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Re:A university president makes a case against cowardice by maplant on Thursday April 03, 2025 @09:58AM (#43569764)
about 7 million people died of COVID according to the WHO: https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/deaths
Re:A university president makes a case against cowardice by CaptWillard on Thursday April 03, 2025 @10:26AM (#43570185)
AFAIK, that number more accurately reflects the number of people who died within two weeks of testing positive using PCR tests at high Ct values (35-45), inflating case counts.

94-95% involved at least one comorbidity.

Over 75% had at least four comorbidities.

Re:A university president makes a case against cowardice by n4r9 on Thursday April 03, 2025 @10:53AM (#43570648)
From further down the page:

> A COVID-19 death is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting from a clinically compatible illness in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to COVID-19 disease (e.g. trauma). There should be no period of complete recovery between illness and death

It does not include cases like someone dying in a car crash who happened to be COVID-positive.

Re:A university president makes a case against cowardice by CaptWillard on Thursday April 03, 2025 @02:23PM (#43573493)
> It does not include cases like someone dying in a car crash who happened to be COVID-positive.

Maybe not, but it definitely includes millions of elderly or otherwise comorbid subjects who developed pneumonia and never recovered. Sad is it is, that happens year-in and year-out when the initial virus doesn't have a household name.

It also happens with the influenza virus ... except 2020 and 2021, where we had a miraculous reprieve from flu deaths.

Re:A university president makes a case against cowardice by russdill on Thursday April 03, 2025 @04:02PM (#43574671)
Methods used to combat COVID-19 (social distancing, masking, moving indoor events outdoors) really are quite effective at reducing the transmission of respiratory viruses. Big changes can come about from small changes in r.
Re:A university president makes a case against cowardice by n4r9 on Friday April 04, 2025 @06:56AM (#43580460)
> where we had a miraculous reprieve from flu deaths

It's not so miraculous to think that lockdowns, distancing and mask-wearing affected flu prevalence as well as COVID prevalence.