Does anyone know anybody who has been keto & died from Covid-19?

[amwassil]

source: cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly (10/15/20)

Where’s the big spike in deaths of elderly? The rise in ‘COVID’ deaths is matched by decreases in death by all other diseases. Net: zip.

[EZB]

So you are saying that at this time every year ICUs are completely full? It’s not just about the deaths.

[GME]

This chart keeps the total deaths as a constant 100%. What it shows is that there is not a spike of deaths in the elderly as a percentage of total deaths.

Covid or not, more old people die than young people. That hasn’t changed. I seems like a lot more old people are dying, but I think we just didn’t realize how many were dying before. If I think about my coworkers and acquaintances, I very often hear about one of their parents dying. I feel badly for them and will talk a little about it with others, but it just feels normal… “Where’s Debbie today? Her dad died. Oh that’s too bad.” End of attention. But if someone’s 50 year old spouse, 30 year old sibling, or 15 year old child dies, that is a shock and we talk all about it and word spreads much further than news of an elderly person death would.

[PaulL]

I’m confused. Your graph contains percentages of total deaths, which are always going to equal 100. I thought the discussion was about numbers of deaths compared to previous years.

[Madeleine]

The individualist society of the USA (and other places) is offended when a person is asked to sacrifice for the society in something other than war.

A “society” can’t be offended, and there’s a moralizing here that I don’t think has any foundation.

Most of the people I know who have trouble with masks aren’t annoyed that they’re being asked to sacrifice something. In fact they couldn’t really care less about masks one way or another; they’re frustrated at the way the virus is being handled.

When I see folks on the news fighting lockdowns and masks, I see people who are panicked about how to feed their families.

[dlc96_darren]

Read the article. Look at the data, Doug.

Michael, in all fairness, that article has been retracted.

Briand’s study should not be used exclusively in understanding the impact of COVID-19, but should be taken in context with the countless other data published by Hopkins, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As assistant director for the Master’s in Applied Economics program at Hopkins, Briand is neither a medical professional nor a disease researcher. At her talk, she herself stated that more research and data are needed to understand the effects of COVID-19 in the U.S.

Briand was quoted in the article as saying, “All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers.” This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. According to the CDC, there have been almost 300,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19. Additionally, Briand presented data of total U.S. deaths in comparison to COVID-19-related deaths as a proportion percentage, which trivializes the repercussions of the pandemic. This evidence does not disprove the severity of COVID-19; an increase in excess deaths is not represented in these proportionalities because they are offered as percentages, not raw numbers.

With that being said, I think it’s still important to verify whether or not people who died with COVID died only from COVID and not some other comorbidity. That I don’t think is being made clear, and I believe relates to the original question; basically who has died from COVID that was otherwise a healthy individual?

I’ve personally (not second, or third hand) know people who have gotten sick and recovered, but the few that I’ve known to die, were already in poor health.

I’m not going to say COVID isn’t killing anybody, but even the CDC has acknowledged there is a recovery rate of over 99% (it drops down a bit for people over 70).

[amwassil]

@PaulL The author explains this and her methodology in the first part of the article.

@OldDoug Author: Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins - not a student and not some flunky with an ax to grind. My guess, anyway.

[Madeleine]

In looking at the CDC breakdown, I saw the numbers that I would have expected for the elderly but there was also a crazy-high jump in mortality (relative to other years) in middle-aged Latino men in the US. Given some of what we know about metabolic health and genetic tendencies- and how quickly sugar regulation shifts in younger people - a clear message about immune response and lifestyle early in the pandemic might have actually made a difference

[OldDoug]

Michael - Mark Gossage posted the same article. Yeah - that Johns Hopkins student paper is a good one; I would not expect nonsense from it. And Briand - at first glance - would not be expected to be so insane. Some of her past students have referred to her being rather right-wing and off-the-wall about some stuff, but she still wouldn’t be expected, per se, to be so goofy. But she really is just being goofy with her premises and conclusions about the mortality.

All along - since the virus got going in the U.S. - there’s been a substantial and significant amount of excess deaths, mortality above expected, normal rates. This isn’t arguing about the Covid count being ‘too high’ or ‘too low,’ this is just being aware that all-cause mortality really did go up. It is beyond me how Briand does not know this…

[PaulL]

@PaulL The author explains this and her methodology in the first part of the article.

I still don’t understand how that graph of percentages constitutes proof that there were no excess deaths in 2020 over the previous year. In fact, that graph of percentages appears to contain only information from 2020, unless the dates on the graph are wrong. Did the article perhaps contain another graph showing the raw numbers off which the percentages are derived? Was there one containing the data from the equivalent weeks of the preceding year?

[MarkGossage]

At the moment ere in the UK they are less occupied than usual for the time of year…

[amwassil]

This author discusses the study/article I linked above. He does a better job of it than I did.

New Study Highlights Alleged Accounting Error Regarding Covid Deaths

[amwassil]

My quick perusal shows no state with ICUs at or even close to capacity. Bear in mind, though, that ICUs are expensive facilities to maintain and operate, so hospitals have a strong incentive to keep them as close to capacity as they can simply from a cost/benefit perspective.

[EZB]

Definitely not the case here stateside, where hospitals are very much taken up by COVID patients.

[EZB]

I am having trouble reading this. I see states at the 80, 90, 100+ % range here.

[amwassil]

This should help:

[EZB]

Ah… the one with a bunch near 100%

[amwassil]

OK, my bad. My initial data set included only the first 100 entries. I resorted all 1612 entries by % of occupied ICU beds.

The first entry to hit 75% of ICU beds occupied is row 905.
The first entry to hit 80% of ICU beds occupied is row 1280.
The first entry to hit 85% of ICU beds occupied is row 1498.

So, 905 facilities out of a total of 1612 have 25% or greater (up to 50%+) vacant ICU beds. 375 facilities have 20-25% vacant ICU beds. 218 facilities have 15-20% or fewer vacant ICU beds. 32 facilities have 10% or less vacant ICU beds. 8 facilities have 5% or less vacant ICU beds. That does not look like a crisis to me.

[Amanda1]

On the Covid topic but not keto admittedly, does anyone know how deaths are counted in other countries. Here in the uk anyone who dies within (now) 28 days of a positive death has apparently died of covid.

Also does anyone know how many ICU beds there are in the uk without counting the specially built Nightingale hospitals?

[Polly1]

I thought the nightingale hospitals had been mothballed. They did not have the staff available to have ICUs in the nightingales in any event.