FRIDAY, Jan. 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) — The COVID-19 pandemic significantly shortened life expectancy in the United States, especially among Black people and Hispanics, a new study says. With more than 336,000 COVID-19 deaths nationwide last year, researchers decided to examine the pandemic’s impact on life expectancy.
The projection: Due to pandemic deaths, life expectancy at birth for Americans will shrink by 1.13 years, to 77.48 years. That’s the largest single-year decline in at least 40 years, resulting in the lowest estimated life expectancy since 2003, according to the authors.
Their findings revealed significant racial differences that underscore the pandemic’s heavy toll on racial and ethnic minority groups. The study projects a 0.68-year decline in life expectancy for white Americans to 77.84 years, compared to a 2.1-year decline for Black people, to 72.78 years, and a 3.05-year drop among Hispanics to 78.77 years. (WebMD)
(Comment) With all the battles over competing statistics and interpretations of those statistics, someone here mentioned that not until data on life expectancy came out would we get a clear picture of the effects of the pandemic. Well, here it is.
TTG
TTG
Your family had your shots yet? SWMBO and I are on the state waiting list.
SWMBO is on the state waiting list as are both my sons. I was put on the VA list automatically. They will call me when it’s my turn. They got a lot of truly broke down old codgers to get through before they get to me.
This broken down old codger got his first Phiszer shot today. I’m 65, live in SE Florida. There were a few snafus, but they seem to be getting things in line. They had about 30 tents set up in a large park about 5 miles from my house. You go through a bunch of checkpoints, fill out a form (which I already had done online, but whatever.) pull up to your assigned tent, roll up your sleeve and get poked. They make you wait about ten minutes in another area to make sure you don’t have a reaction, then off you go. Go back in about 10 days for number two. Left to my own devices I would have waited a while to get the shot, but the wife is obsessed with Covid-19. Like they say, happy wife happy life.
SWMBO and I got ours at the local library. Easy, no sore arm, no side effects. Get our second one on 2 March. We are both 78. Like Rick M below I would have waited, but the wife has a serious lung condition with COPD so we thought it best to get it together.
I got mine at work (still slaving for the .gov). First shot (Moderna) in the beginning of January, second shot 10 days ago. I’ve never had a reaction to a vaccine until this one (not even from the dreaded Anthrax vax). Not horrible, but I felt like hammered shit for the two days after each shot.
JMG
One-third of US troops passing up COVID shot
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/02/one-third-us-troops-are-refusing-covid-vaccine-history-may-help-explain-why/172124/
Mark Zuckerberg Cautions staff to be wary of Covid Vaccine
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/zuckerberg-warned-facebook-staff-to-exercise-caution-in-taking-covid-vaccine-in-leaked-video
Those vaccines do not alter a person’s RNA or DNA. That’s not how mRNA works. Zuckerberg is an idiot for saying that, a rich and probably smart idiot, but an idiot none the less. He is right that there could be some long term side effects that we won’t learn for quite some time just like the long term effects of the virus itself. We’re still learning of those effects.
Not confirmed this was due to “covid” versus already pre-covid declining life expectancy statistics mainly due to increasing opioid deaths. “Covid deaths” are unfortunately tainted by mislabeling to tell us anything.
Shallow:
“New federal data showed U.S. life expectancy was inching upward in 2019 before the deadly coronavirus pandemic hit, and after years of devastation brought on by the opioid crisis eroded the average American lifespan.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/before-covid-19-u-s-life-expectancy-was-making-a-slight-rebound
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
Mark Twain
Nothing in nature goes up or down in a straight line. 2019 avg life expectancy “inching upward” means nothing. Random variation + demographic changes + all sorts of factors.
TTG,
I was one of those – if not the one – who made the statement about impact to life expectancy. This sloppy high level reporting is NOT what I was talking about. I’m talking about actuarial industry standard breakdowns.
I don’t even know where to start with a critique of this report, which is based on incomplete data, btw.
For one thing, the significant increases in homicides, suicides and drug ODs, in 2020, have a greater impact on avg life expectancy, than does elderly people succumbing to old age + pre-existing conditions with a positive covid test (the tests can’t even be trusted to yield accurate results).
Think about it like this – with a life expectancy of 78.8 years in 2019, which group is going to contribute to bringing that avg down more? A couple hundred thousand 80 years olds, who died, that might have lived to be 81 or 82? Or a 100,000 35 year olds, who died, that would have lived to be 78.8?
Then there are all of the children through seniors that would have lived many more years, but did not for lack of medical care (e.g. screenings, emergency services, pre-natal services, post-natal services, proper diagnosis of serious conditions which is challenging to do via the so called “telemedicine”, fear of seeking medical interventions in a covid environment). How do we see 16% to 22% reductions in hospitalizations for conditions like strokes and heart attacks (we published a report that you can find on line -google it)? How do you not go the hospital after such a medical crisis and live?
Even the CDC with their low grade analysis and bad data admits that 1/3 of “excess deaths” in 2020 are not due to covid infections.
When you’re talking about reduction in life expectancy you don’t get to hide meaningful revelations in a lump sum avg. You have to break out the data into quintiles or, better yet, into deciles based on age group. Other demographic are also helpful if you wat o truly understand what is happening. Was life span lost by infants? By children? Adolescents? Adults? 65 – 75? 76 – 80, et, etc. Where did the contribution to the decline come from?
Are you aware that 2020 was on track to be a lethal year covid or no covid compared to 2019? Comparing Jan and Feb to same months previous year, 2020 was showing a statistically significant increase in mortality due to the common causes. Common causes – and that was pre-Covid.
The 2020 life expectancy figure, such that it is, is the same as what we had in the early 2000s. Were we in a panic then? I don’t seem to recall that.
The typical educated working American has little to fear from covid. Even the typical retired senior citizen is hardly at risk. It is clear that covid attributed deaths are overwhelmingly among poor minorities who have always had a lower life expectancy. Much of that is because they are on Medicaid and the big Democrat cities they live in do a piss poor job of taking care of these people who, in turn, do not take care of themselves (never have). That is now established fact. I have the data and analysis.
If Colonel Lang permits, I have been gathering material for a long overdue post about all of this. Once I get past the busy hump at work (through March), I’d like to share what is true and not true about the situation with data based analysis (a covid SITREP).
Good. In the meantime, here’s a link to the original research article from PNAS which includes a link to the data used in the study:
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/5/e2014746118
I haven’t looked at the data and I doubt I ever will. Perhaps you can glance at it.
Life expectancy was on the increase in the early 2000s. It was on the increase for decades before that. Of course we weren’t in a panic over that. The thing to explain in last year’s drop is why it was the largest drop since the WW II years.
TTG,
I question this, “We also assume that individuals who do not die from COVID-19 experience the mortality conditions observed in 2017” and a couple of other assumption and methods in their calculation of decrease in life expectancy in 2020.
That said, they are saying what I am. Deaths attributed to covid and contributing to life expectancy decline have been mostly among late middle aged to senior, poor minorities. That cohort dies prematurely from a number of conditions that the more affluent and Asians and Caucasians do not. “Hispanic” is a distinction without meaning as used by the study. Cuban? Mexican? South American? Recent immigrant? Multi-generational US citizen? The article was written by people with a barely veiled social justice warrior angle. IMO that is clouding their analysis and conclusions; certainly their wording choices.
The true correlate of elevated risk of covid mortality beyond advanced age + serious comorbidities, is socio-economic status. Since socio-economic status is also correlated with race, it is easy for SJWs to look past the true driver and focus on race as a determinant to further their political cause.
I had been saying for almost a year that I thought covid was a scam because I (and my colleagues) don’t see it in our insurance based data, which is a sample of many millions of people across the country. Recently it was brought to our attention that the reason we don’t see it is because people that buy insurance, whether it be through their employer group, through the ACA or through Medicare Advantage aren’t the ones being most heavily impacted. Employer group insurance and ACA largely because they are 65), but nothing like what the Covidians present as reality. That is because Medicare Advantage tends to attract a healthier and higher socio-economic status consumer. Now I can say that this is a real disease. The conspiracy was limited to creating a national panic, blaming Trump, achieving mail in ballots with which to steal an election and growing government power over the people.
However, it is a disease overwhelmingly killing the very elderly and very infirm, regardless of socio-economic status (basically those in their last year or so of expected life), and the poor 55+.
Why is it killing the frail elderly? These people were barely staying alive. Modern medicine can keep people physically going long past when their bodies would have naturally quit. Anything could have pushed them over the edge. That was exacerbated by the reaction to covid itself, meaning situations like lack of human contact with family, reductions in care and staffing and then over aggressive treatment of those diagnosed with covid. For example, rate of deaths due to Alzheimer’s have increased meaningfully in 2020. Your linked article doesn’t give the quality of life issue any thought. It just assumes longer = better.
Why the poor? That is a very complex topic. Like I said, the poor die due to many conditions that are less lethal to the more affluent. Lower quality of care? Sure. That is true. You get what you pay for. But why are they so poor in the first place in a land with so much opportunity? From what I’ve seen of this cohort when I worked for a not-for-profit that managed Medicaid offerings for the state, among other products, these are people that are highly challenged to get it right. They just don’t take car of themselves. At age 55 they are equivalent, health-wise, to the rest of us at age 75 or more. They can’t follow doctors orders. They can’t follow basic personal hygiene and common sense. They eat junk. They are obese. On and on.
Should we just write these people off? That is a perennial question that goes well beyond covid. Can these people really be helped? At what cost to the rest of us? I don’t think we can start to answer the important questions until we can get past the political subterfuge and look at the real facts. Hyperbolic proclamations and panic creating headlines only make the situation worse.
“Employer group insurance and ACA largely because they are 65)”, – weird typos. Too many words and got randomly truncated?
Employer group insurance and ACA largely because they are 65).
Thanks for looking at that, Eric. You make a lot of good points. I especially like your phrase “people that are highly challenged to get it right.” The question, as you put it, is what do we do about it. Us SJWs, especially those of us influenced by the Jesuits, let the words “do unto others” and “whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren” guide us. But that’s for another time.
TTG,
Yeah. That’s for another time, but, in the meanwhile, where are the clinical studies that explain why poverty/certain minorities are driving mortality rates and other unfavorable covid statistics ? I haven’t seen anything definitive and actionable.
Who is being impacted most severely sometimes sneaks out in articles like the one you linked to. Mostly it is hidden and “We’re all in this together” is the mantra. Again, we aren’t helping anyone if we’re not honest about who is at risk and we haven’t dedicated resources to understanding why they are.
This to me is a classic case of government failure due to cowardice, waste and political opportunism.
“Much of that is because they are on Medicaid and the big Democrat cities they live in do a piss poor job of taking care of these people who, in turn, do not take care of themselves (never have). That is now established fact. I have the data and analysis.”
Looking forward to that ‘evidence’ 🙄
Here’s some open source material that confirms some of what I’m saying – minorities aren’t getting care because 1. the big govt types have scared the away from it 2. the big govt types caused care providers to shut down or cease delivering regular care 3. the big govt types are doing appropriate outreach to people on Medicaid who have chronic conditions and need care they aren’t receiving to stay alive.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a4.htm
Those resulting deaths make up a meaningful % of the excess and they contribute disproportionately to whatever decline in life expectancy might be real.
Here’s another – see especially the Cigna link within the article (though that is private insurance and outreach is performed, people have been made to afraid to receive critical care)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/health/coronavirus-cancer-heart-treatment.html
Poor health outcomes for minorities, especially Blacks
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3540621/
Naturally outcomes will be even worse when covid decreases access to services. Where do these people live? Who do they vote for? Yep, Democrat control. Why aren’t democrats helping the people they claims to represent?
Still eye rolling, Skippy?
Nah, more eye rolling 🙄🙄 — the links don’t support your initial argument. First, “big govt types” believe in single-payer universal healthcare, and the first two links don’t assign blame to a type of healthcare delivery system. Second, the last link addresses bias against people of color in the current system, not “do not take care of themselves (never have).”
Did you miss this in the abstract? Your third link:
“In addition, the subtle role of bias in creating and/or exacerbating health disparities is well documented in the literature.”
Within a state, Medicaid is a single payer system run by the government.
The support I was attempting to provide without revealing proprietary information is to my professional assertion that we do not see a lethal covid pandemic in healthcare insurance data because the people dying from it, however many that may actually be, aren’t insured by employer group coverage, nor the ACA (Obamacare), nor Medicare Advantage (offered via private companies because the feds realized they can’t do it as efficiently). Ergo, this is not a pandemic that threatens us all equally. The data doesn’t support that. As I said, the typical educated working person, or retired person, has little to worry about from covid. It simply isn’t impacting them. As a professional in the field with many years experience studying these matters and with access to large amounts of current detailed data (way more detail than what the CDC has) and tasked with understanding this, with corporate money and a personal reputation on the line as incentive to get it right, that is my position.
The fatalities are clearly, disproportionately, poor minorities and some of the articles even say that – even the one TTG linked to. I am telling you that poor people don’t take care of themselves, typically don’t seek timely treatment, don’t follow doctors orders when they do, etc. These people are where they are in life because they are F-ups. There is ample research out there that you could access that says the same thing.
You want to be an argumentative literalist incapable of drawing even slight inferences and then twist it into some kind of racist thing wherein, what exactly? – hospitals and doctors refuse to treat blacks? Ridiculous.
Meanwhile, Biden´s adminstration has “forbiden” EU´s puppetery to even try to get Russian or Chinese vaccines aluding US´ geopolitical interests
The Russians had offered the EU some 100 million Sputnik V vaccines for the second third od the year, after they had way advanced their own vaccination program.
This happened in the middle of a shortage on previous promised delivering of the multimillion contract with Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, giving place to a public row between EU and AstraZeneca…
That the EMA does not hurry to approve the Russian vaccine, so much as it hurried to aprove the so fewly tested Western produced, added to the “note” by Biden´s adminstration to vassals in Europe, speaks volumes on that the goal IS CLEARLY NOT terminating this pandemic, but rather others we have no idea about…
Nobody answer the question on why the Big Pharma producing these vaccines asked for being exhimed from responsability with respect tpo side effects.
People who suffered these side effects, and even died after the shot, were systematically said those events had nothing to do with the vaccine, finding themselves with no way to prove it
While all this is developing a huge tranfer of money is taking place towards Wall Street, the second one, after the first one that happened during Trump administration, just happening these past days.
The only sectors beneffited by the pandemic so far have been Big Pharma and WS.
One day, all the truth will get out… and I put God as a witness that I will be trying my best to contribute to this outcome…
I doubt Biden is worried about Russian vaccine going to the EU. He’s not even trying that hard to stop EU using Nord Stream 2. Russia has to release all their study and test data in order for the EU to approve it. They should release their data and the EU should approve the vaccine for use as long as everything is in order. The more people vaccinated worldwide, the better.
Well, it has not to be Biden proper, can be Blinken…
Look, TTG, as I am saying to EO below, if the vaccines, who were being considered for use in EU already around staring february, do not arrive here soon, I mean, in a two or three months, we will know for sure our governments are being pressured as they were pressured to accept and recognize “Presidente Encargado de Venezuela” Guaido….
I fear the same play is taking place with Navalny as “Presidente Encargado de Rusia” now…
People, simply, will not understand Navalny is more important than some 46 millions of Spaniard taxpayers…
What does Encargado mean in English?
Who knows, Pat?
That is not even a term used in Spanish to name any existing post at any legislature, as soon as it is a post totally invented, at least for what is respected to International Law, to mean something like “interim president”… while the other we do not like goes out..
But, the thing is that it is not really “interim” either, but what it is, the president in charge, mandated, by Pompeo, or his successor, to be president of Venezuela, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and so on…..
Equivalente in Spanish would be more accurately, sátrapa, as anyone in this post is ruling on behalf of others, not the people…
Former Spanish governors in America during former Spanish Empire could be considered so, thus, we could conclude it is someone designated at finger point to govern on behalf of an empire…
Escarlata
I suppose that is why I did not recognize the word;
Escarlata – I’m not writing in as an apologist for the EU (me!!) but I’m not sure the EU purchase of that Russian vaccine was that slow. The Russian vaccine, according to a recent Lancet, is good. But that report’s only just come out. The Russians started using their vaccine before they’d completed their phase 3 trials. I don’t think the EU could have followed suit.
And I’ve seen no mention of the new US administration pressuring the Europeans to go for US vaccines. Hungary’s using Sputnik V and Germany has been pressing for the use of it. Fact is, the Americans with Operation Warp Speed (we don’t admit that was Trump’s baby any more, by the way.
Inconvenient fact.) really shifted with vaccine development and put real money into it. They have now developed several but Pfizer was an early one. Far from Pfizer being forced on us in Europe, we’re squabbling with each other to get at the stuff.
I think that’s all about right. If I’ve got my facts wrong in any particular there’s Eric Newhill here who’s in that line and can put us right.
Fact is, –
English Outsider, look, man…
I guess you know how all this works out…
Here France24 starting demonizing Hungary…you know how all these frontpages and highlights acted with respect “Putin the oligarch dictator and his magnificient extravagant palace” , “the China virus”, “Navalny Novichoked who then survived”, “The Novichoked Skripali who then dissapeared without leaving trace in the UK” ( military facility, some say….) whatever…
Is Hungary Russia’s Trojan horse in Europe?
Here the same frontpages we are used to with respect Putin, also on Russian and Chinese vaccines…
https://twitter.com/MarkSleboda1/status/1362330944850526208
When there was talk in the EU appreciating the Russian vaccine around first days of february, with all officials assuring that they will use it in case it is apporved by EMA, everything changed after Borrell´s visit…Now, it is Von der Leyen, whose management of the buying of vaccines is what has been deplorable, projecting onto the Russians her own bad performance with Big Pharma, with news, coming out today, on that Pfizer-BioNTech tried to charge 65 dollar per dose…She is now finding some obscure reason why the Russians are so willing to offer their vaccines ( one has to be despicable enough…) when they are offering but to help to whomever allows being so…In fact, even diplomatic personel from Spaish and US embassies in Moscow have got the Sputnik V as they are being offered the shot for free by the Russian FM..
Mark Sleboda reports that you can go on any mall and take it for free there..
https://www.rt.com/russia/516023-sputnik-rollout-politicized-efforts/
It is not possible such change of mind in this respect in just a couple of weeks….
We, citizenry, give a damn about Navalny, and we are not willing to sacrifice ourselves, nor our elders, in the hundreds of thousands, for this individual of questioned ethics of unknown occupation in his forties, nor to lose the opportunity to get these vaccines, which are secure, easy to manage and moreover cheap, and start moving to restart our economy and lives.
For me it is obvious a call from NATO took place, but the people will not understand…you can continue denying the obvious…
Escarlata
Everything involving the forever enemy (Russia) is political. NATO & the British 77th Brigade IO machine will obviously wish to portray Sputnik V as just the latest of evil Dr Putin’s biological weapons. For his part, Putin doubtless could not give a damn if EU leaders wish to sacrifice some of their citizens to win a Pyrrhic propaganda victory.
As that linked tweet implies, the narrative manufacturers are desperate for new Russiaphobic angles and the audience of the credulous buying this crap is ever diminishing.
The thing, Barbara Ann, is that it will be us, the citizenry, who will have to stop this, for what it seems, as just in my usual strolling I fond a video on the channel The Kremlin Stories where they are telling Stoltenberg just stated past day that strategy of NATo has changed, from “partnership” to “containing” Russia and China…Take a look…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG6vyKVhfzQ
In the name of whom he thinks this former underwear model he is talking about?
Not in mine, nor in the name of the European people!
People designated at finger point…the world is full of encargados at the top managing, and thus, nos manejan mal…
Yesterday a formation of three French aircrafts were scorted out of Russian air space by two SU-27…What does he thinks Petit Napoleon he is doing?
Way too many banking people managing the world…Puppets in debt…
Andrei Martyanov has recently suggested that NATO’s futile efforts at “containing” both Russia and China could push those two into a formal defense pact. Game over at that point. In case you are not familiar with his work, I’d highly recommend https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Barbara Ann, I will taka a look at Smoothie´s…
Meanwhile, look at latest editorial at Strategic Culture site, where the reason for this sudden demonization of Russian and Chinese vaccines comes out in full as part of the new NATO strategy of containing both Russia and China by all means, which translates into a new desperate effort by the Biden administration in pursuing their delusional hegemonic dreams in a growing multilateral world, and for that they need the European “partners” to “share” the weight of pressure on Russia and China…as was stated by the Biden administration officials in last MSC and G7 summit just taking place this past friday..
Biden is simply asking for the same Trump was doing, only in a more polite way, that European partners share the burden on militarily and economically hostigating Russia and China, by buying more weapons, recognize “presidentes encargados” and, if needed, refuse the Russian and Chinese vaccines, thus, asking in fact for sacrifying their own population ( as if this wwere a new hot war insitgated by the US…) now a new exigency besides of European taxpayers money, on behalf of advancing US interests, as those od the EU get clearly prejudized..
Biden can think he still enjoys a window of opportunity for this to be done while still many people amongst the population ignores all these geopolitical shenanigans, but increasingly the people will grow aware, these actions will be unveiled sooner and later, you know, leask will comeo ut, and the result will be, el tiro por la culata, unexpected consequences that could well end in European peoples asking for and end of NATO and a reorganization of European security and strategy on grounds of real factual dangers plus pursuing real European interests.
Zero sum will prove not a convenient strategy for the European peoples, as soon as they become hashly awaken in the difficult socioeconomic reality coming out of this pandemic…
Everybody and their dogs understand that combating a pandemic requires, at least for a while, forgetting about geopolitics, as the well being of the whole world population in at play, and joining efforts to put it an end as soon as possible.
So far, the only ones which have adopted such frame with resepct the pandemic have been the Russians, trying to extend availability of their vaccine, and other kind of help since the beginning, to the more countries as possible in the shortest period of time.
Yesterday I was going to post this before going to bed, as it made my day…
https://twitter.com/ciudadfutura/status/1362841531946856453
Imagine a world where all scientific knowledge would be shared in a win-win approach…
Escarlata – I wrote in error above – should have used “approved” instead of “purchased”. And I’m not sure that’s done yet.
A lot of this vaccine stuff that the various official bodies are doing at the moment is difficult. You’re putting out stuff that will affect the health of millions of people and have to be careful. On the other hand if you’re too careful you get it in the neck. I suspect too, but don’t know and it’s only a guess, that the EU lot were to an extent placing their bets on Sanofi and when that didn’t work out were screwed. Could have happened to Trump – say none of the vaccines pushed by his administration had come off. Could certainly have happened in the UK.
So they all take their various gambles and when one doesn’t come off we all, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, reproach those whose gamble didn’t come off.
Main thing is most of the vaccines do seem to have come off and the thing now is to get them into as many peoples arms as possible.
All that sounds a bit Pollyanish and I suppose it is, a bit. But I have been quite impressed how, both in the States and here in England, some people somewhere have been found in the dysfunctional mess that our countries have become who can still actually get a damned good job done!
On your other remarks, I don’t bring my private Brexit griefs to the Colonel’s site (much) but I am happy that we share a deep suspicion of the lads and lasses in Brussels.
I suspect for different reasons. Just to bang another drum, that Barcelona study really does confirm that Vitamin D is the goods And if you look at the EVMS protocol you’ll find they’re keen on one or two other prophylactics too.
The thing with the vaccine-gate is that usual vaccine producer giants, GSK, Sanofi, Merck, refused to spend the long expected ( a decade or so…) and expensive reasearch period, as it comes as not worth economicaly, when most of the known coronavirus wipe out by themselves in the period of one to two years, as the previous SARS and MERS already proved.
What we are assisting here is at another purpose, may be political, by the elites to justify the unavoidable one to two year period without a solution to come out, in the middle of harsh curtailing of citizens´rights, which was the unique idea they could come out with to contain contagion.
To this impression of mine adds the news coming out today on that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is now efficient in an 85% already in its first shot, and it needs no more transportation nor storage at -70ºC…
I do not swallow such sudden enhanced performance just when the Russian vaccine is at EMA for evaluation…One guess they should submit also this sudden improved performance to peer review in The Lancet and then to EMA, as they are doing the Russians, for us to trust, otherwise, what are we witnessing here ?
IMO, there is a lot of playing with people´s lives and health all through this pandemic, enough is enough!
We should all go out in the streets to demand from our governments to immediately find out which is the better and most cost-effective vaccine, organize its production and distribution around the whole world, then, start resolving the outcome of their disastrous performance and consequences, including depurating of responsabilities and, if required, rolling down of heads..
BTW, that the Russian vaccine is one of the best was of public domain, as it was broadcasted through all the media during a week or so, in the middle of the public row with AstraZeneca.
German media have broadcasted already several times that the Russian vaccine in case it is approved, will be added to the vacciantion campaign. the same was expressed by Spanish Foreign Minister…
Immediately, all of a sudden, High Representative of the EU for FA, Borrell, was sent to Moscow to clearly meddle in internal Russian affairs and by passing offend the Russians so that to waste any possibility the Russian vaccines could reach Europe anytime…
Meanwhile, the Biden admnistration, while obbliguing us to refuse other efficient vaccines available which could help in controlling the pandemic and possibly saving at least part of the torurist season, is keeping tariffs on Spanish exports, giving the impression to the average citizen that we have no sovereignity at all, as we must comply with US orders, even when not only counterproductive, but also highly prejudicial for us, while being sanctioned ourselves as prize, witjout emntioning the Sahara gift made by Pompeo to the Moroccans still not undone by Biden or Kamala…
I wonder whether we would find us worse not paying attentikn to Biden´s forbadings on Russian or Chines vaccines…or whatever other interest of ours in whatever other issue..
I never though I would saying this, but, so far, the Biden administration is resulting far worst than the Trump one. He is keeping all the treaties Trump broke, well, broken, keeping tariffs and sanctions on everybody, plus adding even more presure on alleged “partners”, what leaves one to think that the Trump administration was a project to advance US interest that in previously polite diplomatic environment would be difficult to justify….
Trump just was needed to break the rules, to then prepare the arrival of Biden. His role was just making the dirty work…especially that to be done on partners…
Widespread misery and poverty provoked by this willingly elongated pandemic will turn the people into despair, with unpredictable consequences…Unknown unknowns..( que diría el de los cuencos…)
Some sayings which come to mind:
” La avaricia rompe el saco”
“A ver si te va a salir el tiro por la culata”…
Thank you Mr. Newhill. There has been such a need for factual, accurate information for sooooo long. This recent crude announcement about average age of death was an almost predictable response to continuing exposure real data. To crudely repackage just a few of your points: we don’t know which deaths were caused by the virus and so we can’t know what portion of excess deaths were caused by the virus, as opposed to caused by the lockdown itself, or caused by anything else.
Yes. But we also know for sure that a lot of 2020 “excess deaths” were not caused by covid infection. The CDC even says so themselves. These deaths (about 33% of the total “excess”) are among younger people. They drag the avg life expectancy down far more than the actual covid deaths do, because the typical covid fatality was already at or near expected age of death.
So even playing along with the CDC’s rules and definitions, we can safely explain the decline in life expectancy as being caused in part by covid reactionary policies and not infection by the virus itself. 80K drug OD deaths in 2020 is a lot. Lack of access to healthcare in 2020 has killed a lot of younger people too
“Study author … from the University of Southern California. She is a postdoctoral fellow in gerontology at the university.” “The researchers project the gap….”
Wow! Math! from a graduate student; yeah! And here I thought “mind the gap” meant pay attention when getting off the subway/metro in places like NYC, where DeBlasio doubled down on Cuomo style granny killing policies.
Why do you waste our time with the woke dissertation positioning “science”?
It may be woke, or not, but why do you call a PhD a graduate student?
I am mistrustful of any article citing academic research which cannot be bothered to supply a link to the original source. I had to go to Newsmax to get that and have included it below. My only comment on this is re the framing of the results, in fact I did not read past the 5th sentence in the paper under the title “Significance” as all became clear right there:
“Consequently, COVID-19 is expected to reverse over 10 y of progress made in closing the Black−White gap in life expectancy and reduce the previous Latino mortality advantage by over 70%”
So Whites living longer than Blacks is described as a gap – obviously in need of redress through the application of social justice. Latinos living longer than Whites, however, is instead an anomalous “advantage” over the all-powerful White folk. Progress towards equality* is unnecessary. Can’t describe that as a gap, that might imply Hispanic Privilege and we all know that is the solely a burden carried by the wannabe supremacist White Man. No, apparently this phenomenon is known as the “Hispanic paradox” (OK I did read a little further). A paradox because the data does not support a key tenet of SJW belief that all that systemic injustice and oppression ought to be killing off underprivileged Latinos at a ferocious rate.
*I think I am beginning to understand what this word “equality” means. Travel towards it is obligatory – excepting any situation where the White man is disadvantaged. I think this deserves an entry in Walrus’ GAGA dictionary.
How can I be expected to treat what follows after this as a rigorous scientific study?
Eric, I’d like to see you post on this subject.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/5/e2014746118
Barbara Ann,
“The risk of COVID-19 mortality is also heightened by several chronic conditions that are prevalent at older ages, such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease (32⇓–34). Black adults generally have higher rates of these comorbidities, as well as higher death rates from these conditions, than Whites or Latinos, often developing these conditions at much younger ages”
Wow, more comorbidities developed at much younger ages. I wonder how much money it will take the gerentologist to figure just how that happens? None of this is news, and most of it got hashed out on SST months ago.
Maybe starting to smoke pot in high school and/or vaping creates a co-morbidity for respiratory diseases by the time one reaches their 30’s.
Hi Barbara Ann,
I re-read the link this morning, without the distraction of work.
To summarize, I generally agree with the direction of the core of the research and findings; that is to say the figures that are presented. It agrees with what I have been saying all along; which is that Covid is not a threat any greater than a bad flu for white people who purchase insurance (employer group based, ACA or Medicare Advantage). Among that group, it is primarily killing those near their last expected year of life. Thus the 2020 decline in life expectancy is very small.
I have an issue with the term “Latino”. Mexicans? Puerto Ricans? Cubans? South Americans? Recent immigrants? Multi-generational US citizens?
I totally disagree with the study’s social justice warrior systemic racism spin. Poor minorities tend to be covered by Medicaid and Medicaid covers a normal range of benefits. The implication that systemic racism is killing these people is insane, but, sadly par for the course. Does the author really believe that doctors are refusing to treat minorities?
IMO, the author is mistaking race for more important and well known direct correlates to mortality – that is a cluster of health outcome determinants that include poor healthcare compliance, urbanization, low educational achievement and poverty.
Covid deaths have disproportionately been poor minorities in a few heavily urbanized areas. Even among this group, the victims are older, but not quite as old as among whites. As the study notes, these people have always had a shorter life span and we know the conditions that they suffer from at a higher rate that drive the disparate outcome. We know the cultural issues involved in the health issues. That has been studied for years and is “settled science” at this point. There are no surprises in the finding that covid is hitting these people hardest. A chain breaks at the weakest link.
Mathematically, since these people are minorities – there are fewer of them – a couple hundred thousand deaths two or three years prior to expected year of death are going to have a more dramatic impact on life expectancy than a hundred thousand or so deaths among whites that are 6 months to a year prior to expected year of death.
Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see where the author addresses whether or not deaths attributed directly to covid were studied separate from deaths of all causes in 2020. If the study is deaths of all causes, then extrapolating that to mean covid impacts is disingenuous and the loss of life expectancy is of a lesser magnitude. Deaths from all causes would include the increased drug ODs, suicides and homicides as well as deaths caused by healthcare neglect (healthcare service shut down and/or people too scared to seek care when they really need it). Healthcare neglect in 2020 is a real thing and it is not small. All of those deaths would be among a younger set, including some infants, and would obviously skew loss of life expectancy downwards far more dramatically than covid itself. Even the CDC admits that 33% of its calculated 2020 “excess deaths” are not due to covid infection.
At bottom the study contains no surprises for me and, IMO, is a something of an example of left wing shock reporting.
Brief addendum
I read the study again and in the discussion section it is clear that 2020 deaths of all causes are included in the life expectancy calculations. So deaths of despair and deaths due to healthcare neglect are contributing to the results. The study is not just loss of life expectancy due to covid. It includes loss of life expectancy due to reactionary covid policies, which, as I said, would lower life expectancy more than covid infection itself. The author was transparent enough to include a discussion about that and should be given credit.
Again, no surprises in the study. Of course the scurrilous media is blasting the headline as a “Told you so! Covid is a real scourge!”.
Eric
Exactly as I suspected; lives lost due to 2nd and 3rd order effects including the impacts of government-mandated lockdowns. Significance; the government treating bad flu like a high lethality plague has needlessly killed a large number of citizens.
The study I’d really like to see would be one analyzing a correlation of grant funding success to SJW-friendly study subject matter. That would would be valuable research.
Yep.
It’s always nice to be able to create a self-licking ice cream cone.
When I completed my masters degree, many years ago now, I was invited to go on to the PhD program. They enticed me with all of the grant money available. Grants to study all kinds of issues the government wanted studied. My mentor prof was making more money from the grants than his salary as a tenured prof at a research 1 university. I had no idea that such a thing was possible. I was naive about how that world works. I thought science was, you know, actually science for knowledge’s sake. Silly me. I decided skip the scam and go directly to work and make an honest buck in corporate America. At least they’re transparent about being greedy capitalists.
I remember reading life expectancy declining in the U.S. before Covid hit. The following article from Nov. 30, 2019 state our life expectancy had already been declining from 2014 through 2017, the 2018 statics had not yet been calculated. Suicide, drug overdose, alcohol abuse, socioeconomic instability are all given as reasons for the decline life expectancy.
It looks like it takes about two years to statistically figure a countries life expectancy trajectory and its causes. Coming out with last years decline and cause in less than two months sounds like B.S.
Where’s the study on the reduction of people’s short term memories?
Glad to see we’re all still here.
The sources and figures used are in the PNAS study. The methodology is described and the “heavy ciphering” work is included. As you said, the fact that US life expectancy is dropping is not news. The sudden drop of more than a year is news.
Speaking of short term memory, I forgot the link.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-life-expectancy-declined-for-third-year-in-a-row-2019-11
330 million people, incomplete data and data subject to interpretation. Different methodologies. Shifting demographics, etc etc. It’s kind of like global warming. A .6 degree change over 150 years from thermometers here and there around the globe (or whatever – like a 1900s thermometer is anything like one today, etc)? A decline in life expectancy of 1 year?
Anyone who thinks any of these year over year calculations are that precise is drinking double dosed Koolaide.
These are campfire stories using a veneer of “science” and the hocus pocus of “statistics” to get the gullible sucked into the tale.
What would be meaningful to the typical consumer of information is to be given a deep dive into a truly random sample of a few hundred covid victims. That’s why you don’t get anything like that
TTG
We’ve been hearing that suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol use are up this year. What number do they contribute to their statistics, if at all. Are they figured in? I don’t doubt covid effected life expectancy but question attributing the full one percent drop to covid deaths.
It is still too soon to know the real death toll even in the USA, there are delays on most data about deaths, but the signs are all around for people to see and the rush to vacinate everybody by june or july is telling.
I am still curious to see how the USA will handle variants like the South African one, though.
4% over age 75 risk death – “covid” exposure
1% under 75 risk death – with “covid” exposure
The only thing I want to know is how we target those relatively small numbers most at risk, without destroying the lives of the other 96-99%. By now a full year later, we still know nothing?
All we still have is global covid hysteria about even a single rogue droplet and a total blackout about proven covid exposure therapeutics.
Has any prior “pandemic” been so nominally resistant and politically exploited? How long did Fauci in the 1980’s hold on to his prior threat HIV would rip through and devastate the heterosexual community? Why is he still a player today with his highly illegitimate prior track record?
I am sure Cuomo has already provided a complete, accurate list of N.Y. nursing home deaths.
How “good” is any vaccine tested for a disease that already has a 99% recovery rate if left alone, which already expresses a 40-60% asymptomatic incidence, and has been tested only on those under the age of 65?
TTG – in all the whirl of statistics might I pursue my idee fixe and ask Eric if any of his data confirm that Vitamin D is the goods when it comes to reducing death rate among those who have taken it as a prophylactic?
Which I suppose is about as leading a way of putting such a question as could be devised. But I did say it was an idee fixe.
I’m sure a vitamin D deficiency can leave one more susceptible to illness or death. Good health practices including good nutrition are the best prophylactic. I have my doubts about vitamin D being a magic pill.
If Vit D is a magic pill, then Norwegians should be covid proof since they swill cod liver oil every day. Good place to look start looking for Vit D wonder drug answers.
So far the data does not support the hype about Vitamin D “deficiencies”, but it was a testing fad a few years ago and part of any Medicare wellness check. Ka-ching.
Was you a prog, Deap, I’d just say go jump in the lake. But since you’re a responsible and thoughtful Trumpist all I will say is look at the latest research.
Part of the trouble with these cheap prophylactics is that you can’t expect the pharma companies to run expensive clinical trials on drugs that sell for only a few cents a go.
Another problem is that we’re so swamped with ads for quack remedies that we tend to ignore any material about supplements. But hunt around the literature and you’ll see that there has been recent research indicating that those who’ve been taking it do better when they catch Covid than those who haven’t.
On a subject closer to your heart I’ve been looking at error catastrophe. This is when an organism mutates to such an extent that it is no longer viable. Looks illogical but Merck’s been having a go with it –
https://www.apmhealtheurope.com/freestory/0/68983/merck—co-adopts–error-catastrophe–coronavirus-drug
Been reading what you have written about the hold unions have and isn’t there something similar going on there? If you regard them as an organism each little step they take is entirely rational. Demand better pay and conditions. Exert political pressure or if possible capture some politicians entirely. Impossible for them to do anything else.
But looked at in the round each little step takes them inevitably to the final catastrophe and the whole collapses.
Possibly a better way of looking at it than the usual way of regarding it as the parasite consuming its host. It emphasises more the mechanical inevitability of the process. No conspiracy, not even a consensual drive, merely the slow aggregation of unsustainable steps, each step in itself looking entirely sensible to those taking it.
Which can I think be extended to the societies you and I live in. Nothing intentional, just millions of small drives, all explicable, but the sum of them all leading to our present dysfunctionality.
They wane, they fall
The suffering humans
Blindly from one
Hour to the next
Like water from crag
To crag hurled
Yearlong into uncertain abyss.
As Steven Willett’s Hölderlin translation here recently put it.
Hi EO,
I have no insider info on vitamin D.
Like TTG, my personal belief is that you should take it as well as practice other health based activities. Eat right, plenty of exercise, address developing health concerns/issues as early as possible.
Latest from PubMed – the excellent NIH Library of Medicine search engine – Vit D and Covid – remains at this time remains only hypothetical:
MECHANISMS IN ENDOCRINOLOGY: Vitamin D and COVID-19
John P Bilezikian 1 , Daniel Bikle 2 , Martin Hewison 3 , Marise Lazaretti-Castro 4 , Anna Maria Formenti 5 , Aakriti Gupta 6 7 8 , Mahesh V Madhavan 6 7 , Nandini Nair 1 , Varta Babalyan 9 , Nicholas Hutchings 10 , Nicola Napoli 11 12 , Domenico Accili 1 , Neil Binkley 13 , Donald W Landry 14 , Andrea Giustina 5
Affiliations expand
PMID: 32755992 DOI: 10.1530/EJE-20-0665
Abstract
The SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic has generated an explosion of interest both in the mechanisms of infection leading to dissemination and expression of this disease, and in potential risk factors that may have a mechanistic basis for disease propagation or control. Vitamin D has emerged as a factor that may be involved in these two areas.
The focus of this article is to apply our current understanding of vitamin D as a facilitator of immunocompetence both with regard to innate and adaptive immunity and to consider how this may relate to COVID-19 disease.
There are also intriguing potential links to vitamin D as a factor in the cytokine storm that portends some of the most serious consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection, such as the acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Moreover, cardiac and coagulopathic features of COVID-19 disease deserve attention as they may also be related to vitamin D. Finally, we review the current clinical data associating vitamin D with SARS-CoV-2 infection, a putative clinical link that at this time must still be considered hypothetical.
Norway – Covid – Cod Liver Oil (high Vit D): Or is it something else?
https://sciencenorway.no/covid19-vitamin-d/preliminary-data-suggest-that-cod-liver-oil-users-have-lower-risk-of-getting-covid-19/1769121
Deap – thanks. The Barcelona study gets slated here, more or less –
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-preprint-on-calcifediol-vitamin-d-metabolite-treatment-and-covid-19-related-outcomes-data-from-barcelona/
– and (from memory) it failed to measure existing levels in the blood on admission.
The Belgian study also was more indicative than conclusive –
https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-21/Vitamin-D-can-help-fight-COVID-19-Belgian-researchers-say-Vynl5roIXS/index.html
Nevertheless the indications are strong, and most of us are deficient in winter anyway. And as said to Escarlata, the EVMS protocol mentions it specifically.
The savvy get their blood levels tested and go by the subsequent doctor’s advice.
The reason I wrote in about it some time ago was that if B117 and the rest of them spread in the US as they did here in Ireland, England and Portugal the spike in hospital admissions puts the hospitals in danger of being overwhelmed. So this minor addition to the armoury might be useful in such circumstances. But at the rate you’re going in vaccination maybe that’s now less critical.
Thanks again for those links.