Coronavirus Thread

[RonJohn]

Isn’t pneumonia a bacterial disease and coronavirus a viral disease? I don’t know one way or the other but how does a virus cause a bacterial illness?

Coronavirus and Pneumonia

Pneumonia is a serious complication of the new coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. This lung illness may cause severe breathing problems that put you in the hospital. Learn the warning signs, who’s at risk, and steps you can take to prevent infection.

www.webmd.com

 

[RonJohn]

Isn’t pneumonia a bacterial disease and coronavirus a viral disease? I don’t know one way or the other but how does a virus cause a bacterial illness?

From the Mayo Clinic pre-Covid-19:

Pneumonia is an infection that inflames the air sacs in one or both lungs. The air sacs may fill with fluid or pus (purulent material), causing cough with phlegm or pus, fever, chills, and difficulty breathing. A variety of organisms, including bacteria, viruses and fungi, can cause pneumonia.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Coronavirus and Pneumonia

Pneumonia is a serious complication of the new coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. This lung illness may cause severe breathing problems that put you in the hospital. Learn the warning signs, who’s at risk, and steps you can take to prevent infection.

www.webmd.com

I repeat, get a pneumonia shot. It can't prevent Covid, but it can help prevent against even Covid-related pneumonia.

 

[Vespidae]

The tin-foil hat goes to those who believe that pneumonia appears by itself and believe that anyone who had COVID-19 and pneumonia should not count as a COVID-19 death.

Count me as a member of the tin foil hat brigade. Don’t take my word for it though, here’s the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health:

“I just want to be clear in terms of the definition of people dying of COVID. So, the case definition is very simplistic. It means that at the time of death it was a COVID-positive diagnosis. So that means if you were in hospice and had already been given, you know, a few weeks to live and then you were also found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means that if, technically, even if you died of a clear alternate cause but you had COVID at the same time it’s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone that’s listed as a COVID death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of death.”

So if you are already dying, but tested positive for COVID at the time of death, it’s counted as COVID death.

That‘s why you can’t compare National death rates. Every country codes is DIFFERENTLY.

 

[WreckinGT]

Count me as a member of the tin foil hat brigade. Don’t take my word for it though, here’s the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health:

“I just want to be clear in terms of the definition of people dying of COVID. So, the case definition is very simplistic. It means that at the time of death it was a COVID-positive diagnosis. So that means if you were in hospice and had already been given, you know, a few weeks to live and then you were also found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means that if, technically, even if you died of a clear alternate cause but you had COVID at the same time it’s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone that’s listed as a COVID death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of death.”

So if you are already dying, but tested positive for COVID at the time of death, it’s counted as COVID death.

That‘s why you can’t compare National death rates. Every country codes is DIFFERENTLY.

This creates pretty gray areas of reporting deaths though. If you are in hospice and get COVID and clearly can't overcome effects COVID is having on your body and die earlier than you would have without it, did COVID not contribute to the actual death?

 

[RonJohn]

Count me as a member of the tin foil hat brigade. Don’t take my word for it though, here’s the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health:

“I just want to be clear in terms of the definition of people dying of COVID. So, the case definition is very simplistic. It means that at the time of death it was a COVID-positive diagnosis. So that means if you were in hospice and had already been given, you know, a few weeks to live and then you were also found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means that if, technically, even if you died of a clear alternate cause but you had COVID at the same time it’s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone that’s listed as a COVID death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of death.”

So if you are already dying, but tested positive for COVID at the time of death, it’s counted as COVID death.

That‘s why you can’t compare National death rates. Every country codes is DIFFERENTLY.

As I said, you can be skeptical and question numbers. However, stating that ONLY deaths that list no other cause than COVID-19 should count as COVID-19 deaths is asinine. As far as I know, SARS-CoV-2 doesn't actually cause death in and by itself. If causes pneumonia, which causes death. If causes sepsis, which causes death. It exacerbates heart issues, which cause death.

 

[Vespidae]

As I said, you can be skeptical and question numbers. However, stating that ONLY deaths that list no other cause than COVID-19 should count as COVID-19 deaths is asinine. As far as I know, SARS-CoV-2 doesn't actually cause death in and by itself. If causes pneumonia, which causes death. If causes sepsis, which causes death. It exacerbates heart issues, which cause death.

Please review my response to the OP. My position is that you can not compare the reported national death rates and assume that the USA is doing a terrible job. There is no consensus (zero, in fact) as to how 192 countries report data as there is no common definition used. There is not even a common definition used by all 50 states.

This is classic Gauge R+R from Six Sigma.

 

[Vespidae]

This creates pretty gray areas of reporting deaths though. If you are in hospice and get COVID and clearly can't overcome effects COVID is having on your body and die earlier than you would have without it, did COVID not contribute to the actual death?

I don’t think pathologists are required to determine the actual cause of death as much as they are the reported cause of death.

As I understand it, a motorcyclist who dies in a traffic accident but ... tests positive postmortem for COVID ... is recorded as a COVID death. Is that really an accurate reflection of the impact of the disease on society?

 

[Deleted member 2897]

This creates pretty gray areas of reporting deaths though. If you are in hospice and get COVID and clearly can't overcome effects COVID is having on your body and die earlier than you would have without it, did COVID not contribute to the actual death?

A motorcyclist died recently, was COVID positive, so he counts as a death. There is a difference between counting as a COVID death (the 150,000 number we all see) and what’s on their death certificate. The CDC has very detailed guidance for both, and they are different.

We are much more liberal with what we count as a COVID death than in many other countries, AND, we do a ton more testing, so we catch more of the folks to liberally count, AND, we aren’t full in our hospitals and leaving people at home to die uncounted by the thousands and thousands.

 

[LibertyTurns]

From the Mayo Clinic pre-Covid-19:

Did not know that. I did know that a leading cause of old people in hospitals is dying of pneumonia. I always thought it was mostly due to unclean hospitals, poor practices, etc causing bacterial infections. I had no idea there were pneumonia viruses.

 

[LibertyTurns]

As I said, you can be skeptical and question numbers. However, stating that ONLY deaths that list no other cause than COVID-19 should count as COVID-19 deaths is asinine. As far as I know, SARS-CoV-2 doesn't actually cause death in and by itself. If causes pneumonia, which causes death. If causes sepsis, which causes death. It exacerbates heart issues, which cause death.

This is why they should just compare last year to this year. It takes all the “well blame it on the dog” out of the equation. I posted raw data comparisons between 2019 & 2020 a few pages back and yes they were from Berkeley. Believe it or not they have doctors and scientists there, not just tree huggers & some actually just produce research and report results. That appeared to be the case here.

 

[GT_EE78]

absolutely tin-foil hat territory.

The tin-foil hat

actually tin-foil hat terrritory.

You sure do like to say "tinfoil hat" a lot
1 "tinfoil hat" 2 "tinfoil hat" 3 "tinfoil hat"
Now you don't have to repeat it in your next three posts!
.
I never said that I believed all 93% had a different primary cause of death than covid.
Obviously some do and some don't.
STOP trying to put words in my mouth!

 

[RonJohn]

You sure do like to say "tinfoil hat" a lot
1 "tinfoil hat" 2 "tinfoil hat" 3 "tinfoil hat"
Now you don't have to repeat it in your next three posts!
.
I never said that I believed all 93% had a different primary cause of death than covid.
Obviously some do and some don't.
STOP trying to put words in my mouth!

No? Who said this?

so instead of the 150K dead media has been reporting, maybe 10K to 15K actually died FROM the virus?

In response to this:

The CDC has a huge institutional interest in maximizing the COVID problem, but it admits that the fatality numbers are misleading. They admit as much in its June 24 update of the data:

You read that right: not 97%, 7%.

So to recap: Someone posted that only 7% of COVID-19 deaths list solely COVID-19 as the cause. You posted a question of whether only 10k to 15k died from COVID-19 instead of 150k.

Now you are telling me that you never posted that?

 

[GT_EE78]

Someone posted that only 7% of COVID-19 deaths list solely COVID-19 as the cause. You posted a question

yes, i posted that question, thank you for confirming your strawman

 

[WreckinGT]

A motorcyclist died recently, was COVID positive, so he counts as a death. There is a difference between counting as a COVID death (the 150,000 number we all see) and what’s on their death certificate. The CDC has very detailed guidance for both, and they are different.

We are much more liberal with what we count as a COVID death than in many other countries, AND, we do a ton more testing, so we catch more of the folks to liberally count, AND, we aren’t full in our hospitals and leaving people at home to die uncounted by the thousands and thousands.

I don't doubt that there are many who were counted as COVID deaths that shouldn't have been and many that weren't counted as COVID deaths that should have been. Nobody has any real numbers on how prevalent either of them are only a small number of isolated incidents. As for us counting more liberally than other countries, is there anything to actually back that up? For testing, we test more than some countries and less than others per capita. There are real numbers to quantify that. Im not sure how you quantify COVID death counting accuracy.

 

[Vespidae]

This is why they should just compare last year to this year. It takes all the “well blame it on the dog” out of the equation. I posted raw data comparisons between 2019 & 2020 a few pages back and yes they were from Berkeley. Believe it or not they have doctors and scientists there, not just tree huggers & some actually just produce research and report results. That appeared to be the case here.

I think you’re on the right track. You can compare data to a) others, b) over time, or to a benchmark. I think Georgia can compare itself over time, but not say, to Illinois, which has a different standard.

It‘s a little sad that the US has these data issues. Basic stuff.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I don't doubt that there are many who were counted as COVID deaths that shouldn't have been and many that weren't counted as COVID deaths that should have been. Nobody has any real numbers on how prevalent either of them are only a small number of isolated incidents. As for us counting more liberally than other countries, is there anything to actually back that up? For testing, we test more than some countries and less than others per capita. There are real numbers to quantify that. Im not sure how you quantify COVID death counting accuracy.

Yes, we have covered all this very extensively.

First, the official guidance from CDC on counting deaths generally, is anybody who is a positive COVID case. Their guidance on death certificates (going from memory) is it was a leading or contributing cause of death.

How do other countries do it? I don't know, I'd have to look it up. But I highly doubt they count people who died in a motorcycle accident or some ancillary thing. Furthermore, you can google all of this, but much of Europe publicly states and admits their death count is low by about 10%-20% because of how many people that died at home uncounted since their hospitals were full. That's a fact (officials say many thousands, which you have to multiply by 5-10x to equate to the US on a per capita basis). We do not have full hospitals leaving many thousands of people to die at home uncounted, so we do know for a fact some very large reporting differences.

We will never be totally precise on deaths and neither will anybody else. But we do know much of Europe has worse death numbers than we do, and that's already in spite of their admitted lack of counts and our admitted liberal counting.

 

[Vespidae]

I repeat, get a pneumonia shot. It can't prevent Covid, but it can help prevent against even Covid-related pneumonia.

Live a healthy life. I get tested twice a year and have no issues. I also get a flu shot annually. My father, an MD for 60 years said we are all responsible for our own response to life.

 

[GT_EE78]

The COVID-19 death rate varies by about 4 orders of magnitude depending on age, and the age distribution varies greatly between countries, so deaths are normalized according to the relative population distributions, with France (the oldest population here) as the base. All countries except France show a higher than actual deaths per million - an estimate of deaths if the country's age distribution was the same as France.

COVID-19 HCQ usage by country

Current HCQ treatment usage by country

c19study.com

 

[MWBATL]

What I find interesting is two things:
(1) countries that were touted by many on here as being models of how ot handle this virus are (gasp) having renewed outbreaks of covid. I will add they still show good overall performance, but this little bugger is hard to keep down. examples are:
-Japan's new cases have increased six fold in the last month
-Hong Kong is reporting 136 new cases per day now, up from 2 four weeks ago
-Australia's daily new cases are up 11 fold in the last month (and Australians are NOT complying with quarantine measures)
-France's new cases have doubled in the last 2 weeks
-Spain's new cases are up 6 fold from a month ago
(2) Sweden...widely criticized by the liberal elite for their approach, has NOT had a surge in new cases.Daily new cases have been slowly declining over the past month there. I guess we will all have to wait and see what the wisest approach has turned out to be with this virus. By the way, 2/3 of Sweden's deaths were people over 80, and ...brace yourself... 97% of those NEVER received ICU treatment. The reason? Socialized medicine decided they were not worth spending the resource on.....but, don't tell a liberal that government run health care might have faults.