AI6YR BenScientific American: COVID probably killed 150,000 more people in its first two years than official U.S. tolls show
We have severely undercounted the number of COVID deaths, scientists say (March 18, 2026)
MsMerope
gypsyvegan
Jim Hubbell@ai6yr
This study seems to use a different approach to calculating covid deaths. I've seen other studies that used actuarial techniques to calculate excess deaths.
This study seems to use a different approach to calculating covid deaths. I've seen other studies that used actuarial techniques to calculate excess deaths.
cwicseolfor
McNadoMD@ai6yr can confirm. I have a spreadsheet somewhere showing all deaths at my hospital after a patient was admitted, broken down by cause. I did the audits and was very conservative in my assignment of cause when it came to, say, COVID vs COVID+ with bacterial sepsis on admission, or COVID+ with massive hemorrhagic stroke. In 2021, 45% of our inpatient deaths were clearly from COVID. Many of the remaining were probably also, but I wasn’t looking at COVID at the time.
Nicole ParsonsCertain jobs need to be reclassified as "high risk, high exposure"
Teachers, for example, are on strike in Mexico for higher pay, & rightfully so. Teaching has a high exposure risk profile for contagious disease & isn't yet compensated accordingly.
Doubly so for health care workers. The pay should be commensurate with the level of hazard.
People jobs are seeing recruiting problems. Child care. Nursing. Fast food.
Is any job is worth a 5th case of covid?
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https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12981522/
Repeated exposure to covid exhausts the immune system and increases the risk of heart attacks & strokes.
Add that to billionaires funding 'herd immunity' & antivaxxer disinformation for partisan gain & certain workers will die at higher rates, needlessly.
Koch Network
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/09/climate-science-denial-network-behind-great-barrington-declaration/
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/09/13/covid-19-and-the-new-merchants-of-doubt/
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/12/23/koch_hijacked_war_on_covid
Georg and Emily von Opel
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/tory-billionaire-bankrolled-herd-immunity-scientist-who-advised-pm-against-lockdown/
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Six years after covid was declared a global pandemic, classrooms, hospitals etc remain as vectors for respiratory disease outbreaks.
Until actuaries & insurance underwriters get involved, these workplaces won't get air purification systems installed or other mitigation practices for workplace safety.
As evidence grows, workers compensation programs may get hit with sizable increases in premiums.
Liability insurance for forcing workers to be in offices during a pandemic will be reshaped.
datum (n=1)@ai6yr it is so nice to see some recognition that the "excess deaths" are attributable
Still hate to see them not reference excess deaths as a term, hate to see them not reference other work showing ongoing excess deaths and disability.
Ah well win some lose some.
N0tSure
Nazo@N0tSure @ai6yr Given the way everyone has been gaslit like crazy and ultimately taught to ignore a currently ongoing pandemic as if it could somehow just go away and now are fully trained to pretend it doesn't exist while it continues to rage through the population...
My guess is the next big pandemic might just finish off a very large portion of humanity before people, as a whole, finally decide to not ignore it. (They'll have to see their neighbors dead first probably.)
Edelruth, PBS Passport Holder@nazokiyoubinbou @N0tSure @ai6yr
Tripping over corpses on sidewalks in the evening, that were not there that morning, will do it
@Edelruth @N0tSure @ai6yr I kind of wish people didn't seem to require it to come to that. We should never let things reach that point... But people pushed COVID-19 aside in their minds so quickly that I have a really bad feeling that nothing less than that will do it for them.
If the next thing has an even higher death rate than COVID-19 or damages our bodies even worse than it is doing with each new infection, we could well be doomed now with this attitude people have.
@nazokiyoubinbou @Edelruth @N0tSure So, that was happening during COVID-19, but people blocked it out. In the western world, people were taken to the hospital and died away from the street, lessening the trauma. I remember though an entire family was found dead in their home here, all dead of COVID-19.
@ai6yr @Edelruth @N0tSure Yeah, it has to be actually on the streets for people to acknowledge it I guess. Until people actually *see* the dead bodies I guess they'll just pretend it away.
It's just... it completely blows my mind that people are developing long covid symptoms from catching COVID-19 over and over and they... just don't even know... They think the brain fog is allergies or something. Children die of heart attacks. Eh, it just happens.
It's... actual mass madness...
Peet Tetteroo@ai6yr Not surprised - the eye for detail on dead registration reflects the general trend on details in the USA..
@ai6yr I would be willing to bet quite a lot of money that I don't even have (that's how confident I am) that it was actually a **LOT** more than a mere 150,000 over. That's just what can be reasonably confirmed.
And it is very likely killing quite a lot more than that every year even now because it turns out that ignoring a disease doesn't actually make it go away.
John BurnsI knew too many people that said they didn't die from Covid if they had "underlying conditions"...
I usually snapped back that if someone was brought into emergency from a vehicle crash, that then died on the table - but had cancer... did cancer kill them, or did the car crash.
They just refused to accept - that Covid infection moved up their eventual death from those possible underlying conditions.
They might have had years to live... were it not for Covid.
🤬
Because the deniers decided to stop tracking Covid deaths specifically - and even forcing the certificates to show "underlying causes"...
... THEN the only way to know --- is to graph out all deaths over decades... and see the blip in deaths after January 2020...
That blip -- e.g. the change in the totals/average over those decades -- is Covid deaths.
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I posted this in late March 2020 - when China, FL, TX - refused to publish accurate deaths.
Charlie Stross@ai6yr @Jeanniewarner Mistitled article! COVID probably killed 150,000 more USAn people than official figures show. Extrapolates globally (if everyone else was lowballing their figures to the same degree) to 3 million extra deaths.
Hint: non-American dead count too!
@cstross @Jeanniewarner Oh yeah, for sure. should be "150,000 more people in the US"
@ai6yr @Jeanniewarner It's Scientific American: it's baked into the title. It's still intensely irritating, though.
JWarner