per the WSJ, United announces they are flying doses of the vaccine from Europe to Chicago. Hearing that news almost makes me feel like the old times when NORAD would say Santa was in the air.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Yes, ramage, they did challenge the accuracy of the information and conclusions. It was not a “study by Johns Hopkins”, it was an article published in their student newspaper who decided themselves to retract it.
Editor’s Note: After The News-Letter published this article on Nov. 22, it was brought to our attention that our coverage of Genevieve Briand’s presentation “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data” has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic.
We decided on Nov. 26 to retract this article to stop the spread of misinformation, as we noted on social media.
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.
Because of these inaccuracies and our failure to provide additional information about the effects of COVID-19, The News-Letter decided to retract this article. It is our duty as a publication to combat the spread of misinformation and to enhance our fact-checking process. We apologize to our readers.
So, a student media article about a non-peer-reviewed, non-published journal article by an economist at Johns Hopkins is the best evidence contrarians can find that COVID is a serious pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans? And then when the students do the right thing in retracting it, it’s “censorship” and not “following in line”? LOL, not.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
Please note that the accuracy of the data is not disputed.
Perhaps this will help to explain:
from Newsweek.com 11/28/20
The U.S. counts coronavirus deaths differently from other countries. Indeed, we are counting deaths differently than we have for any other disease.
“The case definition is very simplistic,” Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of Illinois Department of Public Health, explains. “It means, at the time of death, it was a COVID positive diagnosis. That means, that if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means, technically even if you died of [a] clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death.” . . . Beyond including people with the virus who clearly didn’t die from it, the numbers are inflated by counting people who weren’t even infected. New York has classified many cases as coronavirus deaths even when postmortem tests have been negative. The diagnosis can be based on symptoms, which are often similar to those of the seasonal flu.
ramage wrote: Please note that the accuracy of the data is not disputed.
Perhaps this will help to explain:
from Newsweek.com 11/28/20
The U.S. counts coronavirus deaths differently from other countries. Indeed, we are counting deaths differently than we have for any other disease.
“The case definition is very simplistic,” Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of Illinois Department of Public Health, explains. “It means, at the time of death, it was a COVID positive diagnosis. That means, that if you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means, technically even if you died of [a] clear alternative cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death.” . . . Beyond including people with the virus who clearly didn’t die from it, the numbers are inflated by counting people who weren’t even infected. New York has classified many cases as coronavirus deaths even when postmortem tests have been negative. The diagnosis can be based on symptoms, which are often similar to those of the seasonal flu.
Dr. Armando Moncada MD
Jun 9, 2020
As a pathologist we have definitions in terms of cause of death in death certificate documents as follows:
*Immediate cause of death: The final disease or injury causing the death.
*Intermediate cause of death: A disease or condition that preceded and caused the immediate cause of death.
*Underlying cause of death: A disease or condition present before, and leading to, the intermediate or immediate cause of death.
I hope this will clarify why being a Pathologist is so challenging to say the least.
Armando Moncada MD FCAP
Pathologist.
SOURCE MEDSCAPE......very difficult to quantify when there is NO continuity/UNIVERSAL PROTOCOL
Well I tried my best. I found a Armando Moncada, Jr. a graduate of a medical school in Mexico, who is a pathologist, but could not find any Medscape cross reference. Please provide the source.
Be that as it may, a pathologist does indeed indicate an immediate cause of death. I.e., a motorcycle fatality. Let us say that at necropsy of the motorcycilst tested positive for Covid-19. It is not by Dr. Moncada's ,definition an intermediate cause of death, nor is it the underlying cause of the death. I stipulate that the individual could have been so upset of the possibility that he/she/x had Covid 19 that a run off the road into a telephone pole after leaving the bar could have upset the individual. (sarcasm).
What challenges a pathologist is making a diagnosis of a breast malignancy on the basis of a frozen section of a biopsy. Not listing a cause of death. In the latter case the patient is dead. In the former it is a women on the O.R. table, where a decision to do further surgery must be made on the basis of the call by the pathologist.
MEDSCAPE is a free med. site....BUT U have to sign in and provide password....was that the process U used? The article is on the right hand column,as a side article. (as of Sat.AM).....
