TopCat, I'm surprised you, of all people, are taking the death count so literally. I take the numbers for what they're worth at the moment.
Yes, I get the fact that the official infection numbers could be wildly inaccurate. There's a lot of studies being done to figure out just how inaccurate they are, but even those studies are proving to be unreliable.
That Stanford study, for instance, is being disputed by statisticians who say it's an example of how NOT to do statistics:
Feud over Stanford coronavirus study: ‘The authors owe us all an apology’
As for the death rates, however, that's quite a bit harder to fudge. Your article, for example, is only disputing the notion that people with pre-existing conditions who end up dying from COVID-19 should be counted as a COVID-19 death.
But to me, that's a perfectly reasonable assumption to make, especially since MOST Americans have some sort of "pre-existing" condition like being overweight, or being old, or having diabetes (e.g. African-Americans, just in case you read another news article about how COVID-19 "disproportionately" affects them).
Bottom line is that the antidote to bad science is good science, and more good science, not more bad science.
Tenchusatsu |
