Inconsistent protocols, limited resources, and a patchwork of decision-making has led to a Significant Understatement of Coronavirus-Related Deaths.
Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers — many hundreds each day — the true death toll is likely much higher.
In many rural areas, coroners say they don’t have the tests they need to detect the disease. Doctors now believe that some deaths in February and early March, before the coronavirus reached epidemic levels in the United States, were likely misidentified as influenza or only described as pneumonia.
Late last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance for how to certify coronavirus deaths, underscoring the need for uniformity and reinforcing the sense by health care workers and others that deaths have not been consistently tracked. In its guidance, the C.D.C. instructed officials to report deaths where the patient has tested positive or, in an absence of testing, “if the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty.”
Reasonable Degree of Certainty
Only now is the official counting supposed to be with a “reasonable degree of certainty”. The key words are “supposed to be counted“.
The question: What constitutes a “reasonable degree of certainty”.
States and especially governors of states who were late to issue stay-at-home mandates want massive underreporting if they can get it.
Recall that CDC incompetence led to a situation the US did not even have tests to any significant degree until at least until mid-March.
Cannot Get Tested
Every day I hear stories of people trying to get tested but cannot.
The New York Times article above noted several instances including that of Julio Ramirez whose official death certificate said pneumonia.
The hospitals refused to test Ramirez. His wife hired a private company to do an autopsy. He tested positive.
Why do these stories still persist?
Pneumonia, Flu Linked to More than 8% of U.S. Deaths in Last Week
UPI reports Pneumonia, Flu Linked to More than 8% of U.S. Deaths in Last Week
In its latest FluView report, released Friday, the CDC said that 39 million people have been sickened by the flu in 2019-20.
In all, so far this winter season, the flu has caused death in roughly 24,000 people across the country, the CDC estimates, including 162 children. The percentage of U.S. deaths attributed to the virus during the week ending March 28 is above the agency’s “epidemic threshold” of 7.2 percent.
Nationally, roughly 400,000 have been hospitalized as a result of the illness. However, the percentage of visits to healthcare providers for “influenza-like illness” dropped during the most recent analysis period, from 6.3 percent to 5.4 percent.
Similarly, the percentage of laboratory-confirmed samples testing positive for strains of influenza declined sharply over the same period, from 7.3 percent to 2.1 percent. More than 50 percent of the samples testing positive so far this winter have been for influenza A.
Questions Abound
- Only 2.1% tested positive for the flu. What was the rest?
- 24,000 died from the flu, pneumonia or something else?
- How many people had the flu and Covid-19?
Email From a Friend
The girlfriend of my partner’s son tested positive this week. It took over 7 days for the results to come back. It took many tries for her to get tested, even after she told them she had symptoms and had been in contact with a confirmed case. The girlfriend lives with her two sons, and they have been back and forth to her house many times. The girlfriend is now symptom free, but, she could still infect people.
So far my friend and her husband are isolating and have no symptoms.
The testing authorities asked NO QUESTIONS about whom the girl had contacted, how much she had moved around, etc. even though she is of university student age and lives 1 mile from a major, globally-ranked university.
INCOMPETENCE.
That email came in this morning.
Unfortunately, I do not find my friend’s email at all shocking.
The article above cited such cases. I read similar stories very day of the week and have been reading them for weeks. I see numerous references on Twitter every day.
Global Coronavirus Cases
Global Testing Leader
President Trump like to brag the US is the global leader in testing. It’s hardly a fair comparison. Let’s even it out and compare the EU with the US.
EU vs US Testing
- Spain: 355,000
- Italy: 691,461
- Germany: 918,460
- France: 224,254
- Belgium: 70,000
- Netherlands: 75,415
- Austria: 108,416
- Portugal: 86,370
The EU consists of 26 nations. That subset of 8 has conducted 2,529,376 tests.
EU 8 Subset vs US
- EU 8 Subset: 2,529,376
- US: 1,729,314
Did the EU Lose Any Tests?
That question might seem a bit bizarre but not in light of this.
“Well, I’m telling you, I’m still missing 50% of the data from reporting,” she said. “I have 660 (thousand) tests reported in. We’ve done 1.3 million. … So, we do need to see — the bill said you need to report. We are still not receiving 100% of the tests.“
What good are tests if you do not have the data? Did we really do that many tests in the first place?
Hopefully, this is an analysis delay rather than a case of permanently lost data, but the latter would not surprise me.
Regardless, the US is still way behind the EU on testing even if those missing results eventually turn up. That’s the valid comparison.
US Covid-19 Deaths
Let’s return to the key idea.
The US reports 9,444 Covid-19 deaths.
How many is it really?
Second Key Question
How many deaths and hospitalizations would we have were it not for widespread shutdowns?
We cannot answer either question. But we can say much, much higher to both.
Most importantly, we can say the numbers clearly indicate this is Far Worse Than the Flu™.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
As you know I just bought a house in Florida last Monday, the Veterans Admin is my healthcare provider, I am still enrolled at the VA clinic back in Jackson County Oregon. All the VA clinics here are closed. Some people are going to work but when I called and said I needed prednisone for a sun rash they told me they are not accepting patients. They will do over the telephone consults with some patients, like people that have well documented ongoing situations such as diabetes and who are about to run out of insuline for example. But, I was told if I suspected I had Covid to contact the local health department. That appears also to be closed and their website has some stale covid information, but no working contact information nor instructions as to what you should do if you suspect you are infected.
The VA here told me to contact the clinic where I am enrolled as the Florida clinics will not be doing enrollment till this is over. I called Oregon and they told me to go to the nearest urgent care clinic as most of them do contract with the VA for care more than 40 miles from the nearest open VA facility. Well guess what? There are three in this county and all three were closed when I checked the web. Even if they were open they would be just slammed with people wanting Covid testing, and I for one do not relish sitting in a waiting room for hours with people that are sick with Covid. Because some that go to demand testing will actually be sick and spreading it. So, I am just going to have to suffer the rash on my arms and face. The itching is indescribable. It happens every spring and 8-10 days treatment with Prednisone is the only effective treatment, if I do not get it the skin will swell and weep clear sticky fluid and eventually split open and bleed. Then again prednisone is hard on the kidneys, so they could justify not giving it to me based on the fact that compromised kidney function should I get Covid would be a death sentence.
We need a better name for all this. Stephen King at least named his civilization ending viruses in his works, something catchy and evil.
I’ve mostly stopped reading and sharing in comment threads. I barely have time to read all of the new COVID-19 information that comes out every day to take care of my patients. (Also, when you share honestly in comment threads, random people show up on the Internet to insult you. I can take it, but who has the time for that nonsense. I have a full boat and communities with mutual respect to use up all my communication time every day.)
That being said I owe this group an “I was wrong.” Someone estimated 150,000 COVID deaths in the USA and I opined that was too high by a factor of 100. That person was clearly close to correct. I really missed on how spoiled Americans would be; how Americans would prefer misinformation to correct information until things got really bad; how many Americans would make bad decisions for as long as they could (and continue to do so). I failed to predict human nature rather than believe the truth about us.
It is a tragedy. I am taking care of dying patients on ventilators on a daily basis so I will go back to that. I wish you all the best and thank Mish for regularly doing his best to inform us ahead of the curve. Good luck all.
Explanation on why the stats are TOTALLY FAKE
It’s an interesting video and sounds accurate.
I only wish there were someone else delivering this as the DR. is a pro-life proponent who has a history (many videos on Youtube) and has been accused of lying previously.
I am not saying that the info is incorrect, just that the messenger WILL be attacked and the message diluted when other issues re: this person are brought up.
Mish is trying to spread panic. Let me know when the number of deaths hits the same number as the worst flu year in the last decade.
Another article trying to determine something that cannot be determined at this point because the data is crap. And an endless stream of armchair data crunchers quoting articles written by journalists who have little understanding of math or statistics. Might as well try to predict the outcome of a football game after the opening kickoff sails through the end zone.
It gets worse. America has probably nearly 500,000 cases of CV-19 and there are still states that are dicking around with confinement. China confined 40 million when it had 800 cases. Even if the Chinese were lying about the source. America has had months to see what worked (China) and what didn’t (Italy) — so what did America do, well they did less than Italy. To the south you’ve got Mexico where the President is in deep denial that there is even the risk of a remote problem…
There’s half a billion people in NA and that’s a very large population basin where people are not taking this whole situation seriously — there was even one women being interviewed who said because she’s a christian she’s protected by “the blood of Christ”. America is the only country in the world were nearly 20% of the population believes in Angels — they better hope for divine intervention because its going to get ugly
Exactly what does worked mean? Have they stopped it. Do they intend to keep everyone under house arrest for years? The latest buzz phrase from the MSM is “the new normal.” That should scare the living S#!T out of you.
There isn’t a vaccine against SARS after 17 years. C19 is a close relative. To expect a vaccine for C19 in 18 months is very optimistic. If 330000 infections per month clogs the medical system, in broad terms, it will take 1000 months until everyone has been infected and has immunity. That isn’t exactly right, but points out the problem. Flattening the curve to level-load the medical system pushes the far end of the curve too far out to be a practical solution. There will be economic collapse, riots, wars and starvation. C19 spreads like wildfire, doubling every few days. As soon as quarantine is lifted, it will run rampant, again, with associated casualties.
Which would you prefer? Mexico’s approach will bring millions of casualties, but will be over in less than 6 months. China’s approach keeps hundreds of millions under the boot ad infinitum.
Hopefully, the number of undiagnosed cases is many times greater than currently believed. Without an effective treatment or vaccine, it is an unmitigated disaster either way.
With military coroners on site, they will put cause of death based on what they are ordered to do
One of the key data points is mortality of CV vs normal mortality, given many of the senior citizens marked down in the CV death column were already critical or chronically ill.
Deaths might actually be down this year due to the quarantining – less flu deaths, less car crashes etc. so a net positive strangely enough (if you don’t count economic damage and possible societal breakdown as negatives!).
My feeling is that the virus is real, but the narratives around it are classic psy-op distortions designed to disrupt ordinary society as part of an ongoing asymmetric war long promised by the China-Russia alliance which is a leading edge partner in the globalist networks and long-term strategies, many of whose afficionados are littered throughout the US body politic – including some of the ‘scientists’ giving briefings every day (traitors from within).
Given that truth is the first casualty of war, I cannot believe anything involving data since there is so much obfuscation, deceit, distortion (and ignorance) in the mix.
All I know is I had a wicked flu, lucked into a package of HCQ, took the ‘acute’ dose, and within 12 hours felt 1000% better, and as someone with Lyme who is immune-compromised and often gets flus, this is the first time I’ve taken anything that made any difference, so I believe it is very effective at modulating immune responses somehow, and since they are what overwhelm the body once the virus has reached a certain critical population mass, makes sense that it helps. Also, it’s been used for decades – very successfully – as a once-a-week malaria prophylactic, so as many people use it that way now, quite likely that that many fewer will succumb to CV and we can move past this particular horror into whatever next ‘they’ inflict on ‘ordinary decent people.’
An entirely opposite view (which doesn’t mean I don’t think many of Mish’s points don’t have merit – even though I don’t trust anyone’s facts or figures on this wartime viral attack):
Corruption, incompetence, (asymmetric war) propaganda, sabotage… you name it, it’s in the mix.
Meanwhile, a little reality check:
tz3: “If you have lots of co-morbiditities (like those in a nursing home waiting to die), coronavirus is likely to push you over the edge, but is only technically the cause of death.”
People have been saying this for weeks about Italy’s C19 death counts. Seems entirely plausible. So we are left with both under-counting and over-counting (not a contradiction since those are different cadavers).
Apparently even the CDC’s flu death stats are modeled years after the fact, they are not definite counts.
If it is this hard to count deaths, where the binary test is rather simple, imagine estimating population infections from extremely limited testing.
The fog of war of this whole thing is astonishing.
The transmission to other animals is a worry. Their was one report from HK of a dog, which could have been a mis-test. But at the zoo they tested several animals. Do we assume it can be passed back and forth with cats and dogs. I am already off cats because of the brain worms, now they might have pox too!
…off cats? Now you definitely gonna live to be 150…. Brain worm, yeah….how many people die of brain worm/year ? Hundred ?
We’ve evolved from “fake news” to “fake data.” Nothing matters anymore. Maybe nothing ever has.
Please explain:
‘Hospitals in New York state have discharged more COVID-19 patients than they have added for four days in a row, according to the latest data from the state hit hardest by the CCP virus pandemic. Hospitals in the state admitted 574 COVID-19 patients on April 4, while discharging 1,709 patients. The number of daily discharges had also surpassed the daily admissions on the three prior days, state data shows.’
“Discharge rate is way up and that’s great news,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on April 5.’
How many weeks of social isolating in NYC now? Is it working finally?
Could be various reasons.
I would track number in ICU, their rate of admission and change, fatalities vs recovery for those, if that data is available – because those are figures that are not subject to much discretion up until no ICU is left available.
Hopefully the curve got flattened or the projections were wrong, realistically they might have admitted many to lesser care out of precaution and then realeased them.
The curve maybe finally start to flatten in NY, just as in Italy!
As a MD, I would presume a lot of those people were admitted as rule-out COVID-19 until their tests came back negative. Since there is no ICD-10 code for “rule out” anything, they got coded as COVID-19 cases even though they turned out not to be positive. The codes get submitted and counted every day and there is no retrospective correction.
Mystery solved.
Some randomized testing will give some very good estimates of the actual prevalence of the virus. https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-started-administering-antibody-tests-142847707.html
You are under-reporting, unless you are testing everybody.
So what counts is the number of deaths, not the mortality rate.
Not so great a comment!
Had you taken the time to read the comments and follow the links above yours, you just might have maybe possibly hopefully understood that the REAL question at hand is WHO was being counted as a CV19 death?
So no, the gross death count is not useful and therefore also, the mortality rate cannot be computed.
Both the number and the proportion are wildly OVERcounted.
There was a doctor in a livestream that explained it but the static vid won’t be up until tomorrow, but I’ve heard this elsewhere
Death Certificates are often guesswork, but the current guidance is to treat anything – even people who have late state cancer, copd, and chest pains as a “coronavirus death” even if they don’t have coronavirus. If you have lots of co-morbiditities (like those in a nursing home waiting to die), coronavirus is likely to push you over the edge, but is only technically the cause of death.
I guess someone who is run over by a truck if he tested positive will be labeled a “coronavirus death”.
What people normally would think it means that someone was spewing bloody mucus on a ventilator. Not found dead of a heart attack without any apparent respiratory problems even a few hours before.
The other side is we aren’t testing people who aren’t showing symptoms or have had contact with those who do. The better, faster tests, and antibody tests are coming, but the current estimate is that 25% are ASYMPTOMATIC. They get the virus, show no signs, their body fights it off, and no one knows they had it.
Many others just get what they think or thought was a bad cold or flu or allergy or something. Unless there is a high (104) fever or loss of the sense of smell or something else to flag it, they probalby didn’t get tested and won’t.
Could they be missing a few deaths that should be recorded? I doubt any that aren’t already half dead from diabetes, heart problems, obesity, copd from smoking for years… etc.
When anyone over 80 who isn’t in great health dies, unless there is a detailed autopsy, it could have been anything. Doctors (or Morticians and Next of Kin) guess what to put down on the death certificate. When they are found dead, was it a heart attack? Anneurism? Massive Stroke? Maybe. But now there is incentive to call them “coronavirus”.
Death while positive with coronavirus does NOT mean the coronavirus was the cause of death, either direct or secondary.
Agree with this balanced view.
Death certificates, at least in California, list both the long-term and immediate causes of death. If you are run over by a truck, that will be the immediate cause of death no matter what underlying diseases you may have, including COVID. Likewise, a heart attack will be the cause of death if it caused the death even if the person was also infected with COVID. There may be some minimal misattribution, for example a person has a heart attack while their lungs are clogged as a result of COVID, but not that much. If a person dies with their lungs clogged and has COVID it is pretty safe to say that is the immediate cause of death regardless of their other conditions.
What is the incentive to call deaths “coronavirus”?
Or the deaths could be substantially over-counted, which would be to the determent of many peoples agenda of fanning the flames of fear and hysteria. See:
Covid19 Death Figures “A Substantial Over-Estimate” Bizarre guidelines from health authorities around the world are potentially including thousands of deceased patients who were never even tested
Kit Knightly
April 5, 2020
What is the agenda of the many people “fanning the the flames of fear and hysteria?”
Apparently it is to prove that they were right to shutdown the economy for this minor illness. Here is how they will rationalize their excessive response (2nd paragraph). Interestingly, this is the exact ploy that Mish glommed onto in one of his recent articles
Fooled.
Antony Mueller
Mar 31. 2020
How Gullible Politicians Promoted the Destruction of the Global Economy and Threw Us into the Abyss of Serfdom
….
“In a historical perspective, we are currently not experiencing anything new or unusual, and the general human hysteria is nothing other than what has been experienced many times in history. But this should not make us complacent. The hype of public opinion creates a mass psychosis that brings down the fools and wise equally.
Politics always wins. When this panic is over as the rate of contagions slows down and the death toll does no longer rise, governments will claim that this is so because of their measures even when, in fact, these were unnecessary from the beginning and the infection rate would have fallen anyway.”
….
A disease that requires turning convention centers into hospitals and kills healthcare workers by the hundreds is a minor illness? A minor illness causes healthcare workers to triage patients and let some simply die for lack of resources? A minor illness causes the healthcare system in a place as rich as NYC to buckle? How many people would die if it ran through society unchecked? Obviously we disagree on the importance of that number since we place different values on human life.
Your arguments might make some sense to me if they were couched in terms of yes the cost in human life is great from this illness, but the pain caused by the destruction of the economy is greater. That is another debate. However, to downplay this as a “minor illness” seems willfully ignorant and devalues your arguments, though perhaps is understandable if the economic impacts have been significant for you.
You are thick as a freaking brick! Here are the numbers from the CDC itself:
CDC estimates* that, from October 1, 2019, through March 28, 2020, there have been:
39,000,000 – 55,000,000 flu illnesses
18,000,000 – 26,000,000 flu medical visits
400,000 – 730,000 flu hospitalizations
24,000 – 63,000 flu deaths
Can you not grasp the magnitude of the numbers above compared to the official CV19 numbers? Can you not tell which are bigger (hint, the flu ones are)?
Far more flu cases and deaths haven’t overloaded the system and in modern times, have not required closing down the economy. Have those 24,000-63,000 flu deaths occurred at home and not at a hospital? Very doubtful. But the hospitals and world have been able to handle flu incidences w/o any big media hue and cry.
Yet the far smaller cases or deaths for CV19 HAVE required closing down the economy and HAVE overloaded the medical system?
So who are you going to believe? The figures above from the CDC itself or propaganda being driven by the media and medical industry?
Seriously, if you can’t support your beliefs intelligently, then you should STFU.
Very roughly
60 000 over 6 months averages 300 daily with 26 million symptomatic or 130 000 daily.
US with current virus is at 1000 daily, 30 000 new cases daily ?
Admitted flu peaks in a shorter window, but those are the stats you give. Alternatively this virus and care needed might continue for a longer window, or with higher number of infected than present. I think it is fair to say it that it is more severe and more demanding than flu.
Must have touched a nerve. The system has already been overloaded in Italy, Spain and New York because of the concentration of cases all at once. Obviously you can’t comprehend that. Good luck in fantasyland.
The ranges for flu indicate the continuing uncertainties of measuring something that has been around a long time. Expecting really solid numbers all around for COVID-19 at this stage is foolish.
The numbers for flu are with almost no attempts at prevention other than the hit-or-miss hope-we-picked-the-right-one(s) flu shots, which are still somewhat effective and a good idea.
The numbers for COVID-19 (still more uncertain than even the flu numbers) are for lockdowns worldwide as draconian as ever seen.
A major difference between flu and COVID-19 is that flu is rarely contagious for even one day prior to symptoms … whereas COVID-19 can be contagious for quite a few days before symptoms and even without out symptoms appearing that are severe enough to be recognized as illness by the infected.
What the apples to armadillos comparison you keep presenting seems to argue for more than anything else is that we really ought to take the flu far more seriously than we do.
I’m not suggesting draconian lockdowns every flu season, but it’s pretty obvious that “all wear masks during flu season” would be a reasonable strategy going forward.
Unless of course you want to fall back on the sociopathic attitude expressed by many with your mindset: “Who cares about 24,000 – 63,000 flu deaths of people who were probably going to die “soon” anyway?”
And BTW, had we already been taking the flu seriously, and already had a “all wear masks during flu season” strategy in place, and actually been prepared every year with sufficient stores of masks to make that possible, it’s very possible that the draconian lockdowns for COVID-19 would not have been necessary.
I refuse to wear a mask unless possibly “I” am sick and I need to go out for something. If YOU are worried, then YOU can wear a mask or walk around in a Michelin Man suit for all I care.
I will accept your last paragraph as written. If you don’t take care of yourself and come down with some sickness, then why should I care? People die all the time. I think the number n the USA is 3 million per year. [shrug]
There is nothing special about most human lives. The average person does nothing more than sleep, work, get high/drunk and repeat throughout their whole life.
Damn that’s some crazy dumb stuff there Jojo, you are a real braniac huh?
I tried to be angry at your responses but all I could muster was pity for the “person” who could make them because when you “accept my last paragraph as written” you accept having a sociopathic attitude and as best as I understand it, sociopaths are born rather than made.
“as I understand it, sociopaths are born rather than made.”
Very good! Another thing I can blame on my mother, may she rest in hell.
I agree. My neighbor of some 76 years has diabetes, asthma, 4 by-passes. Smoked for 60 years- gave up in November , is on dialysis 8 hours 2 times a week and has just had two toes amputated for gangrene, He and his wife had the Chinese flu symptoms end Feb and I’m sure his upcoming death will be attributed to it.
Spot on. Saying that most of these deaths were happening anyway without Covid-19 is considered un-empathetic here. All cancer, diabetes, cardiac patients who now die are considered Covid-19 victims so that the press and blogs can rake in the clicks while fuelling the panic. But the unseen effects of the panic over-reaction by closing down the economy is glossed over. Only the young will be affected, their futures shattered, millions of LIVING will have to live in misery and suffering for years to come. /sarc. How selfish is that.
A lot more than that is going to happen. Many towns and cities live on the edge and have huge pension obligations, often underfunded. Their tax bases from sales tax, hotel taxes and more will be significantly affected.
Too many stood by and let the county health officers panic and shutdown local economies. The politicians that these health officers work under are going to get voted out of office, for not standing up to the hysteria, when the true cost of this economic shutdown becomes evident.
Here’s a story from the local paper that is going to get people worried.
Virus cost San Mateo $10M in 2 months
City manager outlines impact of coronavirus; restrictions on park use tighten
By Zachary Clark Daily Journal staff
Apr 4, 2020
Mish, how about doing an analysis of the mortality by age in each city/state where data is available. Then count the estimated economic cost of the lockdown, so we get an idea of the immediate economic cost of these lives. Add to that the unseen costs of suffering due to the economic downturn, borne primarily by the young and healthy.
What about over reporting? How many insurance companies are going to look to get bailed out for having to pay for covid-19 related treatment costs and death benefits? We already know that uninsured patients are going to be covered by the Federal Government. Seems to me that jacking up the numbers is the way to go if you’re a hospital.
Here’s another reason for the undercounting … of humans. A tiger at at the Bronx Zoo was able to get a test. No kidding 🙂
I saw that and will comment on it
It was not the same test that is used on humans. Abbot laboratories developed a test for tigers, just in case…
Using the current numbers, with all counted cases the death ratio is now 5.4% and rising.
With all treated cases the death ratio is now 20.8% and rising.
There are no more numbers from China, but the cremation smoke can be seen from orbit.
So far 80-90 F temps in South America do nothing at all to slow it down.
These are now large enough samples to make further counting moot as the vast majority will do without counting or treatment.
No wonder govs and corporations can’t and probably shouldn’t admit the truth.
It’s simply MUTATE OR DIE at this point.
Also, the temperature in Louisiana has been 80-90F, and the virus has been charging ahead around New Orleans.
Undercounts will be a factor everywhere…
….Less than two weeks ago, Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera published the results of an informal study that appeared to show that, in some regions of the country, non-coronavirus deaths were rising at an alarming rate alongside confirmed COVID-19 deaths — that the total death count was up as much as sixfold from previous years. Those deaths officially attributed to the coronavirus accounted for barely a quarter of the increase.
And Italy isn’t alone. In Spain, El País obtained a study that showed mortality rates in some regions had almost doubled, with only a fraction of the increase officially attributed to COVID-19. So what accounts for all those other deaths? Is the ultimate death toll from this pandemic going to be that much higher everywhere than is understood at the time? If we were able to allocate medical resources more effectively, could we reduce that number?
The answer to those questions is a matter of the balance of two factors: How many “excess deaths” are patients who have COVID-19 but haven’t been diagnosed with it, and how many are patients with other illnesses who can’t get proper treatment in overwhelmed hospital systems?
The first number is likely bigger than you think. Italy has tested about 200,000 people and confirmed 111,000 coronavirus cases. But experts say the true number of cases could be as high as 6 million. People who die at home or in nursing homes are not tested for the coronavirus, and their deaths may be classified as resulting from an underlying condition like chronic pulmonary disease or dementia. But the impact of the resource allocation is significant as well. Beds, physicians, and ventilators are finite resources, meaning that hospital systems around the world are scaling up COVID-19 capacity at the cost of ballooning excess deaths. “If you go to the ICU under normal circumstances, there’s ample capacity available,” says Carri Chan, an associate professor at Columbia Business School who studies the consequences of congestion in intensive-care units. “But if there’s congestion, you might get sent to a step-down unit or even a general medical surgical ward.” In Bergamo, a city northeast of Milan, about 20 percent of all family physicians have been infected, according to the The Wall Street Journal, crippling everyday health care for tens of thousands of people….
China alone represents huge undercounting. It’s ridiculous that Singapore routinely beats China for new infections and Hong Kong does fairly often too. The loss of 21 million cell phone users in China, stories of thousands of cremation urns packed together, and long lines at funeral homes also point to a serious impact.
Photos and video have emerged from Ecuador of morgues overflowing with bodies plus some bodies being burned in the streets due to overcapacity, yet the country counts only 180 total deaths.
There are surely other countries massaging numbers too. Egypt was accused of bottling up reports for a while. Even Japan wasn’t really testing until after the Olympics postponement, when daily totals suddenly multiplied by a factor of 5 to 10. Plenty of countries have motivation to look comparatively “good” so they lie.
This is really just a page out of Disaster Capitalism. The shock occurs; our ongoing economic collapse that started in mid-Sept. with Repocalypse and the Fed’s multi-trillion dollar response, then the outbreak of this bio-weapon, SARS grafted onto a virulent coronavirus, which leaked from Fort Detrick around the same time and earned the place a shutdown from the CDC.
The people of the World are divided and scared, then the looting begins.
Speaking of looting beginning:
New York City Sees More Burglaries of Businesses Under Coronavirus Emergency Measures
Some shops are opting to board up storefronts as a deterrent
April 4, 2020
When people can’t work and the rent is due and the cupboard is empty, trouble follows. Trump keeps on saying that the cure can’t be worse than the disease. We shall see…
Viruses and bacteria don’t cooperate. You can have flu and covid-19 at the same time, and when the immune system is weakened, pneumonia.
Both lying (CCP) and incompetence lead to the same result.
How shocking.
Also, Boris Johnson has been admitted to the hospital because of persistently high fever. Will he be the first world leader casualty?