaths” that cannot be explained by COVID, the disease. That number is an astonishing additional 111,000 lives lost due possibly to the effects of the response to the COVID pandemic. To put it another way, they represent 22% of the excess deaths in 2020, and nearly 30% of the total number of COVID deaths. Could it be that our response to the COVID pandemic has increased the total lives lost by thirty percent? Proponents of the COVID response will, of course, counter that we do not know how many would have died of/with COVID if the response had not bee undertaken, but neither I nor they have, or ever will have, data to argue either side. It’s a counterfactual. All we can say is that for some reason, there has been an additional loss of life during this pandemic that is unassociated with the actual illness.
Now we come to the crux of what I want to present. Look at this table below, where I calculate the “Person-Years” of life lost. My method for this calculation was to assume an 80-year average lifespan for all age cohorts. Then I calculated the average lifespan remaining for each cohort. Then, I took the average remaining lifespan for each cohort and multiplied it by the deaths in each cohort. This gives a total number of person-years of life lost. I have a feeling that many of us would have expected the numbers to be slightly different–for instance, those who argue that “old people have less life ahead of them, and therefore will not contribute greatly to the total amount of life lost” would be dead wrong. In fact, for all excess deaths, the 55-84 year cohort accounts for a nearly equal amount of lost person-years of life as the 1-54 year cohort. Arguments can be made about quality of life, but that is a very subjective measure, and I believe that most individuals value their remaining life quite highly–probably more so than an outsider would.
| Calculation of Person Years of Life Lost (Assumption of Average Human Life Span in the U.S. of 80 years) | |||||
| Age Group, Years | Average life Span Remaining | Person-Years Lost of Life (Expected) | Person-Years Lost of Life (Actual) | Person-Years Lost of Life (COVID) | Person-Years Lost of Life (Unexplained by COVID) |
| <1 | |||||
| 1-4 | 77.5 | 273,435 | 268,848 | 1,860 | -6,447.4 |
| 5-14 | 70.5 | 390,881 | 391,698 | 4,724 | -3,906.1 |
| 15-24 | 60.5 | 1,778,268 | 2,145,935 | 35,514 | 332,153.2 |
| 25-34 | 50.5 | 3,005,452 | 3,670,239 | 127,614 | 537,173.8 |
| 35-44 | 40.5 | 3,469,898 | 4,187,255 | 267,989 | 449,368.2 |
| 45-54 | 30.5 | 4,760,099 | 5,776,609 | 546,103 | 470,407.3 |
| 55-64 | 20.5 | 7,688,280 | 8,956,163 | 914,936 | 352,947.9 |
| 65-74 | 10.5 | 5,959,750 | 7,027,818 | 846,479 | 221,589.5 |
| 75-84 | 0.5 | 350,546 | 408,154 | 52,106 | 5,501.3 |
| >=85 | -5 | -4,336,302 | -5,035,570 | -603,240 | -96,027.5 |
| Unknown | |||||
| 23,340,305 | 27,797,147 | 2,194,082 | 2,262,760 | ||
Sadly for anyone who values life, in 2020 we lost nearly thirty million person-years of life in the United States alone. Imagine the potential! It’s astounding. It’s even scarier that, had 2020 been a “normal” year for deaths, we would have expected well over twenty million person-years of life to be eliminated. Think of what a human being is capable of in a year of life. You can write a novel; design a manufacturing plant; fall in love and have your heart broken; produce a hit film; and a million other things. If every one of those people had been living life to the fullest, imagine what they have lost. Of course there are negatives to life as well, and it’s not all sunshine, puppies, and productivity, but the sheer potential for things to not only happen, but be made to happen, is nearly unfathomable.
But beyond the simply incomprehensible loss of human potential, consider some other points: For instance, the excess person-years lost by COVID are actually fewer in number than those lost, not explained by COVID. How can that be? To understand that, we have to look closely at the numbers and see where the deaths are, and where the remaining lifespan is. Go back up and compare the excess deaths, COVID deaths, and COVID-unexplained deaths by age cohort.
Now we look at the fraction of the life lost as it varies among the age cohorts.
| Calculation of Person Years of Life Lost (Assumption of Average Human Life Span in the U.S. of 80 years) | ||||||||
| Age Group, Years | Average life Span Remaining | Person-Years Lost of Life (Expected) | Person-Years Lost of Life (Actual) | Excess Person-Years Lost of Life (COVID) | Excess Person-Years Lost of Life (Unexplained by COVID) | COVID-Explained Fraction of Excess Person-Years Lost | COVID-Unexplained Fraction of Excess Person-Years Lost | Projected Potential Person-Years of Life based on 2020 Population |
| <1 | ||||||||
| 1-4 | 77.5 | 273,435 | 268,848 | 1,860 | -6,447.4 | 0.01% | -0.02% | 1,208,796,889 |
| 5-14 | 70.5 | 390,881 | 391,698 | 4,724 | -3,906.1 | 0.02% | -0.01% | 2,895,250,417 |
| 15-24 | 60.5 | 1,778,268 | 2,145,935 | 35,514 | 332,153.2 | 0.13% | 1.19% | 2,569,619,655 |
| 25-34 | 50.5 | 3,005,452 | 3,670,239 | 127,614 | 537,173.8 | 0.46% | 1.93% | 2,333,425,262 |
| 35-44 | 40.5 | 3,469,898 | 4,187,255 | 267,989 | 449,368.2 | 0.96% | 1.62% | 1,702,566,046 |
| 45-54 | 30.5 | 4,760,099 | 5,776,609 | 546,103 | 470,407.3 | 1.96% | 1.69% | 1,223,893,034 |
| 55-64 | 20.5 | 7,688,280 | 8,956,163 | 914,936 | 352,947.9 | 3.29% | 1.27% | 873,754,477 |
| 65-74 | 10.5 | 5,959,750 | 7,027,818 | 846,479 | 221,589.5 | 3.05% | 0.80% | 341,318,557 |
| 75-84 | 0.5 | 350,546 | 408,154 | 52,106 | 5,501.3 | 0.19% | 0.02% | 8,283,464 |
| >=85 | -5 | -4,336,302 | -5,035,570 | -603,240 | -96,027.5 | -2.17% | -0.35% | -33,330,105 |
| Unknown | ||||||||
| 23,340,305 | 27,797,147 | 2,194,082 | 2,262,760 | 13,123,577,696 | ||||
The excess deaths really start to be noticeable in the 15-24 cohort, where they jump to over 6,000. But note that these are overwhelmingly in the “COVID-unexplained” realm. These are also the people among the excess deaths who have the most life, on average, ahead of them. So they represent an incredible number of person-years lost above the expected amount–332,000 or so.
If we look at the total excess COVID-unexplained deaths for ages 25-64, we see that there were over 54,000 excess deaths not explained by COVID, covering 1.8 million lost person-years. The 45-64 year bracket accounts for somewhat less than half of those.
Interestingly, the fraction of excess person-years lost to COVID peaks among the older population (45-80) while the COVID-unexplained lost life is focused around the younger population (15-54). What is particularly tragic is that the total life lost to COVID is actually secondary to that lost to excess causes unexplained by COVID, even though the number of COVID excess deaths exceeds the the number of COVID-unexplained deaths by a factor of three.
One of the many tragedies of this pandemic, which will hopefully be recognized sooner rather than later, is that the total person-years of life lost due to causes not explained by the particular disease in question appears to actually exceed the loss to the disease itself. As this becomes more clear to the general populace, hopefully we will see more care taken in the future when dealing with major public health emergencies, better evaluation of the danger of the emergencies themselves, and more rational and scientific approaches to treating and containing pandemic diseases.
Thanks db. Good stuff.
Your first two charts appear to be the same data.
The data on the left of both charts is the same. The data to the right of the charts is different, the second chart being db’s calculations.
There’s a lot of info to process here.
Ah, phone formatting was cutting it off.
I considered removing a bunch of duplicate info from the tables, but erred on the side of making it easier to see them side by side as I tried to walk through my progression in working with the data. I really went into this with no preconceived notions, and you’re essentially seeing my process of looking at the numbers. Unfortunately, WordPress does some really weird stuff like blowing up the tables into a size that fills the entire page width, so it takes up way more visual space than is stricly needed.
I loved this article. Thank you. Last week a friend of mine just dropped dead. Not COVID, just standing in his kitchen and dropped. Like a lot of us, he hadn’t been keeping up with regular physicals over the past year and a half. No doubt he might have gotten help if this lockdown crap wasn’t going on.
Have a good friend who owns a counseling and recovery clinic. Last year about this time he told me that he had seen one suicide of his patients in the past 10 years, but 4 in the past six months (Jan-Jun 2020).
I’m sorry to hear of your loss. I suspect fear of contracting COVID stopped many from going to see the doctor who suffered ill health because of that decision.
Sorry about your friend.
Sorry about your friend.
On a happier note, thanks again for the movie post last night. I finished the movie this afternoon while I was reviewing code. The movie was fun and delightfully bad.
Agreed. This is really useful info.
I wonder if anyone’s looked at the worldwide excess death data for 2020.
Thanks!
Much heavy, it seems my cohort is when things begin to take off, as it were,
Good work db!
My guess is that the excess non-COVID deaths were in large part due to medical diagnoses and care being delayed.
It has long been established two of the biggest “public health” risks are economic distress and social isolation. It seems likely that the masking and lockdown countermeasures, which definitely increased those, had some associated death toll.
Not one funny picture?! *stomps off*
And just WHAT would you call the first one!
Thanks DB,
This type of analysis should be what our national and international “experts” should be discussing about the pandemic. We have more data on this pandemic than any in recent memory along with easy data processing and statistical software.
The questions you raised are barely mentioned in the noise about the next variant or new restriction. What lead to the increase in preventable deaths outside of COVID? Most of us have some theories, but the CDC and others have data that could put some needed context to the cost of our actions in response to COVID.
This type of cost / benefit analysis is what everyone believes the “top Men” look at when making policy, but the truth is there are other factors that are much more important to them than the population’s safety and well being.
It seems that it’s too much to ask the utilitarians to demonstrate more utility.
I chafed at looking at the data in this way because I am not a utilitarian, but sometimes utilitarian arguments are useful. Unfortunately, natural rights arguments against lockdowns and mandates are laughed off the stage before they are presented, if anyone even ever sees them.
“Natural rights”. Everyone knows that rights are granted by the Bill of Rights, subject to the interpretation of
threenine wise men.“This type of cost / benefit analysis is what everyone believes the “top Men” look at when making policy”
That seems optimistic. Most people who trust politicians, I think, just assume they do the “right thing.” I doubt most people have much concept of what cost/benefit analysis looks like in public policy. And I think an increasing number of people don’t even do so in their own lives.
Hey man, electricity still comes out of the walls and I can get Hot Pockets all day. Shit’s cool dude. Why worry?
Jeff Spicoli
Rescued Brooke Shields from drowning
Blew reward money hiring Van Halen to play his birthday party
“Blew”
Wow! So much to take in. Thanks for this!
If only TMITE could bare this out and report the facts as they are uncovered. We. Are. Doomed. Is the only message you’ll get from a legacy outlet, and that’s one of the plethora of reasons we actually are doomed (fucking irony).
Look, even the “friendly” media have trouble calculating simple percentages, and confuse observation with experimentation.
You’re right. How can we possibly expect TMITE to parse statistics and make sound conclusions based off empirical evidence, that sounds like math and stuff!
Big shoutout to db for his painstaking research and number-crunching. I know the tables were excruciating to format and he did those all in WordPress. I would have cheated and dropped in an image of a spreadsheet, but he’s determined like that.
Damn, that’s almost masochistic!
Thanks so much for this, db! It basically affirms what the people involved in the Great Barrington Declaration (and many, many other people) predicted last year.
It actually wasn’t that difficult. I used LibreOffice to create the spreadsheet, and then did a simple copy-paste into the WordPress editor. I lost a bunch of border and font formatting in the process, but the creation of the tables was actually pretty easy.
Stop confusing me with facts, db.
See, if I get the vaccine I may live another year or so. If I don’t get the vaccine I may be a goner in 12 months, more or less.
If I don’t get my act together, Mrs F says I may not make it ’til dinner time. I’m gonna wait until the day before deer season before I buy a license, in case I won’t need it.
I think the big takeaway from the data presented above is that you are selfishly hoarding life and need to be normalized, stat. Expect the Normalization Squad at your front door momentarily.
“The Normalization Squad”
Neo-punk band?
DB, great, this is awesome and I will go over it thoroughly when I have some time this PM.
Trashmonster, I read this article, and I immediately thought of you:
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/im-17-and-im-immunized-from-woke?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0NDMyNTYyLCJwb3N0X2lkIjo0MDk1MjM2MCwiXyI6IkZqSDdYIiwiaWF0IjoxNjMxMjkwNzMzLCJleHAiOjE2MzEyOTQzMzMsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNjAzNDciLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.RnyquNB8d8q9ORlhcfC2rWHra8C2YIF3zd29MfyuJns
It has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster in the trashcan this morning, but this brought a smile to my face. Thank you!
Anytime.
Good kid, He would have done well in the Before Time.
Damn! That is an uplifting article from a great kid.
“You cannot deny the privileges of being American when you see Haitian children weep over new shoes we deem uncool.”
KId’s got a good head on his shoulders. Thanks for sharing.
What data exists to compare, say, masked and unmasked mandates, indoor and outdoor activities, distancing and non-distancing, population density differences, large events and small events, covid cases in warmer vs. colder climates, etc. etc.? We need to demonstrate that a one-size mandate cannot be crammed down us all (or anyone for that matter).
demonstrate to who? This has long stopped being a scientific exercise guided by facts.
Pin the Mask Mandate on the Chart
Guess the State
I have often expected (ok, more accurately, HOPED) that there are still academically rigorous people out there who are committed to finding out the truth about things. They aren’t putting themselves in the spotlight, they’re just doing what they were trained to do. Eventually their work will show up in a book, not on Twitter. It gives me a little bit of hope that there’s you, and the author of the original, out there.
Thanks for taking the time and doing such a great job.
As an aside, the more academia falls down the well of politics and Lysenkoism, the fields will revert to “amateurism” as they were 150 years ago. And we are seeing this in posts like the above, the private space race, amateur historians coming to the fore, and the death of literature, both written and filmed, with its replacement in video games and independent publishing.
We will get through this, the question is what will we look like afterward and how long it will take. But as far as the arts and science are concerned, we are already on the path. One thing I keep in mind is that Europe was dying in the years leading up to Columbus but when the new world was discovered fresh air was breathed into the western world. My hope is that the new space race is the next breath of air, as we badly need it.
“what will we look like afterward”
If we succumb to junk science in today’s day and age we’ll be looking like China in the future because they’ll crush us, maybe India if we’re lucky.
This whole thing really opened my eyes to the medical community. There are a few doctors who really looked for the best way to treat people early, keep them out of the hospital and above ground. Once they got silenced and fired, the rest just fell into line – recommending the clot shot and not treating covid patients until they show up at a hospital in serious distress.
Doctors (no disrespect to some of our fine MDs here) are the third leading cause of death in the US. Medical fuckups are anywhere from 250-400K per year, but it’s hard to get numbers because AMA refuses to track them (just like the police refuse to track police killings). That doesn’t include the death toll from the “low fat” diet bullshit peddled by that fucking fraud Ancel Keys or the “smoking is heathy for you!” or all of the other medical quackery that has destroyed countless lives.
I think maybe we could use a break from medical autocracy for a bit and just try our luck at living unimpeded without all of the “experts” in public health. Just a thought, not a sermon.
BTW, my own profession, lawyers, may not have killed as many directly, although the Civil War is undoubtedly on the Supreme Court’s ledger with Dred Scott declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional in 1857. That’s worth several hundred thousand right there. Regardless, the lawyers undoubtedly lead the league in destruction of liberty, so I think I now understand why there may have been early attempts to ban lawyers. I can’t really make a great argument against the impulse.
Thanks, db.
Excess deaths in young people is very concerning; exploring this might reveal some inconvenient truths. A few things come to mind. Loss of employment, whether from business failures due to lockdowns and restrictions, or subsequent subsidization of sloth, has consequences that go beyond economics. The mental health of the unemployed is adversely affected, so one might expect to see an uptick in suicide and violent crime, including but not limited to homicide. In addition to these first-order effects, I would expect other kinds of adverse behavior such as substance abuse and poor dietary habits to be on the increase. These things will contribute to less obvious increases in deaths from health-related issues.
I’m sure there is data on this, and there will be more as long as the insanity continues. Anecdotally, my goddaughter just completed her Masters in psychology and had no trouble at all landing a position as a therapist; she tells me that the majority of her clients are young people just looking for someone to talk to. Counseling seems to be an exploding field for employment which implies a large increase in customers. This is not good.
I think you are spot-on with your thoughts on the root causes of the excess deaths among the younger cohorts. Because I wanted the article to be more about the data, and less about speculation, I left my own thoughts on those potential causes out of it.
It’s way easier for people to ignore an argument (even a data-based one) if they see something in the presentation that chafes them too much or, especially if they encounter speculation within a purportedly fact-based argument, so I tried to keep it to a bare minimum.
Good call. The data is compelling as far as it goes, unfortunately (fortunately?) we have only two years. Best to let people draw their own conclusions.
I have nothing to say about this except damn! You people are a talented bunch.
I can’t wrap my head around charts and graphs like this.
This needs more charts, more sob stories, and mostly more fear. Lots of fear.
Sarcasm aside, I’d quibble with the person-years lost calculation. If Covid is picking off the low hanging fruit, then you can’t assume the victims would have had an 80 year life span. If I’m right about this, then I would expect a reduction in excess deaths in future years. Furthermore, a negative value doesn’t make much sense either for the group that is >=85.
How many stories about the “perfectly healthy person” dying of covid. Then a picture of a circus fatty in the ICU.
You’re correct
https://coolconversion.com/heath/life-expectancy-calculator-us/I-am_83_years-old.-What-is-my-life-expectancy%3F_m
Looks like people who live to that age have an expectation of six and a half years left.
Life expectancy of an age cohort only includes people that have survived to that age. The people that have already died bring down the life expectancy at birth.
DB’s Rocking Chart Show
Db, it’s great work. Your optimism is moving, but that last bit I emphasized I am too cynical to believe anymore. In order for these things to be “more clear to the general populace,” you have to have a general populace that is numerate and literate. It may later become clear to a literate and numerate populace, but that will not be one produced by our current education system. Because that system intentionally does not produce those kinds of people. Public education produces masses of obedient toads who learn just enough to know how to cajole, sneer at, pick on, and ostracize the students who actually do want to learn these kinds of things. Unless nerds are suddenly being revered in school, I daresay most are treated poorly by teachers with tons of “Ed” and other such letters after their name who couldn’t lead a pack of drunks to happy hour, much less produce the kind of students that would relish an opportunity to learn such things.
Ozy, did you check out Zwak’s substack link above? It’s an outlier, but still, as long as an inner city school can produce kids like that there must be some hope.
I just read it. Let me just point out that I was generalizing. And that this black student said: “In Intellectuals and Society, my favorite thinker, Thomas Sowell, notes that…”
Yeah, I’m certain there are just a TON of 17 year olds like this one. *eyes roll back and do complete 360*
I’m not saying it’s not wonderful and even somewhat hopeful, but that kid got into a school with an 8% acceptance rate. And even among that set, how representative do you think he is of the “norm” – of his lily-white, upper middle class, NY City peers? I’m not just talking shit because I attended Francis Lewis HS when it was an IB magnate school in 1986.
I see a future Glibertarian, finding our little corner of the Net to help him understand why he has to get the jab, or why Thomas Sowell’s books have been burned and forbidden from being taught to right-thinkers.
But every soul saved matters, so I’ll celebrate and try to help him understand why so many of his fellow Americans hate Freedom.
Oh, I get it, I’m grasping at any little piece of optimism I come across. Stop harshing my buzz!
OT, my wife grew up in Whitestone, graduated from St. Francis Prep in 1981. Small world.
I lived in Ozone Park and commuted across the city via my mom’s work in JP, then I would walk 12 blocks to catch a bus over to Francis Lewis Blvd.
My girlfriend live in Flushing, not too far up Northern Blvd from Shea Stadium and the old RKO Theater.
It was tough sledding that year as a displaced Red Sox fan watching the Mets win it all, but – I have to say – they were a fun team to watch. I really came to love their nemesis, those great Cardinal teams with the Wizard & Co. because I loved how they stole bases like it was candy from the local 5 and dime.
watching the Mets win it all
Hasn’t happened since. Lately the only joy for us Met fans is watching the Yankees implode.
T-shirts at BU: “My favorite teams are the Boston Red Sox and Anyone Playing the NY Yankees.”
It’s the little things in life that count. 😉
My favorite covid chart.
https://citizenfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/covid-vaccine-virus-meme.jpg
Robby’s All Grown Up and Writing NYT Opinion Pieces:
Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Is a Big Mistake
And the NYT Tweet promoting it is ratio’d.
Of course it is. And that will be the “proof” the Media will use to show that “everyone” wants to mandate a vaccine that doesn’t work.
I gave up when the claimed the totalitarian plan was well intentioned.
I feel a little bad for the guy. He “to be sure”s the hell out of the article, but the readers still want to burn off that wavy hair.
Aw, bless his blond heart, falling between stools.
The old saying that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is not wrong, on either point.
the federal mandate might actually be taken as confirmation of their paranoid suspicions that the vaccines have less to do with their health and more to do with social control.
Fuck off, Robby, my head is on a swivel. Just because you’re paranoid it does not mean they’re not coming to get you.
-Christine Pappas – Thrice Vaccinated
@c_c_pappas
·
6h
Replying to
@nytopinion
and
@robbysoave
Not true. Governments can and should require vaccines.
Well that’s settled…
Also, Soave’s argument is that it’s especially concerning because of what the Reps will do with the precedent in the future (it’s paywalled but the tweet indicates that’s the gist)? Considering current developments that’s weak sauce.
We already violate rights, so what’s the big deal?
Fuck that guy. He always bogarts the fruit sushi .
Data are evil and you just want children and gramma to die!
I know you’re kidding, but a careful read of my article should inform the reader that my desire is entirely the opposite and that I value life greatly.
I don’t believe in data – I believe in Science™
I’m giving up politics / I’m taking up volleyball
*on politics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96bsUwvoHxc
Your RV plan grows more enticing daily.
“Please insert your Vaccine Passport card into the card reader to proceed with your fuel purchase transaction.”
Whycome you got no tattoo?
I call it the “Semi-Galt”
TPTB – I just put three articles in the queue to help bring the pendings up. They’re posts from my blog on vax mandates and why they’re illegal, so maybe it’s too much, but they’re what I’ve been posting for service members who don’t want to get jabbed. Also include a detailed legal analysis of why this is all wrong.
Next up is something I’m working on about what I like to call “The Big Lie” of government vax mandates – Jacobson v. Massachusetts. It’s like the “falsely shout fire in a crowded theater” of vaccine mandates. Totally does not mean what has been claimed about it, but of course you can get away with saying that because no one actually reads these fucking cases (except me, evidently) to see what they say.
Am amzed you have time for us, Oz.
I don’t sleep much lately and have been writing like a meth-addicted mouse.
It’s my coping mechanism.
Aw. If you can’t bill us, I hope you can find a way to deduct us.
*amazed
Ozy,
How can we help you?
Scruffy, serious question and serious answer.
The FY22 NDAA (Natl Def Auth Act) passed the House with an amendment that would prohibit anyone kicked out of the military for refusing the shot from receiving anything worse than an honorable discharge or characterization of service. Rep. Mark Green managed to get that amendment into the final House version. Usually, the DoD funding bill (the NDAA) gets passed right before the FY starts – so in this case, it should come out of the Senate for signature by the end of the month.
bang on your Senator as hard as possible to make sure that stays in the final version for Biden’s signature. I’d like to see it passed because that would mean that the 700,000 or so servicemen and women who haven’t yet gotten the jab could stand up for themselves and still have their DD-214’s protected. I think if they knew – if we could get that word out if it passed – that there would be a mass exodus like nothing we’ve ever seen. And THAT – and the horrific PR that would come from it – could be a game-changing event. Maybe that’s me being hopeful.
Alternatively, if Biden vetoes it, then he’ll have shown a huge chunk of servicemembers – and the American public – what he thinks of them. Either way, I’d like to see Senators get some serious heat put on them to protect servicemembers. That’s my crew, if I’m being honest. The volunteers who are getting fucked by this when the virus poses less risk to them than the vaccines being forced on them. It’s unconscionable how they’re treating our troops right now. No liberty in some commands if you’re unvaxxed. No chow hall. Different colored wristbands for vaxxed and unvaxxed. Every unit has a “Covid Officer” to track vaccinations. If people knew they would be sick, but troops are being told to STFU and fall in line.
Thank you. I will do so.
Of course, mine are Warner and Kaine, but they might flex given that it’s Virginia.
Done
I get the willies every time I see Kaine’s weaselly face, so you owe me a beer (kidding).
How has that dude not been outed as a kiddie diddler? He oozes that vibe.
Guy creeps me out.
The command here has been asking his lawyers to determine how he can bar the unvaccinated from the BX, shoppettes, other base services, and large gatherings.
Y’know, to protect them since they have religious exemptions.
Those are some really good and effective vaccines there, aren’t they?
🙄
They’re well aware that vaccinated individuals can still get the virus and spread it. That’s why they’re trying to do this, so that they can “protect” the unvaccinated.
That includes all formations and organizational PT, right?…
Are you man or machine? Glad you & others with…certain skills…are out there fighting.
“Totally does not mean what has been claimed about it, but of course you can get away with saying that because no one actually reads these fucking cases (except me, evidently) to see what they say.”
Easy there, Diogenes. Believe it or not, other people read case law, to see what was really said, too.
Oh, you know what I mean, Swiss. That’s the nit you pick?
Please, though, point me to all of the legal scholarship and articles about how Jacobson does NOT stand for the proposition that the state can vaccinate whomever it wants at will.
I’d love to also see all of the licensed attorneys in government, politics, the military, and general practice who are standing up for individual rights at the moment; it would be extremely helpful. I’m not being snarky, either. If you’ve got names, give ’em mine because there’s no lack of work. I’m happy to give them a task.
You know what I do see? It’s like the recent wars – it’s the same people over and over again. The same guy who I litigated Doe v Rumsfeld with is back (Lou Michels), along with the same doctor (Meryl Nass) and the same FDA expert (Sammie Young), and a few dozen other lawyers and doctors busting their ass who actually give a shit enough to take time away from their practices, jobs, families, etc.
I could pick the nit that you are increasingly frantic and rough in your communications here.
“Yeah, I’m certain there are just a TON of 17 year olds like this one. *eyes roll back and do complete 360*”
Maybe stop swinging a sledgehammer – there is no need to beat us over the head. Know your audience… and calm down a mite.
Fair enough.
Thanks, Ozy. To echo what others have said, let me know if I can help in any way.
See my reply to Scruffy above about the FY22 NDAA.
Thanks Ozy.
Totally does not mean what has been claimed about it,
Why am I not surprised?
Someone let President Pudding Pop out of the basement again.
Biden wonders off as Jill speaks at a DC school to push vaccinations…
I hope that there’s wider-angle video coming showing one of his handlers gently turning him around and sending him back.
Particularly sniffworthy kid just off camera?
Heh. That really isn’t an exaggeration.
In his defense, there were a lot tempting young kids there to distract him.
The 7 day rolling average of case counts in Suburban Cook county (Illinois) have basically dropped about 40% in 2 weeks. If this is true across a large part of the country as well, I’m wondering if this push for vaccination is so Biden can claim victory over Covid and get all the credit just as herd immunity and yes widespread vaccinations are ending this thing.
BUT BUT THE MU VARIANT!
National numbers look like they peaked about a week ago.
Is it time to go O/T? We’re starting to have morale problems at house of TOK. Mrs. TOK is having more shortness of breath and is feeling a bit worse today. Though she is still walking around. Some of the relatives we had over this weekend are starting to feel sick, including my MIL who has already been in the hospital with Covid last year. I’m starting to feel guilty even though rationally I know I had no reason to suspect I had it last week.
In thinking about this, I came to the realization that in drumming up the worst case scenario, people are LESS likely to take things seriously. All I’ve heard about for a year is how deadly this is, how serious this is, how it will definitely put you in the hospital. It’s scary! But the symptoms I had didn’t seem scary and didn’t seem at all deadly. So clearly it wasn’t Covid. Except it was. I think what I NEEDED to hear was that Covid symptoms can be very mild, so if you have any symptoms at all, get a rapid test just to be sure. Of course that does nothing to keep people scared.
Sorry for the rant, just spending a lot of time thinking, especially in the wee hours of the night.
Sorry TOK…hope eyour wife & family feel better very soon. I agree with the kind-of “boy who cried wolf” stuff. Everything about this has been wrong
Don’t beat yourself up, you didn’t know and there are plenty of other things that cause similar symptoms.
I’m hoping that you and your wife get well soon. Presumably your doctors are treating the illness competently?
We’re outside the window to get antibody treatment. I’m on antibiotics for a sinus infection, and those are working pretty well so far. She’s on a few antibiotics and a steroid to prevent pneumonia. That’s the big danger for her. Other than that, nothing else. We were offered Ivermectin by a friend, but that still seems a bit shady so we declined.
My wife and her full quilting circle of friends got Covid at the same time (one of the members infected all the others). These are 50-70 yo women that are all overweight and generally with other comorbidities as well.
They all recovered quickly with the same treatment: quinine pills or tonic water; zinc pills; vitamin C pills; vitamin D3 pills.
You want all these things in your system before symptoms become dangerous.
This strikes me as a good approach.
Except the tonic water. C’mon, people, there’s practically no quinine in tonic water. Get the damn pills. They’re pretty cheap. and available from Amazon if your local has taken them off the shelves.
Except the tonic water.
Right. You’re going to need to drink a couple of liters of tonic water each day until UPS/FedX drops of your bottle of quinine pills from Amazon.
It took two days to get ours. My wife notice a mild improvement in her symptoms when taking zinc and tonic water. The improvement was dramatic when she started the pills.
The horse paste is a little shady, but can safely be taken (I probably wouldn’t still). But the human pills are fine, why not?*
*I have some at the house…in case.
Shite. Hoping you and yours are better soon. I know it’s tough, but you are not to blame.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, . . . . . And that’s sufficient for most purposes.
The more frightened they are, the easier it is to fool people.
Do you guys have an oxygen monitor?
Her smart watch has a monitor, so she’s been keeping an eye on that. So far it’s well in the 90’s.
If she doesn’t go in for the shortness of breath symptoms, get an oximeter to monitor O2 saturation. You can get one at most neighborhood drugs stores these days.
She did initially go into the ER for the shortness of breath Wednesday, and they thought she was fine to go home. They gave her a chest x-ray then too, and it was clear. She does have the smart watch monitor and she’s keeping an eye on that.
? speed recovery for your wife and you
NO! You can’t look at the raw numbers! You don’t know anything unless you have an MD! NO! Statistics doesn’t work unless you have the MD! NOOOOOO!
My models say whatever I want them to. Now obey!
Can you translate that into German? It’s so much more… glamorous!
Thanks so much DB great stuff thanks for doing the work. My best friend died of a heroin OD during the first 6 months of the pandemic. Had 10 months clean. NA meetings and AA meetings were impossible to find and although not the direct cause of my friends relapse, Im sure it didnt help. There was actually a time at the very beginning i told him not to come to my house-I had 3 kids and he was living in a group home with 14 other people. Feel terrible about that. Wish i would have known how little this effects kids back then.
That’s a terrible story. Sorry to hear about your friend. You couldn’t have known how this effects kids. Pretty sure anyone with kids would have done the same in the first six months of this thing.
Jesus, that sucks. I am a longstanding member of that elite club consisting of people who should never, ever, go near a drink or drug (except on rare occasion painkillers when prescribed and absolutely necessary, taken under adult supervision). I would never have made it this far without access to regular meetings in early sobriety. Just another egg sacrificed in the preparation of the omelet, who gives a fuck about druggies?
“Where are the omelets?”
Jerms, I don’t know what to say besides I’m sorry.
Im in that club too. Been clean over 5 years and besides a few relapses been good for around 18 years.
Good on you. Sorry about your friend. I’ve seen way too much of that in my life.
ugh, that’s very sad, Jerms. My sympathies.
Ooof. Sorry, Jerms.
Come at me, bro.
Q: “What is your message to Republicans who are calling your vaccine requirements an overreach? Who are threatening to challenge it in court?”
President Biden: “Have at it…”
“I’m so displuneted. C’mon, man. Some of these Repuvlican governors, man. They’ve been so c-c-cavalier with the the health of their communities. Science agrees with me. Politics doesn’t have be this way. Doesn’t have to be like a war. I think we all need to come together and do what Barrack tells me to tell you to do. Wait. Uh, uh… They’re telling me I wasn’t supposed to say that….I pooped and may god bless our troops.”
*pats podium, turns and shuffles away*
There is no data anywhere, no matter how tortured the attempt, that suggests that shutdowns and maskings accomplished anything to prevent the spread of the virus. We have an entire year of data and there is no rhyme or reason to any of it. NY and NJ have the largest raw number of deaths and in per capita terms (NJ is first and NY is second) and they had some of the harshest and longest shutdown and masking policies. Meanwhile FL is the third largest state in the Union, yet has the fourth largest number of deaths in raw numbers and is 22nd on a per capita basis. FL had a much shorter shutdown and has more lax masking policies. IL has more deaths per capita than IA and WI, even though the two latter states had almost no shutdown or masking policies. And CA with its harsh shutdowns and masking has one of the lowest death rates in the country, despite having the country’s largest population. The shutdowns and masking seem to be irrelavant as the only state that followed that policy, which performed better than their peers is CA.
There is no rhyme or reason here.
Looking at the population-adjusted data on DIVOC-91, I see CA is right smack in the middle of the pack for total deaths.
You may be right. I just ran the numbers from the CDC without any adjustments a while back to show someone that there is no data to support shutdowns and masking. Just a back of the envelope calculation quickly shows that
DIVOC-91 is my go-to for COVID data. You have some options for slicing and dicing (I always go for the trailing averages) and they have a set of graphs that are pop-adjusted.
Compare CA and PA to MO in the new confirmed cases and total vaccines administered. It would be better if they had a per capita vaccination rate. Still, if the number I saw earlier (51%) is accurate for the rate in Missouri, what gives? Shouldn’t cases be exceeding the rates in states with higher vaccination rates?
Ah, I see the population-normalized data are down farther on the page. So, while CA and PA have much higher per capita vax rates, they are experiencing a much different and sharper-shaped curve of new cases.
I think at least one of my HS classmates became a local gov sort. If I remember his name correctly, he also helped me in calc, thus possibly helping me get into college.
The problem with such analysis is that it doesn’t rule out other many factors and actual behavior changes vs merely mandated behavior, nor is there a yardstick for what a truly unmodified response would look like (closest would be Wuhan in December 2019 and early January 2020, but good luck ever figuring out what reality was there).
I don’t think they care about the variables.
‘s hot. Care for some coleslaw? 😉
It’s almost as though…. Virus is gonna virus!
Recent events have me recalling Max von Sydow’s line from The Exorcist: “I think the point is to make us despair.” It’s getting harder and harder not to despair.
I think one big way to fight that despair is to shine a light on the reality of facts and try to make as many people aware of them as possible.
Despair is the wrong emotion for now.
Try white hot, righteous anger.
Or at least determination to see the truth spoken and heard.
Yep. That’s my fuel.
Works wonderfully, I find.
I try to see the humor in things.
White hot, righteous humor.
“Spite. You said ‘spite’.”
If you run for reelection do you expect to be running against former President Trump?
“C’mon, man. I have no idea if there will even be a Republican Party. Do you?”
Biden Advisor Cedric Richmond on vaccine mandates: “Those governors that stand in the way, I think it was very clear from the president’s tone today, that he will RUN OVER THEM.”
What, like with a car?
Chair Force One or whatever his little scooter would be called?
I joke but those things really do get old folks out and about.
Hoveround
The Rascal.
If this is Biden lighting the fuse that leads to national divorce, so be it.
Lincoln won’t let us, though.
“Who would fund the government? What would become of my tariff? I cannot let them go.”
Lincoln would have mandated the vaccine in red states and left the blue states alone.
Biden Advisor Cedric Richmond on vaccine mandates: “Those governors that stand in the way, I think it was very clear from the president’s tone today, that he will RUN OVER THEM.”
I seem to recall some other tyrant in history proclaiming “we will bury you” to his enemies. How’d that work out?
He was banging his shoe on the desk as he said this, no one took that fat bald POS seriously.
Damn your nimble fingers!
Is Biden banging shoes on podia* yet?
*”lecterns,” for all you pedants.
*pictures Biden hitting himself in the head with shoe*
I was picturing him holding it like a telephone. And then looking across to somebody to ask them what he needs to do to make it work.
+1 Maxwell Smart
I deadthreaded the meme in the last thread, so I’ll post it here again.
A very involved meme, but insightful.
Kind of you to take an interest. Not meant sarcastically; it does mean a lot coming from chez vous.
Er, @ limey
yep, I may have 11/10’d the complexity.
Heh, reminds be a bit of the old-timey political cartoons.
This topic hits too close to home for me. You Goddamn right there are some deaths due to the response and not the disease. My sister is dead because of the fucking shutdown. She was scheduled to have surgery on an abdominal aneurysm in April 2020, talk about bad timing! This was when the shot was really hitting the fan, her surgery was cancelled, deamed “non-essential”. She died in early June while trying to get surgery rescheduled. Cause of death; dissecting aneurysm.
I’m sorry ?
My sincere condolences, SandMan.
These are the stories that break my heart. It’s one thing to be denied entry to a barber because no mask, quite another to lose loved ones, or be denied their presence at a passing.
So sorry SandMan
Ugh. So very sorry. I had to reschedule a surgery scheduled in April 2020. But cataracts won’t kill you.
Ditto and ditto for a hernia. Well, I guess it could, but mine could wait.
It could, strangulated hernia is no joke.
Shit that sucks. Sorry.
Literal out loud JFC from me.
I’m so sorry.
I am very sorry about that.
If only more people got vaccinated this would never have happened.
“shot” = shit obviously
Thanks for the condolences.
That’s terrible! I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’m so sorry to hear that, SandMan. My own Mom died in 2019 after an extended hospital stay related to her cancer; we were fortunate that we were able to spend time with her, and that she got some medical treatment to comfort her rather than being either shut out of care or isolated from us, which would have happened in 2020.
Yep, locking people up to die alone was another tragedy that makes my blood boil.
Canada: a nation in turmoil.
Toronto raccoons crash bachelorette party and all the penis candy.
Canada can go eat a bag of dicks.
Hey now! Nous avons des beaucoups des amis au Canada. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23nrq5RBMnk
ah zut
Cheap bridesmaids didn’t want to spring for the Dancing Bear; settled for Ribald Raccoon.
Were they vaccinated raccoons?
At least they were wearing masks.
Thanks for the article DB. Seeing the numbers run with respect to years of life lost is an interesting and sobering thing. One caveat I will add to your analysis, however, is something I noticed when I looked at the CDC’s numbers from a different perspective last month, and noticed in the numbers that in addition to COVID-19 there was also a massive spike in pneumonia deaths last year, which fell heaviest on the 55+ population. As far as I could tell, this pneumonia plague (which was partially not covered by the COVID numbers, as only about half of the pneumonia deaths were coincident with COVID) accounts for most if not all of the non-COVID excess deaths in the 55+ age categories. However, I think your analysis still stands for the under 45 categories, and the 1.3 million(!) lost years of life that you calculated in those age groups have a high likelihood of being attributable directly to the response to COVID, which should be evidence enough to any reasonable person that the measures taken these past years were not only pointless, but costly, and that we should never again repeat this experiment in public health.
Confident prediction: the negative impact of the response on people under 45 will be cited as proof positive that we need mandatory vaccines, economic lockdowns, mandatory masking, vaccine passports, and misc. health surveillance.
We just didn’t totalitarian hard enough, you see.
Thanks db. This is interesting.
Thinking in a new direction.
Couple hailed ‘iconic’ for using ‘beer boy’ instead of flower girl in wedding
Well, that will certainly improve the quality of wedding gifts. Not sure if a 4 yr old can handle tall cans though.
It like Ive trained my entire life for this….
BRUCE SMITH ?
Yowie hunter Jason Heal claims he has proof yowies exist in Perth bushland
1. Thanks for the hat-tip.
2. One nit-pick, remaining expected life is much less linear than you used, younger people have less expected years and older people more. It probably over-estimated your point on lost years. Still a good point, but it would be picked apart be a nay-sayer, who wouldn’t bother to redo the calculation, they would just yell “WRONG!”
db – I just saw something that I thought might run well with your analysis here, but also has a bit of Bastiat’s “seen and unseen,” so I though it might pique your interest.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2783690
The title is “Changes in Body Mass Index Among Children and Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Yikes. I wonder how that would affect your calculations above over the long run in life years lost?
I know the thread’s probably dead, buy my cousin’s suicide in April of last year was directly connected to the government lockdowns. He was having financial issues already, and the shutdown of hair salons took away his wife’s income at a critical point. And as I’ve already mentioned this, and received much support from the Glibertariat, there’s no need for additional condolences.