Covid kills lots of middle-aged people

The vast majority of people that die of Covid-19 are old. Nonetheless, I see a tendency for people to understate the Covid risk to non-old people. Here’s some Covid fatality data from December 2 from the Heritage Foundation, by age group in the US:

In fairness, the infection fatality risk is even more lopsided, as there are many fewer people in the 75-84 and 85+ categories. The old really are at much higher risk of dying. However, it’s still true that 48,000 middle-aged people (35-64) have died of Covid and even a couple thousand younger people.

At this point people say, “Yeah, but those middle-aged people have pre-existing conditions like asthma and obesity”, as if that makes it all OK. I don’t get that. I’m 65 and have the pre-existing condition of crappy lungs. If I’d been born in 1800, I might well have died in my mid-30s, like lots of famous artists and composers. But antibiotics likely saved my life and I still play tennis 3 times a week. My mom and stepfather are still alive in their mid-90s. Fat people often live well into their 70s or 80s. Why are middle-aged people with pre-existing conditions now viewed as disposable?

Again, I’m not denying that the risk for old people is more than 10 times higher on a per capita basis, but our society (including conservatives) freaks out about risks that are utterly trivial compared to Covid, such as terrorism. I bet you could find millions of middle-aged people who scoff at the risk of Covid but would be terrified to fly in a MAX737 (where your risk of dying is probably 1000 times lower than from Covid.)

Also keep in mind that the 48,000 figure is a moving target, indeed it’s likely already above 50,000 and will go much higher.

I’m not taking a position here on any public policy issue (I’m skeptical of “lockdowns”, for instance). But people really need to be consistent. If you want to argue that Australia’s success is not that significant because Covid doesn’t kill all that many people who don’t already have one foot in the grave, then you permanently forfeit the right to freak out over any other societal risk that is orders of magnitude less severe.

How many conservatives want to take away the “liberty” of Syrians to move to Germany because the immigrants might boost the murder rate by a few dozen? So what’s more important, liberty or safety?

Where was the conservative criticism of Trump’s various travel bans?

PS. LOL

PPS. LOL squared


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61 Responses to “Covid kills lots of middle-aged people”

  1. Gravatar of Joe Joe
    10. December 2020 at 18:07

    I think it should be: risk compared to cost. Frankly its disheartening to see economists like Tyler Cowen fall prey to “worrying about shark attack” fallacies, etc. This is exactly the kind of flawed thinking economists have been warning about for decades and yet in the most critical instance of this, our most famous economists fall for the exact fallacy they’ve been warning us all about.

    Can anyone reasonably claim that on “dollar cost per life year saved”, that we’ve acted anywhere close to rational? Not even close

    We’ve spent trillions for something that might cost us 10% above the normal trend in life years lost. This against a backdrop of big declines in mortality. We’re basically back to 1980s/1990’s/2020’s levels of mortality per capita.

    And that doesn’t even address the lack of causation/correlation between lockdowns and reduction in excess mortality. IMO, there’s little evidence we could’ve prevented this excess mortality, even if we wanted to.

    https://twitter.com/VoidSurf1/status/1313777667733413889

    https://twitter.com/jeffreyatucker/status/1287739468452106241/photo/1

  2. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    10. December 2020 at 19:53

    Joe, There are some very good arguments on both sides of this issue. But one point that gets too little recognition is that there’s basically no evidence that countries like Sweden got ANY economic benefit out of their Covid policies. They have been hit every bit as hard as the other Nordic countries. Now perhaps otherwise Sweden would have been hit even harder than the other three, but there’s no proof of that.

    In other words, it may be that the relevant “we” is not the government, but private sector individuals that decided to take lots of precautions to avoid Covid.

    Conversely, countries that took this seriously like Taiwan and Australia and New Zealand were able to avoid lots of the economic pain from closing service industries (although of course they got hammered by the global recession and drop in tourism.)

    We could have prevented the excess mortality, but lockdowns weren’t the way to do so. We would have needed to have aggressive mask wearing, testing, and much earlier and stricter international travel bans. In retrospect, that’s what we should have done, and what we should and will do next time. By the time we got to lockdowns, it was too late.

    For me it was easy. I wear a mask in grocery stores, cut my own hair, eat out in outdoor restaurants, watch movies at home and work out of my house. Hardly any sacrifice. None of that is about government policies. But I do feel bad for lots of working class people who are suffering much more than I am.

  3. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    10. December 2020 at 19:56

    One other point. Don’t forget that without social distancing the mortality would have been many times higher, or at least three times higher.

  4. Gravatar of Joe Joe
    10. December 2020 at 20:46

    Aren’t exports something like 50% of Swedish GDP so they are much more affected by rest of the worlds lockdowns policies?

    In general I would say that I wish all countries had acted in unison and not locked down once it became clear that mortality was much lower than previously thought. We knew this in late April and yet we’ve only seen lockdowns stay the same or get more restrictive Perhaps it’s wishful thinking to hope for worldwide sane policy, but have to believe GDP would be in much better shape if world acted correctly in unison

    I’m frankly most bothered by the cancel culture at anyone who even suggests lockdowns are not worth it or don’t do anything at all. I frankly seriously question whether masks do anything in practice and think we should have at least considered opening up so that young healthy people get sick and are the ones who are primarily helping with herd immunity. This blog is open and I enjoy this conversation , but none of these ideas can be discussed in polite society for fear of being labeled “anti science”

    Also could give more details on 3x higher claim? It seems to me that virus burns out at a certain mortality rate regardless of lockdown strategy. If it really was 3x higher then wouldn’t we have seen even one country with 3x the rate of say Sweden? Of course all this should be adjusted for age and general populations health, general health care facilities, etc

  5. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    10. December 2020 at 21:24

    The Arizona Republican Party is actively trying to encourage development of a death cult? This is sick.

    Democrats are so politically incompetent, they can’t make political hay even out of things like this that are obviously, hopelessly deranged. Meanwhile, Republicans have made feminism a dirty word over decades based on a very outspoken, tiny, tiny fringe of nuts in the movement.

    Why are we not calling these people extremists and constantly pointing out how crazy these people are? Failing to do so seems to allow normalization of this sort of “third world” fascist cultism.

  6. Gravatar of DeservingPorcupine DeservingPorcupine
    10. December 2020 at 21:40

    And yet, covid won’t be the top killer this year or any other. Yes, conservatives should be consistent when it comes to terrorism. But somehow I doubt you’d be so diplomatic about government officials slapping donuts out of hands.

    Of course people will say “but those things aren’t contagious”! But really the externality angle is almost entirely non-existent. Unless you’re a HC worker or care home resident, you pretty much have a negligible chance of contracting it if you just take all reasonable precautions yourself and leave others to do what they wish. The reason people are getting it is because they wish to take the risks.

  7. Gravatar of xu xu
    10. December 2020 at 21:48

    How many conservatives want to take away the “liberty” of Syrians to move to Germany because the immigrants might boost the murder rate by a few dozen? So what’s more important, liberty or safety?

    Another really dumb response:

    1. Syrians don’t have a social contract with Germany. They have a social contract with their govt. Obama is a piece of shit for using the CIA to cause unrest and destroy their country. Notwithstanding, the harm is done and they are now left with two choices:

    1. Live in Tyranny.
    2. Fight for liberty.

    Can 80M Americans seek refuge in Germany from the Biden/Harris communist agenda? Can The Thai people move to Germany to escape a 70 year old playboy King who spends more time fucking his 25 teenage concubines than running his nation? Can Hong Kong escape your beloved raging lunatic, CCP?

    Can the world people leave Earth to escape the WEF and UN global mandates?

    Of course, not.

    It is impractical.

    One cannot abuse the spirit and letter of the law originally designed to provide refuge for political dissidents, or use economic backwardness brought on by socialist policies and corrupt politicians, as an excuse to bankrupt other countries.

    Germany cannot afford to take care of 36.5M Syrians. And neither can any country on earth.

    YOUR policies weaken the economy, and force future generations to accept lower salaries because YOU are “sympathetic” to the suffering of others. Instead of EMPATHY, here is a novel idea:

    STOP INTERVENTIONSIM!

    If OBAMA and his predecessor did not promote endless foreign wars – both covert and overt – Syrian people would be just fine.

    This all comes back to individual responsibility, and the ideals of individualism. It comes back to community values (I mean small communities) over values dictated and promulgated from afar. And by “afar” I mean both Washington D.C., or Brussels. It’s all a matter of perspective.

  8. Gravatar of sarah sarah
    10. December 2020 at 22:01

    Shouldn’t people have a right to determine their risk?

    If I read the medical literature, and come to the conclusion that Norway’s study correct, and that wearing masks is not effective, then do I not have the right to make that choice.

    Why is the government permitted to force upon us these mandates?

    If I own a business, am in my 40’s, and have a preexisting condition that qualified me as very high risk, but still choose to keep my business open because I need the income, then is that not a choice I should be permitted to make without government involvement.

  9. Gravatar of jayne jayne
    10. December 2020 at 22:10

    I feel Sarah just nailed it!

    People have a right to choose their level of risk.

    And I will never allow a government to force me to take a vaccine. That is the final straw. Govts who are planning these covid passports will soon find themselves out of power. People will not abide.

  10. Gravatar of Bob Bob
    10. December 2020 at 22:24

    We are being overrun by communists. Sumner is a hidden communist sympathizer who is figuratively in bed with Klaus Schwab. Politicians are in bed with the CCP, some are literally in bed with the CCP. We all need to stand up now to the medical, economic, and political tyrants who want to terraform Mars for the wealthy and force us all to live under draconian rules on earth’s decaying plantation while they live in unimaginable pleasure.

    First will come covid passports. Then micro chips. Then slavery.
    This is all planned.

    At this very moment the water in your homes has a chemical called Atrazine that has been designed in the laboratory to turn you all into a weak beta males.

    Read infowars.com.

    They tell the truth.

  11. Gravatar of Cartesian Theatrics Cartesian Theatrics
    10. December 2020 at 22:34

    [dumb post] Three words: we don’t know. We don’t know why Australia is successful. Germany was supposed to be successful than it wasn’t, dito for Europe broadly. Florida was supposed to be a total failure, then it wasn’t (relative to the rest of US). In the US there isn’t a correlation between lock-down measures and covid case rates, unless you really work to find one.

    So who knows about lock-downs and whatever, but seriously zero funding for re-purposing existing therapeutics equals major crime against humanity! We need to find damn solutions to this thing and find them fast. Disgraceful.

    Goodnight to all, pray for this country.

  12. Gravatar of henry henry
    10. December 2020 at 22:40

    “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety” – Benjamin Franklin

  13. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    10. December 2020 at 23:00

    Joe, You asked:

    “If it really was 3x higher then wouldn’t we have seen even one country with 3x the rate of say Sweden?”

    New Jersey has three times Sweden’s death rate (similar population) and the death total in New Jersey is still rising fast. This is a really dangerous disease; it seems like some people haven’t really absorbed that fact. We’d have roughly a million dead with no social distancing.

    The other Nordic countries are also very heavily export oriented, not just Sweden. It seems to me that the economies doing well are places like China, which controlled the epidemic. Even China’s exports are doing well, so the global recession doesn’t prevent economies from doing well, although it hurts tourism. But international tourism is not a big part of GDP in either China or Sweden.

    https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports

    I generally agree with people who say we spend absurd amounts of money for trivial improvements in safety in many areas of our lives. I just don’t see any easy way out of this problem. Now that Sweden has abandoned its previous policy, there are basically no countries successfully ignoring the issue, whereas there are a number of success stories across the Pacific in controlling the epidemic. I’m certainly not recommending the draconian Chinese approach, but the Australian/Taiwan approach seems to be better than what we ended up with.

    No matter what the government did, the people were going to vote with their feet—for social distancing. They did so almost everywhere.

    Cartesian, You said:

    “Germany was supposed to be successful than it wasn’t,”

    Compared to the US!?!?

  14. Gravatar of harry harry
    10. December 2020 at 23:25

    These are Medical Scientists. They speak the truth:

    https://gbdeclaration.org/

    They denounce authoritarian covid policies.

    Does MSM cover that? No, because they are “fake news” and aligned with the CCP.

  15. Gravatar of nick nick
    10. December 2020 at 23:34

    I think Sumner made a good point.
    I think Sarah also makes good points.

    Douglas Murray, author of “strange death of Europe” and “madness of crowds” has almost identical views to Xu. Obviously, there is a tipping point. And that is a discussion worth having.

    Bob is insane. Sorry Bob. I love reading those for the laughter though.

    If you want to see real leadership, this is what it looks like:

    https://twitter.com/YALiberty/status/1337094918729293824

    That is Rand Paul calling out the hypocrisy that both sides of the aisle are involved in. In this case, the new Military Bill includes provisions that don’t permit American Presidents to end wars. So with this new provision they are allowed to start a war, but cannot end a war.

    These are your leaders. And of course the media never tells you about this. They tell you that the bill supports the military, that it is passed every year, and that we should all just shut up and sign it.

    They don’t tell you about the provisions, the earmarks, and other things in these bills that destroy our economy and our livelihoods, while propping up the military industrial complex.

    Our country is under attack by idiots. We have idiots representing us. And we have citizens too busy to know what is really going on. After all, most of us don’t have time to read these 500 page bills.

  16. Gravatar of bob bob
    10. December 2020 at 23:59

    There is nothing insane about gay frogs Nick. It’s true.

    And of course Xu & Murray are right. Nations are built on shared values.

    It’s not xenophobia to tell these people to deal with their own problems. Assad was not doing anything wrong. Yes, he’s corrupt. Yes, the economy sucked. But its not as if he was murdering them. He only fought back when rebel forces with CIA weapons and money attacked the military.

    That is not Europe’s problem.

    Maybe Americas problem because they created it. But America doesn’t have 36M jobs for Syrians. America cannot even feed itself right now. Its broke.

    So Syria and America both have corrupt politicians and are bankrupt. Not Europe’s problem. We don’t need fat, broke, Americans here. And we don’t need broke Syrians either. They can focus on fixing their countries.

    We have our own problems to worry about.

  17. Gravatar of DeservingPorcupine DeservingPorcupine
    11. December 2020 at 00:13

    LOL. Australia. Where they held people in apartment buildings with armed guards. Where they arrested pregnant women for merely posting about a protest on FB.

    There is no defense of Australia by either libertarian or utilitarian reasoning.

    You complain about consistency, but what are you doing here? You’ve never endorsed something as horrible as Australia’s authoritarianism to stop heart disease.

    And quit saying we’d have a million dead without “social distancing”, whatever you think that means. You have zero basis for saying that.

  18. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 02:35

    “Why are middle-aged people with pre-existing conditions now viewed as disposable?”

    No one has said this, moron. It’s your delusion. So how long should children, who are at zero risk, be prevented from going to school and seeing their friends?

  19. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 02:41

    “And quit saying we’d have a million dead without “social distancing”, whatever you think that means. You have zero basis for saying that.”

    When did having zero basis stop Scott from spewing nonsense? Just work around it.

  20. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 02:48

    Joe wrote:

    “This is exactly the kind of flawed thinking economists have been warning about for decades and yet in the most critical instance of this, our most famous economists fall for the exact fallacy they’ve been warning us all about.”

    Joe should win the Nobel prize in Economics for pointing out the obvious, but sadly, he won’t.

  21. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 03:08

    Sarah wrote:

    “Shouldn’t people have a right to determine their risk?”

    Comrade Sarah,

    Scott is asleep right now, but I’m sure he would let me speak on behalf of him. You see Sarah, what Scott and I want you to see is that you are completely ignoring the collective good, that which will propel us to utopia.

    I’m sure when Scott awakes, he will explain in more detail how to advance our collective and give you tips on how to erase your individual risk-assessing selfish thoughts.

  22. Gravatar of Matty Wacksen Matty Wacksen
    11. December 2020 at 03:09

    Replying to Scott’s comment:

    >But one point that gets too little recognition is that there’s basically no evidence that countries like Sweden got ANY economic benefit out of their Covid policies.

    Excuse me what? I’m not an economist, but I am under the impression that economists hate it when people misconstrue their field as being solely about money. If someone gains some utility from being able to visit friends, meet with them without worrying about the police, etc… is that not “economic benefit” in at least some sense of the word? If shops and restaurants are able to stay open, isn’t it obvious that there are more opportunities, wouldn’t there *have* to be some economic benefit? To me, saying “Sweden didn’t benefit economically from keeping things open” sounds about as counterintuitive as “washing hands helps covid-19 spread”. Now I may be wrong, but my prior here would be to not trust the statistics because of the lack of a control group – after all, none of the nordic countries had a real lockdown, Sweden was just a bit more vocal about it.

    As for the actual post, it confuses a number of issues and mainly addresses straw-men. To “steel-man” the first – comorbidities of some of the middle-aged people dying were not things like “obesity” or “asthma” but things where the probability of dying in the next 5 years was relatively high even without covid. Secondly, you don’t care so much about the lives of strangers either – by donating, for example, to the Against Malaria Foundation, you can probably save a life for significantly less than $10k. So I’m a bit surprised that if I do not put my life on hold to possibly avert a <1% probability of some 33-64 year old dying somehow makes them "disposable" to me. Also, giving absolute numbers of people in a country with 300e6 people makes it seem like the numbers are much higher than they are.

    I fully agree that people overreact to terrorism, immigration, etc… But I really don't see how this is in any way or form relevant. The "tu quoque" hasn't been a valid argument so far, I don't see why this should change in 2020. Yes people are hypocrites, tell me something new and talk about the actual issues instead of pointing me to something I already know.

  23. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 03:32

    ” We would have needed to have aggressive mask wearing”

    This is Jehovah Witness Scott writing, clinging to religion.

  24. Gravatar of Nikola Nikola
    11. December 2020 at 03:35

    Maybe should not comment, because not U.S. citizen, but what is so bad about Trump? Why do you always attack him?

    He started no war. He brokered peace deals between some countries and tried very hard in others. He is pro business. His state department was very quick to respond to CCP/INDIA, and CCP/Hong Kong threats. He lowered tax. He reduced size of your govt.

    Sometimes he is not elegant. But personality is not policy.

  25. Gravatar of xu xu
    11. December 2020 at 04:51

    The point is that liberty is really difficult to obtain. American liberty is rooted in the blood, sweat, and tears of millions who fought for alienable precepts over multiple generations. That is why we have it so good. FOR NOW!

    Those born in Syria certainly got a raw deal. But that deal was born out of inaction. Germany owes them NOTHING.

    Their social contract was violated long ago. Instead of action, they chose inaction. Instead of courage, they chose to live in Tyranny. if they want a better social contract, then they must fight for it. And surely we can help if the cause is just. But we cannot engage in covert actions, or intervene under false pretenses. And we cannot provide safe harbor for millions without violating article 25 of UDHR. We have an obligation to OUR citizens.

    And btw, not all Syrians want to go to Germany. Many are willing to fight, and are fighting. They don’t choose “safety”. They choose “liberty”.

  26. Gravatar of rinat rinat
    11. December 2020 at 05:20

    It is a new religion! Every academic study shows little to no efficacy. A court in Chile had the PCR tests examined by experts who found substantial flaws. Vaccine killed a number of people, and gave others cerebral palsy.

  27. Gravatar of Joe Joe
    11. December 2020 at 06:22

    New Jersey, through week 47, had a 27% higher death rate in 2020 vs 2019. For this year it works out to be about 10,200 deaths per million. Importantly we see no excess deaths in recent weeks in NY or NJ, implying some sort of heard immunity (or at the very least, the virus is largely infecting young healthy people now)

    Even if we extrapolate NJ death rate to the rest of the U.S., This isn’t all that much higher than what we’ve seen in the past. Of course treatment etc is much better now, so doubt we get NJ death rates – which got crushed by the virus when we didn’t know how to treat it

    https://twitter.com/VoidSurf1/status/1313777647080673280/photo/1

    We can also see this takes us back to death rates seen in Sweden in 2003

    https://twitter.com/VoidSurf1/status/1320269572700819456/photo/1

  28. Gravatar of bb bb
    11. December 2020 at 06:42

    I had a comment, but after scrolling through the other comments I’m exhausted.
    Masks are effective.
    Public health is a public good that must be balanced against individual liberties- nothing groundbreaking here. Sarah not wearing a mask can lead to my mother’s death.
    The final years of a person’s life are precious. One year can mean the difference between seeing a grandchild’s graduation, wedding, or first child. We absolutely should do everything we can to protect the lives of older people.
    Finally Scott,
    What does being opposed to lockdowns even mean? I believe you have agreed that various restrictions are warranted at times, large gatherings for instance. What would a lockdown actually look like? Because I don’t think we’ve seen one.

  29. Gravatar of Can Sar Can Sar
    11. December 2020 at 07:26

    I have to agree with some of the commenters on previous posts that the level of discussion on some of these COVID and political posts is really frustrating and tedious and I would advocate for stricter rules on commenting. This is the only blog where I read the comments (and don’t auto hide them) because a lot of the time there is excellent discussion and explanation of economic matters and I end up understanding the posts better than I would have without the comments. These days many of the posts are overrun with people and bots posting polemical arguments and not honestly engaging with responses which IMO is a waste of time and energy to read.

  30. Gravatar of Stefan Stefan
    11. December 2020 at 10:00

    All true. But just as people worry too much about risks from flying, people worry too little about the risks from things that will kill far more people over time than COVID-19.

    We do very little to prevent obesity and encourage more active lifestyles. We do spend a lot of money on poorly treating the consequences of those later. If we place substantial restrictions on people’s choices due to COVID-19, why not for these other things as well.

    Many of the pre-existing conditions that stem from lifestyle choices for problems with COVID-19 among the middle aged are also the causes or significant risk factors for many other diseases and deaths.

    We ought to at least attempt balance those risks and incentivize behaviors according to reasonable cost benefit tests.

    I wear a mask when near other people and don’t engage in any indoor activities with poor ventilation or crowds of people. I also regularly engage in strenuous exercise and consume an appropriate number of calories to maintain a healthy weight and don’t smoke. Those are all reasonable actions based on some reasonable cost benefit tests, but which ones am I required to do and which ones do I choose to do freely?

  31. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 10:31

    I see I accidently misspelled Scott, m-o-r-o-n, and didn’t catch the error before posting. Still, I don’t understand repeatedly stating the million deaths number as fact when the Imperial College model was shown to be wildly off in late March but sadly too late to prevent the killer lockdowns.

    The WHO and Neil Ferguson warned Sweden’s health ministry in early April that if the country didn’t lock down they would have 95,000 deaths by June but that if they did lock down, Sweden would possibly have “only” 30,000 deaths. Sweden didn’t lock down and there were 5,500 deaths by June and now has 7,500 deaths. Oh, almost no mask wearing in Sweden and it ranks #21 in Covid-19 deaths per capita; the U.S. is #9.

    There was a bad article in the Wall St. Jnl. a couple of days ago that said Sweden has reversed its Covid-19 policies but hasn’t so far.

  32. Gravatar of Cartesian Theatics Cartesian Theatics
    11. December 2020 at 11:25

    Scott,

    You’re right that Germany’s case rate is about half that of the US right now, but still very high at 30K or so per day. Still in the “losing” category. Thankfully German doctors have been brave enough quietly pursue effective treatment protocols, so the death rate has been significantly lower.

    I’ll stop commenting here for a while, because clearly it has gone a bit off the rails and many are unhappy. I’m not much commenter usually–been enjoying reading this blog for several years now–but covid has reduced me and greatly damaged my faith in humanity..

  33. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    11. December 2020 at 14:04

    Todd, can you at least explain what you suggest should be done?

    You make a lot of claims that we can each debate and then not really engage with responses properly, but what does this all add up to?

  34. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 16:44

    Cartesian Theatrics wrote: “You’re right that Germany’s case rate is about half that of the US right now, but still very high at 30K or so per day. Still in the “losing” category.”

    What you and Scott don’t realize is that Germany has been using the low end of the recommended 25 to 32 cycle magnification range when PCR testing people. The U.S., however, has been testing at the 35 to 42 range, which means a ton of “cases” are asymptomatic with a positive test of RNA strands, not of a live virus that can transmit. Before this year, no doctor would have considered these cases. The U.S. was one of the top testers per capita by early April, far more than South Korea and Japan, and has remained in the top two through out along with the U.K.

    CT wrote: “Thankfully German doctors have been brave enough quietly pursue effective treatment protocols, so the death rate has been significantly lower.”

    I’ve now read four people claim that German doctors are more conservative than American and Swedish doctors in declaring a Covid-19 death, but I haven’t been able to confirm that. We do know that Singapore’s criteria is strict and doesn’t consider dying “with Covid-19” as a Covid-19 death in many instances. A data analyst estimated a month ago that if American doctors used Singapore’s criteria, then there would be 100,000 Covid-19 deaths by now in the U.S., not 270,000. It is almost certain that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan don’t count Covid-19 deaths as liberal as the U.S. and many European countries, either.

  35. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    11. December 2020 at 17:13

    Todd, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you want to so cavalierly dismiss 170k deaths you better provide some proof or at least some sources. Nobody is buying your delusions but this is getting quite offensive.

  36. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 17:52

    Anonymous, shouldn’t you be targeting your outrage at doctors in other countries that didn’t change their rules in determining deaths as the U.S. did this past March through the CDC?

    In yours and Scott’s world all doctors, governments and populations are mostly equal and act mostly equally with respect to Covid-19. I didn’t say that 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 but that a data analyst estimated that using Singapore’s method of determining a death.

    Nuclear engineer and science writer Jennifer Cabrera is one of several who have been looking into PCR testing cycles and death certificates in Florida and the state recently told laboratories there that they must make the cycle they use public.

    One epidemiologist wrote in October: “The Florida House of Representatives death certificate analysis, and report, in large measure, examines the impact of CDC’s “expansive” guideline on Covid-19 death certification, within Florida.”

  37. Gravatar of micah micah
    11. December 2020 at 18:03

    I would encourage you to find one quote, of anyone, anywhere, who says middle aged people are “disposable”?

    That is a fictitious argument, targeting a fictitious enemy.

    I believe the argument for individual choice has merit, but even if reject individual choice on its philosophical premise it makes no sense to conclude that destroying an economy is preferable to destroying a virus.

    A weakened economy would kill as many, if not more, then the virus.

  38. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    11. December 2020 at 19:58

    Lol, I’m done here.

  39. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 20:53

    It’s normal not to be curious about science issues.

  40. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    11. December 2020 at 20:59

    Nope, just tired of trolls living in a parallel information universe and not interested in critically examine their beliefs. You keep jumping from point to point and it gets boring. There were two examples (death numbers and hospital capacity) where observed reality clearly contradicts your pet theories so that’s enough for me.

  41. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    11. December 2020 at 21:13

    I’m far from being an attorney, but this week I rhetorically asked on Twitter how the state of Texas could have standing to challenge election results in Pennsylvania. And it turns out, the Supreme Court summarily ruled that Texas has no standing to bring such a suit and refused to hear the case.

    I can have little doubt the attorneys involved here, including the Texas AG, knew damn well they didn’t have standing, much less a case otherwise.

    Trump supporters are too stupid to realize that everyone they support knows they are stupid, and they just put on a professional wrestling-type show to placate them.

  42. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    11. December 2020 at 21:50

    “There were two examples (death numbers and hospital capacity) where observed reality clearly contradicts your pet theories so that’s enough for me.”

    You might want to check Nobel laureate Michael Levitt’s analysis of Covid-19 spread, cases and deaths. He’s been a bio physicist at Stanford for 25 years so not up to your level of expertise but nonetheless still interesting.

  43. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    11. December 2020 at 22:11

    33 years actually – we already discussed him earlier. I’m excited for him, if his analysis is correct he should be able to turn that into some earth shattering research papers. Not enough for another Nobel Prize but still.

  44. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    11. December 2020 at 23:09

    Not to turn this into WWE but Anonymous is just destroying Todd K right here.

  45. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    12. December 2020 at 04:41

    It’s always more interesting if told where I am wrong rather than not provide any information as you and Anonymous have been doing. “LOL” is not a deep insight.

  46. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    12. December 2020 at 08:21

    It’s like I tell a pro-Trump uncle of mine, regularly: I’m supposed to trust your numbers over those of Johns Hopkins? LOL

    I haven’t taken the time to do research on Covid numbers, because it isn’t worth it to me. It’s easy enough to just wear a mask in public places, try to take care of myself, wait for this to be over. Specialization exists for a reason, and if I found out one day that I wore masks unnecessarily in public places for a year or two, it isn’t a tragedy.

  47. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    12. December 2020 at 08:23

    @Todd K:

    Anonymous has brought up quite a few questions about your posts, which you have avoided and ignored. That’s why he gave up, because you exemplify Paul Simon’s classic lyric:

    “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”

  48. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    12. December 2020 at 08:28

    Todd,

    Your problem is, you don’t seem to possess even the beginnings of the ability to think critically. Your statements aren’t even coherent. There’s nothing anyone here can do to help you, so we just laugh and roll our eyes.

    You need to learn how to think. Pay attention to primary source material and stop making stupid assumptions about liberals. That’s just a start. Learn the scientific method and apply it.

    If you have neurological issues, own them and take them into account metacognitively.

  49. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    12. December 2020 at 11:37

    Porcupine, During 2020, Australia had far more freedom than the US. I wish I was there, or in NZ, this past year.

    And a million dead? That’s 3000/million. New Jersey’s above 2000/million and still rising fast, despite lots of social distancing. With no social distancing the deaths would have been front loaded to last spring, overwhelming the hospitals. The death rates were higher at that time, as treatments like steroids had not yet been proven.

    And the actual number of Covid deaths is higher than the reported figure (in the US and most other countries, except perhaps Belgium.)

    Matty, You said:

    “If someone gains some utility from being able to visit friends, meet with them without worrying about the police, etc…”

    At no time during 202 was I unable to meet with friends without worrying about the police. But yes, freedom does have value, and Sweden did have more freedom. Still, many claimed there was a huge economic cost (to GDP) to the “lockdown” and there’s not much evidence of that.

    Micah, I see a lot of this sort of comment:

    https://www.themoneyillusion.com/trump-has-been-a-terrific-president/#comment-5806266

    bb, Yes, “lockdowns” are a very misleading term. My point is that the truly successful countries like Taiwan and New Zealand had open schools restaurants, etc. That’s the way we should have gone. There was zero chance the American public would have accepted the conservative “let a million people die” approach.

  50. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    12. December 2020 at 12:56

    Michael,

    Again, no specifics on what is not coherent, etc. Why not? What I’ve been seeing more over time is that those over 60 with health issues are living in terror. You wrote: “I haven’t taken the time to do research on Covid numbers, because it isn’t worth it to me.” Typical. Scott doesn’t research this topic either.

  51. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    12. December 2020 at 13:02

    “And the actual number of Covid deaths is higher than the reported figure (in the US and most other countries, except perhaps Belgium.)”

    Yes, all those hundreds of thousands of corpses in homes that never got a Covid-19 test despite mass testing for it – oh, but no hidden corpses from COvid-19 in Belgium of course. Hercule Poroit made sure of that.

  52. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    12. December 2020 at 13:09

    And msgivings…

    If I have ignored so many of Anonymous’ questions, why can’t you actually name one that I ignored? Why couldn’t he? As with Michael and Scott, you won’t take the time to look anything up. Granted, there are many good Korean and Japanese movies to watch…

  53. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    12. December 2020 at 18:32

    Todd, It’s almost comical how willfully blind you are to this epidemic of death across America. You put ostriches to shame.

  54. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    12. December 2020 at 21:28

    Scott,

    There are tons of youtube courses out there for logic 101 and bio 101 that you can take. At least you can take comfort that your mask wearing saved 50 people last week from Covid death. A true hero.

  55. Gravatar of Matty Wacksen Matty Wacksen
    13. December 2020 at 02:14

    Scott, you wrote

    “Still, many claimed there was a huge economic cost (to GDP) to the “lockdown” and there’s not much evidence of that.”

    And it could be that you are right. I mean (I think) I understand the argument – lockdowns pay for themselves in terms of second-order effects from less scared people who then consume more. I don’t like reasoning from unclear second-order effects like this, but more importantly I don’t agree with your “control”. The other Nordics had less covid-19 cases than sweden before any measures were taken. Since nobody is arguing that the virus itself plays no role in economic questions, a control should have similar level of virus before any “lockdowns”. Secondly, Sweden has more (and larger) cities, and people tend to worry about getting infections more in cities. Thirdly, other Nordics seem to have had broadly similar measures to Sweden (perhaps modulo tighter borders, and Norway closed a bit more). If you’re going to make a comparison, why not compare to some of the countries that *really* locked down like Italy? Or even Denmark, which is right next to Sweden and had more of a “lockdown”?

  56. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    13. December 2020 at 06:15

    Todd Kreider,

    Your last comment about Scott is a perfect example of your utter incoherence. If Scott lacks logic so much that he needs an intro to logic video, why do you read his blog? I don’t read blogs by people I consider ill-logical. It seems you’re the one who needs the lessons in logic.

  57. Gravatar of DeservingPorcupine DeservingPorcupine
    13. December 2020 at 09:50

    “Porcupine, During 2020, Australia had far more freedom than the US. I wish I was there, or in NZ, this past year.”

    Dude, what are you thinking? You realize a huge swath of the country could not go more than a couple of kilometers away from their home, right? Even if just walking outdoors, where there is virtually zero chance of transmission?

    Can you point to a *single* instance of a resident building in the US being guarded by armed police to prevent people from entering or exiting?

    Did you just miss these things, or do you not consider them a big deal?

    “New Jersey’s above 2000/million and still rising fast, despite lots of social distancing. With no social distancing the deaths would have been front loaded to last spring, overwhelming the hospitals.”

    More baseless claims that assume we know way more than we do. Broad social distancing has virtually nothing to do with nursing home deaths, and “officially” over 40% of NJ deaths are from nursing homes, and anyone who doesn’t believe in the Easter Bunny knows that itself is an undercount because how they fudged the stats to keep from looking like total morons.

    “And the actual number of Covid deaths is higher than the reported figure (in the US and most other countries, except perhaps Belgium.)”

    Baseless again. You don’t know if there’s an undercount or an overcount. “Excess deaths” will be a little over 300K, but a good chunk of those (~100K) aren’t from COVID (per the CDC). You have no idea at all whether the undercounting outnumbers the overcounting/deaths “with” COVID or not. Zero.

  58. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    14. December 2020 at 16:09

    Matty, Sweden is much more like the other Nordics than it is like Italy. My general impression is that all those countries are mostly urban. Yes, the cities in the other three are somewhat smaller, but in Europe even smaller cities tend to be fairly dense by American standards.

    Copenhagen is fairly large, how does the death rate there compare to Sweden?

    Porcupine, I’d feel much freer in a country where schools and restaurants were open and you could easily go on vacation, rather than being stuck in my house here in the US.

    I spent January in New Zealand, and wish I were there right now.

    As far as excess deaths, there have been studies of that issue and the evidence suggests that Covid deaths are understated. Obviously some people with Covid die of strokes, heart attacks, etc., so there are definitional issues. But there’s no real doubt that the Covid fatality data is fairly accurate. Early theories that Covid was leading to more suicides hasn’t panned out.

    As far as New Jersey, most of the estimates I saw were that maybe 20% or 25% of the population was infected last spring. It would have been more like 60% without social distancing, according to most models.

  59. Gravatar of Mark Bahner Mark Bahner
    14. December 2020 at 22:30

    The old really are at much higher risk of dying. However, it’s still true that 48,000 middle-aged people (35-64) have died of Covid and even a couple thousand younger people.

    I think this is from “Terms of Endearment” (or some such chick flick that I didn’t watch all through).

    Mother: “You’re not middle-aged. I’m middle-aged.”

    Daughter: “Yeah, if you’re going to live to 120!”

    Anyone over 55 is not middle-aged……..contrary to what Wikipedia and the U.S. Census may tell you. 😉

  60. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    15. December 2020 at 08:19

    Wow, was it just a few days ago that Scott invented this million deaths that would have happened idea? Now it’s locked in stone as one of his core truths. Blows my mind.

    Did not know middle aged people die! That is shocking. All age groups have had deaths with Covid (not from Covid—-they exist but we do not how much) at almost the exact same percent of that age groups normal death rate.

    So, if 35-54 year olds have a normal death rate of X (let’s call it .3%—about right plus or minus a few 10ths.). When we add “with Covid” .3% becomes .335%. Let’s say people over 80 have a 6% death rate normally. When we add “with Covid” it becomes 6.7%.

    As Briande of Hopkins pointed out “this is interesting”. For all practical purposes, this has never happened before for any respiratory contagious disease. I have no idea what it means—-but this is what a plug number would look like.

    Scott knows there is no current theory of how incremental Covid causes deaths. Since we have 15k deaths as stand alone (I know one is supposed to be really dumb to think that’s anything that matters) it is for certain that many who have co-morbidities were pushed over the line by Covid. But 100%? Is a disease which is so weak on a stand alone basis likely to be the 100% cause of all those who died with it?

    The standard response to my statement is that “my statement is a red herring—that is not what doctors do”——that is said right before they go back to quoting deaths by all who died with Covid.

    We have entered the season where deaths are normally 1000-1500 a day higher than than the lowest months. And low and behold—-Covid deaths are also increasing—-again, so called Covid deaths, what a shock.

    A friend of mine who analyzes things like me will say “you are likely right—-but let’s say deaths are 50% lower than quoted——-isn’t that still a lot”?

    The answer of course is yes. So,what is my point? It is as if we want it to be as bad as possible——so we just interpret everything that leads in that direction.

    It looks just like election fraud theory. They both have narratives which cannot be questioned. Scott invents a million lives saved. Not being fluent in economics, as is obvious, how do I know his MM theory is not like his “million lives saved” theory.

    Unfortunately I don’t—-except he has made real predictions in economics—-so it is different.

  61. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    15. December 2020 at 09:39

    Here’s Micheal after 9/11. “Only one in every 100,000 Americans died in 9/11; what’s the big deal? Why is this front page news?”

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