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China is furious that environmental readings have exposed lies around COVID-19 deaths. The data collected shows a clear mismatch from the information released by the Chinese government about how many people died and at what time. This is a very sensitive subject with China engaging in a cold trade war with Australia over the origins of COVID-19 while providing support to affected smallers countries as calls are made for China to pay billions in penalties due to their coverup.
Before Beijing's crackdown, China's bureaucracy had been conducting business as usual – analysing, assessing and reporting on everything about its citizenry. The researchers from Washington University and Ohio State University say they have tracked down this early government data and combined it with reports in state-controlled and social media.
Among this data was the activities of eight crematories in Wuhan. By January 25 these were inexplicably operating around the clock.
Based on such sources, the researchers argue the total number of infections and fatalities before February was at least ten times that of the official figure announced by Beijing.
[...] The study tracked the sale [of] funeral urns to verify these estimates. In the January-March period during which the crematoriums were operating at peak levels, some 36,000 had been distributed.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @09:17PM (3 children)
Here's a challenge for all the right wing cult members like you on this site.
Which strains of influenza cause the severe long term health effects [vox.com] that are associated with COVID-19? Please do share your answers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RamiK on Monday June 15 2020, @11:16PM (2 children)
Can't name the strain but many common and uncommon short and long-term flu complications can get pretty nasty especially if the condition develops into pneumonia:
( https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/flu-complications [webmd.com] )
At that point you can get kidney and heart failures if worse comes to worst: https://www.webmd.com/lung/complications-pneumonia [webmd.com]
Overall, it all comes down to preexisting conditions. If you have diabetes, heart issues or anything else chronic and serious really, your doctor already told you that "just a flu" can kill you so you need to get inoculated yearly as soon as possible, take care of yourself properly if you develop a fever and make sure to reach the ER if the symptoms are getting worse. With COVID-19 the stakes just got worse for that population over the longer incubation period and the lack of treatments.
But technically, yeah, just a flu. Well, of the Spanish variety if you're unlucky... But yeah. A flu.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @12:26AM (1 child)
Yes, there can be severe and long-term complications from influenza. But as you noted, they tend to occur in people with pre-existing conditions, especially elderly people. The difference is that with COVID-19, these long-term complications are also occurring quite frequently in young people who were previously healthy. In many cases, they're occurring in people who had mild to moderate symptoms.
The Spanish flu was different in that many of the people who died were young people who were otherwise healthy. But that's not the case with the seasonal flu most years. I agree with you that the flu can be quite dangerous for some people, which is why people are encouraged to be vaccinated for the flu. Most healthy young people who get a typical seasonal flu do not experience the type of long-term consequences that have been associated with COVID-19.
There's a definite effort by the right to downplay the severity of this virus. For example, both Rush Limbaugh and Kellyanne Conway have claimed this is the 19th version of this virus. They're trying to imply that there were 18 previous versions of this virus that nobody really talked about because they didn't have much of an impact. Make no mistake, the seasonal flu can be dangerous, particularly for some people. But with COVID-19, it appears to be that dangerous for pretty much everyone except perhaps children -- though there are fairly rare instances of very serious complications of COVID-19 in children.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday June 17 2020, @03:17PM
The stats are still incomplete on this but covid-19 is actually more likely to cause complications (and mortality) if you have pre-existing conditions than the flu:
( https://newsroom.osfhealthcare.org/pre-existing-conditions-and-covid-19-outcomes/ [osfhealthcare.org] )
( https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-6781-6 [biomedcentral.com] )
So while there's still not enough data, from what we know, it's slightly more infectious than the flu due to the longer incubation, is less deadly to healthy people and averages to about the same mortality rates as the flu.
So use facts to counter their half-lies rhetoric. Explain the reason lockdowns are necessary is because while the virus isn't too different from the flu, the hospitals can't handle the influx of patients due to not having a well funded public health system. Point to how every nation who dealt well with the virus had so many doctors and ER beds per capita while every nation that didn't lacked those figures. Explain that the flu was already very taxing on the system and the only reason it didn't take it down was because poor people and elderly were dying in their homes out of "natural causes" up until now since they couldn't afford early visits to the ER.
Understand, the reason you don't hear these points is because the democratic party was taken over by de-facto republican corporatists that don't want public health care. By sticking to the party line, you're not fighting against the right on behalf of the left. You're fight for one right-wing faction on behalf of another right-wing faction and avoiding the real issue: The lack of proper, publicly funded, health care.
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