Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
Cite?
But who cares about 'flu, after all only frail old people with one foot in the grave die from it, right?
How do we know a pandemic's over?
- Thread starter Chanakya
- Start date
But who cares about 'flu, after all only frail old people with one foot in the grave die from it, right?
marting
Illuminator
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2003
- Messages
- 4,280
CDC's data shows about 2/3 of flu deaths are over 65. It was similar early in the Covid-19 epidemic. In the last 2 years it has shifted and Covid-19 now has 9/10 deaths over the age of 65.
GraculusTheGreenBird
Muse
You are arguing that the lack of awareness of it not being over is because the media are telling people it is over.
But in order to show that it is not over, you show examples of the media telling people it is not over.
Sounds very much to me as if people are aware that its not over, but as I said before, they just don't care and don't want to think about it any more.
Minimizers gonna minimize
Yes, that corresponds roughly to the San Diego percentages, but why don't you focus on the numbers, the actual numbers, instead of on the proportions within each group? Why do you choose to ignore the actual numbers?
San Diego County - I assume that San Diego's percentages correspond roughly to the national numbers, but I don't know. It will probably depend on the percentages of vaccinated and boosted people. It used to be a red state but it has been blue since 2008, so it may have many old people who are still red and thus less likely to be vaccinated and boosted:
Covid deaths, 0-64-year-olds: 34
Flu deaths, 0-64-year-olds: 14
Covid deaths 65+: 287
Flu deaths 65+: 41
Anything to make influenza appear to be worse than COVID-19 even though it's the other way 'round, right?!
As I wrote about The Atheist's latest stunt:
Yes, that corresponds roughly to the San Diego percentages, but why don't you focus on the numbers, the actual numbers, instead of on the proportions within each group? Why do you choose to ignore the actual numbers?
San Diego County - I assume that San Diego's percentages correspond roughly to the national numbers, but I don't know. It will probably depend on the percentages of vaccinated and boosted people. It used to be a red state but it has been blue since 2008, so it may have many old people who are still red and thus less likely to be vaccinated and boosted:
Covid deaths, 0-64-year-olds: 34
Flu deaths, 0-64-year-olds: 14
Covid deaths 65+: 287
Flu deaths 65+: 41
Anything to make influenza appear to be worse than COVID-19 even though it's the other way 'round, right?!
As I wrote about The Atheist's latest stunt:
Why don't you show us the CDC numbers of flu and C19 deaths in each age group? The Atheist will protest if they are not the 2024 numbers, so as recent numbers as possible, please!
Last edited:
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,406
I've made that very point a couple of times now. Straight past the head.
I'm not sure whether its funny or sad that someone would spend so much time failing to convince people to take ridiculous precautions about a disease nobody thinks about.
Kudos for trying to find an actual contradiction in terms in my posts. I assume that you are referring to this quotation in particular:
Now, I have no idea if this is something that sometimes appears prominently on the RNZ site. I found it because I was deliberately searching for pandemic facts. It's not something I stumble on when I go to the site: RNZ.co.nz Front page. I also don't see it when I go to RNZ Topics.
We used to have several sites in Denmark similar to the one quoted above, but they have all been discontinued. In post 936, I described how difficult it is to find the C19 death toll and number of hospitalizations in Denmark, which may be part of the reason why the media never mentions them, but unlike New Zealand we also don't hear about the number of sick teachers and hospital staff - not even in December when the most recent wave peaked and anguished hospital workers were writing about it on Twitter/X.
There is no doubt that some people "don't want to think about it any more," and as we can see in this thread some people do there utmost to spread disinformation, but as I have mentioned several times, it's not the impression I get when I talk to people in my own country. They actually don't know.
This is obviously only anecdotal evidence, and I wish I could give you evidence in the form of a reliable poll about this, but polls about people's knowledge about and attitude to pandemic issues have also been discontinued.
Two of the sites that used to post pandemic facts before the Danish media joined "the vast army of the benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain and march to the their destiny by catch words"*:
Today's corona numbers - No longer updated (TV2.dk, May 5, 2023)
Staus of coronavirus right now - The graps of this article are no longer updat4ed, so there may be errors or data may be missing (DR.dk, Feb 21, 2022)
*E.M.Forster, in a very different context.
I have no idea if this article ascribes the increased level of sickness to lockdowns, 'immunity debt', the mRNA vaccines, or the impact of COVID-19 on the immune system.
ETA: A better (i.e. not paywalled) link to the article.
Last edited:
Since KP.3 is already taking over from JN.1 and KP.2, they should at least include it as one of viruses targeted by the next updated version of the C19 vaccines.
The previous recommendation only ten days ago: FDA panel supports switch to JN.1 for fall COVID vaccines (CIDRAP, June 5, 2024)
Last edited:
marting
Illuminator
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2003
- Messages
- 4,280
I have repeatedly said that Covid-19 seems less dangerous than a typical flu season for those under 50 but much more dangerous for those over 65. To compare Covid-19 deaths, use a typical flu season. Flu was well below normal this season, and lower than any time in the 7 years since the start of Covid-19.
Let's compare instead to the flu season 2019/2020 just before C19. This was a pretty typical flu season that was cut slightly short by C19 NPIs in March 2020. There were 77 total deaths. And 35 or 36 of the deaths were 0-65 Y/O. See the graph on page 7.
https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/cont...rams/phs/documents/Season Summary_2018-19.pdf
C19 is much worse than the flu for older people. But not for those under 65. Especially not for people under 50. And Covid-19 has been trending downward each year since 2020/2021 decreasing 60% each fiscal year for two years then decreasing 40% in the last year. With bigger decreases in those under 65. And that's with well under 20% up to date on their C19 vax. Good chance it will drop again this next year.
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,406
It is. Also other NZ sites, including the largest national news organisation, Stuff.
One of the major talking heads in NZ is a panicker like yourself and he's been pleading for people to mask up.
They aren't.
If I didn't have a seriously immuno-compromised kid I wouldn't wear a mask or think about the virus for a second. Just like everyone else.
That's funny.
Oh noes! It's becoming an endemic coronavirus infection, just like all the other endemic coronaviruses, and exactly as forecast. Each successive scarily-named variant that the panickers panic about is doing less and less damage.
No matter, there will be another pandemic in the near future and thanks to panic-merchants crying wolf about a disease that is now killing only the already-near-death, the world will ignore precautions.
Yes, let us look at the graph on page 7, i.e. "Figure 10: Influenza Deaths by Age and Season":
1) The flu season 2019-20 is not included! You must be thinking of 2018-19!
2) Of the twelve influenza seasons from 2007 to 2019, eight of them, 2007-14 and 2015-16, have fewer influenza deaths than 2018-19.
3) In seven of those years, 2007-08, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18, there are conspicuously more deaths in the 65+ age group than in the 0-64 age group.
4) Only three of the twelve influenza seasons have more deaths in the 0-64 age group than 2018-19: 2009-10, 2013-14 and 2017-18.
5) The year with the most 0-64-year-olds dying from influenza was 2009-10, with approximately* 52 flu deaths in that age bracket.
6) The year with the most 65+ influenza deaths is 2017-18: 300! That year about 43 0-64-year-olds died from the flu. (I have noticed that minimizers never insist on saying with the flu!)
*You can't see the exact numbers in the graph.
That is a bloody lie! And a very obvious one: C19 is still much worse than the flu for those younger than 65!
And for those younger than 50, it's about the same. C19 8, the flu 7.
And we are talking deaths only. We haven't even started on Long Covid and what it does to all age groups, including 0-64-year-olds.
The C19 death toll would have to decrease considerably more than 60% in order to be lower than this year's number of influenza deaths.
Your optimism about C19 and your pessimism about the flu were very wrong this year, and yet you repeat it for next year with your "Good chance."
Unlike you, I know that hope is not a strategy.
By the way, in spite of what GraculusTheGreenBird and others think, we know that some people choose to stay away from indoor venues due to C19, but they are in no way conspicuous. Neither is their absence, obviously, unless they mention it explicitly. People on this forum have mentioned that they stay away from downtown and don't go to restaurants like they used to, for instance. We also know that this change in people's behavior will make it less likely for them to get infected with not only C19 but also the flu.
Some people will argue the pandemic isn't over in 3...2...1...
Somehow, it just doesn't occur to The Atheist that 'everyone else' may also have very good reasons for wearing face masks, i.e. "to take ridiculous precautions about a disease nobody thinks about," be it in order to protect themselves or their loved ones. Or the unthinkable: People they don't even know and yet don't want to infect! Imagine wanting protect complete strangers from harm! Ridiculous!
No matter how many times people in this thread, The Atheist included, write about wearing face masks, The Atheist insists that nobody thinks about COVID-19, nobody takes precautions, and when it is apparent that they do, those precautions are deemed ridiculous.
The Atheist's obsession with this idea couldn't possibly be more conspicuous and thus ridiculous.
This must be the exact forecast The Atheist is talking about:
Somehow, it just doesn't occur to The Atheist that 'everyone else' may also have very good reasons for wearing face masks, i.e. "to take ridiculous precautions about a disease nobody thinks about," be it in order to protect themselves or their loved ones. Or the unthinkable: People they don't even know and yet don't want to infect! Imagine wanting protect complete strangers from harm! Ridiculous!
No matter how many times people in this thread, The Atheist included, write about wearing face masks, The Atheist insists that nobody thinks about COVID-19, nobody takes precautions, and when it is apparent that they do, those precautions are deemed ridiculous.
The Atheist's obsession with this idea couldn't possibly be more conspicuous and thus ridiculous.
This must be the exact forecast The Atheist is talking about:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths in New Zealand in the last 12 months (Our World in Data)
Since it was not about this stage of the pandemic and was also ill-suited for The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine thread, I have started a new thread in Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology:
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic.
Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic.
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,406
Maybe take a break from the basement and go outside where actual people are carrying on with their lives.
Count up the people wearing face masks in your town/city and let me know what percentage of people are wearing them.
If it's over 1%, I will concede you're right and will retreat from the thread.
Visual evidence - photos or videos - will be good.
Nonsense figures from a site that isn't using the actual number of deaths caused by covid.
You know this, because I've showed you at least a dozen times, so you continue to lie to preserve your idiotic narrative.
Please do continue, it's good for a laugh.
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,406
I've just been looking through Euro 24 pics and I see tens of thousands of people and not one mask in sight.
It's going to be a super-super-spreading event - I suggest panicking immediately.
I should probably downgrade the 1% to 0.1% for fairness.
I zoomed in on this Copenhagen crowd from January and can't see a single mask and there are a hell of a lot of people there: https://www.alamy.com/copenhagen-de...s-rasmussenritzau-scanpix-image592687189.html
Probably 0.01% even.
marting
Illuminator
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2003
- Messages
- 4,280
20 people in this store and every one wearing a mask.
https://www.police1.com/crime/video...calif-jewelry-store-in-smash-and-grab-robbery
https://www.police1.com/crime/video...calif-jewelry-store-in-smash-and-grab-robbery
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
I'm over 65 and don't consider myself to be 'old and frail'. My brother is younger and a lot fitter than me, but he was surprised by how much Covid knocked him back.
OTOH I know an old lady who turned 95 yesterday and is old and frail, yet she survived Covid without even going to hospital. Just lucky I guess. The problem is that a new variant is on the rise that laughs at vaccines and will rip though the country like wildfire if people don't take precautions - which they won't because 'the pandemic's over'.
COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Climb Ahead of Expected Winter Surge
J. N. Omicron the 3rd here. Ignore that frail old poster's fevered ramblings. I'm here to tell you that Covid is nothing to worry about - the Pandemic's over!
The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,406