The most amazing thing about this is not the fact that the largest percentage of excess pandemic deaths is in the 35-44 and 25-34 year age groups
But how much the wrong "COVID is mild in children" narrative was driven by successes in mitigating COVID in the first year
Notice how there were actually NEGATIVE excess deaths in the < 1 year & 1-4 year age demographics in 2020?
Why?
Because in the first year remote schooling, mask wearing, working from home, etc. all absolutely tanked deaths in the very young from things like influenza, RSV, etc.
Indeed, in the first year deaths from COVID in children were very low
But not because, as we were told, COVID is not a risk for children
But because of the same reasons that in 2020 deaths in children from RSV, influenza, etc. were very low
Remote schooling, masks, etc.
Fast-forward to 2022, just after the Great Infection when we used contaminated school classrooms to force-infect over fifty million children with a deadly BSL-3 superpathogen
In 2022 pediatric excess death rates more than made up for the 2020 deficit
And together with the wholesale dropping of any forms of protection for the children (masks, vaccinations, ventilation, etc.) guess what?
Influenza and RSV came roaring back as well
Another amazing thing is just how much the death rates among the unvaccinated grew in 2021.
While highly vaccinated demographics like those aged 65 and older hardly moved the needle in 2021, under-vaccinated demographics from 15-44 years old saw staggering death rate increases
In sum:
* The narrative that COVID didn't affect children was driven by a false sense of its mildness due to mitigations such as online school, masking, etc. In reality there was no reason to expect COVID to be milder in children than it was (relatively) in adults
And it's not
* Once mitigations and protections were taken away from children, disease ripped through their population using schools as the primary vector of transmission.
From schools children brought the disease home to their parents, younger siblings, etc.
* The rise of excess deaths over the pandemic is concentrated not among the older population but squarely in the 25-45 year old demographic.
This demographic does not as a rule die but when they do die, now they die of COVID
* The lack of vaccination among younger demographics, particularly that crucial 25-45 year old demographic, is the primary driver of mortality
In short, it's the virus, not the vaccine, that is killing young people
The US CDC has announced that, going forward, reported SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels will be normalized to an endemic baseline
"Zero" on this baseline will be levels in the previous year
@EvanBlake17 @BenjaminMateus7 @arijitchakrav
What this means is that the level of SARS-CoV-2 virus in the environment will be reported as the difference between current readings & the readings of a year ago
If Jan of 2024 reading was 1,000 & Jan 2025 it's also 1,000, Jan 2025 wastewater levels will be reported as 0 (zero)
It is difficult to fathom just how cynical this is
It's a bureaucratic admission that not only do we need to live with a constant and very high amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus around us but that this constant and very high amount will represent "normal."
Luigi Mangione’s manifesto is remarkable in its banality
I say banal because anyone who encountering our health care system has the same experience as Mangione
The same cruelty-for-cruelty’s sake, the same rapaciousness, the same desert of empathy
To wit
1.Unsatisfied pleas to fix his mother’s and his ailments
2.Endless cycles of incompetence and repetition of failed processes that have not succeeded in the past
And have no promise of succeeding in the future
3. Frightening demands for payment. Payment for failure
An institutional shakedown compelling people to pay what they cannot live without at a price they afford
4. All packaged in an uncaring cascade of disdain from providers and payers upon the hapless patient
"@greg_travis what is the USA covid body count ATM, and how many of those have occurred since January 20th, 2021?"
Since it took me some time to put together my response:, I'm going to amortize my time by sharing it here
As of last week there had been a total of 1,192,436 deaths where COVID was listed as having contributed to the death on the death certificate
Of those 702,498 (60%) have occurred since February 1st, 2021
Note that these are simply death certificate counts which notoriously undercount specific causes of death (death certificates are biased towards general causes, not specific) & significantly underestimate the actual number of people who have died from SARS-CoV-2 infection