No matter what Traditional media source you pick up in Middle Tennessee, the COVID situation is portrayed with a panicky shrillness that taht reminds you of the scream queens of the 80s horror movies.
Take Davidson County and the stats for Infected and deaths since the pandemic started:
That comes about 0.78% deaths out of the infected population or a survival rate of 99.12%. Not to dismiss the deaths as inconsequential, but we ain’t talking Black Plague or Ebola death and destruction either.
However, there are other deaths that are barely being mentioned with the same horror as COVID.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A new report from the Metro Nashville Health Department shines a light on a very dark subject — overdoses hitting a record high in Davidson County. The director of the overdose program told News 2 if something doesn’t drastically change, the city could see another record-breaking year.
The quarterly report revealed more than 700 people died in 2021 from a suspected drug overdose, the majority of them laced with fentanyl.
Davidson Co reached record high drug overdoses in 2021 (wkrn.com)
That kinda shocked me some. We are talking almost half the deaths of COVID in the county since the pandemic started. I went to look for the numbers for 2020 and found them.
For 2020 we had 621 cases and for 2021, 712 for a total of 1,333 overdose deaths in the 2 years of the “worst pandemic in history! ZOMG!”
I tried to find out the number of opioid addicts for Davidson County, but I could not get an estimate anywhere, but for the whole state, the government calculates some 70,000 Tennessean are addicted to them. I therefore cannot calculate and compare percentages, but it does not take a mathematical genius to figure out either Deaths by OD are out of total control or Deaths by COVID are totally overblown.
I’ll take both options.
The media hype is 700thousand covid dead in USA since it started… my question- where?!?!?! are they?? You know its over when the nanny state of the world, England , has ended all the covid hype.. glad scotus ruled in favor of America. Hopefully it will be done soon.
How about the revelation that up to 10,000 dollars are paid to each hospital for claiming a covid death?
Boston TV news had a piece last night about a new statistic being put in place now: distinguishing between “hospitalized for covid” and “hospitalized for some other reason but tested positive for covid”. The numbers — which I think are estimates based on drugs prescribed to the patients, not actual specific records — are about 50% each.
Death statistics were not discussed in this, but it seems likely that a similar split applies there. Nor was there any mention of the fact that this sort of analysis was obviously needed two years ago, but is only now being put into effect — perhaps as a way to make Biden look less stupid?
NY State (or city, can’t remember) did the same thing. Something like 49% of COVID hospitalizations were with, not because of COVID.
And, if they were to be really honest, they would also include stats on co-morbidities. Sure, you got admitted because of COVID, but are you morbidly obese, have high blood pressure, diabetes, etc…? If you answer yes to more than one of them, you are not a COVID patient either.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Anytime some article tells me “80% of doctors say” I know that I have to look at sample size and selection. Anytime I hear “50 thousand unicorn injuries per year” I know to look at the population size. Anytime I read “there was a 300% increase in death by bubble gum” I know to look at the raw numbers.
The message is always first and the number presented second.
“4 out of 5 doctors recommend Chesterfield’s!” They asked doctors that smoked and when they got to their first negative they stopped asking. Easy. Or they asked 100 doctors at a tobacco conference sponsored by Chesterfield’s “What cigarette do you prefer?”
If there were 500,000,000 unicorn human interactions per year and only 50,000 of them resulted in injuries then the rate of injury is 1 in 10,000. How does that compare to other interactions. This is actually the game played with “cops shooting blacks”. There are millions of police interactions with black people per year, yet only a very very few result in shootings.
If last year there was 1 death by bubble gum and this year there are 3, that is a 300% increase in death by bubble gum. It doesn’t mean that bubble gum deaths are now a priority.
Finally, you have to look at the question asked. It creates a huge difference.
“Do you support background checks?” vs “Do you support 100% background checks and a firearm registry?” They result in different numbers.
How to Lie with Statistics by Daryl Huff is just as valid today as it was when it was originally published in 1954.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728