That’s what they say but it contradicts the actual statistics.
From the Ontario government link above that nobody looked at:
And a I mentioned before, the two days where suddenly a whole bunch of people died is because it was not reported when it actually happened in the spring and summer.
I’ve linked the official CDC “scenarios” numerous times. People scan tweets, they don’t care about facts.
Virtual schools? The death rate for 0-19 is estimated at 3 per 100,000 cases.
Shutdowns? For 20-49 is 2 per 10,000.
And as pointed out, treatments are becoming more efficacious now that the disease is no longer new and unknown.
Still, the giant hammer solution, for a problem that seems to lend itself to more targeted solutions six months plus later.
So the peer reviewed Science mag - one.of the longest running and most prestigious science journals in the world - as well as charts from statistical sources rather than newspapers is now biased. Got it. Additionally the news story from Science on Sweden is as subject matter expert as it gets for journalism (the news division is governed independently of the science division, but made up of people who actually understand the science they report on).
This is why I can’t have a conversation with you on this topic.
In any scientific topic, particularly one as volatile and ever-changing as a pandemic, you have to be willing to analyze data in multiple ways, not just the way you want with the narrative you want.
It’s absolutely true. You don’t die before you get sick. Whether deaths increase at the same proportional rate to cases as before in April-June or not is irrelevant. Case numbers ALWAYS lead deaths.
Your own article says essentially the same thing I just did “We should be looking at hospital admission and ICU death numbers. However, you don’t see deaths until a few weeks later…”
The questions concerning deaths and cases are a) whether they’re being tracked consistently in methodology compared to earlier deaths in the first wave (there MAY be legit reasons to change tracking methods, but it may also be done in order to make things look better and massage the numbers), b) whether deaths are spiking as much proportionally speaking to new cases or not, c) who is getting the disease an d) why they are or not and why deaths are spiking (the toughest ones).
Yes, and I’m glad we seem to be getting better at treatment. I’m not sure whether that is because people are getting tested earlier on the curve and therefore taking care of themselves, or whether it’s because they’re going to hospitals earlier than before. In either case early action with the virus is much more effective than late action once it’s gotten serious.
Could be something else at play too. It seems that more and more younger people are getting the illness on this wave, so one might also expect severe illness rates to drop simply because they’re less vulnerable rather than because treatments for those hospitalized have gotten much better.
It’s an open question at this point at the statistical level, but I do agree we are getting better at treatment in general.
I’ve said this before, but we are long, long past the point where the giant hammer is useful.
To be clear, I take “standard” precautions against getting sick, from any transmittable disease not just the dreaded Rona.
But as a straight male who lived in NYC during the HIV, I was a lot more worried about that than the Rona. Low probability times 100% certainty of death sounds a lot more ominous to me than high probability times low certainty of death/dire consequences; the “choice of scary” is pretty obvious to me. That’s my .02.
But they are not really increasing at all.
It has been more than a few weeks since “cases” skyrocketed, but deaths remain stable. It could have something to do with the fact that we went from a few thousand tests per day to over 40,000 in Ontario. They increase testing 5x, limit it to those with symptoms or in contact with someone confirmed to be infected (as opposed to testing anyone who shows up like before) and there you go, the recipe for a “2nd wave” minus the deaths - in spite of the fact that COVID does not need to be the actual cause of death for it to be counted as a COVID death:
Most deaths were in nursing homes and in many places most nursing homes already had a COVID outbreak. Whoever didn’t die already is immune.
Yeah I mean the US is essentially on a third wave. We should expect US deaths to rise in the coming weeks. That’s what has happened every time. Like you I’d like to think that with better treatments each case wave will be met with less deaths than previous waves. But not much optimism to think deaths aren’t going to go up by a decent amount if we’re back to hitting 65K plus regularly. It will just take time. I hope I’m wrong of course but for that to happen this wave would need to be unlike the first two. And I just don’t see that happening.
Yeah there’s no argument with anything you said in your post, and especially not this. Totally pick covid vs HIV lol.
My own thoughts are that it will be worse in cold weather, as we are now starting to get back towards winter. It will be instructive to see how much we’ve learned (or not learned) this winter vs last. I suspect the differential will tell us.
Our demographics are a bit different on this wave so far, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a relative drop in Covid deaths compared to before, but I don’t see it flat lining. And the deeper we get into winter the more likely it is deaths will spike relative to infection rate. As you know, summer didn’t do jack squat to curb infection.
Yeah I can just hope not at this point. Insane to think our next horrible milestone is 250,000 deaths.
It reminds me of having a baby and the incremental changes of time. “he’s 3 weeks… months, years…”.
Now we’re tracking deaths by increments of 10k, but hey! No big deal, right? Just like a common cold. 
Less/weaker natural UV to kill the virus, less exposure to sun for people reducing immune system function, less fresh air to help clear out lungs, more time indoors making it more likely to encounter the virus…
Basically, all the things than make it more likely to catch a cold in the winter apply here.
Masks aren’t going away even with a vaccine:
If only more people would listen to the part about washing their grubby hands, frequently.
Obviously. I’m sure you knew that all you had to do to protect yourself was wear a condom while in public and anywhere social distancing was not possible.
The conclusion I have come to is governments are terrible at targetted/fast solutions. Just awful. Like a big corporation but less accountability for the minions and less incentive - in this scenario, they are de-incentivised - but with a far more complicated structure and competing interests.
They can’t measure, they struggle to interpret the data they do collect, they then struggle to apply that sensibly. This seems to be independent of any country or specific government that hasn’t been working on this for a good decade. So they manage it by having one blanket approach
Miserable. They are absolutely miserable at targeted solutions. Even their attempts at targeted solutions cause more confusion than they help half the time. They’re good at fast solutions under one condition: when the infrastructure, plan, and command organization already exists. Basically what happens in the armed forces with our quick response plans. Oh, and war games to practice that response.
Wait a minute…getting a thought here…oh yes, we had an annual “war game” sim for pandemic measures. Of course, you have to have good communication and cooperation between elements of an administration in order to implement a quick response well…
In any case, the only way a government can be good at a fast solution is when it is a) funded b) known and c) practiced. This happens in the armed forces, but as with pretty much all government measures it is “funding intensive”. And politicians have notoriously short eyesight, which unfortunately means they don’t drive the strategy forward like they should. The agency heads don’t get the help they need many times BEFORE the crisis strikes, and this particular virus is showing it.
This is the only thing I’ll disagree with, but only insofar as the measurement and interpretation. We have very, very good scientists who work on those specific aspects. Application sucks because it becomes a question of bureaucratic funding and political will rather than science and engineering. If you gave a group of scientists free reign they would probably have a much better time of it. See: NASA leading up to the moon landing.
One of the main disses the CCP has been dishing out at the US all this time in the media is, “The US doesn’t trust science.”.
Chinese diplomats have been pushing this line hard in countries belonging to the Belt and Road initiative, citing the pandemic management as the definitive proof of Western decadence and failure.
The only thing they really have to brag about is their ability to dispose of the bodies.
It’s politics, man. They’re even dissing Asian governments for “listening to the West” and telling their people not to wear masks and stuff when this first started. Spent a week convincing my wife it was the WHO that recommended this first.