Posted on 05/13/2020 7:14:03 AM PDT by The Fop
Some have mentioned that if we adjust for changes in population over the last 50 years (328 million now versus 200 million then), then the US death toll of 100,000 from the Hong-Kong flu of 1968-69 would have to be bumped up to 164,000.
But there's another very important data point that has to be factored in as well. The population of senior citizens in the US has risen almost 70% compared to 50 years ago.
Senior citizens 65 years and older make up approximately 75% of US COVID-19 deaths, around 60,000. If the percentage of senior citizens in the US was the same as it was 50 years ago, then there would currently only be around 18,000 senior deaths, and the total amount of current US COVID-19 deaths would be around 38,000 instead of 80,000.
So taking into account the huge increase in the US senior population, and the percentage of senior deaths from COVID-19, we'd have to have 4 times as many COVID-19 deaths as we have now in order to equal the US death toll from the Hong-Kong flu.
Why are you insisting upon pointing out facts? Party pooper! ;-)
It was for our own good. Or some such nonesense. Walmart. okay. Voting precincts, not okay. Uh, what?
The National Population was also smaller in 1969 than 2020. That has an effect on the percentages.
This is going to be impossible for some here to accept.
That’s proof that planting tulips in my garden is working. If I hadn’t, it would have been 200% instead of 25. I demand trillions in funding to continue my work.
So because we have more people over age 65, or whatever, now, their deaths don’t count?
I absolutely believe they have done horrid things to increase the actual and counted Covid deaths far beyond what was necessary or real.
But the age adjustment argument IMO is unseemly and not too relevant.
Let's revisit this story in a year.
In the US, the 1st wave was worse than the 2nd wave. In Europe it was the opposite.
WHO said those deaths don’t count? Sheesh.
They will be interesting to see.
Yeah, if we didn’t have so many old people, fat people, people with diabetes and hyper-tension, people recovering from cancer and other people who tend to just sick too much, this wouldn’t be a problem.
Yes. I’m hoping that one of the outcomes of this will be a full set of tools (statistical analysis) that can be used to gauge a pandemic. Of course, we have a lot of those already, but I have to think they are insufficient. A lot of “experts” seemed to operate on guesswork this time around.
And the discussion of the “denominator” — when can we know how many have been exposed to a pathogen? Can we really gauge the danger of a pathogen if we don’t know how many people have been exposed? The numbers on rate of reproduction and mortality of COVID-19 seemed to be all over the place.
I think we need a common understanding that there are some things we can know, and some things we cannot know. And panicking over the things we cannot know might be a poor strategy next time around.
Pointing out changes in age demographics and making adjustments for that does not mean I’m implying that the deaths of senior citizens don’t matter.
My point is that the death toll from COVID-19 is being used to prevent younger healthy people from working and going to school. During the Hong-Kong flu, businesses and schools were not shut down.
So even if the US COVID-19 death toll was 4 times higher, the non senior citizen population would not be any more adversely affected then it was during the Hong-Kong flu. So why are we keeping that portion of the population locked down?
"How many Americans have died from the SEASONAL FLU this year?"
They have no answer.
“Experts” predict the worst because there’s no penalty if they over-estimate the severity of a crisis. Only if they underestimate it.
Not saying their deaths don’t count. What I’m saying is let younger healthier people live their lives and go to work and school and stop using the overall death count to keep non seniors locked down. We did not lockdown during the Hong-Kong flu, and at this point, statistically, COVID-19 is not as bad.
If we lived in a society where the bulk of the workforce and student body were senior citizens, it would be a different story.
Then make that argument.
Yes...I got it
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