re: Do the math. It is almost impossible for an American to die of COVID-19.

This crew is completely incapable of math. I've been following the same figures. Covid deaths are probably understated because of our lack of knowledge of all the symptoms and the complexity of the virus.

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This crew is completely incapable of math.

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I know, but it's fun to watch them try.

LOL! First off you make the broad assumption that a person 79, obese and with a heart condition or a serious pulmonary ailment, or diabetes and who tested positive for Covid-19 is deceased simply because he or she contracted the virus. So they are all Covid deaths! That's a serious hole in the bucket for your "we're all dying" emotional hysteria. What are we up to now...150 per 1,000,000 or whatever. Don't know what it is currently BTW but it ain't many. Remove the people who Covid-19 was simply a factor in the sense that having it didn't help but was far from the worst thing ailing them and the number is ridiculously tiny.

It's absurd to imagine that we are committing national economic suicide which will be responsible for millions upon millions of deaths and incarcerations and ruined lives over the next few (or 50) years over this virus. And for what? It's here and even with a vaccine in the next year readily available many if not most people (much like the flu) are going to get it at some point. Since it will change or morph/mutate making the shots less effective. So the only sure defense is immunity. And we are only delaying and dragging the hysteria out multiplying the damage.

We should have used every reasonable precaution (hand washing, masks, disinfectants, tracing) and kept on trucking. Focusing on the most at risk. NYC/NJ and other tightly packed, mass transit cities That one NYC and Jersey area is responsible for over one in three cases in USA. Those along with older people, those with serious underlying health issues including obesity and yes people of color (it is being reported that people with darker skin tones don't absorb D vitamin as readily as those with light skin color which could affect immune systems). A quick study could have verified or refuted that.

Instead we choose to burn the village to save the village. I participated in one of those exercises a bit over 50 years ago.

BTW, I appreciate a rare bit of honesty from you here. You slipped and called your dooms day deaths covid RELATED, which is a far cry from caused. Listen, I have had chronic diarrhea off and on for 3 weeks. If I die tomorrow it won't be because I'm 74, or am on a major drug to combat a serious sleep issue and low blood pressure it will be diarrhea RELATED! Directly caused by bringing home a trunk full of South Florida citrus and South Georgia pecans and peanuts just over 3 WEEKS AGO! Better yet it will be Steward pecan related.

This is a significant medical event. Nothing like the flu of 1918. But due to overwrought emotion and political activism we can do far, far more damage to millions and millions more lives. And are seemingly hell bent to do so.

Oh and one more thing on the "related" issue. Calculate the number of normal sized (within 10 pounds of average BMI) 35-45 year old, in good health, white, non drug addicted working men and women who have died from Covid-19. Hell, two of my children are in medical care, one is a hospital admin exec. And I can tell you the people I just called out are almost nonexistent in the hospital admissions although there are rare, rare exceptions. And there are a helluva lot more of them than there are 75-85 year old retired white folks or 50-65 year old AA's or Hispanics and native Americans with similar BMI issues who make up the crux of the problem. Then get back to me about the economic suicide of shutting down the country when a smart, targeted program would have been more effective and left something to sustain everybody and to live for, victims and non-victims.

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We are doing the math, and the math says that the "almost impossible" happens over 2000 times per day.

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Do you buy lottery tickets? Those odds are something like 1 in 83,000,000. Yet someone wins every 3rd week or so. Doesn't mean you got a good chance to be that person.

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Because tomorrow 20 times more people will die of covid-19 than will die in car accidents.

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Yep, tomorrow. And the next day and the next day. But sometime pretty soon, the curve is going to flatten out at the bottom and someone dying from COVID will be rare. Just like someone dying from H1N1 is now.

But car accidents and the regular flu and the practice of medicine (combined) will keep killing over half a million people a year just like they have for 30 years or so.

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Do you buy lottery tickets?

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On occasion. It's a cheap thrill.

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Those odds are something like 1 in 83,000,000. Yet someone wins every 3rd week or so. Doesn't mean you got a good chance to be that person.

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Do you not see the difference between something that happens 0.3 times per week and something that happens over 10,000 times per week? The difference is that one is "almost impossible" while the other is not.

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Yep, tomorrow. And the next day and the next day. But sometime pretty soon, the curve is going to flatten out at the bottom

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Just so we're clear, 2 years worth of car accident fatalities in 1 month due to covid is absolutely not "almost impossible". Agreed?

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someone dying from COVID will be rare. Just like someone dying from H1N1 is now.

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I certainly hope so. We can't deal with this shite every year.

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The UN shows a death rate in America slowly increasing over the years due to increasing population. They showed a death rate per 1,000 people in 2019 of 8.78 people. For 2020 they show 8.80 per 1,000 people. A slight increase because of overall increase in population.

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Another strong showing of math skills.

The death rate does not increase along with population. The "per 1,000" part should tell you that. That extremely slight uptick year over year is random noise. However, we might see an upward trend in death rate in the coming years due to the baby boomers getting up in age.

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I can assure you it will jump through the roof because of the economic disaster however.

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No, what we will see in the 2020 data is an uptick of roughly 3% to about 9.1 per 1k, due to the excess deaths due to covid. Then, assuming it doesn't come back strong in the winter, 2021 will drop back down to around 8.8.

The population increase mix is important demographics wise. People WERE pouring over the Southwest border from third world venues. Bringing third world health and yes diseases with them. That has slowed to a crawl but the guess is the projected increases year over year is due at least in part to historical experience plus those people are not covered by traditional health coverage. The increases shown are modest.

L.A. was experiencing long since thought to be almost wiped out resurgences of diseases.

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Medical experts say the primary cause is people ignoring warning signs and putting off getting attention because of fear of going to the hospital or even to the doctor's office. Hospitals are losing money hand over fist since people won't seek attention now. My very close relative says the procedures being normally done are way, way down because people are afraid and putting care off until it is too late. Kork craftily ignored that. Normal doctor visits are at the lowest levels in years. And yes some people have lost their medical insurance. But the big fallout from that is still coming.

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There is probably some of that, but that's not going to show up in the data so quickly. We're losing money because we're not doing elective procedures. Most (but not all) of the emergent stuff is still happening. So most of the people who are going to die from missing doctor visits will die later. But that's totally a thing.

But for a while, there COVID was 50% of our census 130% of our normal ICU capacity and the morgue was double its normal census. That by definition cannot be because of people avoiding care.

That said, I won't entirely dismiss your reasoning here. I'm curious about the impact myself. At some point, I'll get my hands on the year over year mortality data by cause. If what you're saying is true, we'll have gaps in all the big stuff: cardiac, cancer, stroke, chronic as opposed to acute respiratory illness, Alzheimer's, etc. If I'm right, those will all be in spitting distance of historical trends and we'll just see a shite ton more pneumonia, ARDS, and sepsis.

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but that's not going to show up in the data so quickly

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jimdog probably thinks that 8.8/1k death rate for 2020 is a live look at the data.