Johns Hopkins published this study last Sunday which posits that Covid is nowhere near the disaster we’re being told it is. I would summarize it for you or offer pull-quotes but you just have to read it yourself. The original article is now deleted from the Johns Hopkins website … why??? Luckily the work is available via the Wayback Machine. Here is the article in its entirety:
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.”
From mid-March to mid-September, U.S. total deaths have reached 1.7 million, of which 200,000, or 12% of total deaths, are COVID-19-related. Instead of looking directly at COVID-19 deaths, Briand 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.
She explained that the significance of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths can be fully understood only through comparison to the number of total deaths in the United States.
After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared.
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.
This comes as a shock to many people. How is it that the data lie so far from our perception?
To answer that question, Briand shifted her focus to the deaths per causes ranging from 2014 to 2020. There is a sudden increase in deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19. This is no surprise because COVID-19 emerged in the U.S. in early 2020, and thus COVID-19-related deaths increased drastically afterward.
Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.
“This is true every year. Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes,” Briand pointed out.
When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.
This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19.
The CDC classified all deaths that are related to COVID-19 simply as COVID-19 deaths. Even patients dying from other underlying diseases but are infected with COVID-19 count as COVID-19 deaths. This is likely the main explanation as to why COVID-19 deaths drastically increased while deaths by all other diseases experienced a significant decrease.
“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Briand addressed the question of whether COVID-19 deaths can be called misleading since the infection might have exacerbated and even led to deaths by other underlying diseases.
“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 replied.
In other words, the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the U.S. is considered problematic only when it increases the total number of deaths or the true death burden by a significant amount in addition to the expected deaths by other causes. Since the crude number of total deaths by all causes before and after COVID-19 has stayed the same, one can hardly say, in Briand’s view, that COVID-19 deaths are concerning.
Briand also mentioned that more research and data are needed to truly decipher the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States.
Throughout the talk, Briand constantly emphasized that although COVID-19 is a serious national and global problem, she also stressed that society should never lose focus of the bigger picture — death in general.
The death of a loved one, from COVID-19 or from other causes, is always tragic, Briand explained. Each life is equally important and we should be reminded that even during a global pandemic we should not forget about the tragic loss of lives from other causes.
According to Briand, the over-exaggeration of the COVID-19 death number may be due to the constant emphasis on COVID-19-related deaths and the habitual overlooking of deaths by other natural causes in society.
During an interview with The News-Letter after the event, Poorna Dharmasena, a master’s candidate in Applied Economics, expressed his opinion about Briand’s concluding remarks.
“At the end of the day, it’s still a deadly virus. And over-exaggeration or not, to a certain degree, is irrelevant,” Dharmasena said.
When asked whether the public should be informed about this exaggeration in death numbers, Dharmasena stated that people have a right to know the truth. However, COVID-19 should still continuously be treated as a deadly disease to safeguard the vulnerable population.
About the Author
Utter nonsensee, see
https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19
Utter nonsense ? Really ? Well which opinion is utter nonsense ? It is quite ordinary for people to disagree, no ? Facts and figures can be interpreted many different ways, and of course figures lie and liars figure. So, which is which ? There is a very sad amount of censorship these days and I tend to not believe the ones doing the censoring. Not only is JHU censoring the original opinion, but if you try to chase it down your computer (well mine does) says you are exposing yourself to credit card theft. Now that’s a heckuva way to cover your tracks. Exit chasing it down ? I mean it is also entirely possible that a faction of the the student body there wishes to protect their own future financial interest. How ? If the country and the world ever started to believe, because of the 1st opinion, that too much research money was going into covid19 research, and those monies were then reduced, that may hurt Johns Hopkins future medical research money, no ? Could THAT ever influence the creation of a second opinion ? And help create fraudulent censorship ? In academia ? In America ? Naaaahhh (sarcasm)
Briand’s article was utterly incorrect nonsense for the extremely clear reasons stated in the link that I posted. If you don’t get that, then you value the factless drama of conspiracy theory over science and facts and are ripe for a departure from reality. But hey, I’m just presenting the facts, it’s up to you what to believe.
It used to be the Military Industrial Complex that was running the show but now we have the Deep State which is much more insidious. It has taken over most of the media and if you challenge it you are subject to all types of cyber bullying. The Deep State protects itself, it manipulates election data, censors any information that is counter to its dogma, creates chaos and confusion and never really improves the lives of US Citizens. It is a machine that delivers generational poverty and always promises that things will get better.
It is sad to say that the best years of the Republic are in the past. This must be how Rome fell. Not in a day but over a few hundred years as the Elite Ruling Class acquired more wealth, promoted family dynasties that were only interested in promoting their own self interest, voted themselves all the benefits and privilege’s while just giving the masses low grade food (grain) and entertainment (gladiator shows) to keep them content so they would not challenge the state. Things move much faster today. We may see the collapse in our lifetime.
While we’re at it, let’s have the guy who does fries at McDonald’s do your brain surgery.
Yes John I understand you are presenting a different opinion that JHU changed their opinion because they discovered “new facts” that better supported their new different opinion that for a few reasons they decided to switch to and support. I just wonder why such an intelligent group of people couldn’t get it right the first time. Did they take a smart pill ? Did they really find better info/stats ? Did they bump heads and just decide to stir up drama ? Did they realize that while in school they are supposed to be practicing to be the next leaders of the marketing for the medical community ? The fact that I am pointing this out does not at all mean I am into factless drama or conspiracy theories. The fact that you disagree with me does not mean you are an idiot. It just means we disagree and are looking at different facts. The fact that figures lie and liars figure makes me wonder which facts from JHU, stated or unstated, are the ones I/we should listen to. Here comes a rather important stat which JHU does not state in either opinion and really makes me wonder what they are really trying to say, or prove with their new facts. Total deaths in the U.S. in 2019 as stated by the CDC were 2,855,000. Total U.S. deaths as stated by the CDC so far in 2020 are 2,512,880. I’m not a Dr. or statistician or epidemiologist but when I see numbers like this I really try to just figure out which numbers are the most important ones, and I wonder if I can see if someone is pushing an agenda. I also try to do it in such a way as to insult no one. I think it’s more fun, promotes more discussion, and helps us all figure out which numbers are the most important for us to listen to. The medical industry is about 16% of our GDP, correct ? They did get a lot more bang for their buck ever since Obama and his more expensive and less affordable care act horribly created higher expenses for all of us. All of their marketing teams have been selling us all kinds of b.s. and creating an opiod crisis beyond all control, and I just have a tendency to question every single word out of the mouth of any medical promoter and I think a lot more people should be doing so. As some famous democrats have said “never waste the opportunity of crisis ?” Like this one ? How much $ is the medical community going to make off of all of this in this one ? With how much fear each dead body puts into us, how much is each dead body worth to the medical community ? And at the same time they paint themselves as heroes. Not to mention at the same time our new political leaders think China is not a problem after creating this world wide problem, and we are going to work more closely with them. For what ? The create covid22 ?