I sort of agree but, as an effective rate, I would still consider many of those attributable to Covid. It doesn’t much matter to the patient/sick person if they die because they can’t receive the same level of care or if they get quality care and still die. I’d be inclined to say the Covid killed them in either case.
I agree, those are not the same thing. But what I’m really curious about, if it ends up being proven that there is no immunity, would that also mean that a vaccine could end up being ineffective?
I can understand that line of thinking, but it needs to be separate if you're actually going to analyze the disease. There's COVID deaths and then deaths that may have been influenced by the pandemic. I don't think they should be treat the same, since they can tell separate stories about the impact the disease has.
You are correct. However, I find it highly doubtfull that all of the added deaths are for something other than COVID. While we don't know exactly how many, I think it's safe to assume the number of COVID deaths are NOT being exaggerated and, infact, probably to some degree they are being under reported. We just don't know how much.
Just spit balling here; but I imagine it just makes it harder to find a vaccine because you're now looking for something similar to trigger the immune system response instead of the dead virus or RNA directly from COVID. I would imagine it would be like giving BCG as a vaccine for TB like they do in some places. BCG is a bovine strain of tuberculosis that can't reproduce in humans, but it can help the human body build an immunity to the common human strand of TB.
I think it's a little of A and a little of B as far as over/under reporting goes. We know it's happening both ways for sure, just not to what degree.
I agree. We need to fine tune the information as much as possible. That might be possible to happen in the US and Europe. I'm not confident we can do that in countries like China.
Possibly. But even assuming the same death rate, the volume of hospitalizations and death are not. The CDC estimates around 35000 flu deaths from 2018-2019, granted with the help of a vaccine. But COVID is around 55,000 and counting with social distancing. So assuming death rates are equal, COVID appears to spread much easier.
I don't disagree but keep in mind the flu cases weren't being sought out to the degree that Covid is. Imagine the flu showing up with nobody in the country having any antibodies against it and no vaccine in place. I think it would look very similar to what we are seeing. I think you would see a lot more people in the hospital from the flu if that were the case. My point is this virus isn't quite what it was hyped to be in my opinion. I'm guessing it will still be here 2 years from now but it will be regarded similarly with other nasty viruses that we ignore on a daily basis.
The difference is the infection rate. COVID is being found to be much more contagious. So, you have many more people infected with it. So, if the death rate is the same (which I believe it will be at least some what higher) COVID still ends up with a lot more deaths.