The P&R Plague Thread (Covid-19)

BlitzFirst said:
K, now let's talk about the guy who posted it.  He rolled out healthcare.gov for Obama and was moved into a role under his administration serving as the acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) which was a position he held for 2 years during the Obama administration.

He's the guy that helped architect ACA’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) with health exchanges online.  He's the guy that rolled out how physicians code deaths, sickness, disease, etc. so that it can be consumed electronically through the Direct Project (from NIS) or via direct exchange via HL7.  Because of Obama and his leadership, around 96% of all hospitals in this country use electronic medical records and as such, code patient data/sickness/death in those electronic medical records.

Now should I listen to a guy like that before I listen to a baseball and political statistician?  In my opinion, I definitely should...which is why I posted what I did.

You're welcome to disagree.
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You asked if a journalist knows more than a healthcare expert. You referred to Slavitt as a "healthcare expert" without bothering to explain any of the above. My response is on healthcare experts in general.

That said, I do trust Silver over him. The reason I trust Silver in this case is because I've been following him for 6 years and I know he wouldn't have made the statement on a whim, especially because of who he's responding to - he would have fully researched it before making a statement like this. He is all for accurately counting these deaths and not under counting them. He would never try to refute something like this unless he was sure.

Also:



It seems the guy on Reddit made a mistake and then Slavitt posted the mistake.

Most important point: "And most if not all of that increase appears to be counted under the CDC's Covid death totals too"

 
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WTF are you guys even arguing about? Silver is saying the data is garbage. Salvitt is saying that counting deaths as pneumonia only could be hurting our anaylsis of COVID (meaning more garbage data). Can't they both be right?

 
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ZRod said:
WTF are you guys even arguing about? Silver is saying the data is garbage. Salvitt is saying that counting deaths as pneumonia only could be hurting our anaylsis of COVID (meaning more garbage data). Can't they both be right?
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It is a post board...it might as well be Highlander...there can only be one!

 
ZRod said:
WTF are you guys even arguing about? Silver is saying the data is garbage. Salvitt is saying that counting deaths as pneumonia only could be hurting our anaylsis of COVID (meaning more garbage data). Can't they both be right?
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The question is over whether the pneumonia deaths have already been counted or if they need to be added to the tally. It's pretty important to know the answer to that question (in general - it'd debatable whether it's important for me to know). If they aren't being counted they should be.

Why do you care if people are talking about the answer to that question? I'm also playing Animal Crossing and doing a work project. I can multi-task. There's no need to be concerned, I'm fine.

 
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Moiraine said:
The question is over whether the pneumonia deaths have already been counted or if they need to be added to the tally. It's pretty important to know the answer to that question (in general - it'd debatable whether it's important for me to know). If they aren't being counted they should be.

Why do you care if people are talking about the answer to that question? I'm also playing Animal Crossing and doing a work project. I can multi-task. There's no need to be concerned, I'm fine.
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I get what the conversation is about. It's just weird because your both using sources that aren't necessarily contradicting one another just looking at things from different angles.

 
ZRod said:
I get what the conversation is about. It's just weird because your both using sources that aren't necessarily contradicting one another just looking at things from different angles.
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Counting something twice vs. counting something once seems like they're contradicting. Also I have a lot of respect for Nate Silver so I thought it was important to point out he's not a journalist talking about the #s. ;)

 
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In a time when people are being anal about #s and questioning all media, I really wish the graph started at 0. They're gonna get accused of making things look worse than they are by starting it at ... whatever it is, ~42,000. It makes the bump look larger.

 
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Moiraine said:
In a time when people are being anal about #s and questioning all media, I really wish the graph started at 0. They're gonna get accused of making things look worse than they are by starting it at ... whatever it is, ~42,000. It makes the bump look larger.
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The graph is just confusing how it was put together. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
The graph is just confusing how it was put together. 
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I think the dotted line is showing what is normal for total deaths based on previous years, and it must be seasonal 'cause it goes down from January to May. It looks like a big drop but that's 'cause they're zooming into 40,000 - 80,000 deaths.

Then you have the black line which is what actually happened. Then they shaded in the part that was due to covid. But again, when you start at 40,000 it's not only misleading it also makes the graph harder the read. And really they should have shown the entire year. May 2019 to May 2020.

TL;DR if we have to spend this much time thinking about how to read the graph, it's not a good graph.

 
Moiraine said:
I think the dotted line is showing what is normal for total deaths based on previous years, and it must be seasonal 'cause it goes down from January to May. It looks like a big drop but that's 'cause they're zooming into 40,000 - 80,000 deaths.

Then you have the black line which is what actually happened. Then they shaded in the part that was due to covid. But again, when you start at 40,000 it's not only misleading it also makes the graph harder the read. And really they should have shown the entire year. May 2019 to May 2020.

TL;DR if we have to spend this much time thinking about how to read the graph, it's not a good graph.
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Yep...and, they should have had the reported Covid deaths and then the Excess deaths on top of that. 

 
Not that complicated to figure it out... Probably would have been better as three sperate lines starting from zero though.

 
The better graph I found was on a cdc website that has the actual deaths every month. There is a very clear and distinct spike over the last several months. 

 
teachercd said:
So last week it was that picture of people partying in the Ozarks and it brought outrage about a second wave...but these people out rioting...Hmmmm
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Wanting to get drunk and party is not as important as wanting people who look like you to not get murdered by the police. 

On a personal level, my mom is having surgery in a few weeks. I’m going to be going to a hospital and picking her up and then living with her for awhile. But in the meantime I don’t go visit her face to face unless we’re all going to keep our distance and I don’t hang out inside her house. Some things are worth being more risky for. 

 
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