@powder The lethality rate doesn't change the strategy to fight it, so yes, irrelevant.

@powder Pretty sure they are well informed, one outlying study means nothing. Most countries knew by the end of January that Covid-19 was a game changer and required a concerted national effort to control. Trump and his followers still haven't grasped that, and the US is paying a terrible price as a result.

@powder

Sure it can be linked to COVID. More realistically it is the blatant manipulation going on by Pepublican politicians to dimenish the numbers to justify their political desire open early. Many cause of deaths are linked to co-morbid reasons. But in many cases the individual may not have died at that time had not COVID not exacerbated their condition.

@Bobby9

Have we underestimated the pandemic's death toll?
Written by Timothy Huzar on July 6, 2020 — Fact checked by Zia Sherrell, MPH
[medicalnewstoday.com]

Estimating mortality from COVID-19
Scientific Brief
4 August 2020
[who.int]

A timeline:
How the Pandemic Defeated America
A virus has brought the world’s most powerful country to its knees.
Dina Litovsky / Redux
Story by Ed Yong
SEPTEMBER 2020 ISSUE
[theatlantic.com]

@Bobby9

You are so correct. I meant to say underestimated. My bad. I must of still been waking up when I posted. Thanks for catching that

@powder I find this to be a more comprehensive and better cited explanation of how these numbers are calculated. The RT opinion piece isn't telling you where they are pulling their numbers from, and in my opinion that should be a red flag with seeing it as either credible or reliable. I also find it curious how the US supposedly made such a fudge when their predictions have been pretty much in line with those of the WHO which had been following the issue from inception. Just a little more food for thought.
[who.int]

@powder I am going to check some stats for the US and get back to you more thoroughly tomorrow, to see how some things compare. How big is Victoria? I am interested in looking at some of our similarly sized states to see how they look stacked next to each other. A few of my snap responses to aspects of your recent reply would be that many of the numbers we are currently seeing, and thinking that we are over-reacting, are numbers that exist under a framework of being still largely shut down. I am not sure, nor am I sure I want to find out, how those numbers would look if we were to fully open everything back up and go back to our previous ways of daily life. I think we would certainly see an increase, and when we are talking about an increase in death that makes me uncomfortable. But I am a nurse, and I wouldn't be a very good one if it didn't.

My second snap response is that Trump was not at all right about this just going away, when he clearly was talking about a matter of weeks and we have been dealing with this on a global stage now for the better part of a year. Not to mention the nearly 200.000 lost lives we have seen in the US alone during that time. This may play itself out eventually, but we are not there yet, and as an American, Trump gets credit only for a complete failure of a response to this issue. I know you weren't necessarily being literal about him being right, but still, not going there.