Board 8 > "Really think we'll hit 200k Corona deaths? Only 19k in 4 months!"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Note: this is an update to CwebbMichSac's poll from March where COVID narrowly defeated 9/11 to be considered the biggest news story of our lifetimes. Let's see if we've changed our minds.

At the end of March, LightningStrikes argued that the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (total death toll: 227,898) was a bigger deal internationally than 9/11. Mac Arrowny expressed disbelief that the impact of the coronavirus outbreak would ever reach that extent:

Do you really think we'll get to 200,000 Corona deaths? We're currently at only 19,000, including 3000 in China, after four months.

UPDATE - Only one month later, we've officially surpassed the tsunami's death total.

239,000 confirmed deaths
3,399,000 confirmed infections

(To be fair to Mac, it now appears the numbers coming out of China were extremely questionable.)

Latest country by county breakdown:


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At the time I said this would end up being seen as bigger than 9/11 and I stand by that statement.

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really interesting. tag.

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"now appears"

it always appeared questionable. the only question was how many 0s at the end are missing.

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I was going to make some sarcastic joke about China's numbers being very trustworthy but I think it's better to just be direct and say lol China, no one's buying what you're selling here.

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i mean nobody is now.
back in january plenty of people did, including the majority of the board. at best you had people saying they were lying by a little, a small multiplier, that 10x+ was way too out there. this would be roughly the time when they said they had 400-600~ deaths and there were reports and estimates citing them into low 5 digits.

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This isnt a simple numbers game. Both 9/11 and COVID dwarf the tsunami by orders of magnitude. It doesnt even belong in this discussion.

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so what is the educated estimate of what the China death toll is off by? 10x? 50x? 100x?

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69x

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number estimated at the end of march was 15-40x.
don't think there's been any updates since then that helps narrow it down.

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Wanglicious posted...

i mean nobody is now.
back in january plenty of people did, including the majority of the board. at best you had people saying they were lying by a little, a small multiplier, that 10x+ was way too out there. this would be roughly the time when they said they had 400-600~ deaths and there were reports and estimates citing them into low 5 digits.

yeeeeeah I dunno about that. Go look at Reddits coronavirus sub. Theyre still trying to argue that Chinas numbers are feasible and that Americas response has been the worst in the world


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Wanglicious posted...

i mean nobody is now.
back in january plenty of people did, including the majority of the board. at best you had people saying they were lying by a little, a small multiplier, that 10x+ was way too out there. this would be roughly the time when they said they had 400-600~ deaths and there were reports and estimates citing them into low 5 digits.

You were trying to say they had millions of millions of death and that the thing had a death rate of like 10% or whatever.

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red13n posted...

You were trying to say they had millions of millions of death and that the thing had a death rate of like 10% or whatever.

the fuck
i said no such thing, what are you talking about? i said literally the contents of that post.


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Worst responses are in some order:

USA - most cases, seemingly large desire to open stuff and just power through all this, Trump
Brazil - Also has a Trump, has almost no testing, massive poverty
Sweden - straight up ignoring it and trying to get herd immunity asap
China - maybe its good, more likely its very bad and they covered it all up
India - so many people, so much poverty

Spain/Italy/UK also all deserve mention

Russia is a big who knows too

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nick no offense but please learn to read a spreadsheet

america has among the lowest death rate for an infected person. canada is slightly higher. they're both at around 6%, despite the high number of total infections -- which is caused by a large population... not a lack of appropriate response.

the european countries listed are mostly death rates from 12-15%

the number of infected people per 1m population is pretty much in the same range no matter where you live, at least if we look at the countries which seem to be reporting reliable numbers. this means it doesn't matter where you live, your chance of getting infected is about the same. but your chance of dying outside of the US or Canda is twice as high in most cases!

if you are infected with corona virus, america is one of the places you WANT to be if you want to have the best odds of survival. don't take my word for it. look at the spreadsheet yourself. see the two columns on the right? those are the important ones.

saying america has among the worst responses is just... completely misguided.


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china literally quarantined some 50 mil when they claimed they had some "100 deaths." pretty sure they'd fit for worst response, especially with all the on the ground reporting we saw at the time.

India's lying to a degree that's probably similar to China (see: Malaria in 2013), though for different reasons. actual numbers aren't going to ever be known on this one either, they've something like 180 mil that are untouchables/lowest caste and those people aren't going to get medical anything, have no clean water, are cramped, and of course none have indoor plumbing so they all shit outside, which becomes a problem when fecal matter is also a known method of transmission... especially since the virus can travel through air and last a while. so we won't know the real numbers because they won't know the real numbers, just that it's heavily undereported.

US definitely knows how to look like the worst but it's also by far the most transparent. hard to know where we fall exactly but a better response than Spain and Italy.

list also needs Russia as a mention just because you already know they're gonna die in droves. it's not a global catastrophe if Russia ain't striving to lead the body count.

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Wanglicious posted...

hard to know where we fall exactly

it's not that hard if you can read a spreadsheet. which, to be fair, most people cannot do.


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Ngamer64 posted...

(To be fair to Mac, it now appears the numbers coming out of China were extremely questionable.)

tbf the numbers everywhere are extremely questionable considering the nature of the virus, availability of testing, and how everyone is undercounting death totals to a significant degree because of a lack of resources

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Why is the tsunami on this list? (Says the American.)

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MariaTaylor posted...

it's not that hard if you can read a spreadsheet. which, to be fair, most people cannot do.

i mean i agree and would go further since it'll largely depend on what state in the US. Washington managed to handle their shit really well after a scary start: nursing homes. Cali's done well. a lot of states in the middle are doing well. the US manages to have some of the best reaction and some that's more debatable.

it's the optics more than anything else that drives that idea, i think.

you see the president arguing and getting called out by governors, the DPA being argued on its usage, hell, the testing we didn't get at the start. that last one, in hindsight? a good move because it would've been completely worthless. our system of 51 governments doesn't help clear anything up either since they may think it's one strong gov't when really it's just each state doing their shit on their own with big money backup on top, we're not nearly as centralized as other countries are. i'm not sure what the Canadian equivalent to that would be - what if every major region was a unique Quebec is the closest thing i can think of.

"the handling in the US" doesn't tend to ever mean, say, the handling of Wyoming, California, Oklahoma, Vermont, etc - what's really meant is NY, Michigan, and Florida. which is weird since normally you would include Cali or Texas here but not right now. we've also got by far the most reality TV setup with 24/7 news cycles, like the mayor of Las Vegas clip. perfect television right there, makes people think an area is going to be at major risk... until you realize she doesn't even control the parts that matter and has no authority over the state. but she is batshit insane and it's great TV.

basically boils down to "looks really bad at times but not at all that bad."

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I mean I am looking at many angles for response too

$1200 one time is not a great dealing with massive job losses etc.

Canada for example is $2000 a month among other things. We aren't bailing out tax haven companies either.

Canada fucked up hard at the start too like every country. Quebec is fucking up hard right now and about to open schools.

Also Trump just says a lot of stupid stuff and the media slaps it everywhere.

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Whiskey_Nick posted...

We aren't bailing out tax haven companies either.

the government went back on this btw

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oh ffs did they?

ugggghhhhh they don't pay us taxes, why would we bail them out

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so... the economic side of things is a bit weird.
one time $1200 is nothing, true.

but that doesn't include the $600/week the federal government is giving in additional payment to unemployment. meaning that, should you go on it, you're getting $2400/month in addition to your state's unemployment, which is an additional 300-600 weekly.

not a perfect system since not everyone can go on it and states are backed up weeks on it. but still worth mentioning as a very often forgotten piece.

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Whiskey_Nick posted...

I mean I am looking at many angles for response too

it's okay, you can just admit you didn't look at the relevant data. there's nothing shameful about learning new information.

Whiskey_Nick posted...

$1200 one time is not a great dealing with massive job losses etc.

Canada for example is $2000 a month among other things. We aren't bailing out tax haven companies either.

I have nothing to say about this. there's currently no way of knowing what level of unemployment will arise in the long term, how this will affect the economy of any given country, how effective it will be to give people thousands of dollars to combat these theoretical problems which haven't really arisen yet. this is something we're going to see hard data on, like, a year from now. it is not something that should give you such a high level of certainty that you're calling one of the countries with the BEST possible infection to death rate as one of the worst responders.

Whiskey_Nick posted...

Also Trump just says a lot of stupid stuff and the media slaps it everywhere.

the notion that trump sitting in the white house could somehow impact the quality of healthcare being received by a random patient in a hospital in west virginia, washington, and north dakota is just completely absurd. we have hard data available that clearly shows infection rates and the death rate for an infected person. why is there any need to speculate about trump's sphere of influence? I don't give a shit what he says or does, or what the media has to say about him.


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At first I believed China's numbers, given we didn't really have a frame of reference. When deaths were so obviously uncontrollable in other locations, though, it became pretty obvious that they're full of shit. It's actually a bit infuriating because bad info went a long way towards fucking up responses in other nations.

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it's very good that the only western nation that ties healthcare to employment is also undergoing its worst unemployment crisis in history. this, to me, signals a good response. i would want to live in this country in the middle of a health crisis.

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iiicon posted...

it's very good that the only western nation that ties healthcare to employment is also undergoing its worst unemployment crisis in history. this, to me, signals a good response. i would want to live in this country in the middle of a health crisis.

if you have a position that is actually worth arguing, I'm sure you're capable of doing it without falling back on lame ass sarcasm. what is your point?

unemployment is up during a pandemic? no shit.
you think healthcare in america is bad? prove it.

deciding which country I'd rather be in right now, I'm looking at two factors.

1. how likely am I to get infected? this number is incredibly small, and all within the same standard deviation for all western countries. and if you really, really want to be a stickler... america is not even one of the high numbers on this list.
2. how likely am I to survive if I get infected? america or canada are the among best places to be. a canadian is sitting here trying to tell an american that our response has been terrible, when either of us will double our chance of dying if we step foot almost anywhere else.

your argument absolutely collapses in the face of hard data. although even calling it in argument is giving you more credit than you deserve. you can, as always, as your type always do, walk away in smug satisfaction that you were just getting in a 'witty' barb and don't need to be held accountable for any position you hold.


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It's weird, here in Australia I think we could have done a much better job responding to this, yet our numbers actually look very good compared to most other countries: 6,767 cases, 93 deaths, 5,745 recovered, 929 active cases, 265 cases per 1M population, 4 deaths per 1M population. These are legitimate numbers that can be trusted too, unlike many countries. It's not showing on the table right now but we have been getting about 20 new cases per day lately.

Comparing those numbers to those from Europe/North America, most of which are also going to be reasonably reliably reported and it's hard to say any of those countries are doing well. I guess being an island in the middle of nowhere helps - the vast majority of our cases are from overseas rather than community transmission.

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that healthcare argument doesn't work here either for two reasons.

1) i think it was late Feb/early March when insurance providers started covering Corona related issues specifically for free and then in March government stepped in to cover all of it. costs here do not incur.
2) if you've got no employment congrats, you're going on government insurance. the monkey paw version of medicare for all.

just like our federal unemployment checks, this is still not perfect but is a significantly larger safety net than the talking point suggests.

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Oh good, well now we don't owe that $5000 ER visit that wasn't corona-related and was uninsured because Genny's job laid her off due to the coronavirus? Damn, glad you pointed that out to me. 'murica!
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medicaid is retroactive for 3 months. she doesn't qualify?

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We're married now and I make too much money, so as far as I'm aware, we owe the hospital the money due to insurance being tied to her place of employment and that insurance being invalid since her industry it completely shut down by the coronavirus.

But after talking with them they've assured us we can just pay them in installments. You know, out of our own pockets, for years.

'murica! ^_^
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At the time I posted that I was shocked so many people thought 9/11 was bigger.

Now that it's 20% of you according to the poll... I'm still shocked so many of you think that.

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Wanglicious posted...

1) i think it was late Feb/early March when insurance providers started covering Corona related issues specifically for free and then in March government stepped in to cover all of it. costs here do not incur.

source? Because what I am seeing that didn't happen until April 11th for private insurance and the government stepped in to cover for the uninsured on April 3rd.

Also much of the coverage was reliant on a patient being recognized as requiring a coronavirus test at the very least, so if you went to a doctor and they did not feel a test was necessary, guess what, out of pocket.

So again, the system discouraged people from seeking treatment.

And again, I've said this before, some sort of change of the health care system was never a necessity to make treatment for this free(It would help) but the federal government absolutely failed to take the necessary action to cover the costs that could have been done months before they acted. It wasn't a fail of the system, it was a bigger failure of the federal government.

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v_charon posted...

We're married now and I make too much money, so as far as I'm aware, we owe the hospital the money due to insurance being tied to her place of employment and that insurance being invalid since her industry it completely shut down by the coronavirus.

But after talking with them they've assured us we can just pay them in installments. You know, out of our own pockets, for years.

'murica! ^_^

That's pretty shit. Healthcare.gov does mention this:

If you lost your job-based health plan: You may qualify for a Special Enrollment Period if you lost health coverage through your employer or the employer of a family member in the past 60 days OR you expect to lose coverage in the next 60 days, including if you lose health coverage through a parent or guardian because you're no longer a dependent. Note: Losing coverage you have as a dependent doesn't qualify you for a Special Enrollment Period if you voluntarily drop the coverage. You also don't qualify if you or your family member loses coverage because you don't pay your premium.

But I assume you've checked on what the special enrollment is.

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v_charon posted...

We're married now and I make too much money, so as far as I'm aware, we owe the hospital the money due to insurance being tied to her place of employment and that insurance being invalid since her industry it completely shut down by the coronavirus.

But after talking with them they've assured us we can just pay them in installments. You know, out of our own pockets, for years.

'murica! ^_^

Were you married at the time of treatment? She should be able to retroactively cover herself on her own plan if not.

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Honestly, having to jump through hoop after hoop is very defeating and feels a bit hopeless. At some point, you accept defeat even if there is some outside chance you could find a way out of it (since I don't want to shut the door altogether).

The main point is; in what is supposedly such a great and first world country, this literally should not be a problem to deal with. Healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. We shouldn't have to be searching and calling places just hoping and hoping to find some solution, especially not during a public health crisis. No the issue isn't directly caused by coronavirus as a disease, but it is directly due to the effects it has had on society at large. This event reveals the massive flaw in our healthcare system in the US, and I'm not sure how anyone can argue for our system now. If something good can come from this pandemic, it will be the complete revamping of our healthcare.
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definitely a few hoops but if you really want that money i think the path for getting that bill erased is there.


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people complaining about how hard they have it in america gets so tiresome.

charon, the water you shit in is more clean than the water many people drink.

when you say 'healthcare for all' you realize that someone has to pay for it, right? it's almost a certainty you are in the top 1% of income earners in the world. I don't know why you think you'd be one of the people getting free healthcare in this scenario. the reason other people get access to healthcare is because you pay 5,000 dollars. america subsidizes the healthcare costs of the entire world with medical and pharmaceutical research. and if you're NOT okay with this then you don't really want healthcare for all. you just don't want to pay.

if your biggest problem is that you had to pay 5,000 dollars for access to some of the best healthcare in the world, and you can afford it, and you can probably still get your bill taken care of if you're willing to fill out some paperwork, but you're not even willing to do that because 5,000 dollars is not a big enough deal to you... yeah, excuse me if I don't feel all that sympathetic about how much you hate america.

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Wanglicious posted...

but that doesn't include the $600/week the federal government is giving in additional payment to unemployment. meaning that, should you go on it, you're getting $2400/month in addition to your state's unemployment, which is an additional 300-600 weekly.

not a perfect system since not everyone can go on it and states are backed up weeks on it. but still worth mentioning as a very often forgotten piece.

are people actually getting paid tho

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MariaTaylor posted...

people complaining about how hard they have it in america gets so tiresome.

Almost as tiresome as your obnoxious, edgelord, flag waving in this topic. I don't like how you tossed in what amounts to a "but children are starving in Africa" nonsense to tie it all back though, try harder.
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you think that appreciating the quality of life I have is obnoxious, edgelord flag waving. that says way more about you than it does about me.

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You can appreciate things without accepting things are as good as they could be. "Someone has it worse, so shut up" is an awful argument, and yeah, it says a lot about you buddy, not me.
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that's an incredibly unfair reading of my posts in this topic. I have, at length, analyzed and explained data which supports every point that I have made. my discourse has been way more comprehensive than just telling you to "shut up" because people "have it worse."

you're the one trying to turn this into a reductive one line argument about how I'm an "edgelord" without acknowledging or responding to any of the actual arguments I've put forth. if you want to have an actual discussion, I'm here. if you want to continue throwing a hissy fit, have fun playing with yourself.


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Excuse me for not taking someone who has done nothing but act like a prick and belittle everyone in the topic seriously. I'd engage you in a more serious conversation if I thought it was worthwhile. Understand that it isn't because I can't, it is simply because I won't bother.
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stay healthy.

people like you will never understand, but still. I don't wish ill of you.


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MariaTaylor posted...

if you have a position that is actually worth arguing, I'm sure you're capable of doing it without falling back on lame ass sarcasm. what is your point?

i figured you weren't interested in material conversation because you've been openly antagonistic - and continue to be - towards everyone you're responding to and you've seemingly determined that america has one of the better worldwide responses solely on the basis of you successfully dividing the third column by the first column. i don't know why this act gives you confidence, and it's kinda scary that this seems to be all you know! you keep saying weird things like...

MariaTaylor posted...

how likely am I to get infected? this number is incredibly small

which isn't true, as heads of government in various parts of the world are estimating anywhere from 1% of the population (B.C this week, Ohio back in March [!!]) to ~5% (Quebec this week), to 20% (New York City last week) have been infected. these are very large numbers! and American states are trying to open up in this environment! this isn't a good response!

or other things like...

MariaTaylor posted...

the notion that trump sitting in the white house could somehow impact the quality of healthcare being received by a random patient in a hospital in west virginia, washington, and north dakota is just completely absurd.

which also isn't true, as American poison control centres saw a surge immediately following a Trump press conference where he suggested ingesting disinfectant.

all of your posts are just you riffing off of something and not fully internalizing them or understanding the context they're in, so like, why not be glib, there's not going to be anything interesting here!

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azuarc posted...

Why is the tsunami on this list? (Says the American.)

@Lightning_Strikes insisted!

I think Wang covered the US situation well. Pretty good response all things considered, despite terrible optics constantly (crazy press conferences, crazy protests, but luckily so far they haven't amounted to much in terms of real action).

Also, I'm curious what the two Something Else voters picked...


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iiicon posted...

tbf the numbers everywhere are extremely questionable considering the nature of the virus, availability of testing, and how everyone is undercounting death totals to a significant degree because of a lack of resources

Oh, for sure. That NYT analysis from a few days back was frightening:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus-death-toll-total.html

How an extra 9000 Americans are dead even beyond the 60k+ in the official account... and that's only looking at 7 out of 50 states, and only through April 11th, and even then some death certificates hadn't posted yet.

I was just saying that China has had all those normal kind of difficulties to sort through, on top of their initial pre-locking-the-country-down numbers being highly suspect.


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