What is the real US death toll from Covid?

[Jessica5]

The official death toll is something like 120,000, although I'm sure that's greatly exaggerated. My guess is that the real death toll is 60,000, and of those people, 50,000 had half a foot in the grave anyway.

There are probably no more than 10,000 Americans whose lives were significantly shortened by COVID.

 

[Meditation guide]

I've been reading that the number of cases is probably ten times what we know of in the U.S. As for deaths many don't get reported as being covid related when the people die at home, untested, which happens a lot.

 

[4eyebiped]

To be honest the numbers aren't as accurate as they need to be. Testing has been a joke and there has been an all around slackfest in the US instead of learning. It is important to gather as much accurate data on these situations as I predict them to get far worst. I imagine a compound of severity with global warming as more invasive species start migrating into newer lands. There are numerous reasons for the inaccuracies in COVID-19 infections and death ranging from politics and economic incentives to not including root cause of death. I believe your 10k estimate is highly inaccurate on the low end but you did say significantly shortened. Depending on your definition of significantly shortened, i guess you could be made right.

While most of us here would rather die sooner than later, to be fair, for someone that might had wanted to live, even a day lost on life is a tragedy to them and those around them.

 

[Meditation guide]

News today the virus is mutating and getting much more infectous. It has modified the spikes it uses to attach to cells to be much more robust and sticky.

As bad as my life and health already are this isn't the thing I want to go of, on a ventilator. The sooner I can accomplish my mission the better.

 

[ZardozOmega]

126,089 US. 504,200 global.

source: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

 

[mediocre]

To be honest the numbers aren't as accurate as they need to be. Testing has been a joke and there has been an all around slackfest in the US instead of learning. It is important to gather as much accurate data on these situations as I predict them to get far worst. I imagine a compound of severity with global warming as more invasive species start migrating into newer lands. There are numerous reasons for the inaccuracies in COVID-19 infections and death ranging from politics and economic incentives to not including root cause of death. I believe your 10k estimate is highly inaccurate on the low end but you did say significantly shortened. Depending on your definition of significantly shortened, i guess you could be made right.

While most of us here would rather die sooner than later, to be fair, for someone that might had wanted to live, even a day lost on life is a tragedy to them and those around them.

According to worldometers the US has done 33 million tests so far. The 2nd highest is Russia at almost 20 million. So far more than any other country? Why is this considered a joke? This is a genuine question I don't live in the US.

Coronavirus Update (Live): 123,437,233 Cases and 2,722,111 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...

www.worldometers.info

 

[4eyebiped]

@mediocre

First off, I am an idiot on the internet. So, with that said use what I say as inspiration for you doing your own research. Never trust an idiot on the internet and never trust a single source of data when you research. I am going to be brief below and overly simplify some things. Now onto me yacking like I know something.

The US was very slow to respond to the outbreak. It was highly foolish, but considering our leadership, expected. I cannot stress enough the importance of gathering initial data for a new virus, bacteria, disease or whatever. In this case it was needed in controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 along with learning more about how easily it spreads and where it has already spread. It took a long time for it to be taken seriously and a long time for testing to slowly ramp up.

The total number done is not the correct way to look at it. The more important factor is how many you do daily. You have to get an idea of factors like the percentage of the population who is asymptomatic. We also need to get an idea if we are about to get a surge, like if there are mutations or if opening a state up is about to cause a catastrophe and we need to shut things down again. You have to act fast or risk exponential growth. Part of this was to lessen the influx of patients into the hospital. We also have to test a large number of people, not just the ones we think are sick. You want the tested number of infected to be less than 5% of the total tests done. If it is higher than that then your testing isn't not broad enough and you are focusing too much on the obviously sick which doesn't do anyone any good. The 5% rule would take a bit to explain and I am lazy.

Lastly, keep in mind the tests are not very accurate, currently. I believe they are hovering around 70 percent. There are high rates of false positives and negatives, so multiple tests per person are needed. You want to test before they are sick, during them being sick and then follow-up because you want to know if we are building an immunity to this or if people are getting re-infected. When the tests aren't accurate you run into issues of telling people they are sick when they aren't and telling them they aren't when they are.

Let us say you come in sick and test positive for COVID-19. I then run the test again and get a positive result. I send you home and after a week you come back and I test you again, it shows negative. I test again a day later, it shows negative. Fine, it looks like you are cured. You come back for another follow up and you are positive. Well, did you get infected again or were the two previous tests false negatives? This is the headache we are running into and why more tests are needed. The accuracy blows sandy camel dick. If normal camel dick wasn't bad enough this camel just fucked a sand dune and now its a sandy camel dick.

Hopefully, that gives you a decent idea about the importance of testing and why more tests are needed.

 

[Anonymoussn]

Why would the death toll be exaggerated? If anything they would want the death toll to look lower than it actually is. Trump's mentality has been to keep as much as possible open, and pretend everything is fine. So I'd suspect the figures are higher.

Also, if we're going to assume some of these had one foot in the grave anyway - why dont we add in all of the people that didnt have covid, but they died of another life threatening illness that they couldn't get treatment for, because they couldn't get an appointment/operation/hospital bed or another reason due to availability as a result of the crisis. I think that the 120,000 number is likely to be much lower than the deaths that covid has actually caused, either as a result of having the disease, or as a secondary, social cause.

But everything's fine so let's re-open Dismey World, yeah?

 

[mediocre]

@mediocre

First off, I am an idiot on the internet. So, with that said use what I say as inspiration for you doing your own research. Never trust an idiot on the internet and never trust a single source of data when you research. I am going to be brief below and overly simplify some things. Now onto me yacking like I know something.

The US was very slow to respond to the outbreak. It was highly foolish, but considering our leadership, expected. I cannot stress enough the importance of gathering initial data for a new virus, bacteria, disease or whatever. In this case it was needed in controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 along with learning more about how easily it spreads and where it has already spread. It took a long time for it to be taken seriously and a long time for testing to slowly ramp up.

The total number done is not the correct way to look at it. The more important factor is how many you do daily. You have to get an idea of factors like the percentage of the population who is asymptomatic. We also need to get an idea if we are about to get a surge, like if there are mutations or if opening a state up is about to cause a catastrophe and we need to shut things down again. You have to act fast or risk exponential growth. Part of this was to lessen the influx of patients into the hospital. We also have to test a large number of people, not just the ones we think are sick. You want the tested number of infected to be less than 5% of the total tests done. If it is higher than that then your testing isn't not broad enough and you are focusing too much on the obviously sick which doesn't do anyone any good. The 5% rule would take a bit to explain and I am lazy.

Lastly, keep in mind the tests are not very accurate, currently. I believe they are hovering around 70 percent. There are high rates of false positives and negatives, so multiple tests per person are needed. You want to test before they are sick, during them being sick and then follow-up because you want to know if we are building an immunity to this or if people are getting re-infected. When the tests aren't accurate you run into issues of telling people they are sick when they aren't and telling them they aren't when they are.

Let us say you come in sick and test positive for COVID-19. I then run the test again and get a positive result. I send you home and after a week you come back and I test you again, it shows negative. I test again a day later, it shows negative. Fine, it looks like you are cured. You come back for another follow up and you are positive. Well, did you get infected again or were the two previous tests false negatives? This is the headache we are running into and why more tests are needed. The accuracy blows sandy camel dick. If normal camel dick wasn't bad enough this camel just fucked a sand dune and now its a sandy camel dick.

Hopefully, that gives you a decent idea about the importance of testing and why more tests are needed.

I understand everything you said. But the UK was also slow we didn't quarantine until March 20. The numbers on deaths and cases here are questionable. Nobody knows for sure even how many people have been infected. They say 40-50k have died. Contact tracing has been recently tried and failed. France, Spain and Italy could also be considered to have responded slowly. The UK and EU had cases in February but did not respond until March even though the WHO had been giving warnings since January. The only countries that seem to have responded quickly and effectively are countries like South Korea and Singapore. My point is most countries were unprepared for this.

and everything you said about tests being accurate that isn't unique to the US.

I guess the major difference is the UK and Europe have managed to contain the outbreak, for now anyway. I can absolutely see a surge after summer..

 

[Jessica5]

I can't believe that some people on here are that concerned about COVID (except for its economic effects), or believe COVID deaths are underreported.

Our media and culture is very pro life. You really think they'd underestimate this supposed crisis, or undercount the deaths? In order to justify the lockdowns, they have to inflate the death toll as high as possible, all while pretending deaths are actually undercounted.

Eighty something year olds die. That's just a fact of the world that people aren't willing to give into.

The media seriously relates this disease to the Black Plague, which killed 30-60% of Europe.

 

[Deleted member 17949]

I can't believe that some people on here are that concerned about COVID (except for its economic effects), or believe COVID deaths are underreported.

Our media and culture is very pro life. You really think they'd underestimate this supposed crisis, or undercount the deaths? In order to justify the lockdowns, they have to inflate the death toll as high as possible, all while pretending deaths are actually undercounted.

Eighty something year olds die. That's just a fact of the world that people aren't willing to give into.

The media seriously relates this disease to the Black Plague, which killed 30-60% of Europe.

eh too far, yeah they're probably not under reported but they're not massively inflated for the sake of any tinfoil hat economic conspiracy either. Just a disease, we control and research it for a while and then we can get rid of it.

 

[person123]

I didn't get visits from my family, while in mental ward, because of this covid bullshit. Fuck the government.

 

[Jessica5]

eh too far, yeah they're probably not under reported but they're not massively inflated for the sake of any tinfoil hat economic conspiracy either. Just a disease, we control and research it for a while and then we can get rid of it.

Governments inflate the death toll because they want a justification to keep control of us.

The government has always been full of wannabee totalitarians, but until COVID they could never find an excuse to be totalitarians.

 

[FusRohDracarys]

Eighty something year olds die. That's just a fact of the world that people aren't willing to give into.

Exactly! But considering a large number of our elected leaders are 60s+, it makes sense they would push the narrative that it's more dangerous than it actually is to the average person.

But I don't understand the "died at home" argument because as far as I know, people don't need to be tested to be counted. If the doctor suspects it was covid, they can attribute that as the cause of death without tests or confirmation, regardless of if they were hospitalized or died at home.

 

[Anonymoussn]

Eighty something year olds die. That's just a fact of the world that people aren't willing to give into.

That's not the point of the lockdown. If you just let people catch the disease and die, all the hospitals would be full, there would be no ventilators, and the economic effects would be disastrous.

And even if you start re-opening things, if there are tens of thousands of people dying every day, people wouldnt have the confidence to go to restaurants and things like that anyway.

In New Zealand they locked things down straight away, and now they've been able to re-open and things are very much up and running, and they only had three months of lockdown. In places like America where they tried to brush this under the carpet and keep things open for as long as possible, the numbers are as high as they have ever been, and things wont be back to normal for many months to come.

People seem to think that its lives or the economy. It really isnt. If you dont lock things down when the numbers are high its catastrophic for lives AND the economy.