Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths

Re:Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths by ggreer on Thursday February 27, 2020 @10:06AM (#22433872)

Let's look at China's flu death stats to get an idea of how honest the government tends to be. From a 2018 article in a CCP-owned newspaper[1]:

> The total number of flu deaths last year was 144, compared with 56 in 2016 and 41 in 2017.

A recent article in The Global Times (a tabloid owned by the CCP's official newspaper) gives similar figures.[2]

So China lies about flu deaths by 2-3 orders of magnitude. Who knows how much they're juking the stats on covid-19 deaths.

1. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201902/22/WS5c6f11daa3106c65...

2. https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1177725.shtml

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Re:Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths by oefrha on Thursday February 27, 2020 @11:22AM (#22434598)

Can’t you see the word “reported” next to the stats? Most flu hospitalizations and deaths aren’t reported.

I encourage you to read U.S. CDC’s explanations on how they estimate flu hospitalizations and deaths. Only a small percentage is ever reported even in the U.S.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/how-cdc-estimates.htm

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Re:Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths by ggreer on Thursday February 27, 2020 @11:46AM (#22434923)

In the same article about 144 reported flu deaths, they cite the comparable Hong Kong flu stats (226 dead) despite Hong Kong having 0.5% of the population of China. Nowhere in that article do they mention differences in methodologies of reported vs estimated.

My point is that if the China CDC is counting covid-19 cases the way they count flu cases, that means the actual numbers are much worse. They underreport the number of flu cases by a factor of 50. eg: They claim 700,000 cases in 2018, which is less than 0.1% of the population. (In developed countries, around 5% of the population gets the flu each year.) Then they juke the stats to claim fewer flu deaths than there actually are (144 deaths instead of 150,000).

I don't think the numbers for covid-19 are off by two orders of magnitude, but my point is that the China CDC loves to publish numbers that amount to outright lies.

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Re:Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths by oefrha on Thursday February 27, 2020 @11:52AM (#22434984)

> Yes, my point is blah blah

Yes, and that’s a ridiculous “point” however you interpret it.

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Re:Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths by ggreer on Thursday February 27, 2020 @11:54AM (#22435005)

Please don't use quote tags if it's not a quote.

Also it's clear by your mockery that you don't want to discuss this in good faith.

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Re:Age, Sex, Existing Conditions of Covid-19 Cases and Deaths by oefrha on Thursday February 27, 2020 @12:04PM (#22435142)

You should really read more materials on international reporting standards before making uninformed claims like “if the China CDC is counting covid-19 cases the way they count flu cases...” These are completely different things and your “contribution” to the discussion unfortunately only adds noise to already widespread misinformation and obscures real concerns.

Edit: And to be absolutely clear, being suspicious of the accuracy of the data is one thing and I have no objection to that; saying the stats are off because “they are counting covid-19 cases the way they count flu cases” only shows you’re uninformed about the topic.

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