The difference between "with" and "from" when it comes to coronavirus deaths, that is.
Because, in various important contexts, starting with treatment, dying with Covid-19 is a critically-different phenomenon than dying from Covid-19.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that distinction is still unknown for some reason:
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC still hasn’t set up a system to distinguish causation from correlation, [CDC Director Dr. Rochelle] Walensky admits.
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The CDC’s data reporting website makes no such distinction at all. It’s not a case of waiting a few weeks for their “death registry” to catch up. All of its data on admissions and deaths are entirely correlative and always has been. The causation data simply doesn’t exist, and it never did.
This is important for more than just deaths when it comes to public policy, but let’s start there. The failure of the CDC to impose reporting requirements for degree of causation in deaths correlated to a COVID-19 diagnosis has left us completely unable to gauge risk and craft public policy with Omicron. We know from hard data that Omicron is far more transmissible than earlier variants, but we have no idea how dangerous it is otherwise. And even if we have that eventually with Omicron, we don’t have comparative data from other variants. My friend John Hinderaker at Power Line has done some fine work in using excess-mortality rates to determine actual risk in the pandemic, but this is only a secondary measure that is less reliable than the kind of measures the CDC should have had in place by mid-summer of 2020.
Some might say we have systemic problems at the CDC (and FDA, while we are at it).
Some would be correct.
If they are correct, then the problem goes all the way back to seasonal flu--that's how it was done previously. A lot of what hotair classifies as correlation are really covid tipping already sick people over the edge: overweight, diabetic, old, etc.. Sure, if Americans were healthier, the death rate would be a bit lower. People would have lived a bit longer, maybe some decades in most cases.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the CDC needs to change its methods to sugarcoat things for sensitive conservatives. The overall message is pretty simple: get vaccinated, keep distanced and masked. If someone doesn't choose to get the shot, just stay away from kids and work from home or a lonely park bench.
1. The numbers may indeed be close--but your assumption not supported by data which are apparently ascertainable. Yet the CDC has not done so for unstated reasons. And it may be for decent reasons: a matter of logistics, lack of manpower for review. Maybe even just garden-variety government failure.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's the Noble Lie again: "if inflated numbers get people to vax, it's all worth it."
I don't know the reason, but it's secondary to the fact we *should* know. And don't.
The bottom line is ta CDC has a congressional mandate to control and prevent disease. Knowing the extent to which a disease is, in fact, fatal is essential to that process.
Let me be blunt: George Floyd died with covid. He shouldn't be one of the 800,000 dead. Can we at least agree on that?
2. The death toll takes a mental toll.
I know ignorami who dismiss the pandemic out of hand, but they aren't in charge of the CDC, nor do they have a mandate to deal honestly and fairly with the citizenry they are supposed to protect.
The data is clear that children are at low risk for covid-related harm. We also know without a doubt that the same children have been harmed by the remote learning farce. Just last night I spoke with a special needs teacher who poured her heart out about the struggles of educators and parents. They are desperately playing catch-up with children who have regressed.
Then there are a lot of people who are emotionally damaged by the fear of the pandemic. This damage--and that of children--are driven in part by the mounting death toll. An inflated number is a harmful falsehood (if not necessarily a lie), regardless of the reason. Over time, it's abusive.
The bottom line is that the truth is never the wrong policy. The longer it takes to get to it, the worse the consequences are. Not least with institutional credibility.
I agree with your premise on the truth being the best policy. Sadly, we don't inhabit cultures in which the truth is valued. Every decade seems to have its bogeys on that.
ReplyDeleteRather than use the pandemic to sputter, "But the kids!?!" maybe we should take a longer look at education in the US. Children are at lower risk, not no risk. Adults who care for students a few dozen hours a week may be a concern, as nurses, doctors, etc. are. Infrastructure outside of white suburbia is a problem.
Between you and me, I'd rather have seen a lot more investment in schools in the so-called build back better. Spending money on other people's kids is clearly a non-starter with the GOP, and the Dems aren't much more helpful on this.
As for your citation of institutional cred, that ship has sailed. The last few decades of partisan politics have poisoned the waterhole. Opposite party persons will never have credibility. If you really want to get at the truth, ask yourself who benefits from a US too paralyzed to really take care of its own children, sick, elderly, and immigrants.
Let me add the more serious systemic problems are with insurance companies and medical care corporations that ration providers and maximize profits at any cost. On one hand, who the $&@% cares if 800k died from hangnails or the virus or its complications? Hospitals are overwhelmed and health care workers are trying to get your attention. Michelle Malkin and the 1% don't care, but the 99% do.
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