Yesterday’s bad news

For the first time ever, yesterday more than 4000 Americans were reported to have died of Covid. But don’t worry, Trump’s hard at work on the issue (writing tweets that the mass Covid deaths are fake news.)

—–In a normal country, that behavior by a president would be a major scandal. A disgrace. In America, I’m not sure it even makes the top ten list.

PS. The sawtooth nature of the graph reflects the fact that less data is collected on weekends—actual deaths would be smoother.

PPS. Who’s going to explain how things work to the VP:


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21 Responses to “Yesterday’s bad news”

  1. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    7. January 2021 at 11:09

    Can’t wait for Todd to explain to us why it’s actually fine. Probably all just people who died in car accidents but tested PCR positive due to bad settings.

  2. Gravatar of Frank Frank
    7. January 2021 at 13:18

    I always recommend relying on a 7-day rolling average instead of daily numbers. Most sites, like Reuters, will show this overlayed (rolling average is about 2600 deaths per day through Jan 6): https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/USA-TRENDS/dgkvlgkrkpb/index.html

  3. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    7. January 2021 at 13:50

    Frank, I agree.

  4. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    7. January 2021 at 15:20

    The CDC States 3,400 Covid-19 confirmed deaths yesterday and Worldometers, which includes likely deaths, says 3,600. So far the high highest deaths listed in one day is 3,900 on December 31st, although the CDC has 3,700 as the high on December 30th.

    Covid-19 deaths a day according to the CDC:

    Nov 22 to Nov 28: 1,400
    Nov 29 to Dec 5: 2,100
    Dec 6 to Dec 12: 2,400
    Dec 13 to Dec 19: 2,700 <– Scott laughed when I wrote maybe a peak
    Dec 20 to Dec 26: 2,500
    Dec 27 to Jan 2: 2,500
    Jan 3 to Jan 9: 2,500 (if this weeks trend holds)

    Everyone knows (except for Scott and Anonymous) a year into the pandemic that in late March the CDC significantly changed how doctors should write a death certificate, thereby significantly inflating the number of Covid-19 deaths relative to how they would have been counted last year. South Korea and Japan didn't change their standard procedure and Germany probably didn't either.

  5. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    7. January 2021 at 15:37

    Oh, I just clicked to see Scott used Worldometers. The CDC states 3,600 and usually both are closer. They usually are close over a seven day period.

  6. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    7. January 2021 at 17:13

    Yeah, we all know this – they were trying to get a reasonable estimate in a situation where testing was rarely available and still isn’t as available as it should be:

    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/about-us-cases-deaths.html

    “As of April 14, 2020, CDC case counts and death counts include both confirmed and probable cases and deaths. This change was made to reflect an interim COVID-19 position statementpdf iconexternal icon issued by the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists on April 5, 2020. The position statement included a case definition and made COVID-19 a nationally notifiable disease. Nationally notifiable disease cases are voluntarily reported to CDC by jurisdictions.

    A confirmed case or death is defined by meeting confirmatory laboratory evidence for COVID-19.

    A probable case or death is defined by one of the following:
    Meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19
    Meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence
    Meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID19”

    Who cares how many deaths other countries are reporting? Most of us don’t care about our relative performance.

    Yes, the exact numbers are debatable, but they are damn high: https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1347302256560005123

    Meanwhile people are dying left and right and hospitals are getting overwhelmed and you cling to your Danish study, CDC Covid death certificate rules, and PCR parameters to deny that anything is going on.

  7. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    7. January 2021 at 18:29

    So accepting that Anonymous has a 4th grade reading level, when have I ever said nothing is going on? It is a significant story that right as a pandemic unfolds, the CDC greatly expanded what is a Covid-19 death which is unprecedented yet the MSM ignored it.

    Illinois’ top health official is on video though stating that “In the extreme, a person wo dies in an automobile accident will be considered a Covid-19 death if that person had tested positive. But less extreme are all the deaths were Covid wasn’t a factor yet on a death certificate so declared a Covid-19 death. And in the fall, the CDC began to lump all Covid-19/influenza/pneumonia deaths into one category.

    Dr. Fauci said on a Zoom video that PCR testing over 35 cycles is meaningless – the consensus is that 25 to 32 should be used and the FDA stats under 33. Germany uses 25 but U.S. states are testing at 37 to 40 so getting tons of false positives. Why do this?

    Scott and MSM compare countries all the time.

  8. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    7. January 2021 at 18:40

    You’ve been minimizing the pandemic in virtually all your posts – nobody is talking about minimizing the death certificates given that this is one of your favorite topics. Do you seriously believe that there are enough deaths that are misdiagnosed to make a serious dent? And that all the carnage we are witnessing at hospitals is just a coincidence? To butcher a metaphor you are constantly denying the existence of the giant Forrest you are in by focusing on 3 random trees you’ve read about on some conspiracy website. Your resume suggests you’ve had some education so it’s more likely that you are using it to deceive yourself. You like to mention me and Scott in your posts yet you’ve had numerous people here explain to you why you are wrong for almost a year and you just pack up and come back to fight a few days later.

  9. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    7. January 2021 at 18:43

    To push this further, are we to believe that there is a secret influenza and pneumonia epidemic going on that is flooding our hospitals with patients with COVID symptoms and we are just mistakenly leveling many of the as COVID patients because of bad PCR calibration? Sure, maybe the numbers are somewhat inflated and some patients actually have a really bad case of the flu or unrelated pneumonia but who cares, it doesn’t change the nature of the situation.

  10. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    7. January 2021 at 19:14

    Also how lame of an insult is “Anonymous has a 4th grade reading level”? I’m pretty sure everybody here other than the bots has that. But since we are on the topic of reading comprehension you were unable to understand the abstract of the famed Danish study you cited to disprove the effectiveness of masks (even after several people tried to explain it) nor were you able to understand why an experiment in which you give a masks to one group and not to the other can’t convincingly show that masks don’t work (and especially N95 which doesn’t even make sense).

  11. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    7. January 2021 at 22:54

    “You’ve been minimizing the pandemic in virtually all your posts – nobody is talking about minimizing the death certificates given that this is one of your favorite topics. Do you seriously believe that there are enough deaths that are misdiagnosed to make a serious dent?”

    This is just dumb. Telling the truth about the new way the CDC counts deaths, WHICH IS STATED IN THEIR GUIDEBOOK doesn’t minimize a thing about the pandemic. Audits from Colorado and Florida show a 25% to 30% over counting with respect to how the deaths would have been counted before this March. There have been data analysts like The Ethical Skeptic and another who have estimated 45%, but I have not claimed they are correct.

  12. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    8. January 2021 at 00:12

    Scott,

    on the bright side, it seems that that curve is coming to its peak as well. Data actually looks very smooth, almost like physics. It’s a good thing it peaks even w/o the impact of the vaccine yet visible, what I would hate right now is if the new strain’s higher transmissibility were to send things to the stratosphere just as the vaccination effort is gearing up. BTW I am also frustrated at the pace of vaccinations, but save for some outliers such as Israel, pretty much all countries seem to have the same issues now with logistics. It’s a mystery to me as to why, but it seems to be universal.

  13. Gravatar of Brandon Berg Brandon Berg
    8. January 2021 at 02:36

    I don’t understand why weekly cycles in data collection are reflected in the data. We know the actual date of death in almost all cases; why not use that instead of the day the death was reported?

  14. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    8. January 2021 at 09:02

    mbka, Yes, I thought for the past month that we were nearing a peak. But cases will remain high for a while.

    Todd, LOL, no matter how many times you are wrong you never give up. You claimed there was a big drop a few weeks ago, but it was just Christmas.

    And nobody believes your lies about what I supposedly predicted.

  15. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    8. January 2021 at 12:43

    Scott,

    I wrote “peak?” next to 2,700 and so far the death count hasn’t gone over that. The number I wrote for that time was from the CDC. You insisted that Swedish deaths were climbing higher and higher and would surpass their peak in April. Unless you edited your post comment, that is what you wrote.

    April: almost 100 deaths a day.
    December, first three weeks: 75 deaths a day.

    So no, Swedish Covid-19 deaths per deaths did not go beyond April as you insisted.

  16. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    8. January 2021 at 12:45

    mbka: “on the bright side, it seems that that curve is coming to its peak as well. Data actually looks very smooth, almost like physics.”

    Grin at the notion that Scott could understand anything scientific or statistical about this pandemic.

  17. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    8. January 2021 at 15:56

    He understood the abstract of the paper you cited. You’re still the one continuously advocating positions that disagree with the expert consensus based on random bits you’ve read on the internet. This book (“ Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World”) is an excellent read: https://mobile.twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1252720757936803840

    That being said, I really really hope that we have seen the peak of the curve but given the new strains that seems like a long shot – instead it’ll likely be a very dark race between those and vaccine distribution.

  18. Gravatar of Todd Kreider Todd Kreider
    8. January 2021 at 18:38

    “You’re still the one continuously advocating positions that disagree with the expert consensus based on random bits you’ve read on the internet”

    And yet you can’t name one specific. Typical for you non science people.

  19. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    9. January 2021 at 12:08

    Todd, You are pathetic. Neither the US nor Sweden has clearly peaked. How many times do you have to be wrong about the data before you give up?

  20. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    9. January 2021 at 12:12

    BTW, the US has averaged 3000/deaths a day over the past 7 days.

  21. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    9. January 2021 at 12:21

    Todd, do you seriously need me to name experts who think that masks work? You calling people non-science would be just hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic. You cling to your delusions and then go around calling people non scientific or religious.

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