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0 points9wzYQbTYsAIc4y ago0 comments

> What's causing people to believe that the latest round of attrition is any different?

The Great Recession

The Great Resignation

The Great Dying (due to COVID-19)

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6 comments · 1 top-level

spoils194y ago· 5 in thread

> The Great Dying (due to COVID-19)

Repeating this wise comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23769427

The COVID death counts are hopelessly over-counted. This is why there's a cottage industry of people pointing out things like "COVID deaths" which mysteriously also suffered from being murdered, or drug overdoses, or undiagnosed leukaemia.

Then you get into the problem of care homes being authorised to report COVID deaths without any testing or formally trained opinion at all.

gilbetron4y ago

It's shocking to see such a statement so far into the pandemic. This is solved and known already, and while complicated, we've figured it out for some time. We can easily see the massive amount of deaths when we look at excess death numbers. Covid deaths are, if anything, undercounted. To believe anything else at this point is to bury your head in the sand and avoid all scientific evidence and medical consensus.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-are-covid-19-d...

MatteoFrigo4y ago

I won't argue this topic since this thread is about AWS, but the article that you quote says "Experts calculate the excess death rate by comparing figures for a given period with the average for that same period over several previous years." That's not how experts calculate excess deaths, since that algorithm produces totally bogus answers. Here is how real experts compute excess deaths, compensating for seasonality and population changes: https://euromomo.eu/how-it-works/methods/

jimmydorry4y ago

Excess deaths is a perfectly valid statistic to base policy off... if policy makers maintained a hands-off approach and didn't radically change society through out the pandemic.

Can you in good conscience say that the typical rate of death remained steady while the following happened:

* a majority of given populations remained at home (lock downs - meaning no travelling to work in multi-tonne death traps)

* practised increased hygiene protocols (masks, more frequent hand washing)

* did not visit elderly homes (at least, less than usual)

* many people were reluctant to get timely health care (due to fear of catching COVID from medical facilities)

* ate worse and excersied less

* infected elderly patients were sent back to their nursing homes (to typically infect the entire facility)

There are so many confounding factors that on the face of it, should result in a radically different death profile... and almost every country faced the above to different extents.

Anyone claiming to be able to work out the actual number of people who died from COVID-19 from excess deaths is being disingenous at best.

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9wzYQbTYsAIcOP4y ago

How about undercounting?

There’s very likely to be severe undercounting of COVID-19 due to the same reasons that crimes of victimization are underreported: shame.

Not to mention the swaths of homeless and disabled people that probably didn’t get counted.

panarky4y ago

Not to mention all the cases detected with home antigen tests and never reported to a lab.

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