Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

After the hike/scramble/climb up to Pulpit Rock we changed out of our wet boots and socks, grabbed a warm meal at the visitor center (food is very expensive in Norway, $120 for 5 of us to have a hot lunch) we made the drive to Bergen. Not very far mileage wise but 6 hours total time due to narrow roads, ferries, slow speeds. I think we took 6 ferries in all on this leg of the journey. It was a long day
stayed outside of Bergen at an Air BNB. Visited Bergen the next day, did a walking tour, toured the harbor area. Learned that Bergen was one of the main trading posts of the Hanseatic League. They were a German league of businessmen that grew out of trade guilds and some of the first traders that also provided a banking component. They also provided protection for their shipments against robbery on land and piracy on the sea. They followed a moral code and verbal deals were honored or traders were expelled from the league. Mid 1300's to mid 1600's were their best years and they were one of the only forces powerful enough to challenge the church or the elites. From Bergen, they would prepay for fish to be delivered next year and fish exports was the main ingredient being sent out of Bergen.

The next day we visited downtown Bergen (population 280k). Bergen has a deepwater port and a bustling downtown waterfront during the summer. Nice city market to sample all of the local foods but had to go back 3 - 4 blocks back to find non-touristy restaurants. Parking tickets are issued by private operators in Norway, like towing companies in Gainesville, and they watch the parking spots closely. I was at 2 hours and 10 minutes in a 2 hour max spot and it cost me $80. Not only that but I had to have our host pay the ticket as the payment had to come from a Norwegian bank account or let it go through Hertz and pay another $35 service fee. Bergen, much like Stavanger, is a port that provides a lot of logistical support to North Sea oil operations but was cleaner and more tourist centric than Stavanger was.

 

Ok, I’ll play along. Everything in that article is legit, I’ll pretend. So, answer me this, excess deaths that we credit to neglect from the lock down were 30,000 from March to May. Deaths from/with Covid WITH a lock down were 40,000. Isn’t 40,000 more than 30,000? And if the lock down caused the 30,000, surely it would’ve been less than that without a lock down while the Covid would’ve had to go up with no preventative measures taken. Isn’t less deaths better?

 

It’s died with Covid, not of Covid. We have no idea what the excess deaths are from for sure. I don’t think they are all Covid or even a majority from Covid. But it’s just an opinion. I mean 7,500 people die per day in the US and that was with people being able to see their doctors. Who knows how much of an increase happened because you couldn’t see your doctor. Plus add on drug and suicide deaths in there as well.

 

Any data to support these claims?

 

Lockdown shouldn’t have happened. IF we isolated the nursing homes we would’ve saved countless lives compared to shutting down our country. It’s really that simple. How we had scientists make those errors is crazy bad. Nothing like tossing a Trillion+ away on faulty numbers. Great job. Starts at the top with Trump and goes right down the line with the CDC and the WHO and Fauci isn’t free of guilt either.

 

Sure, look up how many die of cancer, lung disease and other major causes of death and see what we should be at per year. Maybe you didn’t look at my post carefully. I used “I think” and “who knows” as No one knows how many deaths are from Covid or with Covid. Not sure we will ever know. Will only be guesses.

 

But you didn’t answer my question. The opinion piece you posted didn’t have proof of their claims. The numbers they posted were just as faulty. I pointed out that the crux of the piece was we shouldn’t have locked down because we added unnecessary deaths but not locking down would have added even more. How is that not a premise built on questionable data conclusions ? The author also claims that the death rate should’ve been equal to that of regular influenza, but we already have 3 times more deaths than the worst flu season ever. So.... where’s he getting that conclusion from? I dunno, I’m probably not going to rely on Russian Times op-eds, but by all means, you do you boo!

 

Maybe this is new to you but if more people get Covid than get the flu more people will die. That’s how math works. Sorry boo

 

Ooooooooooooooh, so rate of transmission matters?!?!?! Your article never mentioned that... maybe there wasn’t an awful blunder after all, maybe they factored in that Covid will spread to far more people far faster than influenza. I’ll bet they considered that when coming up with their 10x the deaths estimation, good point. Wonder why the article didn’t talk about exponential growth and more people getting it and more people dying without lock downs. Weird huh?!?

 

That was some incoherent drivel. Keep it up!

 

Nope, I re-read it, makes perfect sense. Feel free to sit this out if this stuff is over your head. We’ll manage without your contributions.

 

You are criticizing media for cherry picking stats. How exactly did you calculate those growth rates?

 

I keep the daily data from world o meter on an Excel spreadsheet. I don’t know if I can attach a file to a PM to you but I will try later this morning.

 

(Month end numbers - month start numbers) / month start numbers.

No cherry picking here!

 

Cumulative "numbers"? If so, does that make any sense as a metric? Unless the rate of change is exponential, that number would continue to drop.

If you are looking for monthly trending, then you should compare the avg daily deaths per month.

 

UArizona: COVID-19 rerun tests reveal some student-athletes, others had false-positive results

Nothing like having a 85% false positive rate.

 

It has been my contention all along that COVID would NOT have exponential growth, as many in the media were claiming. I have the fatalities in my spreadsheet as well. I will calculate "avg daily deaths per month" and reply.

 

Here they are:
Fatalities Avg/Day

April - 59,896 1,997
May - 43,899 1,416
June - 21,359 712
July - 26,843 866
August - 30,538 985
September* - 24,849 828

This also shows a drop. Again, if you were only watching news and not keeping data, would you have drawn the same conclusion as either of these data sets show?