...your point, nor did I disagree the other day when we had this conversation.

My comment about waiting to finalize an opinion was that with stats like these, we don't have the full picture yet. I understand that you were referring to a period that has already concluded, not the full year, but the numbers/analysis can and probably will change. "Excess deaths" is not an objective number -- it's a theory because the true number is unknowable. Theories can change or be proved/disproved over time. According to the study itself, "Study limitations include the reliance on provisional data, inaccuracies in death certificates, and assumptions applied to the model."

Since that conversation, I ran across an interesting article from October 12 that I'll pass along for your review. This is from JAMA. That's "JAMA", not "MAGA". :)

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771761

Data can often be interpreted in different ways. As I understand your argument, you are saying basically that 1) the U.S. experienced a significant number of excess deaths earlier this year and 2) those people were killed by COVID. Both are possible, and I'd stipulate that the first point is almost certainly true and also that a significant number of people were killed by COVID who would not otherwise have died at that time.

With that said, here are a few other considerations:

1) Note that the highest percentages of excess death occurred in NY, NJ and MA. These states are notorious for their respective nursing home scandals. So, were those people killed by COVID, or were they killed by bad government policy? I think that's open for debate.

2) As I've pointed out ad nauseum, the definition of COVID deaths is murky and inconsistent across states and countries. We simply don't know how many people were killed solely because of COVID or how much COVID contributed to the death of a person who was otherwise sick or old, but also happened to have COVID. I think when you see a disease whose victims are typically 80-years-old and in bad health to begin with, it's fair to take the position that the disease actually isn't that dangerous since it's not killing healthy people in any significant numbers. It's typically associated with deaths of people who are already past normal mortality age and already ill.

3) As the study points out, COVID-deaths -- again defined murkily and inconsistently -- still account for only 2/3 of excess deaths. Arguably, the remaining third was caused by things like excess suicide, depression, overdoses and undiagnosed maladies such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc. It's fair to say that these excess deaths were the result of our overreaction to COVID, which has caused a lot of destruction in its own right. In other words, had we not locked people down, traumatized them with fear, shut them out of hospitals, destroyed their businesses, etc., this other 1/3 of excess deaths may not have occurred. Again, as with COVID deaths, this figure is unknowable, but the data certainly show that it is possible and, therefore, that some of the steps we've taken in our overreaction actually led to a significant number of "excess deaths" in their own right.



[Post edited by Los Angeles Hoo at 10/20/2020 2:26PM]