Not Buying COVID As Leading Cause Of Death
Dear Editor,
I just read an interesting article related to COVID-19 deaths in the United States.
“As the mortality rate from COVID-19 continues to climb nationwide, researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University state in a new JAMA editorial that the virus has emerged as the leading cause of death in the U.S. — killing more than 3,000 Americans a day.”
Three thousand deaths a day. I’m not a math wiz but even I can work a calculator. That figures out to 1,095,000 deaths a year. Really? 1.1 million a year? Not buying it.
The article is claiming that COVID-19 is now the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S., more than heart disease. That could only happen if you are reporting the cause of death as COVID-19 just because the person had COVID when they died, regardless of their heath history. In Colorado, two of five people categorized as COVID deaths actually died of gunshot wounds. There are other such cases reported in other states. A study looking at causes of death showed other causes such as heart attack, etc., have dropped while death from COVID has gone up. Hmmmm, isn’t that a coincidence. I wonder if the monetary incentive for each reported COVID death has anything to do with it.
Now that a vaccine is available, the race card is being played. The CDC has published guidelines saying the elderly shouldn’t be next after healthcare workers because too many of them are white. It should go to “essential workers” next because they are more racially balanced. And the CDC isn’t the only one saying this. The New York Times says the same thing, along with other “experts”.
This whole thing reinforces my and other people’s belief that the supposed leaders of our society don’t give a pitcher of warm spit about the average person. They sit in their ivory towers and watch the conflicts they create like they’re some form of gladiatorial games being staged for their amusement.
This is the world you get when your population is sheeple, not people.
Alan Marshall
Schools Dispose Of Excess Million
Dear Editor,
Well, our second disaster in just weeks, the resignation of our outstanding county manager, just after our short-sighted voters allowed the Board of Commissioners to go to the Democrats. I hope all the citizens in Guilford County are ready to cut household expenses to be able to allocate the taxes we are inevitably going to pay.
I don’t think the picture of Guilford County Schools could possibly be presented any more clearly than this week. I have been known to say on numerous occasions, if we gave the schools exactly what they asked for, they would be back the next week for more. They had a million left over and took care of that anomaly faster than a speeding bullet.
Rich Carrera
I love how Alan makes it so obvious he didn’t actually read the editorial, only the story about it. Alan is such a joke. Oh no, is that libel?
In the COVID case, who will determine what defines an “essential worker”? We know that pot and liquor stores were determined to be “essential” so are you telling me these people will get the vaccine ahead of the elderly? How can anyone agree with something so brainless? Oh, I forgot, the lunatics have taken over the government.
I read a letter to the editor earlier this week expressing horror that a surplus of money might go to the teachers of Guilford County. I would like to express my horror that the author was dropped on his head as an infant.
It is interesting that Alan Marshall has the skill to work a calculator but does not exhibit much in the way of reading comprehension.
Error #1 – no one has said that the average daily death rate for all of 2020 has been 3,000 a day. He makes the common error of attempting to extrapolate from a single day the number for 365 days. This is curious because with very little effort he would be able to come up with the correct figures. Per https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days as of Dec 21 2020 5:01PM the number was 318,844 considerably less than the false 1 million number Alan Marshall proposes.
I suspect Alan is doing this purposefully as he knows his methodology is false. He is setting up a straw man that can easily be knocked down. If his view was valid he would not need to do this.
ERROR #2 – Alan claims the Covid death numbers include the deaths in Colorado of two individuals who died of gunshot wounds. This is a false statement. While their deaths were incorrectly initially labeled as Covid deaths, this was subsequently corrected and these two individuals are not included in the national death toll for Covid maintained by the CDC.
Again, I suspect Alan does not care that he is wrong, He does not care that he uses invalid facts to make his case.
Apparently, Alan believes he should be the arbiter of what counts as a COVID death and not medical professionals and Coroners. Since he has not provided a resume of why he is a better person than these professionals I see no reason why he should be the person we rely upon.
ERROR #3 – Alan’s lack of reading comprehension is particularly demonstrated when he cites the recent announcement that Covid has become the leading cause of death. The actual report only stated the FOR THE SEVEN DAY PERIOD ENDING DECEMBER 13 THAT THE AVERAGE DAILY COVID DEATHS OF 2,430 EXCEEDED THE AVERAGE DAILY NUMBER OF DEATHS FROM HEART DISEASE OF 1,700 AND CANCER OF 1,600. Perhaps Alan can entertain us with his calculator skills and prove that 2,430 is a larger number than 1,700. The CDC rport did not say that Covid was going to be the leading cause of death for 2020.
ERROR #4 – The leading cause of death in 2020 will not be Covid, no matter how much Alan attempts to distort the numbers. For the period February 1 2020 to Novemebr 28 the number of deaths from heart disease was 585,840 and cancer was 492,362. Covid deaths for 2020 will not exceed those numbers no matter what Alan does with his calculator. These numbers are from: https://usafacts.org/articles/top-causes-death-united-states-heart-disease-cancer-and-covid-19/ The next highest listed cause of death is stroke which only accounted for 128,644 deaths. With numbers like these it is not difficlut to see that Covid will be the third leading cause of death in 2020.
ERROR #5 – Alan claims there is a monetary incentive for reporting a death as being from Covid vs. other causes of death. He does not offer any proof for this mindless conspiracy theory. He can not offer any proof ecause there is none. This conspiracy theory has been debunked by several sources. This is a link to one source, the American Hospital Association. https://www.aha.org/news/blog/2020-11-02-aha-continues-debunk-false-claims-about-covid-19-deaths-and-payments
ERROR #6 – Alan claims, not surprisingly without citing any proof because the actual numbers say the opposite, that deaths from other causes have declined. He appears to claim that there are fewer deaths due to heart disease as a result of Covid. About 655,000 people a year die from heart disease.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000757
The ten month total for heart disease was 585,340. Annualize that for 12 months and you get more than 700,000 deaths. Once again Alan believes something which is not true. With regard to the reported number of deaths due to heart disease, it appears likely that Covid has resulted in more deaths due to heart disease than what would occur if Covid were not present. This totally guts Alan’s false argument.
Again, it should be no surprise that if Alan can not get the facts straight that any opinion he forms on the basis of distortions and false statements will not be valid.
ERROR #7 – Alan claims vaccine distribution will be made on the basis of race. No such thing is true. It is correct that the CDC has identified that minority communities have been harder hit by Covid.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/racial-ethnic-disparities/index.html
And there are concerns that a) people of minority commuities face barriers to receiving health care which reduce their ability to get the vaccine and b) members of the minority community may refuse to get the vaccine because of a distrust of government vaccine programs.
There is no indication that the guidelines use race in determining who gets the vaccine. The CDC has identified four groups that should recieve prioirty for the vaccine:
Healthcare personnel
Workers in essential and critical industries
People at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness due to underlying medical conditions
People 65 years and older
All four of these groups are receiving priority, with health workers at the top of the list. The CDC has not said that only black health care workers should be vaccinated. The CDC and the ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) does not state that race has anything to do with who gets the vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/slides-12-20/02-COVID-Dooling.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations-process.html
ERROR #8 – Alan’s last two paragraphs appear to place the blame for COVID on our leaders, which would include Donald Trump. At last Alan may have a point I can agree with. However, I still think he is looking to offload blame onto other parties. Alan does not say what measures he has personally taken to slow the spread of the COVID virus. Perhaps expecting some one else to protect us is part of the problem. The failure of the public to listen to infectious disease experts and to take adequate steps to prevent viral transmission has made the nation more vulnerable. Much of this escalation was preventable, as is true for many deaths to come. The prospect of a vaccine offers hope for 2021, but that solution will not come soon enough to avoid catastrophic increases in COVID-19–related hospitalizations and deaths. The need for the entire population to take the disease seriously—notably to wear masks and maintain social distance—could not be more urgent.
Alan Marshall makes no proposals as to what individuals should be doing to slow the spread of the virus. He is so busy trying to minimize the severity of the virus with false facts that he neglects to address the real issue, which is what measures should individuals be taking to minimize the spread of the virus.
This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of his opinion – he offered no solutions.
William, thank you. I don’t know your message will be heard (or even read), but it is good to see that there are others that see through Alan’s convoluted opinions. It’s terrifying that he is an elected official.
Elected what and where?
Dizzy Lizzy, off your meds again? Creepy joe is running the show! No stats? How many Americans have died since joe stole the people’s house? It’s all his fault now! Ha ha ha! Yep, where’s your calculator? I guess you and the libtards will all have to get together to figure out how to turn it on. Hey! I was just thinking you could start a band… Lizzy and the Libtards! And in true libtard fashion you could just give away CDs
Sincerely, your Captain
Alan is on pleasant garden town hall I believe. He has constituents.
MW! You lying POS!!! You said you were going to save your energy and some other B.S. and leave this forum for good! Typical leftist Marxist libtard…. can’t take a breath without lying. Are you a Biden or Harris by chance? Never mind… I can’t believe you anyhow… lying pos!
Sincerely, your Captain
In summary… Alan ain’t bright. LOL! All he cares about is stirring the crap pot. Virtually NO substance behind most of his posts. He just regurgitates whatever he reads in Conspiracy Weekly or other “Upstanding” conspiracy news source. Thanks for your SMART response, Mr Crump!
Willy, where are your solutions? Blah, blah,blah,blah,blah,blah,blah. Thank you for all of this research though. Lizzy just post whatever is on the front page of the N.Y. Times or what I call the pages of propaganda. Hopefully the science will reach the rectums of the boneheads in charge of the indoctrination camps and you “educators” can drag your lazy a$$es back to work and brainwash our kids in person.
Sincerely, your Captain
Alan
Totally agree. Older should get the shots after health workers. Does not matter the color of their skin.