Vaccine Passports

[LetterRip]

Seriati,

If you said in the context of improving school policy "I love children" - it could mean you are a pedophile.  Since the word 'love' is semantically ambiguous.  If I were then to publicly state based on that statement that you were a pedophile - by your logic that would be morally ok, because the wording is ambiguous and we are free to ignore context.

By my reasoning, if there is slightly ambiguous language, in a clear context - then taking a rather bizzare interpretation that given the context is clearly unwarranted that suggests a moral degeneracy of the individual making the statement - is in fact immoral, especially when that misinterpretation can result in widespread harm.

If someone though the wording was ambiguous - then the correct response is to email the site for clarification.  The correct response is not to state as a fact that Oregon is counting car accidents etc. as Covid-19 deaths.  The incorrect response is accusing those in charge of counting Covid-19 deaths of being recklessly irresponsible for the apparent implied reason of 'making Trump look bad'.  The incorrect response, given that it is beyond any reasonable doubt that it is factually incorrect, has almost certainly resulted in numerous deaths.  I've heard that claim repeat numerous times outside of ornery, and it has certainly resulted in many many conservatives not taking Covid seriously because they thought the numbers were fake and exaggerated.

Now, if ScottF were a simpleton who was incapable of reasoning, then sure - he would be blameless.  But like most people on this site, he is reasonably intelligent, and thus should not get a pass for such deeply irresponsible behavior.

And yes, he sure as hell should be ashamed of such behavior.

[TheDrake]

And given the worldwide numbers, you'd have to assume that not only our government is trying to wildly overestimate covid deaths, from Israel to Brazil, and that corroborating increased death counts beyond that expected in non covid years are actually due to something other than covid.

Is it possible that isolated cases are not counted correctly? If course. In either direction. The only traffic accident that can become a covid death is when somebody gets hospitalized due to injury, catches covid from unvaccinated staff and dies of covid.

These flights of fancy simply have no evidence to support them. Even if the semantics of some guideline make reporting confusion possible, it doesn't mean that the people reporting are confused or that there is some kind of widespread secret worldwide fraud.

What has been clearly demonstrated are attempts to deflate the numbers to make things look better than they are.

[Seriati]

***by your logic that would be morally ok, because the wording is ambiguous and we are free to ignore context.

By my reasoning, if there is slightly ambiguous language, in a clear context - then taking a rather bizzare interpretation that given the context is clearly unwarranted that suggests a moral degeneracy of the individual making the statement - is in fact immoral, especially when that misinterpretation can result in widespread harm.

My point is that you are literally wrong about the context.  You're assuming that the context is that of medical researchers trying to accurately track COVID deaths, when the actual context is that of bureaucrats trying to make timely reporta on statistics.  The rules -as written- are written in bureaucratic language, the context as it exists in reality is of bureaucrats trying to report on specific mandatory time lines without expressing  uncertainty, and the rules are clear rules of assumption designed to allow a certainty of reporting even when their is an uncertainty of reality.  They used bright line tests specifically because they can then defend results that are counter-intuitive by referencing the bright line tests.

There's nothing bizarre about that interpretation.  Its literally the most likely reading of reality.

If you believe "misinterpretation" is immoral, then you should take a hard look at what you actually said, cause you read a bunch into the situation that isn't actually there, defended reports that all most certainly are not made as you aggressively imply they are, and then have the audacity to claim that other people are absurd for what is most likely a correct interpretation of the situation that outrages you. 

You should be mad at the bureaucrats if what you wanted was reports based on your own conclusions of what those reports should be, not at the messengers telling you that you misinterpreted it.

If someone though the wording was ambiguous - then the correct response is to email the site for clarification.  The correct response is not to state as a fact that Oregon is counting car accidents etc. as Covid-19 deaths.

Given the lecturing tone you're using does that mean you didn't do any research?  People have asked them that, for example here's one response:

According to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), there is no difference when it comes to tracking and reporting COVID deaths. OHA spokesman Jonathan Modie explained in an email how the state determines what is counted as a COVID-19 death:

We consider COVID-19 deaths to be:

Deaths in which a patient hospitalized for any reason within 14 days of a positive COVID-19 test result dies in the hospital or within the 60 days following discharge.

Deaths in which COVID-19 is listed as a primary or contributing cause of death on a death certificate.

We count COVID-19 deaths this way because the virus can often have effects on an individual’s health that may complicate their recovery from other diseases and conditions, even injuries, and indirectly contribute to their death. Another reason is because OHA is using this data to track the spread of the disease, and to create actionable steps for stopping its spread.

  https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/questions-over-the-accuracy-of-how-the-state-tracks-covid-deaths/283-0b1b7b6c-695e-4313-92cf-a4cfd7510721

Seems pretty clear that regardless of what you think, Oregon's Health Authority does in fact believe and even confirmed that it believes that it was appropriate to count a car accident as a COVID death.  That's literally a direct admission that it's a rule of convenience because COVID "could" have contributed or impacted the person and impacted their death.  COVID  did not have to be shown to have that impact, it's enough that it could have.  The final sentence provides reasons that sound relevant but that are not really when you think about them critically, they don't actually support their reasoning for the need to count in that manner, rather just the reasoning for why they should be tracking infections - it's a common language trick to reference something unobjectionable that actually supports something roughly similar as if it were supporting the original claim.

The incorrect response is accusing those in charge of counting Covid-19 deaths of being recklessly irresponsible for the apparent implied reason of 'making Trump look bad'.  The incorrect response, given that it is beyond any reasonable doubt that it is factually incorrect, has almost certainly resulted in numerous deaths.  I've heard that claim repeat numerous times outside of ornery, and it has certainly resulted in many many conservatives not taking Covid seriously because they thought the numbers were fake and exaggerated.

The numbers are exaggerated if you want to know how many died of COVID.  They're even exaggerated if you want to know how many died of any reason because they caught COVID.  It's literally tracking how many people died around the same time they had COVID.

Again, there are administrative reasons that justify reporting in that manner, and they disclosed exactly what they were doing.  I can't for the life of me understand why you're going to an extreme to falsify what they reported and their own claims about it.  And worse, insulting people who reporting it correctly, when you're reporting misinformation.

Now, if ScottF were a simpleton who was incapable of reasoning, then sure - he would be blameless.  But like most people on this site, he is reasonably intelligent, and thus should not get a pass for such deeply irresponsible behavior.

And yes, he sure as hell should be ashamed of such behavior.

And that finish says to me that this appears to be an issue where you're so convinced that it must be how you think it should be that you've completely ignored what is.  I do think someone in the conversation should be feeling ashamed but it isn't ScottF.

I note you seem to be using an increasing amount of insulting language, that too may be a sign that you're skipping over the logical inconsistencies in the positions you're defending (we attack when we feel cognitive dissonance).

[Fenring]

Thanks for quoting from that news article, Seriati. I wasn't looking to verify the on-the-ground methods in Oregon, but only to parse their website. But if that quote is accurate it looks like what they're actually doing in fact does match what the website says (i.e. my reading of it).

[Seriati]

Fenring, I have no idea if the quote is accurate, which is why I provided the link to the source.  I have no reason to believe it's not correct.  My biggest issue here was  with people attacking the plain English reading as "evil" because it deosn't seem to say what they believe it should say.

[LetterRip]

If you can find a dozen instances of death from a trauma resulting in being counted as Covid-19 - I'll claim that I was wrong and that that deaths from accidents are being regularly recorded as deaths from Covid-19 (as opposed to say miscodings).  If there are 1 in 10,000 miscodings (which would be surprisingly low) - and there are 620,000 reported Covid deaths - then the number of miscodings should be 62; if 1 in 50,000 - we'd expect 12.  So really I should be insisting on 100 for a reasonable sample beyond noise.  If you can't find 12, feel free to post as many as you find.

If you can find even 6 car accident deaths being counted as a Covid-19 death - I'll state I was wrong.

Since this is an extremely wide spread claim, and one that should be well documented - if you can't find that, than you should admit that the claim is BS and that ScottF should in fact be ashamed of spreading such a dangerous rumor.

I've searched and found exactly one traumatic accident death that was recorded as a Covid-19 death - a motorcycle accident in Florida, it was quickly corrected (apparently it was a miscoding error) and was extremely widespread reported over tons of major media.

So should be easy peasy - I'm sure my search skills are just poor.  Or perhaps Fox, NewsMax, and OANN are in on the conspiracy of hiding the massive number of cases of 'fake' covid deaths when really it is people falling off of ladders and crashing - and it is just a case of 600,000 people suddenly becoming far more clumsy.

[edgmatt]

I think part of the point is "credibility".  If we know for a fact that hospitals get paid more when a death is classified as Covid caused (and we do know this...it's between $12,000-$13,000 'extra', and ~$39,000 if they are put on a ventilator:  https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-covid-19-death-count/)  and then we hear about even just ONE instance of a death like you just described in Flordia... then the whole system's credibility evaporates, does it not?

From my link to save you time:

“So, hospitals get an extra $13,000 if they diagnose a death as COVID-19,” a widely shared meme on Facebook claimed. “And an additional $39,000 if they use a ventilator!” One post of the meme, shared by hundreds, was captioned: “And then we wonder why the numbers of deaths are embellished…”

The figures cited by Jensen generally square with estimated Medicare payments for COVID-19 hospitalizations, based on average Medicare payments for patients with similar diagnoses.

Medicare — the federal health insurance program for Americans 65 and older, a central at-risk population when it comes to COVID-19 — pays hospitals in part using fixed rates at discharge based off a grouping system known as diagnosis-related groups.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has classified COVID-19 cases with existing groups for respiratory infections and inflammations. A CMS spokesperson told us exact payments vary, depending on a patient’s principal diagnosis and severity, as well as treatments and procedures. There are also geographic variations.

An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation looked at average Medicare payments for hospital admissions for the existing diagnosis-related groups and noted that the “average Medicare payment for respiratory infections and inflammations with major comorbidities or complications in 2017 … was $13,297. For more severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for a respiratory system diagnosis with ventilator support for greater than 96 hours, which was $40,218.”

It is true, however, that the government will pay more to hospitals for COVID-19 cases in two senses: By paying an additional 20% on top of traditional Medicare rates for COVID-19 patients during the public health emergency, and by reimbursing hospitals for treating the uninsured patients with the disease (at that enhanced Medicare rate).

Also important however: 

Either way, the fact that government programs are paying hospitals for treating patients who have COVID-19 isn’t on its own representative of anything nefarious.

“There’s an implication here that hospitals are over-reporting their COVID patients because they have an economic advantage of doing so, [which] is really an outrageous claim,” Gerald Kominski, senior fellow at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, told us. And, he said, any suggestion that patients may be put on ventilators out of financial gain, not medical need, “is basically saying physicians are violating their Hippocratic Oath … it would be like providing heart surgery on someone who doesn’t need it.”

Absolutely true, but like I first said, part of the point is a lack of credibility.

[edgmatt]

The ultimate point being:  We don't know how accurate that 600,000 number is.  It could be very accurate, or very inaccurate.

[TheDrake]

If somebody wrote a Dan brown novel about shadowy hospitals scheming to gobble up Medicare cash, would you find it credible?

Let's understand that the premise is being somewhere in the spectrum of fraudulent to unethical. So are we thinking that this was so much more tempting that Healthcare pros crossed the line, but aren't committing hundreds of other ways to commit fraud? Or that they are doing all those things also? The whole system is rotten to the core, but also impervious to investigation?

Let's say there is inflation, and maybe there are only 500,00 deaths and not 600,000. How would that matter for policy?

What we do know that cannot be questioned is that intensive care units are filling up, and it isn't because people are having more car accidents or more end stage cancer.

[LetterRip]

The ultimate point being:  We don't know how accurate that 600,000 number is.  It could be very accurate, or very inaccurate.

We do know it is a drastic undercount, because we can look at the excess mortality during the period.  Some of the excess mortality will be due to people delaying care due to not wanting to risk infection, but most of it will be directly due to Covid-19 infection induced death.  Note that masks have reduce other infectious deaths significantly, since most infections have a much lower Ro and are thus easier to prevent. 

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003571

[edgmatt]

Right, so that number is just not credible.  We don't really have a grasp of the real number.  It could be 800,000 or it could be 100,000.  THere are things that point in both directions, and that's my point about credibility.

@TheDrake:  It's not an all or nothing belief.  I don't think "all" the hospitals are 100% corrupt.  I don't think that "none" of them are 0% corrupt.

But people are people and incentives are incentives.  If you create a monetary incentive to do something, you have to expect some level of fraud, some level of corruption. 

[LetterRip]

Right, so that number is just not credible.  We don't really have a grasp of the real number.  It could be 800,000 or it could be 100,000.

No it can't be 100,000, it isn't credible that it is less than 600,000.

 

THere are things that point in both directions, and that's my point about credibility.

No there aren't "both directions".  Excess mortality is so much higher we can be certain COVID-19 deaths is drastically higher than the official number.  You would have to postulate some unknown method that is killing 100,000's of people (in the US alone, millions worldwide) that is completely undetectable that happened to occur simultaneous with the COVID-19 outbreak.

For worldwide, WHO suggests that COVID-19 deaths are a massive undercount,

Presenting its annual World Health Statistics report, the WHO estimated that total deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 were at least 3 million or 1.2 million more than 1.8 million figure officially reported.

"We are likely facing a significant undercount of total deaths directly and indirectly attributed to COVID-19," the U.N. agency said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/covid-19-death-tolls-are-likely-significant-undercount-who-says-2021-05-21/

We can use statistics to get a good idea of the undercount.

[rightleft22]

But people are people and incentives are incentives.  If you create a monetary incentive to do something, you have to expect some level of fraud, some level of corruption.

When did it happen that we started to believe the worst in people we don't know?
Is this a reflection of reality our us or both?

I was watching a show were they where talking about hitchhiking, how no one did it anymore as it was so much more dangerous then it was in the 1970's. I wonder if that was true or if it was more about it being more likely that we hear the stories of something that happened to someone and assume they happened everywhere next door.

[LetterRip]

I was watching a show were they where talking about hitchhiking, how no one did it anymore as it was so much more dangerous then it was in the 1970's. I wonder if that was true or if it was more about it being more likely that we hear the stories of something that happened to someone and assume they happened everywhere next door.

No it is far safer now.  In 1970's murder rate was around 9 per 100,000 (9.2? ) (range 7.9-9.8 ) average in 2019 it was 5.0 per 100,000 - it has been around 5.0 (range 4.8-5.4 ) for a decade; so you are drastically less likely to be murdered today then back then, almost half as likely.

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

So it is completely perception.

The rape numbers are higher today, but that is probably just a reporting artifact (people rarely reported rapes in the past)

[TheDrake]

There's always economic incentive in fraud, from financial advisors to auto mechanics. I would suggest that the vast majority are ethical or only slightly shade the truth.

Now you are expecting agents with no economic incentive of their own to smudge numbers that dictate the response to a public health crisis, for no personal benefit but only to make money for the corporation that owns their hospital? A large number of which are non profits in the first place, some of which are operated by religious organizations?

[edgmatt]

Now you are expecting agents with no economic incentive of their own to smudge numbers that dictate the response to a public health crisis, for no personal benefit but only to make money for the corporation that owns their hospital? A large number of which are non profits in the first place, some of which are operated by religious organizations?

It's not "no economic incentive of their own" at all.  They have a job they want to keep.  If the direction comes down to list cause of death as Covid if it falls under X, Y, Z, then that's what they'll do.  Yes, I believe that.   I think it would be a level of naivety to think that this never happens.  I can't even believe your forcing me to defend the argument "people lie to get money".  What planet are you from?

[LetterRip]

It's not "no economic incentive of their own" at all.  They have a job they want to keep.  If the direction comes down to list cause of death as Covid if it falls under X, Y, Z, then that's what they'll do.  Yes, I believe that.   I think it would be a level of naivety to think that this never happens.  I can't even believe your forcing me to defend the argument "people lie to get money".  What planet are you from?

If such a directive came down, then the smart doctor would avail themselves of whistleblower statutes and make absurd amounts of money.  If such a directive came down, the lawsuits would be instantaneous and it would be published on every major newspaper - I can't believe you can't figure this out.  Absence of evidence here is very strong evidence of absence.

Also why would corporations take a shady method that could end up in criminal fraud charges - when there is such an absurdly high amount of legitimate Covid cases?

[TheDrake]

Here's what fox reported.

People also claim death numbers are being inflated so hospitals get more money. Potter says that’s not true for two reasons.

The first, Potter says that 20% add-on from the CARES Act is only for services provided, not deaths.

In actual dollar amounts, Potter says the 20% payment averages out to be around $35,000 per patient on a ventilator.

Potter says the second reason it's not true is because of checks and balances.

“If somebody knowingly alters the medical record, which would then create the bill I think is being alleged here... That would be caught through audit. And if that occurred, you could be prosecuted -- there’s huge penalties," Potter said.

“I know that there’s a certain group of people out there who seem to think that we’re taking directions from the CDC, or physicians or certain health departments or something like this to inflate the numbers which is absolutely, completely false," Klaeser said.

"There's no pressure on the physician to say COVID, we’re going to get paid more if you have COVID," Dr. Mead said.

And here's the quality of the people who claim it is happening, as reported by rolling stone.

One video that has been circulating on social media features a Montana physician named Dr. Annie Bukacek questioning the number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States (more than 26,000, as of Wednesday, April 15th).

Brandishing a stethoscope and white lab coat, she argues that the CDC is encouraging medical examiners to erroneously report COVID-19 as a cause of death in many cases, arguing that the actual cause of death in many cases may have been an underlying health condition. “Testing positive for COVID-19 does not mean a person is sick with it or, if the person died, that they died from it,” Bukacek says before concluding with a grand flourish, “based on inaccurate, incomplete data, people are being terrorized by fearmongers into relinquishing … freedoms.”

The video has been reposted on numerous far-right websites, including Zero Hedge and InfoWars. The channel posting this video, which has garnered nearly 800,000 views, is not a purveyor of legitimate medical or scientific information — it’s a religious organization, specifically the Liberty Fellowship, which describes itself as a “non-501(c)3 fellowship of patriot believers” and is run by Chuck Baldwin, a far-right extremist and former presidential candidate for the antigovernment, anti-LGBTQ Constitution Party.

[edgmatt]

Yes, poison the character of the people who make claims, and you don't have to disprove their claims.  Ezy pzy.  And I wasn't talking about "altering" the medical record.  I'm talking about listing covid as a cause of death, even if they died of pneumonia (for example).  If they had covid, which caused them to get pneumonia, and then die from pneumonia, Covid can be listed as the cause of death. It's a judgement call in many cases.  And that opens the door for grey areas and fraud and mistakes.

There are a million buts and ifs and whys, but it doesn't change the fact the number 600,000 is unreliable.  And that, and a bunch of other at least questionable stuff, like the CDC mistake in reporting the covid numbers in Florida for just one example, is good cause for at least taking a look, being skeptical, and, most importantly, coming to our own personal conclusions about what is right for us or our families.

There are suspicions of fraud, deceit, falsifications, and corruption coming  from, surprise, the government and the pharmaceutical companies.  The government lied about the mask thing back in the beginning because , according to Fauci, "[W]e were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply," said the man touted as the nation's leading epidemiology expert in an interview with the Street. "And we wanted to make sure that the people, namely, the healthcare workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected."   

So they have shown that they will tell us what they want in order to accomplish whatever it is they feel is necessary or important.  Anything else they tell me now is tainted with that and at least suspect.

Any reports of side effects from the vaccine are dismissed, any mistake made with numbers or reporting is shrugged at.  The Drake, just now in this thread said "What has been clearly demonstrated are attempts to deflate the numbers to make things look better than they are."  So reporting inflated numbers is out of the range of possibility of happening, despite the financial and political incentives to do so, but reporting deflated numbers has been clearly demonstrated....and that's perfectly ok with you.  (And really it just supports my initial statement which was:  It's a credibility issue.)

And there's a whole host of things that don't jive and seem to be driven by political purposes and not medical ones.  Or complete hypocrisies.  The same group of people who are insisting  that requiring an i.d. to vote is preposterous, dangerous, and racist.....are perfectly fine with requiring vaccine passports and vaccine proofs to simply go about your daily life.

But mentioning any of this or just simply asking wtf is going on is not acceptable.  Any peep of question or doubt is shut down, dismissed, flagged, has a warning label attached to it, muted, canceled and deleted.   That's a huge red flag.  And  the fact that one side is so adamantly and unshakably sure is just another red flag for a lot of people.

I'll say it again:  There's a credibility issue.  So when people start talking about a mandated vaccine, or manipulating services in such a way that "voluntarily" getting the vaccine will essentially be forced, it's not acceptable to people.  Not because they are crazy, not because they are stupid, not because they want people to die, but because they have reasons aplenty to not trust the people giving the orders.

[LetterRip]

edgmatt,

So reporting inflated numbers is out of the range of possibility of happening, despite the financial and political incentives to do so, but reporting deflated numbers has been clearly demonstrated....and that's perfectly ok with you.  (And really it just supports my initial statement which was:  It's a credibility issue.)

1) You keep ignoring the absurdly high number of excess deaths - that guarantee that the Covid-19 caused deaths are massive undercount - probably on the order of 100-200% worldwide.  In the US probably on the order of 30-40%.

2) We have actual evidence of Republican politicians and their underlings interfering with gathering and dissemination of accurate Covid-19 numbers.

For instance,

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2021/08/13/floridas-covid-numbers-cases-data-difficult-but-not-impossible-find-heres-how/8099274002/

https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/covid-19-data-misrepresented-florida-governor

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article249701743.html

[NobleHunter]

If the US was reporting inflated numbers, it should be relatively obvious when compared to "peer" countries. I don't think Canada, for instance, has any real motivation to over count. Though accounting for the spectacular mishandling of Covid in the US would be difficult.

[yossarian22c]

...
There are a million buts and ifs and whys, but it doesn't change the fact the number 600,000 is unreliable. 

....
There are suspicions of fraud, deceit, falsifications, and corruption coming  from, surprise, the government and the pharmaceutical companies. 
...

So they have shown that they will tell us what they want in order to accomplish whatever it is they feel is necessary or important.  Anything else they tell me now is tainted with that and at least suspect.

The 600,000 number is reliable as a lower bound. If you don't trust the reporting system the number is big enough you can see it in population level deaths. I have posted the link to where the CDC tracks and posts that data online. Just look at it. Unless you have a non covid explanation for why 750,000 more people died in the last 1.5 years than would be expected then trust that the 600,000 is reliable.

Any reports of side effects from the vaccine are dismissed, any mistake made with numbers or reporting is shrugged at. 
...

BS. Only the stupid ones are dismissed, like the vaccine makes you magnetic. The country stopped giving the J&J vaccine for a couple weeks because of 1 death and 6 serious blood clots after 7,000,000 doses. There are plenty of articles about potential one time menstrual cycle changes as a result of the vaccine. The fact that lots of people feel like crap for a day after getting the second dose isn't hidden or swept under the rug.

But mentioning any of this or just simply asking wtf is going on is not acceptable.  Any peep of question or doubt is shut down, dismissed, flagged, has a warning label attached to it, muted, canceled and deleted. 
...

I'll say it again:  There's a credibility issue.  So when people start talking about a mandated vaccine, or manipulating services in such a way that "voluntarily" getting the vaccine will essentially be forced, it's not acceptable to people.  Not because they are crazy, not because they are stupid, not because they want people to die, but because they have reasons aplenty to not trust the people giving the orders.

When did the right become so distrustful of society at large? Trump exploited and exacerbated the phenomenon but the seeds predated him. You don't trust vote counts because maybe there is some vast conspiracy that is so well organized it leaves no evidence behind that the vote was rigged. You don't trust the covid numbers because maybe some hospital executive order his entire staff to commit fraud and everyone would go along with committing felonies so he got rich. Because the doctors, nurses, and data entry people at the hospital aren't getting that money. They just go along with committing a felony because the CEO says so? It doesn't seem to matter to you that the country had 750,000 excess deaths last year and covid would be the only rational explanation.

Such disregard for common facts is a danger to society because when you are primed to doubt reality then you will believe any narrative that fits your world view.

[oldbrian]

edgmatt:

If they had covid, which caused them to get pneumonia, and then die from pneumonia, Covid can be listed as the cause of death.

If they fell off the roof, which caused them to get internal injuries, and then die from internal injuries, falling off the roof can be listed as the cause of death.

When we are talking about how many preventable deaths were caused by poor adherence to safety guidelines, absolutely. 
The actual cause of death is usually heart failure.  We have to work backwards from there to figure out what caused the failure.  And what caused that. 
Would it make more sense for OSHA to require safety railings and lanyards, or giant mattresses on the ground?

Would it make more sense to try to avoid pneumonia, or avoid the things which cause pneumonia?

[TheDrake]

Wow. So credibility is the issue, and a bunch of people indulging in speculative fantasies with no evidence, expertise, or supporting statistical data are more credible than medical professionals following established guidelines that have been in place for decades. Occam would like to lend you his razor.

[edgmatt]

No.  Complete misunderstanding.

- The info out there is not reliable.  Whether the numbers are HIGHER or LOWER in actuality matters not if the only thing I care about is reliability.  It might dead on balls accurate, but we don't know that, and you've supplied evidence yourself why it's probably not accurate.   Since we don't know, the number is unreliable.

- "The numbers" aren't the only set of data that's unreliable. 

- The government has lied to us in a manipulative way.

- Since some data is unreliable, and the government has shown that it will lie to manipulate and

- The people putting pressure on others for a forced vaccine are using this unreliable data and the word of an untrustworthy government as a their source of credibility...

 - Along with everything Serati posted and

- My own belief that forcing an innocent person to take an action against their will is highly immoral...

I won't be taking the vaccine voluntarily, and I am completely against a forced vaccine.  That's it.

[NobleHunter]

Maybe in a life or death situation, you shouldn't give up after establishing that the number is unreliable. As has been pointed out, there are ways to know things about the number, even if the number itself can't be trusted. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be happy wallowing in ignorance if there were ways to learn more about what's going on.

[yossarian22c]

No.  Complete misunderstanding.

- The info out there is not reliable.  Whether the numbers are HIGHER or LOWER in actuality matters not if the only thing I care about is reliability.  It might dead on balls accurate, but we don't know that, and you've supplied evidence yourself why it's probably not accurate.   Since we don't know, the number is unreliable.

The real number we can say with a pretty high degree of certainty is between 600,000 and 800,000. Can we ever know the exact number perfectly? No, but the data is highly conclusive that the real number is between those values. I'm not sure why you think that 100,000 is as likely a number as 700,000 because we can't know the exact number absolutely.

- "The numbers" aren't the only set of data that's unreliable. 

- The government has lied to us in a manipulative way.

- Since some data is unreliable, and the government has shown that it will lie to manipulate and

- The people putting pressure on others for a forced vaccine are using this unreliable data and the word of an untrustworthy government as a their source of credibility...

 - Along with everything Serati posted and

- My own belief that forcing an innocent person to take an action against their will is highly immoral...

I won't be taking the vaccine voluntarily, and I am completely against a forced vaccine.  That's it.

So you don't trust the government. The FDA, public health officials, all the medical doctors and academics who have reviewed the data. Do you trust anyone?

Society depends on some level of trust. Without it everything just breaks down.

[yossarian22c]

I won't be taking the vaccine voluntarily, and I am completely against a forced vaccine.  That's it.

Will you forgo other medical care as well? If you get sick will you refuse an ICU and oxygen if they are in short supply? Or are you only against preventative medicine? Will you take responsibility if you get sick and infect someone who ends up dead or with hundreds of thousands of medical debt? Or are you completely blame free and not responsible for the consequences of your refusal to reduce your risk to yourself and others?

[rightleft22]

So you don't trust the government. The FDA, public health officials, all the medical doctors and academics who have reviewed the data. Do you trust anyone?

Society depends on some level of trust. Without it everything just breaks down.

This conspiracy would have to also involve other countries and if such a thing were possible I can't imagine.

I have brothers and sisters that actually do imagine it not as a possibility but as fact.  I don't know how to respond to them anymore, as you said such a view and everything breaks down.  Everyone is out to get theirs and are out to 'get them'. Now I'm seeing it infect my nephews who are suspicious of everything except their ever smaller tribe.   Makes dialog really difficult

[rightleft22]

Freedom from <-> Freedom to... People forget the concept of Freedom is connected to the idea of responsibility, accountability and within a democracy, a implied social contract.

I'm finding that most people are using the word Freedom as if it means doing whatever I will.

Freedom is the art of setting boundaries.

[edgmatt]

It is absolutely preposterous to suggest that I have to either trust them all 100% or not at all. (It's also telling into your state of mind that you think this way.  Your concept of 'liberty" and "freedom of thought" seems to be weak if you insist that I "have to" be all in or all out.)   Even more preposterous is to label my stance as "I don't trust them at all" (which is something I have never said) and then have a few posts telling me I'm ridiculous for taking such a stance, and me doing so makes dialog hard.

Will you forgo other medical care as well? If you get sick will you refuse an ICU and oxygen if they are in short supply? Or are you only against preventative medicine?

Even if I were as cynical as you are trying to make me out to be (which is that you think I don't trust these people with my life) in the case of my life being in critical condition, of course I would accept medical care that would potentially save my life because I would have nothing to lose.

But I'm not that cynical, and to suggest that in order to be consistent, I ought to refuse all care simply because I refuse this vaccine is a ridiculous thing to say.

Will you take responsibility if you get sick and infect someone who ends up dead or with hundreds of thousands of medical debt? Or are you completely blame free and not responsible for the consequences of your refusal to reduce your risk to yourself and others?

Will the vaccine producers or the government take responsibility if I end up dead or with hundreds of thousands of medical debt?  Or are they completely blame free and not responsible for the consequences of their insistence I take the shot? The answer to the first question is no, of course, and the second is yes....at least for them.  Don't ask me ridiculous questions like that.

The medical field has done wonders for the world and wonders for me.  That doesn't make them infallible.  It doesn't mean they can't make a mistake.  There are three major hospitals near where I live, and each one has a reputation for being real good at a particular thing, and real bad at a separate thing.  It's to the point where if you go to the one hospital to get a surgery, people write on themselves with a marker "this side" or "kidney only".

Here's a list of things *the experts* have been wrong about, just off the top of my head:

-Fluoride
-Asbestos
-Fat intake
-Cholesterol Intake
-Multi vitamins
-Eggs
-Smoking
-Marijuana
-lobotomy
-electric shock therapy

Here's an article listing just 10 dangerous drugs that were APPROVED then pulled from the market by the FDA: Link.

How much damage was done in the time these things were on the market, or promoted as "good for you"?  How much damage was done because they banned or promoted things they thought were "bad for you"?   How much damage was done just on people blindly believing what they were told, trusting the experts?

There's such thing as healthy skepticism.  I'm not claiming I can do "whatever I will".  Are you claiming that I have to do whatever "you" will me to do?

[yossarian22c]

There's such thing as healthy skepticism.  I'm not claiming I can do "whatever I will".  Are you claiming that I have to do whatever "you" will me to do?

Judging by the ratio of hospitalized vaccinated to unvaccinated your skepticism is unhealthy for yourself and society.

[edgmatt]

You don't get to make that judgement for me.  That's the point.

Are you aware that I am not against any one taking the shot?  Are you aware that I am arguing against the shot being mandated.

[edgmatt]

And judging by the numbers of adverse reaactions and deaths from the shot and my own health and medical history I have judged that the vaccine is unhealthy for me.

[TheDrake]

And judging by the numbers of adverse reaactions and deaths from the shot and my own health and medical history I have judged that the vaccine is unhealthy for me.

Great. Knock yourself out. And I have judged that based on the number of adverse reactions to exposure to the virus, I have judged that proximity to you is unhealthy for me

[edgmatt]

I'm about as unhealthy to you as a vaccinated person is since I already had the virus and have natural anti-bodies.   

Linkee

[edgmatt]

Good point though:  You perceive me as a threat to your health, so you want to keep me away from you.  How would you react to a large portion of society insisting you spend your time around me, eating, drinking, shaking my hand...etc?  What if the government mandated you to take such action?

[TheDrake]

That's a pretty abstract thought experiment, though I understand what you are driving at.

Right now, you can't carry a gun into a courthouse though you have a right to own a gun under other circumstances. People working in the courthouse are put at a much graver threat than the person who is being denied the opportunity to have a gun to protect themselves. But that breaks down because being disarmed is a temporary condition.

I like the third way out, which is testing. I don't think anyone is suggesting that getting repeated covid tests is a threat to your health. So if you're getting that test, I don't mind if you're not vaccinated. This is generally how such things are getting implemented in public vaccine mandates like new orleans.

To look deeper at a condition, I might contemplate a much greater risk. Like Statistically significant numbers of people having strokes and dying. But those scenarios aren't going to come up, because that's precisely why we have clinical trials and monitoring. The vaccine never would have got there.

So in your scenario, would I be upset if the government forced me somehow by proxy to intermingle with hundreds of people not vaccinated for tuberculosis? Not a bit. Because there is no evidence that there is a significant risk of anything bad happening to me. I'm pragmatic, not a philosophical purist.

[cherrypoptart]

From Edgmatt's link:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-compensation-lawsuit.html

So Covid vaccine problems are covered under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) in the PREP Act (Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness), NOT the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program aka Vaccine Court.

Which means that:

"There is also a strict one-year statute, meaning that all claims have to be filed within 12 months of receiving the vaccine."

I guess it's no wonder they are downplaying the possibility of there being any long term adverse effects of the vaccines. If that possibility came up and they talked about it then they might have to admit that under current law, the law the same people telling us to get the vaccines are responsible for, if you notice any problems after one year you get nothing and there is nothing you can do about it. It seems like that's something they would fix before insisting that anyone get the vaccine which as the article states just requires a shift to the Vaccine Court which has more generations time limits.

Our government is asking citizens to go to war against the virus but if they get all shot up on the battlefield and are crying for a medic it's saying medic? What medic? We never said you'd get a medic if you get hit.

I guess that's all part of the sacrifice. Thank you for your service. Sorry for your loss and good luck, Chuck. Kind of like what we're seeing in Afghanistan right now with the people who helped us and we left hanging in the wind.

And to reiterate, I'm all for the vaccines and am confident they do vastly more good than harm, but if people are looking for ways to persuade others to get them then one way might be to assure them that if something bad happens to them and it looks like it's more likely than not that the vaccine caused their problems then they will be taken care of, or their family will be fairly compensated if they die. Nothing even close to that is happening and no one in our government is pushing for it or even considering it, and they probably never will. So that's a credibility issue. If they are so sure that the vaccines are so safe then why don't they put their money where their mouth is?

[Wayward Son]

You don't get to make that judgement for me.  That's the point.

Are you aware that I am not against any one taking the shot?  Are you aware that I am arguing against the shot being mandated.

Actually, legally we can.  Or I should say the government can.

Jacobson v. Massachuesetts established back in 1905 that public health can trump individual judgement.  Not to mention Mary Mallon, who felt it was her right to work as a cook even if the government forbid it, and ended up spending her last 30 years in isolation because of her stubbornness.  (She could have worked as a maid, but continued to take jobs as a cook, endangering others.)

The U.S. tries to allow individuals the right to make their own decisions.  But for the public good, such as in times of war or plagues, that right may be taken back.  It is not absolute.

[Grant]

Who's down for that?

I'm cool with it.  You already need some kind of vaccination proof for out of country travel anyways.  Everyone who is vaccinated gets a card.  Business owners have the right to restrict access to their premises for health and safety reasons.  The public have the right to set vaccination requirements for public locations for health and safety.  I don't see it stepping on the rights of governments or individuals.  Why should I be concerned?  What's the problem?

According to the CDC only 28.4% of the black community have received the Covid vaccine. The black community would be most affected by this modern day segregation

And? 

I mean, it's available for the black community isn't it?  It's free, isn't it?  Are we back to saying that most black people don't have transportation? 

[TheDrake]

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-08-17/severe-covid-vaccine-injuries-help-federal-vaccine-court

I found this Article to give better detail on the lawsuit situation. And yes, we should take care of people who have a rare reaction to immunization, and it should be consistent with other vaccines.

Meanwhile, it is still truth that almost all of these rare reactions are similar to reactions to covid. And you can't sue the disease. But maybe you should be able to sue businesses for not requiring vaccination. If, you know, they want to put their money where their mouth is.

[alai]

Actually, legally we can.  Or I should say the government can.

Jacobson v. Massachuesetts established back in 1905 that public health can trump individual judgement.

I think even before that.  There were quarantine laws in the late 18th centuries (IIRC state-level, federalised in the 19th), covering both ports-of-entry and domestic outbreaks.  And earlier of course, but presumably we want to distinguish sharply here between the ancien régime and the Shining City on a Hill.
 That's "making the judgement for you" right there.  All else is quibbling about the scale of the public-health contingency, and the exact nature of the permissible measures.

[fizz]

As a small positive signal, yesterday in Italy many counter-green pass manifestations were planned in big cities railway stations.
apparently, almost nobody got there: there were more journalists and policemen than protesters.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=it&tl=en&u=https://www.ilpost.it/2021/09/01/no-green-pass-manifestazioni/

[Seriati]

I just realized my response to this never posted.

If you can find a dozen instances of death from a trauma resulting in being counted as Covid-19 - I'll claim that I was wrong and that that deaths from accidents are being regularly recorded as deaths from Covid-19 (as opposed to say miscodings).  If there are 1 in 10,000 miscodings (which would be surprisingly low) - and there are 620,000 reported Covid deaths - then the number of miscodings should be 62; if 1 in 50,000 - we'd expect 12.  So really I should be insisting on 100 for a reasonable sample beyond noise.  If you can't find 12, feel free to post as many as you find.

I don't care if you claim you're wrong or not, you are wrong about what they reported in the numbers we were looking at, whether that's true on a national scale is a different question.  I note that it's pretty clear that NY's numbers were deliberately manipulated as well and not to over report deaths.

If you can find even 6 car accident deaths being counted as a Covid-19 death - I'll state I was wrong.

Since this is an extremely wide spread claim, and one that should be well documented - if you can't find that, than you should admit that the claim is BS and that ScottF should in fact be ashamed of spreading such a dangerous rumor.

Only you should feel shame for repeatedly engaging in an attack when you're wrong about the facts in question, and there's no question based on the confirmation of those compiling and reporting those facts that you're wrong about the facts in question.  No one outside of the situation has the actual ability to verify who died of COVID because it involves medical records that we can't directly access, so your demand and you're repeating false conclusions are particularly eggregious in such a situation. 

Effectively, you are trying to turn ignorance into a weapon to present a narrative that directly contradicts what the compilers themselves have said.

The ultimate point being:  We don't know how accurate that 600,000 number is.  It could be very accurate, or very inaccurate.

We do know it is a drastic undercount, because we can look at the excess mortality during the period.  Some of the excess mortality will be due to people delaying care due to not wanting to risk infection, but most of it will be directly due to Covid-19 infection induced death.  Note that masks have reduce other infectious deaths significantly, since most infections have a much lower Ro and are thus easier to prevent. 

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003571

The most recent studies I've seen attribute the vast majority of the "excess mortality" directly to being a consequence of the lock-down rather than the virus directly.  Deaths are massively up on treatable conditions because of reactionary "do something" policies that generally speaking have not demonstrated results that are better than less damaging policies. 

Picking and misusing statistics that appear to favor what you wanted to do in the first place is a dangerous and misleading hobby.  I suggest you step back and rethink how the misinformation you're spreading is hurting people in reality.

[Seriati]

But people are people and incentives are incentives.  If you create a monetary incentive to do something, you have to expect some level of fraud, some level of corruption.

When did it happen that we started to believe the worst in people we don't know?
Is this a reflection of reality our us or both?

It's not mistrust its just reality.  Ask yourself a very basic question.  If the government trusted doctors to be honest, why do they have fixed discounts in the first place?  They have them because paying doctors what they charge has proven to create massive incentives to commit fraud.  Even on a fixed rate discount system (like medicare payments), fraud is rampant in the medical community.

Are you suggesting that somehow its unreasonable to believe fraud will occur when it's literally constantly being found and prosecuted?

I was watching a show were they where talking about hitchhiking, how no one did it anymore as it was so much more dangerous then it was in the 1970's. I wonder if that was true or if it was more about it being more likely that we hear the stories of something that happened to someone and assume they happened everywhere next door.

When normal people exit an activity because it's "too risky" who exactly do you think is left in the pool of those engaging in the activity?

[Seriati]

It's not "no economic incentive of their own" at all.  They have a job they want to keep.  If the direction comes down to list cause of death as Covid if it falls under X, Y, Z, then that's what they'll do.  Yes, I believe that.   I think it would be a level of naivety to think that this never happens.  I can't even believe your forcing me to defend the argument "people lie to get money".  What planet are you from?

If such a directive came down, then the smart doctor would avail themselves of whistleblower statutes and make absurd amounts of money.  If such a directive came down, the lawsuits would be instantaneous and it would be published on every major newspaper - I can't believe you can't figure this out.  Absence of evidence here is very strong evidence of absence.

There's no absence of evidence, what are you talking about?  Fraud is found all the time in this context.  That's before you even consider all the decisions and activities that are made in the context of "grey" areas of the law.

Doctors generally speaking are either the master mind of a fraud or have next to no direct knowledge of it.  Hospitals and medical practices have massive administrative staffs specifically to remove the doctors from having to deal with any of the financial minutia.  And despite what you think, there's rarely any "big" payday that comes to a whistleblower in this context, more likely they'll be blacklisted from ever working in a medical field again.

Also why would corporations take a shady method that could end up in criminal fraud charges - when there is such an absurdly high amount of legitimate Covid cases?

What's shady about it?  They classified deaths where they could not rule out COVID as a contributor as COVID deaths.  How exactly is the government or an insurer prove that COVID was not responsible?  Is the FBI going to dig up a decomposing body and determine whether COVID killed the person before another cause of death?  Or whether COVID was directly responsible for a heart attack in a patient that already had a severe heart condition?

When the financial incentives on reporting deaths as COVID go away, the numbers will reduce.

[Seriati]

When did the right become so distrustful of society at large?

How is that responsive?  Faucci lied and was caught lying for his "noble purposes."  Many COVID emergency policies where blatantly and openly political and only loosely relevant to disease.

That says very little about "society at large" and everything about certain liars, the government the work for, and yes unfortunately the party that they support.  Where do you get off asking why people don't trust people that are lying to them constantly?

Trump exploited and exacerbated the phenomenon but the seeds predated him.

Trump just acknowledged reality, and it caused the media and the establishment to go absolutely bonkers and to begin lying about everything and relying on the Big Lie technique to keep the masses in line.

You don't trust vote counts because maybe there is some vast conspiracy that is so well organized it leaves no evidence behind that the vote was rigged.

I don't trust vote counts because the worst people in our society openly advocate to keep the best ways to cheat in elections open and free from oversight.  I can't see any reason for that other than they intend to continue to cheat and manipulate elections.

It doesn't need to be vast or well organized to "leave no evidence" behind in a system that is willfully blind to evidence in the first instance and maintains absolute control of the evidence in the hands of the very people that would have been involved in manipulating it. 

You don't trust the covid numbers because maybe some hospital executive order his entire staff to commit fraud and everyone would go along with committing felonies so he got rich.

Straw man.  We know the COVID numbers are inaccurate.  No one knows the scale of that inaccuracy, and it has NEXT TO NOTHING to do with some hospital executive committing fraud.  The counting mechanics are published and as a factual matter will not give an accurate count.  It's funny to me that you can understand the undercounting problem from the misleadingly used excess deaths concept, but can't read the actual rules used to count deaths and comprehend that they over count. 

Because the doctors, nurses, and data entry people at the hospital aren't getting that money. They just go along with committing a felony because the CEO says so? It doesn't seem to matter to you that the country had 750,000 excess deaths last year and covid would be the only rational explanation.

That's a strawman, motte and bailey attack and misinformation, all in a few small sentences.  Congratulations on a masterpiece of misleading argument.

No one had to commit a felony to overcount COVID, it was an explicit policy to do so that was endorsed by government health departments.  Governments have a different interest that doctors, and that interest includes - in this case - counting deaths where COVID could have been involved, even it it wasn't the cause of death.  The government agency literally told you that in the quote I provided before, so I'm not sure why you are still confused.

No one at a hospital is ever going to face any charge related to a patient where COVID can't be ruled out as potentially contributing.

And again, there are literal studies showing that the excess deaths are most likely not from COVID.  You can easily go out and find data on things like increased death from tuberculosis that are directly traceable to the COVID lock-down rather than to COVID.  You can find many articles on the increase in suicide in otherwise healthy people that resulted from the COVID social isolation. 

Lumping those kinds of "excess deaths" into "COVID" deaths to advocate for more of the very policies that caused them is literally obscene.

Such disregard for common facts is a danger to society because when you are primed to doubt reality then you will believe any narrative that fits your world view.

How ironic that you say that, would you like a mirror?

[Seriati]

Society depends on some level of trust. Without it everything just breaks down.

Which is why lauding someone like Faucci is so damaging for society.  He's promoted as a leader when its 100% clear he doesn't trust society.  No one who trusts society lies to society for it's own good, that's 100% the hallmark of someone who has no trust at all for society.

[rightleft22]

The most recent studies I've seen attribute the vast majority of the "excess mortality" directly to being a consequence of the lock-down rather than the virus directly.  Deaths are massively up on treatable conditions because of reactionary "do something" policies that generally speaking have not demonstrated results that are better than less damaging policies.

Picking and misusing statistics that appear to favor what you wanted to do in the first place is a dangerous and misleading hobby.  I suggest you step back and rethink how the misinformation you're spreading is hurting people in reality.

Isn't that what your also doing? I haven't seen the recent studies that you have seen, why should we trust you with your 'stats' when we can't trust anyone.

It's not mistrust its just reality.

That doesn't make any sensed to me. Your reality is that doctors can't be trusted but that is not mistrust

The level of covid conspiracy across the world needed... I just can't get beyond Occam's razor and have to trust