But even if I we discount 95% of the mortality ascribed to SARS-CoV-2, this is still a rampaging b!!tch of a killer. The flu has killed more, but this is no flu. What makes it most heinous (to quote Bill and Ted) is that we can't predict who will fare well and who won't. Age is a factor, for sure. Diabetes, probably.
And when I need a bit of levity, I think about how the naysayers claimed that the virus would magically disappear after the election. Two months later, and the numbers are skyrocketing. The worse it gets, the more vehement the denial. When's the next milestone for this mysterious vanishing act? Because I want a piece of that action.
Knehrke, as someone who works in medicine I've only chimed in when I really felt that I had something worth adding and when I have I've sought to make it EXTREMELY data-driven
And when I did post (see shares
#3,263 and
#3,264), know what your response was?
Basically to challenge that
no-one has a good grip on data right now, despite us being a year down the road with this disease AND WITH THE DATA I SHARED COMING FROM SOME OF THE MOST SWEEPING STUDIES WHERE CITIZENS HAVE BEEN MOST WIDELY TESTED, symptomatic or not. Here was your exact reply...
"You make a good argument and present several valid points for consideration. I'm fairly current on the literature and I recognize that there is a wide spread on the educated guesses that folks are making, which is really all we can do given that our understanding of this disease is continuously evolving."
The data I shared CLEARLY pointed to covid being
less fatal than the flu on an infectious mortality basis for the age groups below age 50. Yet here you now are claiming that even after eliminating 95% of the mortality to covid it's still a "b!!tch of a killer", and "that we can't predict who will fare well and who won't."
A year's worth of data and we can't predict risk factors? Oh really? On the basis of scientific data, I beg to differ...
And do I appreciate that there are exceptions to the norms (as there always are and always will be), and that buried among the very low ratios of those under the age of 50 dying are a number of young folks who absolutely tragically have died... yes, I 100% appreciate that. As do I also appreciate I had a close college friend who, while we were still in college, died from the flu. As I'm sure you know the flu strains sometimes can hit the very young MUCH harder than covid has. The one ENORMOUS BLESSING I pointed out to friends EARLY on in the fight against covid is that the death rate among those 10 and under has effectively been 0.0%. Again, truth be known (and I trust you know it) flu OFTEN hits those 10 and under MUCH more statistically harder than has covid.
I DO understand your desires to make others appreciate real risks associated with covid... but you are not doing yourself any favor by inflating risks as if they are random / little understood / widespread across all age groups. That's just not true based on ANY data I've reviewed (and working in the medical field have reviewed a tiring amount as I appreciate you have as well).
Finally, as for the disease disappearing after the election, that's not a prediction I ever remember making and being honest worry that Biden/Dems might like to push the opposite to keep enjoying the feeling of power it gives at least some of them (while they don't practice what they preach...) but for clarification purposes believe that those who've made that claim likely meant after a Biden administration would be i
n place / in charge, which hasn't happened just yet. Again, not my prediction but I believe the point those advocating it were making was that it would allow the Dems to try and claim they eradicated it. Doesn't help them to do that before power is switched over.
Actually, let me add a post-script, just to show I'm NOT some covid denier... is covid, as you shared, a "b!!tch of a killer?" For those over age 50 and especially for those over age 50 with underlying comorbidities, ABSOLUTELY. As the New York Times itself published back in the spring, so much so that an estimated 42% of all US deaths in the spring of 2020 occured in nursing homes. Data paints it as every bit the vicious killer you're making it out to be FOR THE SICK AND AGED. No caveats to that at all. Sadly, though, I don't think the press nor many of the powers that be have acted wisely on CLEAR DATA to implement policies specifically targeting those at greatest risk, instead implementing numerous draconian mandates that don't focus on the elderly at all and/or have actually led to increased deaths among the aged at times.
Last time I posted, you indicated you wished you had more time to speak to my share. I sure welcome you to do so if you strongly disagree in principle with what I've shared / wish to argue it's not centered on data.