"Paper Analyzes Covid Deaths Finding No Increase" Topic

According to new data, the U.S. currently ranks first in total COVID-19 cases, new cases per day and deaths. Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master's degree program at Hopkins, critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled "COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data."

…

Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.

"The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals," Briand said.

Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths.

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.

link

John Hopkins webinar presentation of data analysis:

YouTube link

You might want to look at the current page rather than the web archive link…

link

Editor's Note: 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 noted 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.

We decided on Nov. 26 to retract this article to stop the spread of misinformation,

You might want to comprehend what that means (in light of the fact this was purely an analysis of data).

"If [the COVID-19 death toll] was not misleading at all, what we should have observed is an increased number of heart attacks and increased COVID-19 numbers. But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn't give us a choice but to point to some misclassification," Briand said.

The JHN article was pulled down on Thursday without explanation. The student newspaper on Friday wrote on Twitter that the article was "being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies" about the impact of the pandemic, and that they "regret that this article may have contributed to the spread of misinformation about COVID-19."

Briand's webinar, in which she explained her findings in detail with graphs, is still available on Johns Hopkins University's YouTube channel by the time of this publication.

link

"…to stop the spread of misinformation…"

The current standard excuse to censure information that is contrary to the officially approved narrative.

Those that use the term "misinformation" lack the courage to dispute a conclusion with any contradictory evidence. The language of word salad speakers, intellectual cowards, virtue signalers an big tech.

link

Real science involves making a claim and supporting the claim with data. People that dispute the claim should be able to look at the data and methods – repeat the results and look for alternative conclusions. They could also gather more data that disputes the conclusion.

Ministry of information determines this is unsafe and at any time might change your mind.
It will take 2 to 3 years and it will all be apparent how many deaths above last year there was.

Finished Peter Wilson's The Thirty Years War yesterday, toward the end read Pope Urban VIII excommunicated Florentine health officials who banned religious assemblies to try and stop plague conditions.
The Black Death certainly had a higher mortality rate than Covid-19.

The Black Death certainly had a higher mortality rate than Covid-19.

Yes, they certainly don't make 'em like they used to! Even the 1918 Spanish flu makes Sars Covid-19 look a little pale in comparison.

I am only glad our generation haven't had a REALLY bad virus attack…yet!

280k / 330m = 0.08%. USA only numbers

The death rate for Canada shows no increase either, in fact it shows a decrease.

And another from Statistics Canada that confirms the previous:

My wife received two different kinds of Covid tests as screening prior to a Colonoscopy. Both returned positive results. After a week and a half she exhibited absolutely no symptoms but irritability due to being sequestered in her own house as was everyone else. Retesting is pointless since her results would remain the same for months. Apparently this is so common her procedure was rescheduled. Positive test results with no.. or trivial symptoms are not being removed from any case count statistics. This is science and scientific method? A reason why "science" for many has little credibility and is met with great skepticism…. it's just a business for profit…. like any other. Orson Wells would be proud.

My mother once told me…"son, never bring a cartoon to a dialectic."

Orson Wells would be proud.

And George Orwell would say, "Hey, I told you so!"

I even put a graph I thought Martin could understand…