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mikeyg123 wrote:

Siao7 wrote:I have seen a video flying around of the Italian parliament minister that was ranting that the deaths are not the true count and are used as scare tactics. That they are counting others deaths from people that had underlying problems and would die anyway, but the virus kind of sped it up, so attributed it to Covid. The true numbers, he claims, are way below the 30k that Italy has, in fact he quotes that in 96% of the cases, the cause of death was other than the virus itself.

Then he goes to say that 60% died from other diseases, so I am not sure how these numbers match up, but hey. Also doesn't help that he has a proper rant that would make Adolph himself proud. Ok, this was harsh, but he does seem so passionate about this, in a typical fiery Mediterranean temperament.

Ah, I found the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wuFazgpc4

Any thoughts? How true do you think this is? Conspiracy theories again?

I don't know the situation in Italy but in the UK that would be correct. Everyone dying where Covid is found present is getting recorded as covid death. I could get run over by a track and if I had a postmortem where Covid was found it would be recorded.

Yeah, I think that's the whole point. But why would they inflate the numbers? To sell masks? Cripple the economy globally? Did all the governments agree to this somehow? I find this so very stretched to be honest, but can't argue with it either if this is indeed the case and every death is (wrongly) attributed to Covid.

Siao7 wrote:I have seen a video flying around of the Italian parliament minister that was ranting that the deaths are not the true count and are used as scare tactics. That they are counting others deaths from people that had underlying problems and would die anyway, but the virus kind of sped it up, so attributed it to Covid. The true numbers, he claims, are way below the 30k that Italy has, in fact he quotes that in 96% of the cases, the cause of death was other than the virus itself.

Then he goes to say that 60% died from other diseases, so I am not sure how these numbers match up, but hey. Also doesn't help that he has a proper rant that would make Adolph himself proud. Ok, this was harsh, but he does seem so passionate about this, in a typical fiery Mediterranean temperament.

Ah, I found the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wuFazgpc4

Any thoughts? How true do you think this is? Conspiracy theories again?

There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy, mainly because they were the first Western country hit hard and fast, not to mention their politics is broken quite badly at the moment and there is not much trust of the government.

I speak with authority on their figures as I'm not Italian, but it's highly unlikely they are over reporting, if anything the numbers are under reported. We know what the typical deaths are at any given time of year and in the UK these numbers are substantially higher than the normal death toll + the official corona deaths. Directly or indirectly, the difference to the norm is a consequence of the pandemic. There is a lot of talk of "more people are dying of other things because they can't go to the hospital for things like cancer treatment" and it is true people will be dying as a consequence of that - but without a lockdown the corona deaths would be much higher - potentially up to a million in the UK alone if no action was taken. That's double the annual death rate on coronavirus alone.

It should also be considered that COVID19 is a lot more lethal for people who are already seriously sick, so would increase the mortality rate of sick people if it was allowed to go unleashed.

Bodies die when their systems shut down, so the cause of death could be pneumonia, but that was pneumonia caused by COVID19. Or they may die of a preexisting condition that was excerbated by the virus. This allows for people to play semantics and say they "didn't die of the virus"

Finally, it should be noted that there aren't any qualifications for being a politician or member of parliament. You just had to win a vote. Donald Trump even takes the word of right wing news shows and bloggers over that of his intelligence chiefs who are giving him the raw data.

Your final question pretty much answers itself. If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

They had someone from the ONS on the news earlier (in the UK) and I was only half-listening as I was trying to do some work too, but I think the gist of what he said was that over the last five or six weeks, there have been over 50,000 more deaths recorded in the UK when compared to previous years.

Covid or no covid, that's not a made up statistic.

Exediron wrote:

Option or Prime wrote:nothing to choose between France, Spain, Italy, UK even Germany, its not about competence just how many eldery each country has.

Let's see if this argument holds up when we look at the data:

ELDERLY POPULATIONS

Italy: 22.8% population 65+
Germany: 21.4% population 65+
France: 20.3% population 65+
Spain: 19.1% population 65+
United Kingdom: 18.3% population 65+

COVID-19 FATALITIES

Italy: 30,739 deaths (51 / 1000)
Germany: 7,661 deaths (9 / 1000)
France: 26,643 deaths (39 / 1000)
Spain: 26,744 deaths (56 / 1000)
United Kingdom: 32,065 deaths (47 / 1000)

Not only do those numbers not closely match the elderly population, they're not even in the same order. Germany has a higher elderly population than France, Spain or the UK, but a far lower number of fatalities both outright and as a percentage. There clearly is something very substantial to choose between Germany's handling of the crisis and that of any of the other four countries listed.

And if those numbers don't make a clear difference...



These are not countries in the same situation at all.

Great figures but you miss completely the most important point. That is not the demographic but where the virus lands. That may be controlled by protection of the vulnerable if you know its coming of course.

Lombardi got hit badly simply because it had an industrial clothing connection. When the virus hit Germany it hit the country with the best testing. Luck plays a huge part.

You are making the same mistakes as many who treat this as a mathematical exercise. Its not, its organic, it changes all the time.

Herb wrote:

Biffa wrote:

Option or Prime wrote:

Biffa wrote:There is understandably a lot of confusion in the UK about wearing masks when the government repeatedly say things like; ‘based on the science/data masks are not effective for the general public’, which of course is absolute *Definitely True*.

The UK government’s data/science seems to be so murky and questionable that we should all take it with a large pinch of salt and act accordingly.

Well that wrong for a start, "Speaking to MPs on 5 May, the UK government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said wearing face masks had a "marginal but positive" impact on the spread of infection and there may be times when it could be "beneficial" for people to do so."

The problem is that there aren't any!

What part is wrong? Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer said at a Downing Street press conference in April:

“There is no evidence that general wearing of face masks by the public who are well affects the spread of the disease in our society. What matters is social distancing - In terms of the hard evidence and what the UK Government recommends, we do not recommend face masks for general wearing by the public."

And that was the line the government took (and repeated over and over) until very recently, and that is exactly why I say there is understandable confusion for many.

How do you know you are well? Plenty of asymptomatic cases about, you could have this thing and not know it.

And anyway, now the government advice has changed:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52620556

Herb, yes I realise that that and I wasn't really arguing for or against the use of masks (which is probably not clear with these truncated posts), rather I was pointing out that confusion amongst the public is understandable, which is perfectly illustrated when one poster can quote a senior government adviser giving official 'advice' based on ‘the data’, and I can quote a different government advisor giving exactly the opposite advice a week earlier based on ‘the data’.

IMO the lack of clarity and leadership is a huge problem in the UK, and it’s not good enough for the government to cite common sense, as you only need to look at the underground , beaches or parks to realise that not everyone has common sense.

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

Siao7 wrote:I have seen a video flying around of the Italian parliament minister that was ranting that the deaths are not the true count and are used as scare tactics. That they are counting others deaths from people that had underlying problems and would die anyway, but the virus kind of sped it up, so attributed it to Covid. The true numbers, he claims, are way below the 30k that Italy has, in fact he quotes that in 96% of the cases, the cause of death was other than the virus itself.

Then he goes to say that 60% died from other diseases, so I am not sure how these numbers match up, but hey. Also doesn't help that he has a proper rant that would make Adolph himself proud. Ok, this was harsh, but he does seem so passionate about this, in a typical fiery Mediterranean temperament.

Ah, I found the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wuFazgpc4

Any thoughts? How true do you think this is? Conspiracy theories again?

There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy, mainly because they were the first Western country hit hard and fast, not to mention their politics is broken quite badly at the moment and there is not much trust of the government.

I speak with authority on their figures as I'm not Italian, but it's highly unlikely they are over reporting, if anything the numbers are under reported. We know what the typical deaths are at any given time of year and in the UK these numbers are substantially higher than the normal death toll + the official corona deaths. Directly or indirectly, the difference to the norm is a consequence of the pandemic. There is a lot of talk of "more people are dying of other things because they can't go to the hospital for things like cancer treatment" and it is true people will be dying as a consequence of that - but without a lockdown the corona deaths would be much higher - potentially up to a million in the UK alone if no action was taken. That's double the annual death rate on coronavirus alone.

It should also be considered that COVID19 is a lot more lethal for people who are already seriously sick, so would increase the mortality rate of sick people if it was allowed to go unleashed.

Bodies die when their systems shut down, so the cause of death could be pneumonia, but that was pneumonia caused by COVID19. Or they may die of a preexisting condition that was excerbated by the virus. This allows for people to play semantics and say they "didn't die of the virus"

Finally, it should be noted that there aren't any qualifications for being a politician or member of parliament. You just had to win a vote. Donald Trump even takes the word of right wing news shows and bloggers over that of his intelligence chiefs who are giving him the raw data.

Your final question pretty much answers itself. If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

I agree 100% with you Alien, I am just wondering if some of these claims have merit, so I shared this video and asked for the forum opinion.

I do not think I have seen a single report that makes a comparison of normal death rates to the present ones. Which would be very interesting and I believe would go some way to silence a lot of the conspiracy theorists. Also, for me the question still remains; who wins if all of this is a conspiracy? I haven't heard any reasonable arguments and I can't see any winner here, apart from mask manufacturers and the AA selling batteries when this thing is over... I have even heard that the banks are behind this (as always, right?) and they are printing loads of money as the world economy was about to collapse, blah blah blah. I still can't connect the dots with this theory, but whatever.

Siao7 wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

Siao7 wrote:I have seen a video flying around of the Italian parliament minister that was ranting that the deaths are not the true count and are used as scare tactics. That they are counting others deaths from people that had underlying problems and would die anyway, but the virus kind of sped it up, so attributed it to Covid. The true numbers, he claims, are way below the 30k that Italy has, in fact he quotes that in 96% of the cases, the cause of death was other than the virus itself.

Then he goes to say that 60% died from other diseases, so I am not sure how these numbers match up, but hey. Also doesn't help that he has a proper rant that would make Adolph himself proud. Ok, this was harsh, but he does seem so passionate about this, in a typical fiery Mediterranean temperament.

Ah, I found the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wuFazgpc4

Any thoughts? How true do you think this is? Conspiracy theories again?

There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy, mainly because they were the first Western country hit hard and fast, not to mention their politics is broken quite badly at the moment and there is not much trust of the government.

I speak with authority on their figures as I'm not Italian, but it's highly unlikely they are over reporting, if anything the numbers are under reported. We know what the typical deaths are at any given time of year and in the UK these numbers are substantially higher than the normal death toll + the official corona deaths. Directly or indirectly, the difference to the norm is a consequence of the pandemic. There is a lot of talk of "more people are dying of other things because they can't go to the hospital for things like cancer treatment" and it is true people will be dying as a consequence of that - but without a lockdown the corona deaths would be much higher - potentially up to a million in the UK alone if no action was taken. That's double the annual death rate on coronavirus alone.

It should also be considered that COVID19 is a lot more lethal for people who are already seriously sick, so would increase the mortality rate of sick people if it was allowed to go unleashed.

Bodies die when their systems shut down, so the cause of death could be pneumonia, but that was pneumonia caused by COVID19. Or they may die of a preexisting condition that was excerbated by the virus. This allows for people to play semantics and say they "didn't die of the virus"

Finally, it should be noted that there aren't any qualifications for being a politician or member of parliament. You just had to win a vote. Donald Trump even takes the word of right wing news shows and bloggers over that of his intelligence chiefs who are giving him the raw data.

Your final question pretty much answers itself. If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

I do not think I have seen a single report that makes a comparison of normal death rates to the present ones.

You may have missed my post a few above this one:-

SteveW wrote:They had someone from the ONS on the news earlier (in the UK) and I was only half-listening as I was trying to do some work too, but I think the gist of what he said was that over the last five or six weeks, there have been over 50,000 more deaths recorded in the UK when compared to previous years.

Covid or no covid, that's not a made up statistic.

As mentioned in that post, I was only half listening, so may not be 100% correct and I actually can't find anything online to back it up - but I'm pretty sure that's what I heard.

Only thing I can find is this -



Source - https://fullfact.org/health/ons-2020-co ... th-totals/

SteveW wrote:

Siao7 wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

Siao7 wrote:I have seen a video flying around of the Italian parliament minister that was ranting that the deaths are not the true count and are used as scare tactics. That they are counting others deaths from people that had underlying problems and would die anyway, but the virus kind of sped it up, so attributed it to Covid. The true numbers, he claims, are way below the 30k that Italy has, in fact he quotes that in 96% of the cases, the cause of death was other than the virus itself.

Then he goes to say that 60% died from other diseases, so I am not sure how these numbers match up, but hey. Also doesn't help that he has a proper rant that would make Adolph himself proud. Ok, this was harsh, but he does seem so passionate about this, in a typical fiery Mediterranean temperament.

Ah, I found the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wuFazgpc4

Any thoughts? How true do you think this is? Conspiracy theories again?

There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy, mainly because they were the first Western country hit hard and fast, not to mention their politics is broken quite badly at the moment and there is not much trust of the government.

I speak with authority on their figures as I'm not Italian, but it's highly unlikely they are over reporting, if anything the numbers are under reported. We know what the typical deaths are at any given time of year and in the UK these numbers are substantially higher than the normal death toll + the official corona deaths. Directly or indirectly, the difference to the norm is a consequence of the pandemic. There is a lot of talk of "more people are dying of other things because they can't go to the hospital for things like cancer treatment" and it is true people will be dying as a consequence of that - but without a lockdown the corona deaths would be much higher - potentially up to a million in the UK alone if no action was taken. That's double the annual death rate on coronavirus alone.

It should also be considered that COVID19 is a lot more lethal for people who are already seriously sick, so would increase the mortality rate of sick people if it was allowed to go unleashed.

Bodies die when their systems shut down, so the cause of death could be pneumonia, but that was pneumonia caused by COVID19. Or they may die of a preexisting condition that was excerbated by the virus. This allows for people to play semantics and say they "didn't die of the virus"

Finally, it should be noted that there aren't any qualifications for being a politician or member of parliament. You just had to win a vote. Donald Trump even takes the word of right wing news shows and bloggers over that of his intelligence chiefs who are giving him the raw data.

Your final question pretty much answers itself. If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

I do not think I have seen a single report that makes a comparison of normal death rates to the present ones.

You may have missed my post a few above this one:-

SteveW wrote:They had someone from the ONS on the news earlier (in the UK) and I was only half-listening as I was trying to do some work too, but I think the gist of what he said was that over the last five or six weeks, there have been over 50,000 more deaths recorded in the UK when compared to previous years.

Covid or no covid, that's not a made up statistic.

As mentioned in that post, I was only half listening, so may not be 100% correct and I actually can't find anything online to back it up - but I'm pretty sure that's what I heard.

Apologies SteveW, I did miss it! Thank you, this is quite helpful mate.

Funny that people seem to avoid dying more during Christmas!

Probably this. Read the bit about excess deaths. Under recording is a massive problem everywhere, we won't know the full tally until after the pandemic is over. Some people think the under recording in the US might be as high as 50%

Indeed, I think the only thing that these statistics definitely prove is that there can't be a conspiracy about faking of deaths.

Covid-19 is responsible directly or indirectly for a massive spike in the death rate this year. That cannot be disputed by any tin foil hat wearer, surely?

Siao7 wrote:

SteveW wrote:

Siao7 wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

Siao7 wrote:I have seen a video flying around of the Italian parliament minister that was ranting that the deaths are not the true count and are used as scare tactics. That they are counting others deaths from people that had underlying problems and would die anyway, but the virus kind of sped it up, so attributed it to Covid. The true numbers, he claims, are way below the 30k that Italy has, in fact he quotes that in 96% of the cases, the cause of death was other than the virus itself.

Then he goes to say that 60% died from other diseases, so I am not sure how these numbers match up, but hey. Also doesn't help that he has a proper rant that would make Adolph himself proud. Ok, this was harsh, but he does seem so passionate about this, in a typical fiery Mediterranean temperament.

Ah, I found the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wuFazgpc4

Any thoughts? How true do you think this is? Conspiracy theories again?

There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy, mainly because they were the first Western country hit hard and fast, not to mention their politics is broken quite badly at the moment and there is not much trust of the government.

I speak with authority on their figures as I'm not Italian, but it's highly unlikely they are over reporting, if anything the numbers are under reported. We know what the typical deaths are at any given time of year and in the UK these numbers are substantially higher than the normal death toll + the official corona deaths. Directly or indirectly, the difference to the norm is a consequence of the pandemic. There is a lot of talk of "more people are dying of other things because they can't go to the hospital for things like cancer treatment" and it is true people will be dying as a consequence of that - but without a lockdown the corona deaths would be much higher - potentially up to a million in the UK alone if no action was taken. That's double the annual death rate on coronavirus alone.

It should also be considered that COVID19 is a lot more lethal for people who are already seriously sick, so would increase the mortality rate of sick people if it was allowed to go unleashed.

Bodies die when their systems shut down, so the cause of death could be pneumonia, but that was pneumonia caused by COVID19. Or they may die of a preexisting condition that was excerbated by the virus. This allows for people to play semantics and say they "didn't die of the virus"

Finally, it should be noted that there aren't any qualifications for being a politician or member of parliament. You just had to win a vote. Donald Trump even takes the word of right wing news shows and bloggers over that of his intelligence chiefs who are giving him the raw data.

Your final question pretty much answers itself. If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

I do not think I have seen a single report that makes a comparison of normal death rates to the present ones.

You may have missed my post a few above this one:-

SteveW wrote:They had someone from the ONS on the news earlier (in the UK) and I was only half-listening as I was trying to do some work too, but I think the gist of what he said was that over the last five or six weeks, there have been over 50,000 more deaths recorded in the UK when compared to previous years.

Covid or no covid, that's not a made up statistic.

As mentioned in that post, I was only half listening, so may not be 100% correct and I actually can't find anything online to back it up - but I'm pretty sure that's what I heard.

Apologies SteveW, I did miss it! Thank you, this is quite helpful mate.

Funny that people seem to avoid dying more during Christmas!

No problem, and yes I noticed the massive drop off at the end of the year. I guess we all love Christmas too much!

SteveW wrote:

Siao7 wrote:

SteveW wrote:

Siao7 wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote: There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy, mainly because they were the first Western country hit hard and fast, not to mention their politics is broken quite badly at the moment and there is not much trust of the government.

I speak with authority on their figures as I'm not Italian, but it's highly unlikely they are over reporting, if anything the numbers are under reported. We know what the typical deaths are at any given time of year and in the UK these numbers are substantially higher than the normal death toll + the official corona deaths. Directly or indirectly, the difference to the norm is a consequence of the pandemic. There is a lot of talk of "more people are dying of other things because they can't go to the hospital for things like cancer treatment" and it is true people will be dying as a consequence of that - but without a lockdown the corona deaths would be much higher - potentially up to a million in the UK alone if no action was taken. That's double the annual death rate on coronavirus alone.

It should also be considered that COVID19 is a lot more lethal for people who are already seriously sick, so would increase the mortality rate of sick people if it was allowed to go unleashed.

Bodies die when their systems shut down, so the cause of death could be pneumonia, but that was pneumonia caused by COVID19. Or they may die of a preexisting condition that was excerbated by the virus. This allows for people to play semantics and say they "didn't die of the virus"

Finally, it should be noted that there aren't any qualifications for being a politician or member of parliament. You just had to win a vote. Donald Trump even takes the word of right wing news shows and bloggers over that of his intelligence chiefs who are giving him the raw data.

Your final question pretty much answers itself. If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

I do not think I have seen a single report that makes a comparison of normal death rates to the present ones.

You may have missed my post a few above this one:-

SteveW wrote:They had someone from the ONS on the news earlier (in the UK) and I was only half-listening as I was trying to do some work too, but I think the gist of what he said was that over the last five or six weeks, there have been over 50,000 more deaths recorded in the UK when compared to previous years.

Covid or no covid, that's not a made up statistic.

As mentioned in that post, I was only half listening, so may not be 100% correct and I actually can't find anything online to back it up - but I'm pretty sure that's what I heard.

Apologies SteveW, I did miss it! Thank you, this is quite helpful mate.

Funny that people seem to avoid dying more during Christmas!

No problem, and yes I noticed the massive drop off at the end of the year. I guess we all love Christmas too much!

I'm sure you're aware, but just in case, this is when deaths are registered, not when they happen - hence the spike in January as those xmas deaths are registered in the new year once everyone is back at work.

Herb wrote:
I'm sure you're aware, but just in case, this is when deaths are registered, not when they happen - hence the spike in January as those xmas deaths are registered in the new year once everyone is back at work.

Yeah, hence my winky emoji

My other half works in Life Assurance on death claims. Always (pardon the pun) dead between Christmas and New Year but goes mad for the first two weeks in January as the world catches up!

""There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy"

there are unbelievable conspiracy theories flying around everywhere! unfreakingbelievebale, some of them

Slightly off the topic of the posts today but just seen that Wuhan has 6 new cases after 35 days without any since the lockdown ended. In response, they’re going to test the 11 million people who live in Wuhan. That’s one hell of a response.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52629213

SteveW wrote:

Siao7 wrote:

SteveW wrote:

Siao7 wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote: There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy, mainly because they were the first Western country hit hard and fast, not to mention their politics is broken quite badly at the moment and there is not much trust of the government.

I speak with authority on their figures as I'm not Italian, but it's highly unlikely they are over reporting, if anything the numbers are under reported. We know what the typical deaths are at any given time of year and in the UK these numbers are substantially higher than the normal death toll + the official corona deaths. Directly or indirectly, the difference to the norm is a consequence of the pandemic. There is a lot of talk of "more people are dying of other things because they can't go to the hospital for things like cancer treatment" and it is true people will be dying as a consequence of that - but without a lockdown the corona deaths would be much higher - potentially up to a million in the UK alone if no action was taken. That's double the annual death rate on coronavirus alone.

It should also be considered that COVID19 is a lot more lethal for people who are already seriously sick, so would increase the mortality rate of sick people if it was allowed to go unleashed.

Bodies die when their systems shut down, so the cause of death could be pneumonia, but that was pneumonia caused by COVID19. Or they may die of a preexisting condition that was excerbated by the virus. This allows for people to play semantics and say they "didn't die of the virus"

Finally, it should be noted that there aren't any qualifications for being a politician or member of parliament. You just had to win a vote. Donald Trump even takes the word of right wing news shows and bloggers over that of his intelligence chiefs who are giving him the raw data.

Your final question pretty much answers itself. If it sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

I do not think I have seen a single report that makes a comparison of normal death rates to the present ones.

You may have missed my post a few above this one:-

SteveW wrote:They had someone from the ONS on the news earlier (in the UK) and I was only half-listening as I was trying to do some work too, but I think the gist of what he said was that over the last five or six weeks, there have been over 50,000 more deaths recorded in the UK when compared to previous years.

Covid or no covid, that's not a made up statistic.

As mentioned in that post, I was only half listening, so may not be 100% correct and I actually can't find anything online to back it up - but I'm pretty sure that's what I heard.

Apologies SteveW, I did miss it! Thank you, this is quite helpful mate.

Funny that people seem to avoid dying more during Christmas!

No problem, and yes I noticed the massive drop off at the end of the year. I guess we all love Christmas too much!

That's because the final week of the year is only 1 day long (or 2 on a leap year)

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

SteveW wrote:No problem, and yes I noticed the massive drop off at the end of the year. I guess we all love Christmas too much!

That's because the final week of the year is only 1 day long (or 2 on a leap year)

Oh yeah didn't even think of that too!

52 x 7 is 364 and we all know there are 365 days in a year except as you say in a leap year

SteveW wrote:

Herb wrote:
I'm sure you're aware, but just in case, this is when deaths are registered, not when they happen - hence the spike in January as those xmas deaths are registered in the new year once everyone is back at work.

Yeah, hence my winky emoji

My other half works in Life Assurance on death claims. Always (pardon the pun) dead between Christmas and New Year but goes mad for the first two weeks in January as the world catches up!

This is always my grief when they push us to finish a project for the 20th of Dec... WHY??? No one will be checking it over Christmas, offices are closed!

pc27b wrote:""There are a lot of wild conspiracy theories flying around Italy"

there are unbelievable conspiracy theories flying around everywhere! unfreakingbelievebale, some of them

Maybe we should make a thread with these, much like the silly predictions!

I was in school today, teaching 12 children with two assistants. My school has a large, central atrium, bigger than 2 normal classrooms. All children sit on their own table, unless they are there with a sibling as they can share.

I can assure you that we constantly reminded them about social distancing, sent them regularly to wash hand, one at a time to each of the nearby sinks, only allowed a single person to go to the toilet at any one time etc etc.

However, these are children as young as 4. Give them a millisecond a freedom and they glide together like magic. If this government thinks that my school can handle around 90 children, when we're supposed to have our year R, 1 and 6 back and keep good social distancing, let alone teach them well without being able to work at a table with them, no 'normal' group work etc. they are yet again completely and utterly wrong.

Them being wrong has become a regular occurrence.

SteveW wrote:

Alienturnedhuman wrote:

SteveW wrote:No problem, and yes I noticed the massive drop off at the end of the year. I guess we all love Christmas too much!

That's because the final week of the year is only 1 day long (or 2 on a leap year)

Oh yeah didn't even think of that too!

52 x 7 is 364 and we all know there are 365 days in a year except as you say in a leap year

Actually looking at the numbers, they are basically counting a part week at the start and end , so I assume a Monday to Sunday - and the weeks bookending it will be partial. But things like this is what happens when you give raw data to marketing people rather than statisticians.

the state of new york had 15,000 more deaths this year from mid march until mid april, over last year.
can't find the site right now where they chart total deaths in a bunch of countries. pretty much all of them are much higher

if the world stays shut down until next spring, i don't know what would be left, to open up to. on the other hand if we just open up and go back to "normal" as our president seems to want to, i think the death toll will be horrific

i find it mind boggling that so many people in the states are throwing a fit about putting a mask on to go into a store. i find it takes less time than putting on my shirt and shoes....things that are required in stores too ! clearly the mask doesn't fix everything, but it helps if everyone would just put it on. we have the store workers getting beat, spit on and shot for telling customers they need to wear a mask in the store...wth ?

pc27b wrote:the state of new york had 15,000 more deaths this year from mid march until mid april, over last year.
can't find the site right now where they chart total deaths in a bunch of countries. pretty much all of them are much higher

if the world stays shut down until next spring, i don't know what would be left, to open up to. on the other hand if we just open up and go back to "normal" as our president seems to want to, i think the death toll will be horrific

i find it mind boggling that so many people in the states are throwing a fit about putting a mask on to go into a store. i find it takes less time than putting on my shirt and shoes....things that are required in stores too ! clearly the mask doesn't fix everything, but it helps if everyone would just put it on. we have the store workers getting beat, spit on and shot for telling customers they need to wear a mask in the store...wth ?

I know, they shot some poor employee that told some lady that she couldn't come in without a mask. Shot him dead... Unreal. People are really losing it

pc27b wrote:the state of new york had 15,000 more deaths this year from mid march until mid april, over last year.
can't find the site right now where they chart total deaths in a bunch of countries. pretty much all of them are much higher

if the world stays shut down until next spring, i don't know what would be left, to open up to. on the other hand if we just open up and go back to "normal" as our president seems to want to, i think the death toll will be horrific

i find it mind boggling that so many people in the states are throwing a fit about putting a mask on to go into a store. i find it takes less time than putting on my shirt and shoes....things that are required in stores too ! clearly the mask doesn't fix everything, but it helps if everyone would just put it on. we have the store workers getting beat, spit on and shot for telling customers they need to wear a mask in the store...wth ?

The excess deaths are not only directly caused by covid, but also indirectly. It's a bit more complicated than just dying of covid.

There is a lot of excess deaths in hardest hit areas, coming from oncological treatments that were postponed, emergencies that were not treated, strokes and heart attacks. These are linked to hospitals not being open for procedures.

Sweden has excess deaths, presumably from COVID, but data is usually checked at the end of the pandemic. Plus, if you get hospitals infected, it becomes impossible to distinguish between deaths from and with covid. Where I am, we have a hospital that has a had over 500 covid patients in the last 2 months. THey have had a 0 infection rate of the staff. Deaths were very few, and mostly from critical patients transferred from smaller hospitals. On the other hand, there was no spread in other areas of the hospital, so people died of natural causes, without an infection. One thing to understand, this was a part of the hospital designated to covid only.

Another case is an oncological institute, a nurse contracted the virus from outside the hospital. They had a policy implemented that employees were tested 2 times a week, and through a random test she was detected. Totally asymptomatic. They tested the entire hospital, all the patients and staff. 16 patients were infected, totally asymptomatic. These are all patients with cancer, a lot of them over 80 years old. Randomly distributed, none were next to each other, and not even in the same room.

The virus is definitely taking it's toll, but it's more important to check where it's creating disasters, such as Lombardy, New York, Madrid, and understand what is really happening.

It's not as easy as counting cases, deaths or testing. This entire situation erupted over the flu season in Italy, and Lombardy already is 60-70% filled in ICU's. Put on top a very complicated virus and it's a recipe for disaster.

Then you read articles like this, and you start wondering what the hell is hapenning with our health systems ( this is pre covid, in a "normal" period:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/q ... -says.html