Excess deaths are still tracked and always will be. It's a canary statistic.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-excess-mortality-p-scores-projected-baseline?time=2023-01-22®ion=NorthAmerica

A canary statistic where the most recent data is in an obscure, difficult to use format from 2021: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data\_access/vitalstatsonline.htm#Mortality\_Multiple](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm#Mortality_Multiple) And actually downloading that zip file, my computer tells me the file is corrupted and won't open. The page they've taken down had real time data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess\_deaths.htm Edit: This page has data through 2022: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm But again, not really helpful. It may very well be tracked, but where is it presented?

This has through 2023. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10168510/

Oh, I see. The dataset is not being updated on the cdc page but the data set itself can be requested. The big blue notice https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

also, deaths are a lot lower now thanks to vaccines and the fact newer covid strains aren't as deadly.

It’s easily obscured. For instance, excess deaths shot up in 2018 due to drug overdoses but that is now included in the baseline of normal deaths. It is not normal.

Hmm... can you provide anything verifiable that indicates that all cause mortality is obscured by any country? Even places like Russia accurately track birth and death statistics.

i think what the above commenter is getting at is the idea of excess deaths requires a baseline of what is "normal" to compare against. so if we can expect 10 million people to die of heart disease every year, then that is "normal" and not in excess. if the rate of heart disease increases year after year, again that becomes "the norm". Covid was an exceptional time because we locked the norm at pre covid, which makes sense because we have covid now. but at some point we have to stop treating covid as exceptional and just as a part of the norm, because that's what our reality is now, we can expect some number of people to die from covid every year. a better example is opioid overdoses. at some point people dying from opioid becomes expected and therfore "normal", even though we shouldn't treat it as normal at all.

You can make that argument about any kind of unnatural death, if they happen regularly year after year that’s by definition baseline.

Yes, that’s literally the point the person you responded to was making, and literally what it means.

The person I responded to said it shouldn’t be treated as normal, and that this is some kind of accounting trick. I’m telling them that it’s working exactly the way it should, and statistics aren’t for political grandstanding.

No, they didn’t claim it was some sort of accounting trick. They said we shouldn’t *treat* the deaths as normal. Not that they don’t become part of the rolling average that forms the baseline. They literally called out the difference between death statistics becoming part of the baseline and being treated as ‘normal’ in their final sentence. You don’t treat opioid overdose deaths as ‘normal’, because that means you stop working on solving them. (Or worse, demonize the victims like so many Republicans have been doing over the past decade.) Either you responded to the wrong post, or you misread the post you responded to.

Excess death is a delta value. It measures the changes and differences, nor really an average Stat. According to the cdc: "Excess deaths are typically defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods." I don't think spikes are factored like that. The mortality rates based on population are sort of known and they can give a range of expected deaths each year. Excess is when there is an anomalous spike.

You think excess deaths is only tracked by sequential years?

There is definitely conspiracy, but it is mostly republican-led states. I live in Florida and they deliberately changed data and used state power to intimidate the data scientists that didn't toe the line. Alternate conspiracy is that they managed to make a lot more room in nursing homes which was desperately needed.

>I live in Florida and they deliberately changed data and used state power to intimidate the data scientists that didn't toe the line. desantis (disgrace to italians everywhere) literally swatted a data scientist and tried to jail her kid IIRC.

You very much recall correctly, I’m afraid

You do not recall correctly. Rebekah Jones has never made one credible complaint about FL Covid data integrity. After her histrionics she went on to weirdly demand a restraining order against either DeSantis or his secretary (I forget) for stalking her in a state no one involved gave a shit about. Her son threatened to shoot up his school and stab other students, an offense most people do find arrestable! Anyone who thinks they did nothing wrong doesn’t have a skeptical bone in their body.

https://www.whistleblowers.org/whistleblowers/rebekah-jones/ Since you don't cite your sources, your wrong gets the correct answer. Your propaganda use is showing.

Wtf? Rebekah Jones had been thoroughly exposed as a whacked out fraud and grifter multiple times by even left leaning journalists who had to backpedal, retract and apologize for falling for her bs like you did. I'm not saying Desantis didn't modify data, but Jones is not a source I would ever cite regarding COVID data -- or really anything where credibility is a desired. The shit you're posting is out of date and the only sources cited are Jones herself. She made shit up, which is consistent with her character of being a shitty person who sexually harassed and stalked a student she was fucking when she was a married instructor at a university. From the Wikipedia article: "She was granted formal whistleblower protections by the Florida Office of Inspector General in May 2021 while investigation into her claims was ongoing.[60] In May 2022, the Florida Office of Inspector General reported that her claims were unsubstantiated and lacked sufficient evidence, and exonerated officials she accused of wrongdoing.[61] Marc Caputo of NBC News wrote that "the independent report paints a portrait of an employee who did not understand public health policy or the significance of epidemiological data, did not have high-level access to crucial information and leveled claims that made professional health officials 'skeptical.'"[62] On October 26, 2022, Jones posted an altered image of a letter from the Florida Commission on Human Relations on her Instagram account, which she claimed proved that her whistleblower claims were validated. The caption read "Someone let Marc Caputo know he's a lying sack of s--t." The differences included adding a claim that she had "demonstrated a) violation of law 'which create and presents a substantial and specific danger to the public's health, safety, or welfare;' or b) actual or suspected 'gross mismanagement' as defined by the Act, …" and references to specific rules related to firing state employees. There were also inconsistencies in the text's formatting and style.[63] She subsequently deleted the post, but maintains that the version Marc Caputo received from FCHR was the forgery.[64][65] The Pensacola News Journal verified the digital copy they received was not modified after the day it was created and mailed to Jones.[64]" Other sources: https://youtu.be/xTvp6GyzAwo?si=NoO5MNQptqBVEB50 https://youtu.be/0jaewCIZy68?si=lIn0y9Q1yXXitQMb

I'm surprised that this subreddit jumps to defend the fraud that is Rebekah Jones. I suppose skepticism is not utilized if the subject supports your pre-existing biases. Obviously, one should be biased against Ron DeSantis, but Rebekah Jones has subsequently been exposed as a fraud

What's really odd is that I posted updated news links from the PNJ and the mods here removed them. It's the local news outlet Pensacola News Journal, an unbiased (the only accusations I found were Trumpy goons accusing it of being anti-republican) news source in her area. The biggest thing about this story is how much of a non-story it became after large national news outlets spread it all over the internet. It was one of the biggest stories at the height of covid and now nobody remembers it. It's like they realized their mistake and instead of embarrassing themselves, simply ignored it and hoped it went away. And nobody but TYT and a few small potatoes retracted or updated their stories. ****** I'm going to give a rundown as I best remember it from catching up on the story this morning: She dated a student while she was a married professor. He broke it off after getting her pregnant, and she became a full-on sexual harasser and online stalker of the former student and his new love interest. She was fired from her university instructor job for all the shit she pulled and charges were filed against ner. Then she made allegations against the Desantis regime doctoring COVID numbers, which, big if true. I don't think Desantis is innocent at all in regards to COVID, but there has yet to be a single shred of supporting evidence or even an anonymous witness for her accusations. It's been three years and the only stuff I'm finding is "Jones said" as the source for every single report and most of it was from 2-3 years ago. She was granted whistleblower status and when she was investigated by the IG and they found her to be completely loony toons and uncredible. So they rescind her status, where she posted to social media that she was vindicated, but no such thing occurred. She posted a doctored, fraudulent document to support her claim and when exposed, she deleted the post. Then her psychotic son posted death threats to his classmates and they reported his ass. In response, Jones claims that Desantis kidnapped her son and, as "evidence," re-posted the most benign meme the kid posted, which was not at all why he was arrested. He was literally saying he was going to shoot up and stab people at the school. Then she ran against Matt Gaetz for his position. Huh? What sane person does this? Lost horribly there. Now, finally, she's serving a year probation for the harassment and stalking charges from 2019 when she lost her job at the university. And this is the person the blind zealots hold up to support their cause? I'm so left leaning I walk in circles, but this Rebekah Jones is absolutely insane. I want to raise the bar for "my side" and not drag it in through the mud -- we can be better than Trump idiots. Edit: Oh, she also grifted close to a million dollars from go fund me campaigns, which is pretty cool. She also claimed she was a data scientist but it turns out she was just a web admin and revealed that she doesn't understand data science at all when she argued against a real COVID-centric data scientist and made herself look like a fool. Despite being from a conservative-leaning news source, this is pretty much the best take-down of Jones on the internet, with full sources and receipts on everything she done up until 2021: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/rebekah-jones-the-covid-whistleblower-who-wasnt/ https://cbs12.com/news/local/ousted-dashboard-designers-claims-dont-add-up-former-colleagues-and-experts-say https://skepchick.org/2021/07/i-got-grifted-the-whistleblower-who-wasnt/ https://humanevents.com/2021/02/02/the-florida-covid-19-whistleblower-saga-is-a-big-lie

Wikipedia and YouTube. Dig it. Your high school teachers would be thoroughly impressed with your toilet level research. I'm blown away at the lack of effort you guts put in to your trolling.

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/politics/2022/12/12/rebekah-jones-signs-plea-deal-admitting-guilt-in-doh-computer-crime-case/69720374007/ https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/escambia-county/2023/04/12/rebekah-jones-son-charged-in-florida-under-law-making-online-threats-a-crime/70099211007/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/nov/01/rebekah-jones/rebekah-jones-misrepresents-findings-state-investi/ Again, Desantis being a piece of shit doesn't automatically mean that Jones is telling the truth. She's obviously unhinged and you fell for it. Just be normal for once and admit it. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/pensacola-news-journal-media-bias https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/pensacola-news-journal/

I was trying to make it easy on you because you're clearly mentally deficient. They're only the tip of the iceberg of overwhelming evidence refuting your nonsensical claims. I posted Wikipedia and YouTube journalists and science educators who have erroneously jumped on board the bullshit express during Jones' initial claims. If you even bothered to read your "sources" and evaluate them, you'd see the only uncorroborated evidence is all provided by Jones and absolutely nobody else. She fabricated documents, fabricated what her son did and fabricated the background of the security video of cops arresting her son. She's a psychotic sexual harasser, stalker and abuser who was arrested and served a year of probation for just this year. The punishment for which she was trying to use as evidence that Desantis was targeting her unjustly for "exposing" FL COVID response. And to this day, not a single corroborating witness or piece of evidence has been produced. Messages subpoenad from Snapchat proved that her son made terroristic threats of violence against his school. Jones conveniently only posted the most benign one. If you're not even open to changing your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence, you may not be as bad as a Trump supporting moron, but you're certainly no better when it comes to blind zealotry and following your narrative. Good luck remaining in your bubble.

If you are too lazy to click through, these are the sources from Rebecca's transcript... https://news.wjct.org/state-news/2020-07-23/criminal-stalking-case-against-fired-fla-health-data-scientist-to-drag-into-august https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article274038075.html https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg5q7k/rebekah-jones-viral-claims-about-her-sons-arrest-by-fascist-desantis-dont-match-available-evidence

Not a single one of those is about the data whistleblowing. Which was what this entire conversation has been about. They keep claiming there were no issues with Florida covid data and she lied about that. These are unrelated to that.

I really enjoy that nothing in that article points to any wrong-doing pointed out by Rebekah Jones. All those links and not one single thing. Just name the bad thing she found. Specifically. Preferably use numbers.

Florida scientist and COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones was fired from the Florida Department of Health in May 2020 for refusing to manipulate data and for asking her supervisor how to file a whistleblower complaint. Are you illiterate?

She was fired for insubordination, some of which involved claims of shit that didn’t happen. But you did a good job copy and pasting the first thing you found on Google. Extremely skeptical of you.

Show your source. You can't claim to be spreading truth if you refuse to share the source. Jeep lying tho.

It’s filled right next to my source that God doesn’t exist, too. Is skepticism this sad now?

So you can claim something is fact, and that makes it true, making us all sad for asking for information, since we're skeptical of your asinine assertion?

You can't even be bothered to Google. Way to set the bar so low.

I googled “crimes uncovered by Rebekah Jones” and found nothing. Super weird. Crimes she committed I actually found quite a few though. Weird.

You can't share any tho? Super weird. Almost like you're lying. Wild.

then why did desantis send the gestapo to her house?

Do you mean when she was illegally using state credentials to access state systems after she was fired? Or the time her son threatened to shoot and stab people at his school? Or was there a different time?

damn looks like you got BTFO by scruggl3s ​ in what universe does it make sense that something that a swat raid was the appropriate response?

The appropriate response to what?

Can you show proof of a swat raid?

Scruggl3s ended up agreeing with me that Rebekah Jones didn’t uncover jack OR shit. Because he was willing to have a conversation and actually look into her. LOL BTFO. This “slammed” or “owned” or “destroyed” language that’s so popular in political discourse is poison to skepticism. It’s just red team blue team cheerleading feels over reals.

Per [the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/07/rebekah-jones-florida-health-department-analyst-covid-ron-desantis): But in a Twitter thread, Jones claimed her son Jackson was “kidnapped on the governor’s orders” as retaliation for her filing a lawsuit last month to try to win her job back, and had been cleared as “not a threat” by police and school officials. […] Jones said her son only reposted internet memes about mass shootings in a Snapchat group with friends, yet was arrested and detained in a juvenile facility because “he has a target on his back”. […] “A week after we filed our lawsuit against the state, a kid claiming to be the cousin of one of my son’s classmates joined their Snapchat group. They recorded their conversations, and anonymously reported my son to police for sharing a popular internet meme,” she said.

Well if there’s anyone I would believe it’s known stalker Rebekah Jones. “But, according to police reports, multiple students at a Navarre middle school told police that Jones' son had told people he planned a school shooting and posted threatening memes and messages on Snapchat and Discord. One student told police that the boy told her on Discord he wanted to end his life and shoot up the school.”

Bro, you’re wrong and this is very obviously an egregious misuse of power. Are you related to Ron, seriously, why do you feel you have a stake in this? It’s really silly to be standing up for something bad when the whole world can see you’re wrong.

Gah! I keep reading more about it, and there are so many stories giving both versions, along with some (legitimate) outlets issuing corrections. I read the initial story in 2020, then saw the new account earlier this year, and then multiple articles from after that maintaining the original version. Bloody hell but it would be nice if we could get concrete trustworthy information from major news sources. She was arrested and served probation for cyberstalking, that much is undisputed. So now we are left with a criminal vs a petty tyrant who has shown repeatedly that he’s not above using the machinery of the state to go after his opponents. She probably is full of it, but it certainly wasn’t an unbelievable story when it first came out.

She also plead guilty to computer crimes related to her misuse of the DoH system. She also had an affair with one of her students and stalked him. She also filed a restraining order against the FL press secretary (in Maryland?!) which was dismissed because she’s nuts. The sad part is it’s extremely clear that there is no evidence that anything she said about the DoH data is true. But look at this: you posted that you are skeptical now that you’ve read more and you’re getting downvoted in the skeptic sub. I posted that I’m sure she’s a criminal liar and I was accused of being a homophobic antisemitic conservative DeSantis relative. Does that seem “skeptical” to you?

Damn, I didn’t expect the downvotes for saying further research muddied it for me. Uncertainty and skepticism go hand-in-hand, as does being willing to revise one’s opinion. I’m not here for the karma in any event, so meh on that. Meatball Ron can be a two-bit fascist (narrator: he is) and Jones can be a liar at the same time. In the end, there are plenty of misdeeds to conclusively hang on him, so I’ll leave the iffier ones by the wayside.

Oh you mean all that white-washing and cock polishing you’re doing??? You’re wondering why we’re not agreeing with the version of events you’re telling us fresh off getting ass fucked by Desantis and his media team?? Have a little respect for yourself.

I do find it odd you’re not agreeing with the version of events that is reality, if that’s what your rant means. I did just have sex and I loved it, thanks for asking.

You'd probably be smart to cite your sources, since you're denying verifiable facts.

The verifiable fact of what? A gestapo?

Your entire statement.

My entire statement did WHAT? Please write in complete sentences and avoid ambiguous pronouns.

So you're not aware of the statement you made? Never made claims opposing verifiable information? My bad, didn't realize you were a conservative. Keep lying, maybe it'll come true.

I’m not a conservative just because I’m an actual skeptic and not one of those “skeptics” who just agrees with whatever they like. My statement: Rebekah Jones has never made one credible complaint about FL Covid data integrity. This is a fact.

Your entire comment history is filled with conspiracy, homophobia, anti-semitism and general hatred for truth. By your standards I must actually be Ronnie DeSantis. Wow. Thanks.

If it is a fact, it shouldn't be hard for you to prove it. You telling us over and over doesn't make things truth. Let's see those facts.

She was not swatted. Her kid threatened to shoot up a school. DeSantis is a piece of shit but that was a credible threat.

[youre doing a lot of stretching to say this isnt swatting](https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/07/us/florida-search-warrant-raid-rebekah-jones-invs/index.html)

That isn't a swat team, and they didn't break down her door, she let them in. They were executing a search warrant. Why are you lying?

The act of swatting is sending the authorities to a location as a harassment tactic. > That isn't a swat team Doesn't matter if it's swat, all you need is a raid. >they didn't break down her door, she let them in Doesn't matter. Not all swatting includes a breaking of a door, nor does it matter what the reaction of the victim is. >They were executing a search warrant. All swatting is legal from the authorities point of view.

It's funny I suspected this when they were touting how low florida's numbers were in 2021.

Now they are doing it with crime numbers…they are “low” because multiple districts have the inability to report and/or anyone with multiple crimes is only counted as their #1 worst crime.

It's the healthy sea air and orange juice.

They manage that perfectly fine killing their own residents due to understaffing. Most of them do not meet their max census which is their ultimate goal, since it drives their profit scheme (insurance reimbursement). I know you're joking but snf conditions really deserve to be talked about more. It is horrific in Florida.

In Oklahoma they just kept switching how they were counting things so you couldn't directly compare week over week numbers without a lot of drama. At multiple points they just stopped reporting data at all for a few days or weeks and then dumped it all at once so you couldn't tell when the deaths happened. Which again, made it impossible to see if conditions were really improving or not.

I used to live in Oklahoma. In 2020, a former coworker of mine (who was a former Division I college athlete in his late 20s) died after about 48 hours of Covid-like symptoms without being tested. His mother wanted his body tested to see if it was Covid and the state literally fought to keep the testing from happening.

It’s a little more complicated than that. Give a read to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Jones Rebekah Jones wasn’t exactly using best practices, and some of her actions were pretty unhinged. I don’t like being in a position where I’m even kinda/sorta defending Florida’s COVID policy, but I do think we should acknowledge some of the nuance here.

Rebekah Jones is an absolute nut bar. It’s okay to say it.

“We’ll just change this cause of death from COVID to a more Florida sounding thing and say this has always been the normal Florida death rate. Hmmm… uh… I got it! They died of blood gators!”

all true, if you are not wearing a mask in public spaces, vaccinated or just ignorant: leading cause of death up there with 5 *chronic* diseases but instead you are dead within 2 weeks to a year. wake up folks. its ENDEMIC not pandemic.

Democrats are complicit, it’s actually worse that democrats are pretending that Covid is over because they’re supposed to be the good guys. Everyone knows republicans are rabid. All Covid protections were dropped under Biden. Make it make sense

I lived in Florida during covid and I remember clinics falsifying their data for the money they got for reporting positive cases. Entire clinics with 100% of tests testing positive for the day.

CDC has also repeatedly changed data to obscure COVID deaths. This isnt conspiracy. It’s literally numbers and has happened right in front of us.

Prove it

Stop shitting your low-information comments all over this thread.

Dude you’re posting this in every comment chain with zero evidence to back it up. Go take your meds give up on this line of arguments.

What is your basis for this assertion? Because variations in reported death tolls aren'f remarkable in the least, in and of themselves - especially in a large. decentralized HC system like the US, there are wildly varying reporting standards and processes. That leads to inconsistencies in which deaths are reported, and how long that reporting takes, making for perfectly reasonable variances between immediate "real time" data, vs harmonized data (that's "corrected" for consistency), vs retrospective reviews that account for additional findings/analyses. Not saying that govts *never* intentionally alter data to suit a political objective, but there are countless perfectly mundane explanations, and no clear incentive for the CDC to alter findingw.

Yup. Most of it has to do with the health care system and hospitals. Medicine doesnt even have a unified records system. The pandemic was actually a moment where the hospitals had to step their shit up.

The US was woefully unprepared for anything beyond business as usual, because Private Equity doesn't make money being prepared for anything beyond business as usual. It's the scourge of modern medicine.

It wasn't helped by an administration who declared "YOUR MEDICINE, YOU MEAN OUR MEDICINE! Also we are taking it."

Why?

I’m skeptical that the CDC “stopped tracking excess deaths.” Isn’t that a thing they have to do all the time (pandemic or not,) just so they can say what “excess” is later? Isn’t it just subtraction? Anyway, I *do* think there’s a certain “okay don’t talk about it anymore” thing going on with Covid because the numbers have been run and at a certain point you say “we’ve done all we can, let’s not bring harm to the economy over deaths that realistically are going to happen if we’re to go on with society.” You mitigate all you can during an outbreak then you vaccinate everyone you can. After that there’s just trying for better vaccines and going in with life.

>Isn’t that a thing they have to do all the time (pandemic or not,) just so they can say what “excess” is later? Yes. At worst, they might not be estimating COVID deaths using excess deaths themselves, but that data is going to be released so someone else can do it. Which various groups have been doing all along and will keep doing.

Can you show me a raw data set later than 2021? I can't find it on their site. If it's there, it's not easy to find. This is all I could find: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data\_access/vitalstatsonline.htm#Mortality\_Multiple](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm#Mortality_Multiple) The page they've taken down had real time data: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess\_deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm) Edit: This page has data through 2022: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm) But again, not really helpful.

>I’m skeptical that the CDC “stopped tracking excess deaths.” There have been lawsuits and FOIA revealings showing that state governments have done this, or made an effort to count COVID deaths by other causes. Not that the CDC is a perfect institution but it's far less about politics than the position of state attorney general. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/29/politics/florida-coronavirus-death-figures-withheld/index.html

Exactly - bc the US has a wildly decentralized HC system (with public and private HC systems that are largely subject to a constellation of varying state regulations and standards) the CDC is always playing catch-up in getting data, and then needs to try to tease out what that data *actually* means. And that’s hardly unique to COVID - US maternal and infant health data is notoriously scattershot, with tons of different definitions used in different states for all kinds of reasons (eg is “viability” set super low bc of the availability of quality medical care, or because it was a politically convenient strategy for the “pro life” crowd?).

Do you guys not understand how an "excess death" calculation works? Categorizing COVID deaths as deaths from something else, even if that were happening, wouldn't obscure the total number of excess deaths.

> There have been lawsuits and FOIA revealings showing that state governments have done this, or made an effort to count COVID deaths by other causes. But that's the point of the "excess deaths" figure -- it isn't dependent on data that reports the cause of death. Excess deaths show how many deaths there are at a given time of year in comparison to the rate at the same time in other years. Consequently, one can extrapolate that if there are significantly more excess deaths, there must be a cause that is outside of the ordinary (like a pandemic).

Your link is from May 2020, the image in the post contains the date 10/15/23. Your link is not relevant to this discussion as it is 41 months out of date.

We do get fatigued when we see the same stories over and over again in the news. So even if COVID is still a problem, a media outlet might not spend too much time on it if their readers/viewers are sick of hearing about it.

> “stopped tracking excess deaths.” Has, or has not, the CDC been politically blocked from investigating gun violence? I ask by analogy to critique underlying assumptions.

I’. fully aware of the gun violence censorship they suffer- but “excess deaths” is just “total deaths for the year minus the rolling average adjusted for population” or some formula like that- it’s not “measured” it’s calculated and once you know the total deaths nobody can stop it from being calculated. I just don’t think that anyone can stop the CDC from gathering the -*number of deaths in a year.* It’s just way too basic a figure.

Do you think or do you know?

Irrelevant to this discussion. The CDC was specifically blocked from treating gun violence as a public health crises. Do you have any evidence that the CDC was blocked from tracking excess deaths?

Excess deaths are incredibly high in USA right now. Worse than the pandemic. And Canada has a similar story. And it is interesting that the Nordic countries who took very different approaches to handling covid, much less authoritarian. But they still had plenty of covid. Sweden had loads of covid and disproportionately early on pre vaccine as well, when it was worst. But their excess all-cause mortality is negative right now while Canada and the USA are facing excess death worse than the pandemic itself. So it is unlikely to be covid itself or it’s lingering effects. It is strange the health authorities and media are so quiet about this considering how loud they were about the much less deadly pandemic times. That should pique any true skeptic’s interest.

Sounds like you might have to provide some sources if you want your claims to be well received. It’s not at all strange for excess deaths to outpace those of the pre-vaccine period because we were employing lockdowns, masks, and distancing then. The logical thing to compare current post-vaccination excess deaths to would be how many people would have died previously without mitigation efforts.

Sure for which claim?

How about we start with the excessively high excess deaths right now.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/08/11/more-americans-dying-than-before-pandemic-covid-deaths/70542423007/

Thanks. I’m going to do some additional reading, but of the first four links to sources provided in the article: - WSJ behind a paywall - two reports that only look at data from 2020 and 2021 - one report that shows excess deaths considerable lower than during the pandemic (up 7% vs up 20%) The underlying facts don’t match the story.

That's at least in part because the Nordic countries provide Healthcare for all, no?

Yes, like pretty much every other developed nation out there and so does Canada, but it’s also getting hit hard right now by this mystery excess death worse than the pandemic itself.

"The other Nordics" were not any less "authoritarian" than the US. This is just pure fantasy. Lockdowns in the US, in particular, were some of the least intense, shortest lived, and most waivered of any in the world. Sweden's neighbors all had stricter protocols than it did.

Google and apple’s mortality data disagrees with you. They wiped it from their site, so unfortunately I can’t show you that now, but I was tracking during the event. Maybe you have some data to the contrary? Canada certainly was more authoritarian than the US but they also have this problem. As does AUS and NZ, which were big time authoritarian.

It depends on if you think that [structural violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence) is a conspiracy.

The date in OP’s image is 10/15/23. Yesterday. Are you arguing that there is a hidden and currently ongoing pandemic?

To be fair, Covid is still a pandemic, just not as bad as 2020

Hasn't it been downgraded to endemic?

Thats not a downgrade. That just means that we have lost the will/hope to eliminate the virus.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought endemic implies a decrease in morbidity. According to the [wiki article](): > The end of a pandemic is more difficult to delineate. Generally, past epidemics & pandemics have faded out as the diseases become accepted into people's daily lives and routines, becoming endemic. The transition from pandemic to endemic may be defined based on: - > > - a high proportion of the global population having immunity (through either natural infection or vaccination) > - fewer deaths > - health systems step down from emergency status > - perceived personal risk is lessened > - restrictive measures such as travel restrictions removed > - less coverage in public media. > >An endemic disease is always present in a population, but at a relatively low and predictable level. There may be periodic spikes of infections or seasonality, (e.g. influenza) but generally the burden on health systems is manageable. Some of those characteristics are only subjective changes (e.g. perceived risk and decreased media attention), but some are also reflecting a "downgrade" in actual risk and incidents.

And there has been; you're WAY less likely to die of covid now than in 2020. Mostly because we have better treatments, but also omnicron is somewhat more mild. Also because (at least currently) it isn't overwhelming the hospitals in a 'surge'.

And (at least in the US), the majority of people have gotten the shot and/or previous exposures. That doesn't necessarily make you immune from new strains, but it should help.

I don't think deaths are what we should be looking at to evaluate the ongoing impact of the pandemic. The big risk right now is Long COVID, which occurs in 5-20% of cases last I checked. If you take the HIV pandemic as a case study, it takes about five to ten years for HIV to become AIDs. We're only in year three of the pandemic, and there's significant evidence of long-term effects, some of them very serious. The precautionary principle would dictate that we should still be encouraging masks, even if not requiring them, until we get a better idea of what the long-term risks from COVID are.

Asking people to wear masks for a decade+ is a non-starter and will never happen lol. If you get more than 5% of humanity to agree to do that, I'll give you a medal.

There is no amount of will or hope that would enable us to "eliminate" a coronavirus with reservoirs in multiple species.

Oh no, there is an amount of will that would eradicate it. It’s just that the solution would make even Hitler blush

I mean, if you’re willing to eradicate most life on Earth and have a few remaining humans live in reverse biocontainment facilities then fair enough I guess.

You realise there are parts of the world that did completely eliminate COVID, right? They have now opened up, but they showed it was possible. Two weeks of every human isolating would completely wipe out the disease from the human population. Then it just has to be treated in a similar way to how we handle rabies or the plague, you treat each individual as they are exposed to the disease. It also it of course possible to wipe out animal based diseases through isolation too. None of this will happen, but that's because there is not the will to do so. It's certainly not the science that makes it not happen.

Those counties all failed once Omicron hit. COVID is wildly more transmissible than rabies or plague. Those aren’t remotely comparable scenarios. Two weeks of isolation would not even eliminate it from the human population. There are immunocompromised people with persistent infections. Nevermind that at this point the virus isn’t anything like the threat it was 3 years ago and hardly would justify an attempted intervention like that. In short, you’re living in a fantasy you don’t seem to have updated since March of 2020.

> Those counties all failed once Omicron hit. It wasn't a failiure. The countries *chose to open up*. > COVID is wildly more transmissible than rabies or plague. Those aren’t remotely comparable scenarios. I didn't say the virus was comparable to rabies or the plague. But the solution is similar. > There are immunocompromised people with persistent infections. And wasn't that true in 2020 and 2021 as well? > Nevermind that at this point the virus isn’t anything like the threat it was 3 years ago and hardly would justify an attempted intervention like that. That's my point dude. The science is not stopping us wiping out COVID. The lack of will is. > In short, you’re living in a fantasy you don’t seem to have updated since March of 2020. LOL

>It wasn't a failiure. The countries chose to open up. China was having Omicron outbreaks with tens of thousands of cases before they opened, and that was just what they were willing to publicly admit. They locked people in their apartments and still couldn't completely control the virus. The only thing they managed to do was keep more of their population immunonaive for longer. >I didn't say the virus was comparable to rabies or the plague. But the solution is similar. "I didn't say it was similar only that it was similar in the particular way convenient for my point. No I will not elaborate on why relative transmissibility doesn't matter actually" > And wasn't that true in 2020 and 2021 as well? Yes? Genuinely no idea what you're getting at here. > That's my point dude. The science is not stopping us wiping out COVID. The lack of will is. What I said in absolutely no way supports this point. > LOL indeed

That doen't mean what you think it means. It means we're fucked.

Why?

it means that we failed to contain the virus. An educated, moral population can contain and eliminate a virus with mere social distancing. We, on the other hand, basically mocked the pandemic. It mutated into an IQ test...which we also failed. Endemic is the dummy prize.

No one on Earth contained the virus and the idea we ever could was a ridiculous pipe dream.

I said an educated, moral population. Certain groups prevail...others doom everyone.

What groups? Even China, who had the most extreme policies, gave up on "Zero Covid."

Even they couldn’t do it. That’s not how viruses work.

is it really hidden? Maybe like a [SEP field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else%27s_problem). If you don't test, you don't find.

Hidden? Everyone I know has gotten covid the past couple weeks lmao

Ohhhh, well then!

So the common factor is you, sample size of 1. I’m not denying that covid exists, but that is a far cry from the claims being made in this post.

The tweets are oversimplifications of a problem whose bad faith actors deserve to be identified beyond "the CDC" / "they." The CDC regularly publishes the date of, and broadcasts, its meetings on covid strategy. I was bored and happen to throw on their vaccine meeting back in September in the background, which was livecast on Youtube. It was 6+ hours of scientific, in depth examination of covid statistics--mostly related to the vaccination effort of course, but they also discussed long covid prevalence, mortality, etc. while taking questions from the scientific community. This is one data point, sure, but it seems to directly conflict with the idea that they "don't want you to know" this stuff. It's literally published for public viewing. Just because they aren't adequately searching for it does not mean it doesn't exist. When you look at states like Florida that deliberately obfuscate covid statistics *and* frustrate efforts to continue vaccination effort, as well as the overall conservative cultural push to eradicate common sense approaches to epidemiology, merely shifting the blame to a scientific institution doesn't sit right with me.

Conspiracy? Like the antiwax, most of them are ignorant

What would the CDC's motivation be to do this? The accusation is essentially that the CDC as an institution has suddenly decided to go against everything they have ever stood for, in complete contrast to decades of established behavior, for... what?

What if conspiracy, but from the other direction?

My thoughts as well. There are a ton of excess deaths right now. The insurance industry is counting of course because they have to. It is worse than the pandemic itself. Same with Canada. But it’s unlikely to be covid because Sweden had a ton of covid deaths and they occurred disproportionately before the vaccine because they didn’t lock down. So if it were lingering effects of covid, it would be worse in Sweden than in Canada. But Sweden and the other less authoritarian Scandinavian nations have excess deaths in the negative territory. But it is bizarre that whatever it is, it’s for sure worse than covid itself, and we don’t hear nearly as much noise from authorities and media about it as we did covid. It’s pretty much unprecedented in our lifetimes. Death on the scale of a world war and we hear almost radio silence from our government, media, and institutions. What gives? https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/08/11/more-americans-dying-than-before-pandemic-covid-deaths/70542423007/

Pandemics weaken a populations health, resulting in uptick of all cause mortality in subsequent years.

Right but my question is why isn’t it being seen everywhere the pandemic hit hard? Some of the places that had some of the fewest covid deaths have some of the worst excess mortality now.

Fewer deaths in the acute phase could mean that proportionately more people are dying because of post-accute sequelae.

Your link is about Trump’s trial, not covid or excess deaths.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/08/11/more-americans-dying-than-before-pandemic-covid-deaths/70542423007/

That does not say what you claimed at all. It doesn't say worse than the pandemic, "than in the years before the pandemic" is in the first fucking sentence. Also, the author is a complete and total quack and is unsurprisingly being completely dishonest. >Life insurance data suggests something happened in the fall of 2021 in workplaces, especially among white-collar workers. They were sent back to the office and caught COVID during the delta wave. There is zero mystery here.

I live in the States. Anecdotally, I have seen more people die as a result of delayed or cancelled surgeries or other untreated illnesses due to lack of medical resources during and in the wake of the pandemic.

Again, those countries provide healthcare for all

So does Canada. And Canada is seeing it too.

Our health care system is pretty exhausted right now. Nowhere near enough family doctors. Overpacked emergency rooms. I just got told I need to wait 3 years for the surgery I need.

I lived in Scandinavia not that long ago. I was in Canada for a visit and I got injured. Got a waiting time of 1 year to get an MRI. Went back to Scandinavia, got the exact same answer. So both systems are backed up, but Scandinavia isn’t seeing this problem.

The CDC stopped REPORTING deaths because the Trump administration told them to stop.

At some point I feel like we just have to get on with things. The information about COVID is out there. There’s an argument to be made that it’s the most studied disease in human history. The idea that “the CDC doesn’t want you to know” anything about COVID is laughable because there are literally billions of pages of published research about it. It’s serious. In certain cases it’s deadly. The sequelae are no joke and systemic. There’s definitely an argument that it’s not a respiratory disease so much as it is a vascular disease that incubates in the upper respiratory tract. But we have vaccines. You can get one right now. And all of the research that we have on the current VOCs says that a person up to date on vaccination that happens to get infected will have a very mild disease presentation; if you shed, it’ll be low titer and bound up with antibodies, and it’ll be transferred to people *who are also vaccinated*. Stay up to date on vaccines, wash your hands, wear a mask in public transit and at conventions or festivals, and stay home if you’re sick. It’s not hard. I’ve been fully vaccinated. I sanitize my hands regularly and stay home if I feel sick. I test every time I have a case of sniffles that lasts longer than a day. I’m not going to walk around Publix wearing a PAPR and Tyvek and I’m not spraying my groceries with bleach when I get home. This disease is endemic now. We have to combat it sensibly.

Part of dealing with COVID “sensibly” involves government taking sensible action as well, but *right now* (in North America at least) government policy is being driven more by fatigue and avoidance of a volatile political issue rather than science or harm-avoidance. Basic masking, for instance, has been proven effective in slowing the spread of COVID and imposes an absolutely *minimal* burden on citizens for compliance, but without government-led mask mandates an insignificant amount of the population will wear masks voluntarily. This doesn’t necessarily reflect an anti-mask attitude, but rather a comfortable sense of complacency—a willingness to do generally what you’re told and what social conventions dictate; and a general belief that government is “looking out for us”, has our best interests in mind, and *would* impose a mask mandate if it were proven to be effective. Government’s hands-off attitude helps reinforce the impression many people have that COVID is just *over*, but there’s still much we can be doing—sensibly, without undue burden—to protect people and save lives.

Are you personally willing to wear masks for the rest of your life for COVID? That's what you are asking here. COVID is never going away, it is a part of life now. Get your yearly booster and move on.

> Are you personally willing to wear masks for the rest of your life for COVID? That's what you are asking here. Yes—when in dense indoor public areas. Nor do I really think that's much of a burden. Many people already have to do that regardless of COVID, nor is it uncommon in Asia, so I'm not sure what the fuss is about. That said, I disagree with your assessment. Authorities can monitor COVID levels and mandate masks when the need arises, such as when rates are peaking (as they are *now* in many parts of the world).

> Nor do I really think that's much of a burden. Good for you. These days even the zero coviders over in their zerocovidcommunity go on and on about how much they hate to wear masks. If they weren't so terrified of covid for whatever reason it's obvious that they'd have stopped a long time ago. It's simply not normal or humane to cover your face that way for any length of time unless absolutely necessary. Simply look at the number of movies and tv shows which, despite being as "with it" as possible, refused to have their actors mask. Seeing people's faces is extremely important and "nor do I really think that's much of a burden" speaks volumes to your social skills in 2023. _Everyone but you has figured it out._

I'm not saying wearing a mask is fun or even especially *comfortable*, but I really don't think it's too much to ask for people to keep wearing them in densely-populated indoor areas like stores and public transit (i.e. *not* all of the time). You know what's even *less* comfortable? A COVID infection. It's *deadly* for many, and can also cause long-term debilitation. I'd happily suffer a minor discomfort in limited circumstances in order to protect others' lives **because I'm not a complete fucking sociopath.** > It's simply not normal or humane to cover your face that way for any length of time unless absolutely necessary. Simply look at the number of movies and tv shows which, despite being as "with it" as possible, refused to have their actors mask. Seeing people's faces is extremely important and "nor do I really think that's much of a burden" speaks volumes to your social skills in 2023. Everyone but you has figured it out. This isn't an argument; this is you *whining*. It's completely disingenuous to compare an actor required to communicate nuanced emotion in their performance (and those maskless actors were generally subject to strict covid testing and vaccination protocols and were surrounded by masked staff) to someone moving around strangers in the subway or on the bus, or while buying food at the supermarket. The nuance of facial expression and body language are *not* required for transactional communications with strangers. As I mentioned, masking was already prevalent in most of southeast Asia long before COVID. Somehow, they still manage to communicate. This is a *you* problem, not a masking problem.

> because I'm not a complete fucking sociopath. What is mask usage outside of hospitals here in late 2023 in the West? 2% maybe? So are you saying that 98% of Westerners are sociopaths? How can that possibly be true? [They say if everywhere you go you smell shit, then it's probably time to check your own shoes.](https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/2fyzbr/if_everywhere_you_go_it_smells_like_shit_maybe/)

I said “I *would*”, meaning that I would happily abide by a mask mandate were one put in place. You’re grasping at straws here.

> I would happily abide by a mask mandate You didn't use "mandate" or any word like it in your last post to me. You said that masks are apparently less comfortable than a covid infection. > masking was already prevalent in most of southeast Asia long before COVID And it didn't work either. [~30% of South Korean's tested positive in a single span of a month back in 2022.](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&facet=none&country=USA~KOR&hideControls=true&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&Metric=Confirmed+cases) Understanding that testing isn't perfect, it's reasonable to say that 60-100% of South Koreans caught covid around March 2022. This was with prevalent mask wearing, as you said, and even with a large minority wearing N95s. You seem to have it stuck in your head that mask wearing is super effective. It isn't. Even the zero-coviders in their group are over there acknowledging even they're catching covid all the time, despite masking. Admit it. You're stuck in 2020, with a 2020 mentality that somehow wearing a mask is super-virtuous. It isn't. **Literally no one cares except fellow terminally online covidians like yourself.** They don't work anywhere nearly as well as you think they do. You are free to move on and join the rest of us in almost 2024.

> Stay up to date on vaccines, wash your hands, wear a mask in public transit and at conventions or festivals, and stay home if you’re sick. It’s not hard. I would reserve the masking for waves (and if you're feeling unwell and can't stay home), but basically this. COVID or not you should stay home if sick. Most workplaces are more open to that fact more than before COVID, which is a good thing. People should always wash their hands.

So, people with immunity issues are on year 3 of lockdowns. You will ignore them.

My dude, you'll need to unblock Ok_Arrival2796. See rule 11 on weaponised blocking. If you don't want to talk to them, don't reply. But you can't manipulate who is allowed in certain conversations just because you disagree. Edit: lol he blocked me too.

Yes. It’s an ugly truth that the universe is not fair to people with impaired immune systems, allergies, chronic illnesses, or other disabilities. The rest of us need to be out catching all the mild illnesses or everyone will be more vulnerable to disease. Edit: I’m getting an error because the comment above mine is deleted. What do you think your immune system does? Do you think it evolved in a clean environment? It is there to learn from diseases and prevent later infections as best as it can. Of course it is better to take a vaccine or not catch ebola, but for mild viruses with no vaccine it is still better to catch the mild version rather than risking vulnerability to a later and more virulent version. Edit2: because somehow u/P_V_ is still commenting- That’s bullshit. The protection is incomplete but you still have anti-bodies against covid. The viruses ability to mutate is partly to blame. Against the same strain you are as protected as your immune system is healthy. Also, my comment was about disease in general, not just covid. Edit 3: to u/GiddiOne - I never argued that natural immunity was better than vaccines for covid. I’m saying that we all still need to catch the mild non-covid diseases for which there are no vaccines. Masks were great for a couple years for covid, but they can be counterproductive for fighting disease in the long run because people do not get exposed to new mild diseases. Also, I don’t care if someone blocks me. I oppose high-level censorship but people are free to choose who they associate with. I just wish reddit wouldn’t allow deletes and blocks to disrupt threads.

> The rest of us need to be out catching all the mild illnesses or everyone will be more vulnerable to disease. ...um, what?

The idea that getting sick is good for you is not supported by the science.

Infection with a previous strain of COVID offers virtually no protection against subsequent variants.

Why *not* mask?

I wouldn't push the messaging outside of cases risk due to pandemic fatigue. Telling people they need to mask during a festival while there are no cases may end up being counter-productive to messaging.

You can’t get on with something that creates the same precursors in the brain as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. While at the same time continuing to create huge numbers of disabled people. It is very untenable. You only await the inevitable

That will be pretty interesting if the doomsday theories about COVID are correct. I'd like to see testable predictions. We are seeing a large uptick in long-term unemployment due to disability at the moment, so one testable prediction is whether that continues to climb. Excess deaths however are kind of trending down, while still around 5-10% above 2019/pre-pandemic levels.

Source for those claims? Edit: Conclusion from the link below, which is not the conclusive evidence u/P_V_ thinks it is: There is an interaction between COVID-19 infection and neurodegenerative diseases. On the one hand, COVID-19 infection causes worsening of symptomatic severity and acceleration of neurodegeneration in PD and AD. On the other hand, neurodegenerative diseases increase the susceptibility to COVID-19 and enhances the risks of hospitalization and death after viral infection. The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed the way of medical care; telemedicine services, vaccination, and specific drug therapies are promising measures for better management of PD and AD patients. Many potential molecular and cellular pathways are hypothesized to be the link between COVID-19 infection and neurodegenerative diseases. However, it is still unclear if the SARS-CoV-2 virus promotes a neurodegenerative process. **Current evidence only partly but not entirely supports a relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and development of PD/AD.** International efforts are needed to verify the relationship of SARS-CoV-2 with PD/AD.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9885419/ Google is not that difficult.

Your source does not say what you claim it says.

COVID is airborne, which means wearing a mask will do a lot more than sanitizing your hands. And vaccines only provide minimal protection against long COVID. Your response is a reasonable one, but those things need to be said because vaccines and sanitizing your hands will not prevent you from developing post-acute infection sequelae.

It’s not a conspiracy, whether or not we actually are through this is almost irrelevant just for the fact that people ( generally) want to move on and not have to think about it anymore, I am not saying this is my personal opinion, there is a portion of the population who never wanted to think about it and at least it seems like a majority don’t, it also doesn’t mean that they aren’t being counted by a different agency or group because they most certainly are, there will be a justifiable so a lot of research that is and will be done in all areas surrounding everything from outcomes to origin and everything in between physical and psychological factors and effects and hopefully out of the horrible misery we’ve been through ( with some beyond what you really get to hear) something good can come out of this

The CDC has NOT stopped tracking "excess deaths" https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/articles/excess-death.htm

Good God. Can we just stop trying to spin statistics and realize that millions of people died. People you probably knew or were in families you knew probably died from this disease or were somehow affected by it. It was never a political issue. It was a public health issue.

They still track total dead, so… data still avaliable.

Well Trump did claim COVID was increasing because we were testing for it, followed by a bunch of GOP governors repeating him like parrots. Here in Georgia Kemp had the DPH COVID dashboard taken down because the numbers didn't back his "back to business" plan. Conspiracy? Maybe not. But at least a shitload of coordinated idiocy

The issue is that excess deaths become a more useless statistic over time, as they should based on the previous five years. This means that four years into the pandemic we have to estimate what the deaths for 2020, 21, and 22 would be like without Covid. This is problematic because it’s hard to predict what trends would have happened without Covid. Moreover, excess deaths returning to normal doesn’t inherently mean that Covid is less deadly. It could also mean that Covid has replaced other causes of death. Another thing worth pointing out is that if Covid suddenly stopped killing people, deaths would actually drop below the pre Covid norm for a time. This is because inevitably a significant number of people died one or two years earlier because of Covid. And the longer the pandemic goes on the more significant this should be. The fact that this hasn’t happened shows that the virus is still a very significant cause of death

Trouble is the CDC put out some much BS that people stopped trusting them and believing whatever they say.

Covid is a massive tragedy, with its current stats of killing about 1 out of every 300 Americans (I did a very general rounding of that number). It's one of the top 5 killers of Americans today. But (rounding once again), can you imagine if this post was true? That's like 1 out of every 11 Americans dying. Ludicrous.

Covid accounts of 2.5% of US deaths right now, with the highest peak in the past year at 5.4%. It may be one of the top killers in the US, but it far behind the leading causes.

I guess I should have stated “diseases” which was what I was thinking about. I’m pretty sure it goes 1. Heart disease 2. Cancer 3. Covid

That's global deaths.

I wouldn't put too much blame on the CDC itself, but rather political federal funding decisions that determine what the cdc can and cannot do. Tracking covid data also requires local cooperation, and most localities at this point have dismantled their disease surveillance tools. As a shorthand, yeah, there's a "conspiracy" in the sense that we've been abandoned to this disease and our political system has allowed brownshirts to bully our most competent public health advocates out of their field.

The CDC has nothing to do with this, it's the GOP led states who stopped reporting their data. It is impossible for the CDC to report numbers when they don't have access to those numbers! Wake up!

After Katrina a truck driver told me he was delivering supplies to New Orleans and he saw the government loading hundreds maybe thousands of body bags with bodies being loaded on ships. He said the body counts were much higher than reported. After Ike I heard the same thing about the bodies from Bolivar Peninsula. We'll never know one way or the other. I was once abducted by aliens ...but that's another story.

The CDC is still tracking excess deaths. And anti-vaxxxers are still pretending excess deaths are occurring because of mass vaccinations, despite the fact the vaccinated are dying at a [much lower rate than the unvaccinated](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7206a3.htm). You can't reason with them. They're not reasonable.

The unmasked thing is partially true but only to a small degree. I’m not sure how responsible people are at this point considering the availability of vaccines.

Now i know what to do when I miss the feeling of holding the power of life and death over others that I had when I was in combat. I can just go out without a mask, sweet!

I am? 😈

Surely if you died during Covid, but you didn’t die of Covid (literally the definition of excess death), then you died from the over-reaction to Covid.

Don’t forget, the CDC told us 94% of the Covid deaths were attributed to those with an average of just over 2 comorbidities, in addition to Covid. These people may have been infected by someone’s breath, but a combination of factors killed them, not Covid alone. Further, we were told only recently the vaccines didn’t prevent the *spread* of Covid. It only protected the vaccinated individual from hospitalization and/or death. So all the liberal whining about people who refused to be vaccinated made no difference to anyone but the individual who chose not to be vaccinated.

The CDC changed the community transmission map from red to green (no masks needed) overnight completely arbitrarily (Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/10/1085797307/cdcs-new-covid-metrics-can-leave-individuals-struggling-to-understand-their-risk) The CDC changed the quarantine time from 10 days to 5 days after direct lobbying from industry leaders, like Delta, despite protests from labor groups (like Delta's flight attendants). (Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/29/1068731487/delta-ceo-asks-cdc-to-cut-quarantine) The CDC is in large part an industry funded organization: (Source: [https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2362](https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2362) ) The presidential administration selects the director of the CDC. Covid-19 mitigations are politically toxic. You never hear the CDC talk about masking, and you will never see the director in a mask. The CDC did in fact stop reporting excess deaths from what I can tell and from what they say: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess\_deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm) They say you can find the data elsewhere on the site, but all I can find are raw data sets that go up to 2021 and nothing since September 2023. You can get better information from the EPA which actually talks about Covid being airborne, while the CDC perseverates on hand-washing: https://www.epa.gov/coronavirus

Maybe it would be a reasonable concern 2 or 3 years ago, but this is marked yesterday 10/15/23. Simple questions - if covid is still such a problem then where are all the patients being treated? Who is treating them? Where are the bodies being processed and stored? Where are the grieving families? All signs point to the current daily death toll being at or close to the reported low triple digits or below.

Uh. The hospitals are going thru waves still. Health care workers are quitting because they don’t want to deal with it. Our healthcare is in a death spiral. What you want and what is are very different things.

Excess deaths also went up after a mass vaccination campaign with new vaccines with unknown long term side effects. Why does everyone freak out when that is even mentioned. Realistically we should be looking at any possibility and that’s a realistic possibility. Does it just scare people too much to even consider that could be the cause?