tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post3144893665258056490..comments2024-03-28T13:39:27.601-07:00Comments on DSHR's Blog: Excess Deaths (Updated)David.http://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-32082900206473020072022-01-04T09:03:04.726-08:002022-01-04T09:03:04.726-08:00The Economist's current estimates of excess de...<i>The Economist</i>'s current <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates" rel="nofollow">estimates of excess deaths</a> are:<br /><br />"our single best estimate is that the actual toll is 18.8m people. We find that there is a 95% chance that the true value lies between 11.8m and 21.9m additional deaths."<br /><br />And that in the US there are 3,800 excess deaths per day, more than a 9/11 each day.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-16897882983267841792021-10-15T10:18:17.767-07:002021-10-15T10:18:17.767-07:00COVID-19 continues to be a leading cause of death ...<a href="https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid19-and-other-leading-causes-of-death-in-the-us/" rel="nofollow"><i>COVID-19 continues to be a leading cause of death in the U.S. in September 2021</i></a> by Jared Ortaliza <i>et al</i> shows the toll of far-right anti-vaccine propaganda:<br /><br />"From June through September 2021, approximately 90,000 COVID-19 deaths among adults likely would have been prevented with vaccination."<br /><br />That's about 750/day or about a 9/11 every 4 days.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-56413709677194613892021-09-22T10:21:30.522-07:002021-09-22T10:21:30.522-07:00These graphs of cumulative deaths attributed to CO...These graphs of cumulative deaths attributed to COVID per 100,000 residents of various countries are, within their limitations, even clearer:<br /><br />https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=aged_65_older&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~EuropeanUnion~AUS~JPN~NZL~KOR~CAN~TWN~GBR~CHN~POL~NOR~IRL~ISL~DEU~FIN~THA~SWE~ITA~CUB~DNK~FRA~HKG~SGP&Metric=Confirmed+deaths<br /><br />The reason for the difference is "fatalistic liberalism":<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/27/british-government-covid-strategy-virus-incompetence-ignorance-pandemic<br />«<i>In a report released last December, the cross-party joint committee on national security strategy condemned the government for having “failed seriously to consider how it might scale up testing, isolation and contact-tracing capabilities during a serious disease outbreak” [...] this governing approach, which we call “fatalistic liberalism”, allows it to place the blame on the mix of public behaviour and natural causes. Risk appears to be the consequence of personal choice – people can decide whether to wear a mask or whether to get vaccinated – not the result of policy decisions made at the top</i>»<br /><br />Some related links:<br /><br />https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53816511<br />https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/a-guide-to-2021-covid-vaccines-stimulus-sanity<br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/27/five-ways-the-government-could-have-avoided-100000-covid-deaths<br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/england-coronavirus-testing-has-not-risen-fast-enough-science-chiefBlissex2https://www.blogger.com/profile/05849329792782072250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-18844578155199269122021-09-11T10:51:48.884-07:002021-09-11T10:51:48.884-07:00For context, the price of 20 years of war in Afgha...For context, the price of 20 years of war in Afghanistan is <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts" rel="nofollow">estimated at $8T</a>. So using the standard value of a life, the pandemic is burning money at a rate more than 10x the Afghan war did.David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-56536846795915675182021-09-06T15:56:45.349-07:002021-09-06T15:56:45.349-07:00My wording in the previous comment was sloppy. I w...My wording in the previous comment was sloppy. I wrote "total cost of the pandemic". I should have written "total cost of under-performing Australia's pandemic response".David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4503292949532760618.post-85167893897372751432021-09-06T14:02:57.145-07:002021-09-06T14:02:57.145-07:00As of 5 years ago, the US Dept. of Transportation ...As of 5 years ago, the US Dept. of Transportation <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States" rel="nofollow">valued a human life at $9.6M</a>. Using this figure we get a total cost of pandemic deaths in the US of $8.5T. This excludes the cost of health care for victims, the pandemic recession, and care from the sufferers of "long COVID".David.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14498131502038331594noreply@blogger.com