By YANNI GU
According to new data, the U.S. currently ranks first in total COVID-19 cases, new cases per day and deaths. Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins, critically analyzed the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in her webinar titled “COVID-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data.”
From mid-March to mid-September, U.S. total deaths have reached 1.7 million, of which 200,000, or 12% of total deaths, are COVID-19-related. Instead of looking directly at COVID-19 deaths, Briand focused on total deaths per age group and per cause of death in the U.S. and used this information to shed light on the effects of COVID-19.
She explained that the significance of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths can be fully understood only through comparison to the number of total deaths in the United States.
After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared.
Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.
“The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals,” Briand said.
Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 emerged. Therefore, according to Briand, not only has COVID-19 had no effect on the percentage of deaths of older people, but it has also not increased the total number of deaths.
These data analyses suggest that in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.
This comes as a shock to many people. How is it that the data lie so far from our perception?
To answer that question, Briand shifted her focus to the deaths per causes ranging from 2014 to 2020. There is a sudden increase in deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19. This is no surprise because COVID-19 emerged in the U.S. in early 2020, and thus COVID-19-related deaths increased drastically afterward.
Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.
“This is true every year. Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes,” Briand pointed out.
When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.
Graph depicts the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018.This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19.
Graph depicts the total decrease in deaths by various causes, including COVID-19.
The CDC classified all deaths that are related to COVID-19 simply as COVID-19 deaths. Even patients dying from other underlying diseases but are infected with COVID-19 count as COVID-19 deaths. This is likely the main explanation as to why COVID-19 deaths drastically increased while deaths by all other diseases experienced a significant decrease.“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Briand addressed the question of whether COVID-19 deaths can be called misleading since the infection might have exacerbated and even led to deaths by other underlying diseases.
“If [the COVID-19 death toll] was not misleading at all, what we should have observed is an increased number of heart attacks and increased COVID-19 numbers. But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn’t give us a choice but to point to some misclassification,” Briand replied.
And of course it doesn’t fit the narrative so…
The article “A closer look at U.S. deaths due to COVID-19,” published in the Science & Technology section on Nov. 22, has been deleted.
— JHU News-Letter (@JHUNewsLetter) November 26, 2020
Perhaps COVID19 CURES cancer and heart disease, then kills the victim? All this clearly indicates that the virus is being exploited and manipulated for political reasons.
People who have heart disease, diminished immune systems due to cancer chemotherapy, chronic respiratory problems, diabetes, kidney disease, etc, are the most likely to die from serious COVID-19 illness. It follows that the numbers of deaths from the aforementioned health problems would drop as a result.
According to the CDC data, from January 3, 2020 through October 3, 2020 there were in fact 299,028 more deaths from all causes in the United States than would be normally expected for the same period of time.
Why is Dr. Genevieve Braind citing a constant percentage of deaths in all age groups rather than comparing the total numbers of all deaths? Doing so makes no sense. Consider: You could uniformly double the total number of deaths for all age groups and still have the percentages for each age remain constant. That wouldn’t change the fact that twice as many people were dead. Any reasonable person would expect that something very specific would be behind the doubled body count.
This may explain why John Hopkins pulled the article. They knew the article would find an audience because many people want to somehow argue away the reality of of COVID-19 disaster. The grim reality is 264,000 fatalities in the United States, and rising. The reality is hospitals pushed beyond the ability to care for the rising numbers of casualties.
@Greg: Fact is they are not hospitalized nor dying from the Kung Flu. They are dying from lack of proper treatment, waiting way too long for treatment terrified they will get the Kung Flu, or sent home after testing positive without any treatment. Its murder and people are catching on, doctors and nurses are beginning to speak up.
the numbers are all fraud. in GA., all deaths in nursing homes are tagged virus deaths. recall in Fl. where the biker’s death was tagged do to the virus, right. so the virus cures, heart dx, lung dx, hiv, AD, sepsis and a host of other dxs. WOW!
BTW, recall that the pediopile biden promised to cure CANCER if elected. make a bet he does not deliver.
@MOS#8541:
Well, look! Cancer deaths are already on the decline!
Four German holidaymakers who were illegally quarantined in Portugal after one was judged to be positive for Covid-19 have won their case, in a verdict that condemns the widely-used PCR test as being up to 97-percent unreliable.
Earlier this month, Portuguese judges upheld a decision from a lower court that found the forced quarantine of four holidaymakers to be unlawful. The case centred on the reliability (or lack thereof) of Covid-19 PCR tests.