Coronavirus Outbreak

[MaxPC]

227,419 coronavirus deaths as of today.

Daily new cases climbing:



Daily new cases now also ticking up also. It took around five weeks for there to be an uptick in the daily deaths following the new rise in cases. This was a longer gap than the previous peak, so again that is a sign that the virus is under better control this time around. But still, these death numbers have been in the 700s per day for a long time, and are headed up.



For some reason, the ourworldindata.org excess deaths chart now does not show the stats through the end of September. A week or two ago, it did, and the excess deaths for the end of September were showing below the expected threshold. That was making me wonder whether we would see a trend of the deaths amazingly dropping below expected levels for the winter. But the chart now shows only data through Sept. 6. So it looks like we wait awhile to see whether that really is what is happening.

Mike, I truly appreciate the fact that you post the sources for your graphs. Very professional and very academically ethical.

[nett]

So every time something bad happens and people die, I'll compare the number of fatalities to the number of abortions to see if I should care or not.

To gauge what public reaction should be? Absolutely. It's facetious to think as a nation that we're "caring about the high-risk" to wear masks, while all kind of death goes unnoticed, and even praised.

[nett]

227,419 coronavirus deaths as of today.

Daily new cases climbing:



Daily new cases now also ticking up also. It took around five weeks for there to be an uptick in the daily deaths following the new rise in cases. This was a longer gap than the previous peak, so again that is a sign that the virus is under better control this time around. But still, these death numbers have been in the 700s per day for a long time, and are headed up.



For some reason, the ourworldindata.org excess deaths chart now does not show the stats through the end of September. A week or two ago, it did, and the excess deaths for the end of September were showing below the expected threshold. That was making me wonder whether we would see a trend of the deaths amazingly dropping below expected levels for the winter. But the chart now shows only data through Sept. 6. So it looks like we wait awhile to see whether that really is what is happening.

So Sweden did nothing, and excess deaths compared to last year is not trending negative??

[Dan Z]

So every time something bad happens and people die, I'll compare the number of fatalities to the number of abortions to see if I should care or not.

To gauge what public reaction should be? Absolutely. It's facetious to think as a nation that we're "caring about the high-risk" to wear masks, while all kind of death goes unnoticed, and even praised.

Every time this kind of argument gets used, I always think "why can't I be concerned about both?" COVID deaths and abortion deaths? Prisoner executions and baby executions? Gun violence and womb violence? Black lives and baby lives? Immigrant asylum and infant asylum? War on an enemy and war on the unborn?

[mike]

So Sweden did nothing, and excess deaths compared to last year is not trending negative??

I don't think they quite "did nothing," but yes, based on this chart, they are now seeing below expected death rates. It will probably be a few months before we really know this is happening as a trend though, both there and in the US.

[nett]

So Sweden did nothing, and excess deaths compared to last year is not trending negative??

I don't think they quite "did nothing," but yes, based on this chart, they are now seeing below expected death rates. It will probably be a few months before we really know this is happening as a trend though, both there and in the US.

Ok, they did not mandate the behaviors that we are being told are absolutely necessary to "control" the "pandemic"

What in your opinion did Sweden do differently than the US to achieve these results?

[nett]

So every time something bad happens and people die, I'll compare the number of fatalities to the number of abortions to see if I should care or not.

To gauge what public reaction should be? Absolutely. It's facetious to think as a nation that we're "caring about the high-risk" to wear masks, while all kind of death goes unnoticed, and even praised.

Every time this kind of argument gets used, I always think "why can't I be concerned about both?" COVID deaths and abortion deaths? Prisoner executions and baby executions? Gun violence and womb violence? Black lives and baby lives? Immigrant asylum and infant asylum? War on an enemy and war on the unborn?

How are 200,000 deaths worth this massive upheaval that will invariably affect 100s of millions of lives? If these types of measures are justifiable purely to decrease loss of human life, why shouldn't the government outlaw sugary food? Lifestyle diseases account for significantly more death, and human suffering each year.

[PeterG]

Ask and avoid jumping to a conclusion.

What do you think my point was?

Peter, in following your posts, I saw examples of apagogical usages. In my post I simply pointed out that the reality of USA abortion numbers (more than 61 million babies aborted in the 47 years since Roe v Wade) made your apagogicals appear less of the reductio ad absurdum extreme and were in reality supported logically by actual numbers.

Vis a vis the COVID-19 numbers, the number of abortions each year in the past 47 years (average of 1,311,246+ babies aborted per year) sets a rather stark comparison.

If you were indeed seeking to use apagogical statements, my response applies. If you were being sincere in highlighting the issue of abortions, my statement still applies. At least in my mind's eye.

In that case, your response does not express agreement with my point.

[mike]

So Sweden did nothing, and excess deaths compared to last year is not trending negative??

I don't think they quite "did nothing," but yes, based on this chart, they are now seeing below expected death rates. It will probably be a few months before we really know this is happening as a trend though, both there and in the US.

Ok, they did not mandate the behaviors that we are being told are absolutely necessary to "control" the "pandemic"

What in your opinion did Sweden do differently than the US to achieve these results?

What I understand is that they didn't do the same mandatory lockdowns, but I think they did certain measures. All I can think of is that there may be a higher level of herd immunity now in Sweden because of the virus running more freely through the population.

According to the BBC:

Sweden has largely relied on voluntary social distancing guidelines since the start of the pandemic, including working from home where possible and avoiding public transport.

There's also been a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, restrictions on visiting care homes, and a shift to table-only service in bars and restaurants. The government has repeatedly described the pandemic as "a marathon not a sprint", arguing that its measures are designed to last in the long term.

It remains to be seen whether their response is better than others' in the long term. For now, Sweden ranks #16 in the world for deaths per million from the virus. If what they did is a good decision in the long term, they should drop down the list as time goes on.

[PeterG]

So every time something bad happens and people die, I'll compare the number of fatalities to the number of abortions to see if I should care or not.

To gauge what public reaction should be? Absolutely. It's facetious to think as a nation that we're "caring about the high-risk" to wear masks, while all kind of death goes unnoticed, and even praised.

If your only point is that people's concern about abortion should be greater than their concern about the coronavirus, that's fine. But rhetoric that questions the significance of deaths that are in a smaller category than deaths by abortion is disturbing. It is a shortcoming, and in some cases a grave sin, to value human life inconsistently or disproportionately, but inconsistent or disproportionate concern is better than no concern. It is likely that many more human beings die by miscarriage than die by abortion, but I'm not about to question if an abortion statistic is "supposed to be a significant number" or "something to get riled up about" because the number of miscarriages is smaller than the number of abortions. If the coronavirus pandemic were ten times worse, or if the number of abortions were reduced to 5,000 per year, I would be disappointed if you would consider the number of abortion deaths to be insignificant.