That’s the problem. We have excess deaths in the middle of a pandemic and we have coroners with political agendas. Obviously the chart shows rural areas disproportionately suffering excessive deaths on one hand and on the other has been the narrative that Covid has impacted our rural communities less. It just doesn’t jibe.
but, but, I was told cons wanted a meritocracy where the best and brightest are hired for their qualifications not popularity?
It’s an antiquated system where medical examiners are elected. In some jurisdictions in America county medical examiners used to hold court, have subpoena power and even charge crimes. Obviously we have moved on from those days and most county MEs simply perform the coroners functions even if they are not qualified through the election process we end up with politically driven agendas. The big problem is, if you look at the excess deaths as reported by stat news, apparently we had an excessive amount of pneumonia this past year in the older populations of our rural areas. Well golly gee, that sounds an awful like Covid to most people with a functional brain. However, some factors come into play 1. County coroners in rural areas have been less likely to order a Covid test on pneumonia deaths and 2. People don’t have easy access to healthcare in much of these areas so getting treatment and diagnosis hasn’t prevented many of these deaths. It actually tells a pretty sad story about how rural America has silently suffered and been underserved through the pandemic.
Pneumonia also sounds like one of the symptoms of congestive heart failure...which my mom had. I dont think you understand how common it is for old frail people to die of pneumonia or its symptoms. That is how they go ...frequently.. its why I mentioned the cause of death may be a judgment call.
let's just say I visit rural America and the memorial services spiked at the cemeteries while the reported online covid cases for those counties remained in single digits
Well that’s bold to say all pneumonia is covid. How about a person who tests positive for COVID and then 29 days later kills himself - boom, COVID death. Any one of these sound reasonable?
Again, both of you are not able to address or even comprehend the issue of excessive death. There is no evidence of heart failure increasing overall mortality in America +15%. As to pneumonia being assigned cause of death excessively in rural counties and just pneumonia being a byproduct of various diseases from cancer to HIV to flu to Covid, of those Covid is the only disease that exceeded normal circumstances. As a matter of fact flu was depressed- of which many people who die of flu succumb to pneumonia. Anyway, you two are denialists. There is obviously undereporting of Covid death in rural counties. The extent to which is unclear. I also think it’s obvious rural Americans suffer from their own self imposed political choices and were underserved in the pandemic. Sad situation.
Right. We know there is excessive death in rural America. They suffered an awful year in comparison to urban and mixed areas. Just a lot of denialism, poor political leadership and quite frankly rural communities being underserved in general.
If I had not provided articles about excessive deaths here about a year ago... maybe you would be on to something. We know excess deaths... its simple concept. t... Lets go back through this... 1. You said... "There seems to be an issue with elected coroners underreporting Covid deaths. Notice the excess deaths in rural areas where coroners are more likely to be elected:" How do you know that the reason for the delta in the ratio of Covid deaths to deaths was not the over reporting of deaths to Covid in the urban areas or that people in urban areas were pre disposed to dying of Covid because of environment or govt decisions? 2. Nobody has to claim "There is no evidence of heart failure increasing overall mortality in America +15%." Heart failure was already the number 1 cause of death in 2020. 3. Finally fuck you... calling me a denialist. I am not denying anything factual... I am questioning unfounded assertions. We know Covid killed people... I am just question all these bullshit models... They give no reason to trust their assumptions..Could they be right sure. Could they be wrong sure. To be useful they need to present more data.
The increase in deaths in urban areas due to Covid is plausible because there is no other explanation and there is actual medical evidence such as Covid testing to confirm the excess deaths is from Covid. In the rural areas, where coroners are elected, there is also excessive deaths - as a matter of fact in greater percentages than urban areas - but the excessive deaths are showing up as mostly pneumonia. It is not plausible pneumonia on its own would surge without an outside factor like a bad flu season or ... wait for it... a pandemic of Covid. Now heart failure is a measurable and documented cause of death. We know what to expect. It’s called actuarial science. It’s how insurance companies work, it’s how urban planners manage resources and transportation and it’s how we measure death rates and life expectancy. You are a denialist. I don’t care if you curse like a foul mouth teenager. You’re not adding anything to this other than nonsense and denialism. You still haven’t addressed the excess deaths because you have a block in your brain from being honest with yourself about anything related to Covid. Address the excessive deaths or leave this alone for someone else to share an idea instead of an argument. You ruin all of these threads with your trash arguments and uneducated confusion.