I can't help but wonder whether analyzing the 'covid deaths' thing (or 'covid cases' this) might be an exercise in garbage-in-garbage out. We know the PCR tests are overly sensitive. Did anyone else recall this article from 2007? There are some creepy callouts to we, living in the future. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22…
I can't help but wonder whether analyzing the 'covid deaths' thing (or 'covid cases' this) might be an exercise in garbage-in-garbage out. We know the PCR tests are overly sensitive. Did anyone else recall this article from 2007? There are some creepy callouts to we, living in the future. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html
Yesterday I got curious about vaccine rates and total morbidity and the question "what was the point of all this" that gato asks.
I compared the YoY change in total deaths in each state in the US against % of population fully vaccinated. There's very little relationship. Like, R2 of basically 0 for some age cohorts.
It was either Trial Site News or Children's Health Defense that said the cycle discrepancy is a misreading of the FDA order. All PCR tests are now supposed to be 28 cycles. Who knows if that's clear to testing outlets though. I haven't read the order myself.
I remember how opaque the Pfizer jab approval was - turned out it only approves "comirnaty" (sp?) which is not even available, and not the Pfizer-BioNTech shot that's on shelves. Took a team of lawyers to figure THAT language out.
In any event, the change in PCR cycles could make a difference for year to year "case" comparisons. Isn't the false positive rate like 80% at 40 cycles? Falls to single digit for 28, if my memory serves (but it doesn't always).
I would expect all deaths to tick upwards over the next few years, remember that the Baby Boomers around the world, are the largest generation in human history, and all of them are in retirement now for the most part. It should be expected that death rate starts moving upwards, around the world, as the Baby Boomers pass. The more Machiavellian hypothesis is that governments around the world can't afford the pensions and social spending for this many old people, because they've pissed their money away for decades instead of saving and investing for this moment, and now that they can see the fiscal cliff they're trying to unobtrusively kill grandma and grandpa with this disease so as to not have economic collapse when they can't pay their bills.
yeah, it's an interesting question. I sometimes wonder whether these test results are even centered around some reality, or if they're just chaos machines :-)
I can't help but wonder whether analyzing the 'covid deaths' thing (or 'covid cases' this) might be an exercise in garbage-in-garbage out. We know the PCR tests are overly sensitive. Did anyone else recall this article from 2007? There are some creepy callouts to we, living in the future. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/health/22whoop.html
Yesterday I got curious about vaccine rates and total morbidity and the question "what was the point of all this" that gato asks.
I compared the YoY change in total deaths in each state in the US against % of population fully vaccinated. There's very little relationship. Like, R2 of basically 0 for some age cohorts.
https://imgur.com/a/IjBzD4r
I didn't try to control for seasonality, though. That might be an interesting follow up.
in terms of saying "this is the absolute number of covid deaths," yes, PCR and testing/definitional standards are an issue.
BUT:
so long as those tests and standards are constant, it does not stop meaningful comparison by past season or among seasonally homogeneous regions.
That's a big "if."
But they're not consistent. Cycle count varies from 28 to 40, biased to be more sensitive for unvaccinated.
It was either Trial Site News or Children's Health Defense that said the cycle discrepancy is a misreading of the FDA order. All PCR tests are now supposed to be 28 cycles. Who knows if that's clear to testing outlets though. I haven't read the order myself.
I remember how opaque the Pfizer jab approval was - turned out it only approves "comirnaty" (sp?) which is not even available, and not the Pfizer-BioNTech shot that's on shelves. Took a team of lawyers to figure THAT language out.
In any event, the change in PCR cycles could make a difference for year to year "case" comparisons. Isn't the false positive rate like 80% at 40 cycles? Falls to single digit for 28, if my memory serves (but it doesn't always).
The techniques described in this story were used widely in the U.S. https://thecoloradoherald.com/2021/cdc-pcr-tests-to-be-run-at-higher-cycle-counts-for-unvaxxed-vs-vaxxed-ensuring-positive-tests-for-unvaxxed-and-negative-for-vaxxed-2/
I would expect all deaths to tick upwards over the next few years, remember that the Baby Boomers around the world, are the largest generation in human history, and all of them are in retirement now for the most part. It should be expected that death rate starts moving upwards, around the world, as the Baby Boomers pass. The more Machiavellian hypothesis is that governments around the world can't afford the pensions and social spending for this many old people, because they've pissed their money away for decades instead of saving and investing for this moment, and now that they can see the fiscal cliff they're trying to unobtrusively kill grandma and grandpa with this disease so as to not have economic collapse when they can't pay their bills.
yeah, it's an interesting question. I sometimes wonder whether these test results are even centered around some reality, or if they're just chaos machines :-)