Coronovirus IV

[T.Lex]

Local, state, and federal heads.

So your local mayor, the state governor, and POTUS?

 

[BigRed]

Let it rip!

 

[T.Lex]

Let it rip!

Fair 'nuff.

 

[chipbennett]

We'll never know how many actually died from covid. Of the 94% that died with comorbidities how many could could've been asymptomatic or had false positive testing? How many were already on their death beds and covid was the final straw, much the same with many elderly deaths were the person just gets that last little push into death from any number of sicknesses. At least it appears that in the US and at least some other countries we are not seeing a sharp up tick of deaths this year compared to past years and hopefully it stays this way!

We don't even know how many die from the flu; we merely estimate it.

And that's exactly what we'll be able to do with Covid, once we can look at 2020 mortality numbers in context.

 

[chipbennett]

I look at "but for" causation with a temporal element. Would a person have died when they did but for COVID? If the answer is yes, COVID did not cause their death. If the answer is no, it was a cause of their death...but as always, there can be multiple causes for a death and very often, there are.

Everyone is going to die eventually, so I think the "when they did" issue is critical in determining if the death is due to COVID. Granted, when determining policy, a study of excess death or whether people would have died within, say, 6 months is relevant and should be considered, but both are different issues than whether COVID was a cause of the death.

The nursing home community is a good example of this. (CAVEAT: every life is precious and every death is a meaningful loss. Do not interpret dispassionate analysis as lack of care for lives lost.)

If nursing home residents, on average, will die after a certain number of weeks, but that timespan is shortened due to Covid, did that person die from Covid? Yes. Would that person have died some number of weeks later, without Covid, on average? Also yes. When we look at those numbers in the aggregate for 2020, will see see any real excess death numbers that are anywhere close to the breathlessly reported 180K Covid deaths? I think that will be extremely unlikely.

(It is a similar assessment of businesses on life support that end up going out of business due to Covid. Was Covid the final straw? Yes. Would something else, likely very soon, have been the final straw anyway? Also yes.)

 

[NKBJ]

Cui bono?

Concerning the bank bug that's the question that matters.

 

[BugI02]

The nursing home community is a good example of this. (CAVEAT: every life is precious and every death is a meaningful loss. Do not interpret dispassionate analysis as lack of care for lives lost.)

If nursing home residents, on average, will die after a certain number of weeks, but that timespan is shortened due to Covid, did that person die from Covid? Yes. Would that person have died some number of weeks later, without Covid, on average? Also yes. When we look at those numbers in the aggregate for 2020, will see see any real excess death numbers that are anywhere close to the breathlessly reported 180K Covid deaths? I think that will be extremely unlikely.

(It is a similar assessment of businesses on life support that end up going out of business due to Covid. Was Covid the final straw? Yes. Would something else, likely very soon, have been the final straw anyway? Also yes.)

This is why I'm cautiously interested in the metric of lost life expectancy. A lot depends on how it is implemented, but it holds the promise of automatically accounting for fragility in calculating excess death. If you were 85 and your life expectancy was 86 but you died of WuVid, the statistic would not have the same weight as someone who was 60 with a life expectancy of 86 dying of WuVid. Co-morbidities should ideally be figured into remaining life expectancy and accounted for

 

[foszoe]

That's twice I have been tempted to agree with you. I'll just say I agree with how I understand it so I have a way out. I think there is a temporal aspect to counting it as a Covid death.

This is why I'm cautiously interested in the metric of lost life expectancy. A lot depends on how it is implemented, but it holds the promise of automatically accounting for fragility in calculating excess death. If you were 85 and your life expectancy was 86 but you died of WuVid, the statistic would not have the same weight as someone who was 60 with a life expectancy of 86 dying of WuVid. Co-morbidities should ideally be figured into remaining life expectancy and accounted for

 

[BugI02]

I think there is a lot of potential mathematical overhead that TPTB might be tempted to give short shrift. Ideally it would be a scorecard. If you were 65, had a BMI over 30, bloodpressure was 140/100 on BP meds and you had some score on heart pumping efficiency and VO2max the data could be used to fine tune your particular life expectancy from the average for your group, and the calculation of lost life expectancy be more accurate

 

[nonobaddog]

I think there is a lot of potential mathematical overhead that TPTB might be tempted to give short shrift. Ideally it would be a scorecard. If you were 65, had a BMI over 30, bloodpressure was 140/100 on BP meds and you had some score on heart pumping efficiency and VO2max the data could be used to fine tune your particular life expectancy from the average for your group, and the calculation of lost life expectancy be more accurate

I think first one would have to do a long term study showing that any of the 'life-expectancy' assumptions and calculations have any merit.

 

[BugI02]

I think first one would have to do a long term study showing that any of the 'life-expectancy' assumptions and calculations have any merit.

I think some of the infrastructure already exists. I have seen estimators for heart parameters and effects of those parameters on life expectancy, there are usually some risk assessors included with your lab values on blood tests - at least for lipids if nothing else. One might need to have access to the patient's whole health record, but any treating hospital already has that. Any parameterization of life expecxtancy would be an improvement over 'if you were born in year X and male, then your life expectancy is Y'

 

[NKBJ]

I started on a blood pressure med today.
Suppose to facilitate dilation. And my asthma is lessened: Good day in the morning!
The last few gallons of sealer / stain for the decks arrived.
And my sister in law brought me some new knee pads.

What was this thread about! Oh yeah, the bank bug.
We're waiting on the test results back for the better 2/3's so being kept at the house is a good thing. There're facilities that need me on the hooter even if I can't walk in. And with what air travel has become I really prefer not dealing with blue shirts.

 

[actaeon277]

a Pelosi protest

[video=youtube;7aitZE0A4Cc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aitZE0A4Cc[/video]

 

[actaeon277]

Sen. Pelosi demands an apology.
Cause, apparently lawmakers can't be expected to know the laws.
The same laws that the lawmakers expect the citizens to know.
The lawmakers that state, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Then make so many laws that the citizens (and lawmakers) can't know all the laws.


[video=youtube;bwQfmAQvNTQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwQfmAQvNTQ[/video]

 

[Kdf101]

Let them eat cake.

 

[NKBJ]

Just another bad vaccine. Warp speed Mister Crusher.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...-spreads-in-africa-after-defeat-of-wild-virus

 

[jamil]

this is the coronavirus thread, no?

 

[NKBJ]

I started on a blood pressure med today.
Suppose to facilitate dilation. And my asthma is lessened: Good day in the morning!
The last few gallons of sealer / stain for the decks arrived.
And my sister in law brought me some new knee pads.

What was this thread about! Oh yeah, the bank bug.
We're waiting on the test results back for the better 2/3's so being kept at the house is a good thing. There're facilities that need me on the hooter even if I can't walk in. And with what air travel has become I really prefer not dealing with blue shirts.

And her test has come back as negative, which does nothing to explain her bank bug symptoms.

 

[BugI02]

And her test has come back as negative, which does nothing to explain her bank bug symptoms.

Remember that with a test that is 30% inaccurate (a description of the PCR test, I believe), you need two seperate tests just to get the error under 10%

 

[NKBJ]

There you go.