vcv
Registered User
How many of those "deaths with C-19" do you think weren't caused by or exacerbated by C-19? To put it more clearly: would those people have died if they did not get COVID-19?
OT - NO POLITICS Local COVID-19 Discussion
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Depends on the preexisting conditions they already had some probably would have died within the next 12 months.
Drug Overdose, Head Trauma Deaths Added To Coronavirus Death Toll
"A 37-year-old California man who died of a drug overdose has been added to the novel coronavirus death toll."
"Last month, a 61-year-old Pennsylvania man who died from a head injury and tested positive for COVID-19 was added to the coronavirus death toll, too."
"Earlier this month, leading voice on the White House Coronavirus Task Force Dr. Deborah Birx explained that COVID-19 deaths in the United States have “very liberal” recording guidance, noting that anyone who tests positive for the virus and dies would be included in their numbers of coronavirus deaths."
Meaning if you are asymptomatic and you die for another reason you get added to the total.
vcv
Registered User
- Regarding the OD, it says "The man died as a result of a drug overdose while infected with COVID-19, a significant contributing condition, according to county spokeswoman Ashley Bautista." Let's say someone has HIV/AIDS, which weakens their immune system, then they get pneumonia and die because their immune system is too weak to fight it off. According to your logic, their death should not be counted as an AIDS death. I strongly disagree, as do the people counting the statistics.
- Regarding the head injury, it also says COVID-19 was a contributing factor. It does not provide details, so we can't say one way or another.
- The article ends by highlighting that PA worked to revise their counts and totals to be more accurate. This is all happening pretty fast, so of course there will be mistakes and they should be scrutinized and adjusted.
- Finally, anything from a site founded by Ben Shapiro and a guy who is involved with PragerU should be taken with a grain of salt.
The articles quoted by Dailywire as linked on their page
Coronavirus a contributing factor to Lehigh Valley patient’s death, coroner says
Ventura County's coronavirus death toll climbs to 16; cases reach 465
You AIDS comparison is not a fair comparison because unlike AIDS, you can have C-19 and be fully asymptomatic, and as more data comes in it keeps showing that the mortality rate of C-19 is very similar to influenza.
Jim Bob
RIP RJ
vcv
Registered User
Wait, what? You didn't reference any stories of someone with COVID-19 being asymptomatic, dying, and having their death recorded as COVID-19.
Its quoted in the original Dailywire article and linked to another.
Responding to a question from a reporter about potential underreporting of novel coronavirus deaths in the nation, Dr. Birx responded: “I think in this country, we are taking a very liberal approach to mortality. And I think the reporting here has been pretty straightforward over the last five to six weeks,” she said, adding, “If someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that.”
“There are other countries, that if you have a pre-existing condition, and let’s say the virus called you to go to the ICU (intensive care unit) and then have a heart or kidney problem,” she explained. “Some countries are recording that as a kidney issue, or a heart issue, and not a COVID-19 death.”
In the U.S., Dr. Birx suggested, “we’re still recording it” as a COVID-19 death.
Guidance from Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seems to at least somewhat jive with Dr. Birx’s explanation on COVID-19 mortality recording.
“COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death,” reads CDC guidance issued in March. “Certifiers should include as much detail as possible based on their knowledge of the case, medical records, laboratory testing, etc. If the decedent had other chronic conditions such as COPD or asthma that may have also contributed, these conditions can be reported in Part II.”
WATCH: Dr. Birx: We Have ‘Very Liberal’ Recording Of COVID Deaths; If They Test Positive, ‘We Are Counting That’
GameMisconduct
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Seriously, the results and reporting of antibody tests right now should be taken with truckloads of salt. If you understand the way errors and accuracy work with these tests in the context of the current situation (low spread of the disease among the population), the likely number of false positives here is through the roof, especially with the quality issues reported by these tests.
None of this stuff is in my wheelhouse, and I'm not equipped to parse and argue all of this beyond some broad strokes, so take this FWIW, but I *have* heard it argued directly from people who are legitimately experts in areas at least adjacent to this (thus these folks are in a position to know, and I know directly interact with other experts directly in these areas), that there is a decent, likely even a strong chance with these early tests that that the significant majority of these the positives here are likely to be false. The California ones are especially problematic in this regard and have drawn some serious criticism. The issue is that even if you have a test that is on the surface might appear highly accurate (e.g. 90% accurate rate) because of the low incidence of Covid-19, this means that most positive results are likely false. We still need more accurate antibody tests (there are some, but they are not necessarily abundantly available). At a minimum, given the state of current tests we need to be replicating tests across individuals to reduce the impact of false positives--this is hard to do when tests are limited and especially when people/states/agencies are still competing with one another. We also want to be examining how well these results correlate with other indicators of the prevalence of the disease (e.g projections based off verified cases and past precedents, baseline rates for deaths in given regions over the same timeframe) and there are also clearly legitimate sampling issues with these studies (soliciting volunteers or testing shoppers is not the same as representatively testing the population.
Here are a couple general and easily accessible links that explain some of this stuff better than I probably am.
Covid-19 antibody tests face a very specific problem
Why coronavirus antibody testing might not do much good
I've seen this angle in the media too, though seemingly far*FAR* less vocally than the more hopeful take that maybe the disease is far more widespread and (and thus less deadly) and that maybe we're at far less risk for future infections spiking.
I know we all want to be hopeful (someone in the zoom meeting I was in where this argument was made directly made the Debbie Downer sound after this discussion, tongue-in-cheek) but there is a reason scientific research works the way it does. And coverage of science and people (even scientists) being premature or exaggerating potentially hopeful interpretations because they want to be a name in front of something is a far cry from how this process legitimately works and is in opposition to core scientific principles and practices. Science is a tremendously powerful tool, but it takes time and commitment to key practices to be reliable. It's inarguable, IMO, that there is an urgency here and that we need to be as expeditious as we possibly can, but when we cut too many of these corners and skip too many of these practices we undermine what we're supposed to be trying to do.
There *are* legitimate reasons to be hopeful about testing, treatment, and research and promising developments; and the issues with these tests doesn't mean that things might not be better than we fear when it comes to some of this stuff. But it's really way to soon to justify the way these antibody tests seem to have been mostly reported. Any level of patience in this current situation is hard to muster in the face of this level of uncertainty and consequence, but it is, unfortunately, needed.
Montag DP
Sabres fan in...
Without responding to everything in that post, I'm aware that there are accuracy concerns with the antibody tests. However, all of them right now are pointing in the same direction, and the New York ones at least have a high enough percentage of positive results that I believe these are well out of the noise. They also seem consistent with the high rates of asymptomatic people that were tested on cruise ships and the Navy carriers, as well as the clearly observable fact that most people who may have it are not getting tested, even if they have some symptoms. I agree with you that we need to wait for more conclusive data, though; I didn't mean to suggest that the results we have already are conclusive, but all signs are pointing in that direction IMO.
Sweden is nearing herd immunity in the coming weeks without having a lock down and their healthcare system wasn't overrun.
vcv
Registered User
I think Dr Birx is not great as a spokesperson. She seems to have spoken incompletely.
The second part I bolded from your post, the guidance from the CDC, clearly indicates that deaths are recorded as COVID-19 when they at minimum contributed to death. That is clearly not the same as what Dr. Birx said.
But what matters is what the CDC guidance is and what coroners are actually doing. You have not provided examples of cases of people being asymptomatic, dying, and having their death recorded as a COVID-19 death. At least not any examples that were not corrected. Further, you have not made a compelling case that even if there are instances of that, that they are any significant percentage of recorded deaths.
Husko
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As I mentioned before, their "not a lockdown" really wasn't that different from what the US calls a "lockdown"
Montag DP
Sabres fan in...
It should also be noted that the herd immunity in May claim is based on modeling estimates. We'll see if they are correct, but I'm not going to count on it.
tsujimoto74
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