A student newspaper at Johns Hopkins has retracted an article claiming that COVID-19 has had “relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”
The article, “A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19” (link from the Wayback Machine) was published on November 22 and relied on a presentation by Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins.
From the article:
These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.
Not surprisingly, the article was promoted on social media by COVID-19 skeptics. And yesterday, The News-Letter made the article disappear, tweeting:
As is typical in such cases, that earned the article another round of tweets, this time with cries of censorship.
We learned about the deletion this morning, and contacted the editors, along with Briand, for explanations. First, Briand explained the disappearance by saying that as a student newspaper, The News-Letter
simply rotates the articles it features on a weekly basis so as to showcase as many JHU students articles as possible.
Having cut some of our teeth as student newspaper editors, that didn’t quite wash. The News-Letter’s editors, Rudy Malcom and Katy Wilner, sent us a link to a just-published retraction notice that provides a lot more detail:
After The News-Letter published this article on Nov. 22, it was brought to our attention that our coverage of Genevieve Briand’s presentation “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data” has been used to support dangerous inaccuracies that minimize the impact of the pandemic.
We decided on Nov. 26 to retract this article to stop the spread of misinformation, as we explained on social media. However, it is our responsibility as journalists to provide a historical record. We have chosen to take down the article from our website, but it is available here as a PDF.
In accordance with our standards for transparency, we are sharing with our readers how we came to this decision. The News-Letter is an editorially and financially independent, student-run publication. Our articles and content are not endorsed by the University or the School of Medicine, and our decision to retract this article was made independently.
Briand’s study should not be used exclusively in understanding the impact of COVID-19, but should be taken in context with the countless other data published by Hopkins, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As assistant director for the Master’s in Applied Economics program at Hopkins, Briand is neither a medical professional nor a disease researcher. At her talk, she herself stated that more research and data are needed to understand the effects of COVID-19 in the U.S.
Briand was quoted in the article as saying, “All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers.” This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. According to the CDC, there have been almost 300,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19. Additionally, Briand presented data of total U.S. deaths in comparison to COVID-19-related deaths as a proportion percentage, which trivializes the repercussions of the pandemic. This evidence does not disprove the severity of COVID-19; an increase in excess deaths is not represented in these proportionalities because they are offered as percentages, not raw numbers.
Briand also claimed in her analysis that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may be incorrectly categorized as COVID-19-related deaths. However, COVID-19 disproportionately affects those with preexisting conditions, so those with those underlying conditions are statistically more likely to be severely affected and die from the virus.
Because of these inaccuracies and our failure to provide additional information about the effects of COVID-19, The News-Letter decided to retract this article. It is our duty as a publication to combat the spread of misinformation and to enhance our fact-checking process. We apologize to our readers.
Update, 1200 UTC, 11/28/20: Briand tells us:
The News-Letter is an editorially and financially independent, student-run publication. Their decision to retract the article was their own. Yanni Gu did an excellent at reporting the content of the presentation.
Hat tip: Alice Dreger, publisher and president of East Lansing Info
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Reading the actual article, I’m completely baffled by the response. It has no relevance to the data presented in the article. If the article slices the data in incorrect ways, the response should address that.
This is what Brian did: “COVID-19-related. Instead of looking directly at COVID-19 deaths, Brian focused on total deaths per age group and per cause of death in the U.S. and used this information to shed light on the effects of COVID-19.”
If there is something wrong there, that should have been addressed, instead they address a completely different topic.
Also from the article: “But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn’t give us a choice but to point to some classifications, Brian replied.” That seems reasonable as well.
Do you have any explanation for the difference between Ms Briand’s conclusions and the Our World in Data mortality chart the response links to, which clearly shows excess deaths?
Click on “sources” for the Our World in Data Morality chart. It says the chart data uses projections and is based on some P score calculation. Seems to me, death statistics don’t need projections or calculations…just graph the data.
Right, as far as I can tell the retraction and response make sense here.
Yes. Ms. Briand is using the wrong numbers for 2020.
She is treating provisional 2020 deaths data on par with finalized 200x-2018 data, and not accounting for the 4-6+ week reporting lag. Esp. the numbers she used for Oct/Nov were artificially low.
If you watch the mortality numbers weekly, you’ll see that the last month always shows a dip, and as time goes on, that dip always gets filled in as death certificates arrives.
The CDC is more familiar with their data and reporting cycle. Their “excess deaths” chart accounts for this lag.
It seems some people in this discussion strongly believe the final numbers will only show the usual year-on-year increase. Will any of them take a bet?
So, Dr. Briand’s top-line claim about excess deaths is just wrong. For a simple test, compare weekly deaths to the average of the previous years. Same data source she used. Or just the annual total at say Week 44 for each year. (Or 52/44 of that for a biased projection of the annual total.)
But perhaps her main point was that many of these excess deaths are due more to the response than the disease itself. As another econ site noted, excess deaths from diabetes, Alzheimers, coronary disease, and other afflictions of older folk roughly track those for coronavirus. One interpretation is they might be undercounted coronavirus. Another is that they represent deaths that would normally have been prevented/delayed by foregone medical care.
Yes, because over time, there won’t be many vulnerable people left to die.
And doctors are no longer killing people (like they were doing in NY in February and March) by giving them inappropriate interventions.
The data shows that the vast majority of fatalities have been (and will continue to be) people who already were being kept alive in advanced years and ill health by the medical system.
That is what an honest review of the *worldwide* data from this past year (!!!) now shows you. That is, if you have the education, intelligence, honesty and integrity to acknowledge it. That’s the only way we get out of this situation. Smart people need to step up and tell the truth — this situation is a regular part of living (and dying) in a world we can’t control, ruled by the laws of biological reality.
Old people get sick, and they die.
The death count for kids under 18 is something like 124 … for the whole year. How many kids that should have been in school have burned their houses down? Poisoned themselves? Been beaten (to death?) by family members? Drowned in backyard pools? How many have dropped out of online school, and probably won’t go back? How many are no longer going to college? How many will be redirected from pursuing careers?
So a few hundred thousand 90 year olds barely clinging to life can, through the wonders of modern medicine, live to be 92? That’s the tragedy we’re all in house arrest to try to prevent? Are you kidding me!?!
Nobody would have made, or asked anyone to make, a trade-off like that at any other point in history. Shame on our present day elderly folks (talking to you Pelosi & Biden); they are horrible leaders and citizens. They should be speaking up, but they are self-interested cowards, as it seems their generation has always been.
That’s OK, let them dose themselves with young people’s plasma intravenously, and eat their chocolate frozen treats. They’ve only got a few years left on Earth. Let them enjoy it in peace, I guess.
We’ll still be here, to erect statues to remind us of their greatness; and then we can tear those statues down — because they’re cool with that.
Thank you!
If smart people need to step up, then dumb people need to sit down.
Have a seat.
92 year olds are not exclusively dying of Covid. Postdiction data has shown that on average Covid victims would have lived 10 more years on average.
And you totally forgot something…nobody is saying that kids are going to be negatively affected in terms of their health. Kids are not going to die from Covid. What smart people are saying is that kids, especially older ones, are driving transmission in the community, and, in turn, driving hospitalizations and deaths.
You are painting a very negative picture for kids out of school to meet your bias and your agenda. Kids stay home alone all the time, especially older ones. Given the fact that kids have a hand in driving transmission, and our numbers are and have been through the roof, it makes scientific sense that they stay home – not for their sake but for those at risk.
There are ways to treat depression, lack of food, lack of internet – we as a society should have stepped up to stop these negative effects.
There is NO cure and no way to treat Covid. The world pandemic MUST take precedence, and we must listen to the smart people on this topic.
Smart people know there’s only ONE way to beat a killer virus, and that is to stay the “F” home. Not go to school; Not go to eat at an indoor dining area; Not go to church – it is not God’s will that you go to church and be in the line of transmission for a killer virus that puts an at risk person in their grave.
Well explained. But don’t hold your breath on the cult knowing anything more than Covid-19 is a world wide hoax all to make #45 look bad.
“#45” doesn’t need any help to make himself and his cabal look bad, Covid-19 or not!
Oh, goodbye, #45! Worst president ever.
The original article was written by an economist. The retraction explanation above by a confused student editor. Surely RW owes it to their readers to add clarity and not just spread that confusion.
Excellent response. I also am of the opinion that the article attempts to not shed any light on Brian’s interesting data analysis. Those who have closed minds will not see her ingenious insight.
Professor Briand used a 100% Stacked Chart from excel to represent her deaths by age group data. I have to admit that I am a real beginner at using charts in excel and it took me a very long time to repeat this part of her study. And the data I pulled from the CDC is as of December 2, 2020 rather than October 14, 2020, the as of date of the data Briand used. But there is very little difference in the data for the weeks she is comparing. She says that there is no increase in the death percentages in the 85 + age group. Well, if you don’t understand how the 100% Stacked Data Chart works, you would think that all age groups show the same ups and downs and you might even think there was a decrease. When an upper level changes, so will the lower levels. An increase in the upper level (85+) appears to be pushing down on the lower levels. Anyway there is an increase in the 85+ age group. About 2%. And it shows better with a different chart.
About 14:26 in the Webinar video: Percentage of Total Deaths per Age Category. The discussion is around the lack of an increase in the percentage in the 85+ age category around the weeks of 04-11, 04-18, and 04-25-2020 (weeks 11-13 in the webinar chart). The premise was that there should have been an increase because we were being told that covid-19 was hitting the elderly hard. The findings stated indicated that there had been no increase. I think most people not being familiar with this chart and I am certainly one of them, would have agreed with these findings. They might have even seen a decrease in the percentage because of the push down effect from the increase in the age group above. But this chart does actually show an increase. It is about 2% during this time frame. All of the other age groups appear to be like the 85+ age group when they really are not. The difference between 04/18 and 04/04 is 2,702 which is about 4.4% of an average weekly death count of 61,192 (average number of deaths per week using this data).
The data is the number of people that died per week by each age group.
The increase in percentage does show up better in this type of chart. This chart also shows the other age groups better as well. I feel that the 100% Stacked Chart will mislead anyone that doesn’t understand it. A simple line chart shows the increase clearly. I tried to copy my Line Chart into this comment but could not.
On the 2nd analysis in the presentation (webinar). I can’t call it a study because it wasn’t a study. The table presenting the data that leads to the findings that the Diseases of the Heart Deaths were re-categorized as Covid-19 is comparing apples to oranges.
All of the Selected Causes of death in the data are what are referred to as “Underlying Causes” of death. Defined as: The disease or injury that initiated the train of events leading directly to death, or the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced the fatal injury. So Diseases of the Heart represents the Diseases of the Heart Underlying Cause Death Count; Diabetes Mellitus Underlying Cause of Death etc… For covid-19 there were two counts: Covid-19 Underlying Cause of Death and Covid-19 Multi Cause of death. Covid-19 Multiple Cause of Death will always be greater than or equal to Covid-19 Underlying cause of death because it contains all of deaths that are in Covid-19 Underlying Cause PLUS it contains all of the “Other” Underlying Causes (Diseases of the Heart, Diabetes Mellitus, etc) where Covid-19 was also listed on the death certificate as a contributing Cause of Death (but not the underlying cause of death).
Professor Briand used the Covid-19 Multi Cause of death in her analysis and compared it to the Other Underlying Causes of death. This is comparing apples to oranges. Her table is also comparing decreases only in all other selected underlying causes of death from week to week (including changes in Diseases of the Heart) to a Covid-19 Multi Cause – Diseases of the Heart (which already reflects any decreases in Diseases of the heart for the week). So mathematically to me, this isn’t valid. But I should note that I am not a statistical person. I avoided it as much as possible in college. But I do understand comparing apples to oranges and understand what the data being used contains. I wish that someone with understanding of Statistical Analysis would repeat Genevieve’s Analysis and see what they think. Perhaps someone that doesn’t have an agenda.
in the Debate world what they did to the article is called ….um what is it again… “strawman” argument …..its the same tactic that has been played throughout the whole Drama – Ever since the filming of “Pandemic” over a year before the chaos – they outlined the chaos….
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda.
It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
– Garry Kasparov
—- As Pilate asked Jesus
“what is Truth?”
Then turns and walks away without waiting for the answer …..
Appears to me as if there are a lot of folks out there more interested in protecting their research grants than getting to the truth. Any idiot can see this woman has information that needs to be explored further. Most of America knows COVID was a global political attack and we also know that this entire thing was blown out of proportion to drive in a globalist agenda……and to create trillions of dollars for big Pharma. You do not need to be a PhD to see what is taking place. Americans and people across the world are totally losing faith in the research and medical field.
You don’t say. Could one of the over 164,100,000 of yall quantitate that a bit more precisely?
lol. Anytime anyone says “everyone knows” or “it’s just common sense” get ready for an opinion.
Oh, like “common sense gun control?”
I don’t think you should be speaking for “most Americans”.
People tend to believe that they are “normal” and that every other normal person thinks as they do.
Both of these beliefs are often erroneous.
I’m pleasantly surprised at how civil the discourse is here. Very refreshing.
It is wonderful, the shill farms must not know this site exists.
‘The only normal people are the ones’ you don’t know very well’.
The original article was atrocious and the subsequent retraction was feeble and mostly off-point. Briand claimed that the number of excess deaths due to Covid was much smaller than the number attributed to Covid, i.e. that the Covid deaths were either miscoded or minor accelerations of deaths that were about to occur anyway .The actual CDC stats show that the increase in total mortality has been bigger than the number attributed to Covid, by about a factor of 1.2. Similar results are found in western Europe.
Briand’s argument focussed not on the simple total, which as she said is what matters, but rather on what proportions of the deaths are in each age group. Covid deaths distribute across ages about like other deaths, so they don’t show up much in that distribution, even though they show up very clearly in the total. So her argument is completely wrong.
Unfortunately the retraction wandered around with various weasel words rather than just stating what the error was.
“Covid deaths distribute across ages about like other deaths”
But they really don’t. Covid deaths are very skewed towards the elderly. Unusually so.
So are deaths in general…
Here’s an example from Canada:
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310071001
Yes, exactly
…and there’s a paper that looked at average years lost (or some thing like that that epidemiologists track), and one of my takeaways from that paper was that they calculated that for even the highest risk of death age bin, COVID-19 was equal in probability as a cause of death to any other cause of death for their cohort; meaning it’s just another thing that kills old people.
For every other age bin it was negligible. And they did a hell-of-a-lot of dancing around in the discussion (and abstract and intro) to avoid getting the treatment Dr. Briand got.
Only so many ways you can massage the data to keep people scared at this point. Would be really great if public schools had been teaching science properly for the past 60 years. That would have really helped.
We already have a flu vaccine. Almost nobody gets it. It’s not required for school children. Why? Why didn’t people with HIV have trackers on their phones? Why not put trackers on the Amish, and children from Orange County? Why isn’t the HPV vaccine mandatory? Why are cigarettes still legal?
Well, A Friend, I don’t know which paper you looked at, but this one here says 13.25 years of life lost:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.18.20214783v2.full
Regarding flu vaccination: about 50% of the US population actually takes a flu vaccination. One could always wonder why not more, but do note that we already know flu vaccines have limited effectiveness (some 50% on average) and that influenza can occasionally cause strain, but never overwhelms our healthcare system (the Spanish flu being a notable exception). HIV trackers could be great, but considering the way HIV is transmitted, such a tracker needs to track quite a bit more than just your prolonged presence in the vicinity of someone who has been infected.
Skewed toward >85 yrs and/or those with ≥2.65 significant co-morbidities, including but not limited to:
serious uncontrolled asthma, BMI > 30, moderate to severe hypertension, autoimmune conditions, insulin dependent diabetes, coronary artery disease, renal disease … etc. (NEJM: Identifying Patients with Increased Risk of Severe Covid-19 Complications)
https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.20.0116
Elderly people tend to have co-morbidities…
Brian the data analyst summary is something like this: “National weekly death rate of over 60,000 has not increased despite Covid… compared with the weekly death rate of 60,000 for the previous six years. Thus, we have questions around how Covid death numbers are being derived”. Then John Hopkin’s deleted the analyst’s information.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/11/27/johns-hopkins-study-saying-covid-19-has-relatively-no-effect-on-deaths-in-u-s-deleted-after-publication-n1178930
More pieces to the puzzle: 1) Montana Physician, Dr. Annie Bukacek discusses how Covid-19 death certificate protocol from CDC were rewritten in late March, 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5wn1qs_bBk&=&t=7s
2) May 18/20 Collin County Commissioners discuss new, “questionable” protocol to write up Covid cases: Go to the 34th minute mark or earlier and listen to their discussion:
https://collincountytx.new.swagit.com/videos/62477?fbclid=IwAR1Rw4PHSsahEim-N8R_BkKx0FduJr63lsjX_gECBTeUEKtM1dAiqdYvqE8
3) Study reveals 42% of healthy people have 19 or more living viruses:
“The Blood DNA virome in 8000 humans”: So, the presence of viral
material does not indicate ‘infectious disease’ or sickness.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28328962/
4) John Hopkins’ data analyst states: “Covid-19 has relatively no effect on US death rate.”
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/11/27/johns-hopkins-study-saying-covid-19-has-relatively-no-effect-on-deaths-in-u-s-deleted-after-publication-n1178930
and here is the data discussed in detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKJN61aflI&feature=emb_title
5) PCR tests are completely inaccurate and therefore any lock-downs or mask-wearing based on inaccurate and unreliable data is “unlawful”
https://debataafschecourant.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/pcr-borger.pdf
6) Another interview with Microbiologist/Professor Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi (in the medical field for 50 years).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnpnBYgGARE
7) Doctors unite to protest inaccurate data, inappropriate Covid
measures, and manipulation by C.D.C.
https://newtube.app/user/anthony/XeJ9711
It’s not really worth going through and nit-picking every piece of evidence you mention, since we can just take turns finding doctors who make all sorts of claims.
Instead, let’s focus on the central, underlying, and really only relevant point for this article: the presence (or as you argue, lack thereof) of excess deaths in the United States. The importance of an accurate count is straightforward and (I think) agreed to by both of us: if there is an observable, substantially higher number of excess deaths in the United States this year during the Covid pandemic, it’s strong evidence of the pandemic’s seriousness. If there are no (or relatively few compared to the estimated Covid death toll) excess deaths, it’s strong evidence that the pandemic has not had the significant mortality effects that are often attributed to is.
Moreover, unlike any debate over correctly identifying cause of death, total excess mortality is hard to skew, and isn’t sensitive to concerns like “cause-of-death substitution” (i.e. people who were about to die of something else die slightly prematurely due to Covid.)
Fortunately (or unfortunately), although there is a few-week lag when it comes to complete reporting of mortality, we have many months of data to look at. If we observe no change in total mortality compared to baseline estimates from prior years, it would strongly support your argument. If there was an early period of high excess mortality followed soon after by a dip below expected mortality, it’d be evidence of a “substitution” effect. If the US has observed consistently elevated total deaths during the pandemic, it’s strong evidence that there is a significant increase in mortality caused by Covid.
So what’s the data say? No need to use secondary analyses given the simplicity of the analysis. For those raw data, we can use the CDC’s total mortality aggregation (a measurement they calculate weekly and have released for several years). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
The result? Every week since mid March the US has reported death totals not only higher than the baseline estimate, but in excess of the “upper bound” estimate, with peaks that correspond to the various waves of the pandemic. Clear evidence of persistent excess mortality caused by Covid-19 in the United States.
Thank you, Adam. I am surrounded by people who are either 100% into conspiracy theories and openly admit their “cups are full”, or people who are completely against all conspiracy theories. I just want to find the truth! Your reply was helpful to me – clear, commonsense and logical.
Raw numbers
Thru 2017
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/indicator/SP.DYN.CDRT.IN#:~:text=The%20value%20for%20Death%20rate,was%208.50%20as%20of%202020.
For 2020
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate
Errr…not for 2020 – your link explicitly states the impact of COVID19 is not taken into account.
“A student newspaper at Johns Hopkins has retracted….” Key words “student newspaper.”
The retracted “paper” is an article written by a student, Yanni Gu, in a student newspaper summarizing a webinar presentation conducted by Genevieve Briand, an economist described in the retraction notice for the article as “neither a medical professional nor a disease researcher.” As noted above, Briand praised Gu’s summary of her paper’s content.
The “retraction” consists of moving the article from the student newspaper’s website to a server providing an archived copy of the article. A link to the archived copy is provided within the retraction notice taking the place of the article on the website.
The original data is publicly owned and publicly available U.S. government (CDC) data. The original data, student newspaper summary of the webinar, and the retraction notice are available to anyone with access to the web.
An economist strayed from her field, downloaded some data from the web, found something interesting, and organized her thoughts into a set of slides she presented to the few people who knew of her webinar. A student then summarized the presentation, mostly for her fellow students. As the subject is of general concern, the newspaper article garnered considerable interest. The newspaper decided to retract the paper, not as some act of censorship, but as an acknowledgment that it is a casually written piece not subject to peer or any other type of review with the potential of being confused with scientific papers published by scientists at Johns Hopkins University.
True, a paper was retracted. Untrue, it’s a big deal.
Your observations and clarity are excellent.
“An economist strayed from her field”
Performing statistical analysis to identify the marginal effect of a phenomenon is not straying from the field of economics. It bloody well is economics.
Doesn’t mean her argument was correct; after all, she was making a presentation, not publishing subject to peer review. But this “stay in your lane” nonsense can pound all the sand.
Amazing to hear that an economist analyzing data is “straying from her field”, when that is the definition of what an economist does.
Hard to believe we’ve come to a place where even academic institutions stifle the free exchange of idea’s and information based on political considerations, especially when it comes to interpretation of statistical data, if we cant support the statistical analysis of NUMBERS at a leading university were doomed. Follow the science…..But only the science you agree with.
“It bloody well is economics” and that’s “the definition of what an economist does.” Yeah, and that’s a problem, more with economists than with economics, though.
A few months before he won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, an economist mentioned to me the “that’s what economists do” argument. He was criticising a mild, somewhat oblique statement about economics made by a much, much better known economist. Oddly in accordance with the other economist’s definition of economics, the better known economist was known for straying into a variety of fields and committing statistics, or, um, “performing statistical analysis.” Appropriately enough, he soon analysed himself into a published, well publicised, wildly erroneous conclusion anyone in the relevant field would have easily, and I do mean easily, avoided without statistics.
A professor was confident enough in her mathematical analysis of data to present it to faculty and graduate students. Proper and scientific way to deal with shortcomings in the study is for people to question the speaker during the talk, and/or to review the slides, ask for the data, do your own analysis, and prove her wrong.
It isn’t invoking fallacies like appeal to authority/stay in your lane (she isn’t even an epidemiologist or medical professional — good on her, I bet she’s a better mathematician then.)
This whole affair is destroying science. That’s my prediction, because I already see it happening in real time.
Appeal to authority and consensus are poison pills for science.
“Proper and scientific way to deal with shortcomings in the study is for people to question the speaker during the talk….”
Overall, good points. Science is an ongoing process. It’s difficult. Scientists propose, revise, start over, and sometimes just make mistakes. With enough effort, anyone–epidemiologist, economist, amateur outlasting Covid-19 at home–might get the data and analysis right, but perhaps not on the very first attempt. There is plenty of temptation to judge immediately and overreact. There is even temptation to overreact to seeming overreactions. Hard as it may be, we should resist them.
Cowards. Cowards not putting the truth out there. Cowards being steeped along for money or whatever corrupt cause. You will all be exposed.
I see it’s full moon again.
An interesting – some might say provocative – analysis of the Briand article:
https://wmbriggs.com/post/33680/
Thanks Kendra – I fully agree with you. “Science” can only be defined by the WHO and CDC as paid for by big Pharma and / or their Chinese handlers and implemented by compliant, stooge organizations.
Anyone with a differing opinion or reaching a different conclusion, no matter what justification or evidence is presented, is charged with spreading false information and quickly taken down.
Rich states “Anyone with a differing opinion or reaching a different conclusion, **no matter what justification or evidence is presented**, is charged with spreading false information and quickly taken down”. (**my emphasis**)
There you have it folks, an impartial, neutral, objective, (insert your favorite synonym here) so typical of those who subscribe to conspiracy theories and inhabit their own world of alternative facts.
We’re so doomed.
When someone starts complaining about “conspiracy theories” then they have nothing of substance to offer.
Brian, no, I have no useful analysis to offer in this case, but fortunately for us all, I see that others have provided reasonable arguments based on sound logic and/or data and I’m grateful for their thoughtful contributions. What bothers me is seeing the type of commentary that perpetuates conspiratorial falsehoods (e.g., COVID was a global political attack) that can, in the long run, put the public’s health at risk by, for example, fomenting a distrust in science-based health recommendations as proposed by legitimate bodies, such as WHO, CDC (not that these entities are perfect!) (see also Paul Brookes’ post).
But, please forgive me if I am over-reacting. Perhaps you, Brian, have something of substance to offer in this discussion.
Hyperbole aside, the WHO and CDC are bureaucratic and political bodies with a mission to make “science-based health recommendations.” They are influenced by money and politics like any other institution.
So, when legitimate criticisms arise, writing them off as conspiracies because they don’t align with the conclusions of some institution is a counter argument devoid of substance.
Reply to Stig Laisson: As I wrote in the post to which you have replied, neither the CDC nor WHO are perfect entities; no institution is. Thus, of course, all such bodies can be influenced by money, politics, and a host of other variables. And, sure, I have no problem when legitimate criticism contradicts the recommendations made by these influential institutions. But, your reply to my post suggests that you consider one or more of the criticism/statements that I have responded to as legitimate. If so, you and I have nothing further to discuss.
A crisis doesn’t have to be planned for crisis actors to use it as an opportunity to advance their agendas. Look at 9/11.
Public health officials just had to protect the elderly in care facilities, but they used a lot of money to develop infrastructure for tracking and controlling the 95% of the people who aren’t even at risk.
And while they were busy planning all of that, tens of thousands of elderly people in care facilities got sick and died. And nobody’s going to go to jail. And those apps are never coming off our phones.
Just like 9/11.
I have no idea if the article or video presentation was rubbish or not but the retraction was. They claim the data was distorted due to being converted to percentages. It wasn’t, only one graph showing death % per age group used percentages. They used a classic strawman – the author is not a medical or clinical researcher- she never claimed to be. She claimed to be and is an economist. She simply down loaded the weekly death data from CDC in excel for 2020 and previous years and compared them. Maybe CDC data was wrong if so retraction should say so.
When will TV watchers realise that psychological war being used against civilians to control the narrative that defines their reality is not only a verifiable, undisputed fact, but also utterly commonplace for decades/generations? if not from COVID-19 then never perhaps. .
How often does the mass media need to lie to your faces before you wake up? Reality you observe with your own eyes and the logic you understand with your own mind should dictate your views. Not every opinion you hold has to be peer reviewed, fact checked and verified by ‘official sources’ before you can entertain it as being possibly true. It’s a form of chilling self-censorship that comes from the fear of the twitter mob, the outraged karen or the financial/technological/industrial/corporate system that is truly in control of the modern experience in a ‘developed’ economy.
Will it take a violent uprising for you these types to realise we are not going to let you zombies sleep walk us into absolute technological tyranny from which humanity could never escape?
We will resort to violence only if necessary. I implore anyone who is skeptical to take a walk on the wild side and actually check what so called ‘conspiracy theorists’ (as if conspiracies aren’t the norm in geopolitics and so called ‘elite’ circles) are on about. You’ll be shocked to find that although there’s lots of nonsense there is also far more truth than you’ll get from ‘official sources’.
We will resort to violence only if necessary.
Who are “we”?
The People.
You know, the ones who signed the social contract that grants rulers their permission to rule.
The third leading cause of death in the US is preventable medical mistakes, according to a recent Johns Hopkins study. You don’t need a medical degree to have critical thinking skills.
Consider the following figures- US Total deaths by year per CDC:
2013: 2,596,993
2014: 2,626,418
2015: 2,712,630
2016: 2,744,248
2017: 2,813,503
2018: 2,839,205
2019: 2,855,000
2020: as of 11/14 total deaths= 2,512,880
At present the US is experiencing a 1.12% increase in overall mortality rates for 2020- not good- pandemicky numbers to be sure.
However, last year, 2019, there was also a 1.12% increase. Did we miss a pandemic in 2019?
But wait it’s even “scarier”- 2018 saw a 1.22% increase in mortality rates, 2017 saw a 1.24% increase, 2016 1.27% increase, 2015 1.27% increase, 2014 1.29% increase- all exceeding 2020’s increase in mortality rate- so does this mean we have had pandemics for the last 7 years?
Does this indicate non-stop pandemics every year for the last 7 years and we just weren’t paying attention and didn’t have an ‘honest” media to keep us pinned to our beds in a proper state of fear?
And BTW 2013 all the way back to 2009 all showed .09% increases in mortality rates- don’t know where the cutoff is but certainly even these years were “pandemic like” if you feel this year was truly a pandemic.
It isn’t until we go back to the year 2008 that we see a decrease in overall mortality rates in the US. For 20 straight years there were decreases in mortality rates and then in 2009 this changed- since then we have had an increase in mortality rates. Why is that? Could this point to the 2008 economic recession as being the leading indicator rather than some supernatural viral entity?
In reality this year at present seems to be no different in overall mortality rates compared to last year and less of an increase than 5 of the 6 the preceding years. How is this possible during a “pandemic of biblical proportions?”
It’s always important to look at the rates (populations are increasing and rates vary) and overall trends to get a clear picture.
It’s also been obvious since April that how death certificates are filed have been dramatically altered (first time in history) to give liberal interpretations to “Covid” as being cause of death- and let’s not forget that PCR tests at greater than 35 cycles (as is the case in virtually every lab in the US/Europe) produce massive false positives. This article illustrates indeed that past deaths caused by heart disease are now obviously getting lumped into the catch-all “Covid” category.
Oh and BTW the WHO changed it’s definition of what IS a Pandemic in 2009- might want to look into how and why that was done…
Lastly, 1.5 MILLION people died from tuberculosis last year. Why weren’t you lemmings wearing masks?…
Because Big Brother didn’t use the media to scare you into it?
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, REMEMBER?…
Home of ththe brave indeed…
Screw your PC OCD virtue signaling -give me liberty, or give me death, communistic covidian cultists!
Very good comment. I’ll run these numbers too.
This comment wins the whole comment section. It addresses the right questions.
Where exactly did you take the “2.500.000” total deaths figure from? All other years are reported as such in CDC, but I can’t find 2020 info.
You know what, I’m going to ask a question to which I know I will not get an answer:
What was the definition of a pandemic used by WHO in before 2009, and what is the definition used since 2009, and why does this purported change matter?
You know what, I will ask another question, too: how do you know the 2020 death count is accurate up to November 14? It would be extremely surprising if it were, considering that the CDC warns that it can take many weeks before deaths are reported.
According to the CDC website: “In 2018, the most recent data available, 542 deaths in the United States were attributed to TB. This is an increase from 515 deaths attributed to TB in 2017.”
Well, 542 and 1.5 million are both numbers, so i guess you could say they are similar in that sense…
The third leading cause of death in the US is preventable medical mistakes, according to a recent Johns Hopkins study
By “recent”, do you mean the thoroughly-debunked 2016 report? Pro-tip: Check copy-pasted sentences for time-specific words that need updating.
It is a copy and paste from a disqus comment section. No one can ever find how he/she got the numbers…which sorta makes me sick that I know this? Like, there’s such a thing as too much research.
But here’s this: I’d bet the bank that whatever numbers come in for excess deaths contributed to Covid-19 in 2020…that number will be exactly how many less die next year in 2021. Its called dry tinder and its an ugly word describing pull forward of those who’d have died anyway. The earth takes back what it owns, though…its always sad
Ron – My thoughts are very much in line with yours and I appreciate the additional insights. The one thing I’m having trouble reconciling is the total excess mortality being reported – like 300,000 in the US and similar trends in other countries.
And to your point about mortality increasing, if 1.7 million usually die in the US every year, and the rate is increasing 1% every year, doesn’t that mean only 17,000 extra deaths per year?
Thank you for any additional clarification. I want to be fully informed when discussing this with others.
Are you on Facebook? I’d like to connect with you.
Well done sir. You have done your research. Thank you for taking the time to bring some sanity to the subject.
… my guess would be it’s because as of 2008 (apparently) the Boomers began the one-way journey into their peak death years. I’d be interested in seeing how it looks if you break those numbers out by sex; you might see the female numbers offset by a couple/few years.
The increase is the slope on the curve shown in the plot here:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/
There’s a 1% increase in deaths because Boomers are past their sell by date. Someone should tell the folks who elected Biden.
Can someone at RW please do something about the blatant conspiracy theory BS in the earlier comments? All kinds of crap about big pharma and globalism. It might get clicks, but it seriously damages your reputation as a reliable site for science-based information. This is not “discourse”, it is facilitating dangerous misinformation.
As a scientist I’ve had numerous comments deleted at this site for various reasons over the past decade, but now we have a free-for-all in which offensive user-names such as f*** you, baseless claims about globalism, calling people cowards, and racism against the Chinese, are all apparently OK?
Moderators where are you?
It wasn’t wrong and her analysis is spot on as is the breakdown presented. She just touched a nerve and now both sides are doing damage control. The CDC data is not rooted as they refused to use actual projections. They ae stating that as a novel virus all deaths related must be excess as its not been charted elsewhere. However, its assumption doesn’t change the actual TOTAL bodies put in the ground or cremated. The article does take that number into account and then goes further to demonstrate that there has not been a statistical change. Solid work deserves praise and should be studied further for EC and bias, but still solid.
“They ae stating that as a novel virus all deaths related must be excess as its not been charted elsewhere.”
No, they don’t state that. Please, if you want to defend some scientific analysis, don’t do it by misrepresenting the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cdcresponse/accomplishments/excess-death-data.html
and
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6942e2-H.pdf
Another fact to consider is the federal government pays facilities and states for covid19 cases and deaths. In most states, approximately 50% of all covid19 related deaths occur in nursing homes or similar facilities. It is a fact that a positive test is NOT needed to collect the government cheese, just a “doctor’s suspicion”.
Couple this with the thousands of social media posts from people claiming their loved one’s death was wrongly recorded as being from covid19 and it makes you think maybe the numbers are inflated. A guy fell off of a roof and died in the hospital as a result of the fall, yet his official death was recorded as being from covid19. How can people simply ignore these things?
A pandemic means that a lot of people are dying. Every year, more people die than the previous year. If there was a virus killing a bunch of people, aka a pandemic, the increase in deaths would be statistically significant. Yet in 2020, the increase in deaths is statistically less, though very similar, than in previous years. How can there be a pandemic if there isn’t a real increase in deaths?
The average age of deaths related to covid19 is older than life expectancy. That’s because the federal government pays nursing homes for covid19 deaths… that is an undeniable FACT.
People absolutely hate to acknowledge reality. It is easier to fool people that to convince them they’ve been fooled. Their massive egos won’t allow it.
Remember the 1st videos coming from China that showed people falling out dead in the streets? Even people that believe the covid19 propaganda have to admit that seems a little outlandish now, right? Right?
Oh yeah, it’s also a fact that the PCR tests being used during this ‘pandemic’ are highly unreliable. Just do some actual research.
Remember when the media & governments told us the hospitals were full. (They’re doing it again). This narrative was proven wrong by nurses and citizen journalists. It started with NYC citizens filming the REALITY of Elmhurst hospital (the official narrative was a lie, it was NOT full. No lines, no bodies in refrigerator trailers- can you believe they told us that BS). The videos of Elmhurst and hospitals from NYC to Hawaii sitting virtually empty, after being reported overflowing, are still up on bit chute.
It’s time for people to stop being so apathetic and ignorant. Just acknowledge reality. That’s really all you have to do. Stop believing KNOWN liars and propagandists in the media and government and start acknowledging reality. It’s that simple.
Convid states: “A pandemic means that a lot of people are dying” and “How can there be a pandemic if there isn’t a real increase in deaths?”
I thought a pandemic simply meant that a lot people get the disease countrywide or worldwide, regardless of how many of them die from it.
I’ll stop here and repost a quote that I am very fond of using even if it goes against my nature: “You can spend your life refuting nonsense, but the supply of nonsense will always outstrip your ability to dismiss it”.
I also have an apropos quote to add to your quote. “A man can spend his entire life intentionally misunderstanding the intent of a comments so he can give a gotcha response.” Unfortunately, it’s only a gotcha in his own mind.
COVID was weaponized in the media to win an election. It’s been a 24/7 alarm bell since March, in a period where people have desperately turned to the news in search of decent, trustworthy information. While I’m happy that Trump is out, I’m equally disgusted by the way the media has manipulated us. We should ask more questions about quality data reporting versus canceling/discrediting Briand. Trump may have been right that this was a hoax – deaths slightly higher, equal to a bad flu year. The fact that he’s a compassionless, horrifically awful leader who never should have been elected President is a separate point – although used at every turn to shut down questioning of information. Anything he says is “bad”, the opposite “good”. The fact that questions can’t be raised about receiving quality information during a period of massive, proven misinformation warfare in the media and on social media further fuels this war and enables Big Pharma and other behemoth industries to pay to play. Also, diminishing Briand as “not a doctor” in some attempt at distancing is pretty weak as well as transparent and certainly furthers my suspicion that she might actually be on to something. While shooting the dog who kills the chickens in front of the other dogs may work in the dog world, many humans will continue to ask even more questions…..such as, explain to me again why heart attacks were classified as COVID deaths (especially when there was a financial incentive to make this classification)? Because I’m not a doctor either, but as a member of our democracy, I am entitled to ask questions.
Explain to me again why people still claim there is a financial incentive to label a death a COVID death, when no such financial incentive exists? And explain to me again why people think it is just fine to accuse healthcare professionals and hospitals of committing Medicare fraud, and then are cowardly enough to not take their “evidence” (surely one makes such accusations with evidence in hand, not just some vague suspicions) to the government, which would happily prosecute such Medicare fraud.
A bad flu year gives up to 80,000 deaths – you’d be lucky if you can keep COVID19 deaths down to below 360,000 this year – that’s a factor four higher *with pretty strong mitigating actions in place*.
Did you read the original article talking about total deaths in the US? If you haven’t I recommend that you do.
They aren’t committing Medicare fraud because our great politicians legalized the fraud in the Covid stimulus bill. But that doesn’t the intent is not fraudulent.
When 2-3% of Covid deaths have accidents & poisonings as co-morbities according to the CDC, something fraudulent is going on.
Please can you cite the relevant website of the CDC where I can check this? I have some problems finding it.
Thanks!
Dude…now that one is easy. Its part of the cares act. I’ve actually had to do this more time, in comment sections, than I care to admit. There. Is. Financial. Incentive. To. Code. Improperly.
Not everything is a conspiracy here!
Well, then of course you are now going to cite the part of the CARES act that says to code improperly.
But I won’t hold my breath waiting for that…
Elizabeth, how about the following more benign and parsimonious hypothesis: Covid has been ‘weaponized’ by the media in the same way that our ‘horrifically awful leader’, or of any other topic for that matter, is similarly covered by these corporate entities: To ensure HIGHER AUDIENCE RATINGS and, therefore, MORE REVENUE; plain and simple. If you accept the above proposition, and given how good coverage of our ‘horrifically awful leader’ has been for their business, why would ‘the media’ want the opposition to win? Surely, they are smart enough to know that the new administration will NOT be making news on a regular basis as our current administration has.
Respiratory viruses generally have a spike in mortality for the very young, and very old. That is not really the case for covid. That is the “unusual” I was referring to.
The fact remains that covid deaths are NOT distributed in the usual way, but unusually skewed towards the elderly. In fact, iirc, overall mortality is
j-shaped, also unlike covid.
Beyond what is already mentioned, there are several problems with Briand’s analysis.
She picks 3 weeks to try and indicate there is a correlation between increase in COVID deaths and decrease in deaths from other causes. Numbers seem to match up nicely, but I downloaded the dataset and increased by two weeks on either side and it’s becomes obvious that there is absolutely no correlation.
Additionally when she tries to graphically represent the decline, she doesn’t center the bracket on the 3 weeks, but instead slides it right so it’s between the two COVID peaks, so of course there is a drop in other causes. To me it looks like an obvious attempt to mislead the reader.
If you download the dataset and remove all COVID related deaths, you would expect to see a graphical presentation that looks vastly different from previous years if her claim is correct, but instead you see a presentation that looks just like previous years. I wish I could upload my graphs here.
There are some sites where you can upload pictures, so you could put them there and then give the links here.
I must agree with you. Our leaders have put so much fear into Americans that they will agree to house arrest and crouch in that fear.
You can debate the “input” side of the equation till the end of time. If you look at the “output” side it because very clear that c-19 is a serious, serious health threat. ICU depts really are filling up. Largest hospitals in my state have a wait list in the ER for ICU transfer. And it’s getting worse. We have very little excess capacity left in the system at a time (holiday season) when we need it most. Don’t confuse what _can_ work, in some instances, for a single person with what _must_ work, every time, for all the citizenry. And thanks to all for a well mannered discussion.
Great Cornhole… (huh?)
Anyway..
I get it. You like EMPHASIS on the scary. You like more ICU headlines, more scary stories, more, more, more…
What is it you want people to do? The virus is going to make people sick, some will die and some will need ICU. I do my job, the HCWs can do theirs. Beyond that, your fear mongering does absolutely nothing but increase anger, resentment and divide. Stop it.
This is a total BULL SHIT retraction! There are many sources showing the exact same thing. The death rate has remained the same except heart attacks, strokes etc. are down & covid is up. In short there is no increase in the death rate. Everyone know if you die in a hospital in most cases no autopsy is required. That means hospitals are calling other deaths covid & getting paid by the government for covid. This study had been known & posted for a while. As soon as the high ups in the deep state saw this they threatened the hospital & forced a retraction.
The facts are already out & the people know the communist media blew the death toll up (10) times bigger than it is. The rebellion is coming soon America. I am not threatening I am stating a fact.
COVID was weaponized in the media to win an election.
So non-US countries are burying their citizens just to provide propaganda for one side in a US electrion?
Well! It turns out that Fred Mateski was correct. The rebellion is here and it is no joke. I am sorry that I did not take your threat seriously, Fred.
I read in another blog that a number of banana republics are getting together to sue the United States for copyright infringement. I am not a lawyer, but I bet they will win.