soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

IDguy Loc: Idaho

Interesting article. Thanks.

I’m not impressed by anecdotal claims. Research over time should show what strategies work best when and where. National mandates will clearly be least effective.

flip1948 Loc: Hamden, CT

All the article made me question was why they were permanently banned on YouTube.

soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

U are welcome

Kraken Loc: Barry's Bay

We rate LifeSiteNews far right biased for story se******n that always favors evangelical Christianity and Questionable based on the promotion of conspiracy theories, p***********e, and many failed fact checks. (11/25/2016) Updated (D. Van Zandt 03/04/2021)

soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

Krak a little imagination please

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

I actually like Kraken's notes on the sources. And I can certainly understand why YOU do not appreciate him pointing out where most of YOUR sources of information lie.

Keep it up, pal!

Kraken Loc: Barry's Bay

soba1 Loc: Somewhere In So Ca

Throwing the troll some crumbs I see

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

More like national p***e.

InfiniteISO Loc: The Carolinas, USA

Now that seems a bit warped. You're proud of Kraken because he's a liberal Canadian trolling United States political discussions in the attic like you?

I often feel that I'm wasting my time here reading and commenting on posts, but at least at the end of the day, I and my children have a large stake in what happens in our country, especially since two of my children are and will likely be long-term government employees and also share my political views. Your interest in our politics is just sad.

trainspotter Loc: Oregon

The "POO" slinger shoots his "STINK" arrow across the border again....only to land in the same drainage ditch...

trainspotter Loc: Oregon

Somebody has to "guide" krack's lobs at it's intended target.....(their easy to "sidestep",....as you can SMELL them way before they hit.

ken_stern Loc: Yorba Linda, Ca

Collecting trash is an honorable profession
BUT
Being a purveyor of trash is walking on the wrong side of the criminal
MORE TOTAL CRAP FROM --- SOBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Flawed Analysis Leads to False Claim of ‘No Excess Deaths’ in 2020
By Angelo Fichera

Posted on December 3, 2020

Quick Take
An economics professor’s flawed interpretation of U.S. mortality data has prompted a v***l, false claim that C****-** hasn’t led to more deaths than normal this year. In fact, multiple analyses have found there to be a higher-than-normal number of deaths during the p******c — as much as 20%, according to some studies.

Full Story
V***l headlines and social media posts are propelling the erroneous claim that there have been “no excess deaths” in the U.S. this year, suggesting that concern over C****-** is overblown.

That’s wrong.

As we’ve previously explained, excess deaths are deaths above the number expected in a given time period. The metric in the context of C****-** can help assess the impact of the p******c, including by capturing direct and indirect effects of the v***s. It can account for unreported C****-** deaths and for other factors — such as people dying from other causes, say avoiding medical attention, as well as drops in other deaths due to p******c-related restrictions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in October published a report that found that from late January through Oct. 3, there were an estimated 299,028 excess deaths. Two-thirds were estimated to be directly attributed to C****-**.

The C****-** death toll has surpassed 275,000, as of Dec. 3, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Cases are rising around the country, and projections anticipate that the death count will climb past 300,000 by the end of the year.

The v***l claim about “no excess deaths” — which has been amplified by unreliable websites and disseminated on Facebook and Twitter — stems from an online presentation by an economics lecturer at Johns Hopkins. But it’s flawed for multiple reasons, experts say.

In a Nov. 13 webinar, Genevieve Briand, the assistant director for the university’s Applied Economics master’s program, looked at select CDC data, such as weekly reported deaths, to reach the faulty conclusion that there is “no evidence that C****-** create[d] any excess deaths.”

“Total death number are not above normal death numbers,” she claims. “We found no evidence to the contrary.”

Her claims were then relayed in a story in the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, a student-run publication, which said the analysis showed C****-** “has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.” The publication later retracted the report. An archived version of the story, however, has been shared on Facebook 10,000 times according to CrowdTangle analytics data.

The student publication’s retraction also became part of the false narrative online, triggering claims that the university had published a “study” then retracted it. “Johns Hopkins Study Mysteriously Disappears after it Revealed, In Spite of C***D, No More Deaths in 2020 Than In Prior Years,” read the false headline on the Gateway Pundit, a far-right website known for spreading misinformation.

Briand, however, confirmed in an email to us that she had not published her analysis anywhere apart from the webinar. The video is still available on YouTube, where it’s been viewed more than 58,000 times. Briand told us she stood by her analysis.

But Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health at the Virginia Commonwealth University, told us that “multiple studies have shown that total deaths in the US are about 20% higher than expected.”

Woolf and colleagues relayed as much in an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October. “Although total US death counts are remarkably consistent from year to year, US deaths increased by 20% during March-July 2020,” the authors wrote.

Studies from others, including a paper by two University of Oxford economists, have reached similar conclusions.

Woolf said in an email that the lecture video instead presented a “very unsophisticated analysis, in which the speaker uses crude death counts for one year (2018) as the basis for comparison and performs simple subtraction from 2020 values for her assertions. Any reputable analysis of excess deaths is based on statistical modeling that computes seasonal averages over a period of many years, and this is done to adjust for random variation from year to year.”

“For example, our studies use Poisson regression modeling. Statistical modeling is necessary to know whether differences in death counts are statistically significant,” he said. “The speaker admits to merely eyeballing the trend lines for 2020. Researchers prefer to use statistical modeling to know whether a supposed change in counts is random variation or a statistically significant trend.”

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics excess death analysis (which uses such modeling) has found deaths above normal rates week after week since the end of March — as readers can see in the center’s chart below.

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

ISO, surely you are not one of those arrogant Americans who thinks the only thing that matters is the good ole USA and the rest of the world can take a hike.

What happens in the US affects the entire world, but especially America's nearest and biggest trading partner. You feel you have a stake in your country, but remember it could be a dagger to other countries. Be a good neighbour, not a "jack-donkey” like some of the folks on here.