re: Dropping Graph of Pneumonia is interesting - We back, we back, we back?

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How is that being defined in that data ? Is it someone who died that had COVID? Or, is it someone whose death was caused by COVID?

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If you're really interested in finding out, read the CDC's requirements for counting a Covid death from the source. Don't take it from me, and don't take it from Facebook.

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Medicare is paying for COVID patients to be treated, as they do with the flu. So it's not for deaths, and it's not a one size fits all. Perhaps the average is $13,000 in spending? That's just how insurance works.

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No, it's actually true that hospitals are getting paid more for Covid deaths. That's not the part to argue against.

The part to argue against is whether or not there is fraudulent intention in labeling Covid deaths on purpose. It relies on an entire chain of command staying silent about it in every single hospital. There has been no proof of it happening yet, and the only source that keeps getting referred to is a quote by Senator Scott Jensen, R-Minn., who said it was a possible avenue of fraud.

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Jensen said, "Hospital administrators might well want to see COVID-19 attached to a discharge summary or a death certificate. Why? Because if it's a straightforward, garden-variety pneumonia that a person is admitted to the hospital for – if they're Medicare – typically, the diagnosis-related group lump sum payment would be $5,000. But if it's COVID-19 pneumonia, then it's $13,000, and if that COVID-19 pneumonia patient ends up on a ventilator, it goes up to $39,000."

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Just a note, the same people going wild over the quote above often ignore something else the same dude said, which is interesting.

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Jensen said he thinks the overall number of COVID-19 cases have been undercounted based on limitations in the number of tests available.

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Jensen has since clarified:

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FactCheck reporter Angelo Fichera, who interviewed Jensen, noted, "Jensen said he did not think that hospitals were intentionally misclassifying cases for financial reasons. But that’s how his comments have been widely interpreted and paraded on social media."

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Again, straight from the dude's mouth. He does have a reasonable point. There is potential for a conflict of interest here. The question is is fraud happening at all in reality, and if so, to what degree.

It doesn't matter anyway, because the magnitude of Covid deaths are such that even if the biggest, worst, most sinister fraud was happening, it's still too many deaths to appear out of thin air and it's still a problem, so the whole argument is for nothing.

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Next weeks graph should be off the chain.

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The next week's data already exists. And a few more. The graph you posted was week 11, and it's week 17.

I went to the CDC's website and downloaded the raw data. Anyone can do this. This is the same data that the graph you posted was based on, but your graph was made six weeks ago, so this is the totally up to date numbers.

I made a crude graph in Excel and laid it over your graph (my graph is in pink) and...holy shite, I didn't expect this.

Not only did the drop disappear, there's a huge spike (and then a drop, for the same reason as the previous drop).

An apology or something would be cool, but I have a feeling this comment is just going to be ignored. If you don't believe me, you can literally download the data and make the graph yourself in Excel. Click the Download button on the page I linked and select Nation, all ages, Pneumonia deaths only.

This graph should like...massively indicate that we have a problem. This has nothing to do with reporting pneumonia as Covid. This is literally just Pneumonia deaths of any kind. Look at that spike.



Here's the raw data and graph.

You have any thoughts about my last post, man?

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Maybe it has something to do with the government giving the hospitals $13K for each COVID death and $0 for each Pneumonia death? That's just a hunch.

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Talk to me about the mechanics on Medicare paying for deaths instead of services? Like every time a person with COVID dies, we send them a bill? I'm fascinated by how many of you have come to believe this since it makes negative sense.

Next week’s data is available? The cDc hired a MFing time traveler.

Awesome.

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Next week’s data is available? The cDc hired a MFing time traveler. Awesome.

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Count the weeks along the bottom of the graph, dude. Come on. Your graph is from more than a month ago.

You HAVE to be trolling. That's cool and it's fun to rile people up but some people here are stupid enough to believe it.

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Next week’s Not the next week from the original drop graph. It will be awesome.

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Okay, why will it be awesome?

I get what you're getting at and I agree, but the whole argument people are trying to make is that Covid-19 deaths are overblown and therefore not a problem. If the official stance was 12,392 Covid deaths, and assuming MAXIMUM fraud reduces that to 11,065 deaths, those numbers are very similarly big. That's what I mean by "still a lot".

The argument that 12,000 deaths isn't enough to justify our policies is a totally separate argument from "pneumonia and flu deaths being mislabeled as Covid are causing us to think we have way more Covid deaths than we thought leading to an overblown response".

I would like to change that argument to "the straight up Covid deaths aren't high enough to justify the response".

Pretty much everyone on this board is mixing that up and thinking I'm arguing that "Covid is really bad and we need to stay locked down and everything was justified," because they don't know how to think about a problem from more than two sides, "my team" and "their team".