Facts Only Please

[not-enough-cruising]

14 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

This is a Fact

 

Some die WITH COVID19 

 

Some die FROM COVID19 

 

ALL are counted as a COVID19 death. 
 

M8

 

9 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

That is the case in the UK too from a doctor friend plus we were told some  people have covid put on the death certificate when they hadn't even been tested.

Be careful, John Reid will tell let you know you don’t know what you are talking about.

He will enlighten you that 100% of all reported Covid deaths are the direct result of a Covid infection. 

[grapau27]

26 minutes ago, not-enough-cruising said:

 

Be careful, John Reid will tell let you know you don’t know what you are talking about.

He will enlighten you that 100% of all reported Covid deaths are the direct result of a Covid infection. 

That's what we thought until we were told what we were told.

[Goodtime Cruizin]

On 10/25/2020 at 9:42 AM, not-enough-cruising said:

So the heroin overdose I saw in the ER would not have died if she had not had COVID? 

The motorcycle rider with the closed head injury at my hospital would have miraculously survived his subdural hematoma if not for the Covid in his body? 

 

It is infuriating when the un-informed such as yourself make ridiculous comments about a topic you clearly do not understand. 
 

it has been stated millions of times all over the web “there IS a difference between dying WITH Covid, and dying FROM Covid” The published numbers are not a fair representation of either cohort. 

 

I don't have any idea if these people (patients) would have died or not, but the hospitals would not have been paid as much. The coding of Covid is a very, very, important revenue stream for hospitals these days. 

[Goodtime Cruizin]

20 minutes ago, yogimax said:

I believe this the "Facts Only" thread...

 

REPORTER: What do you say to those folks who are making the claim without really any evidence that these deaths are being padded, that the number of COVID-19 deaths are being padded?

FAUCI: You will always have conspiracy theories when you have very challenging public health crises. They are nothing but distractions.

 

OK... fair enough... you want facts. Here you go.

 

Hopsitals are paid addtional funds from the US Government for Covid patients reported as being in Intensive Care, and also for Covid patients they report as death by Covid. 

 

Spin that.  

 

Bottomline... 'You get what you reward for' or 'You get what you pay for'.  And I'm pretty sure that every hospital across our nation is as honest as Fauci. 😉

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Goodtime Cruizin

[Domino D]

I don't know anything about medicine or infectious disease.  I do know data very well.  All data has outliers and a margin of error.  While I understand the desire to know the "true" numbers, they are not as necessary as you may believe.  The death rate is probably the least useful number in terms of policy and decision making.

 

Facts.

Some people contract Covid

Some people have serious complications

Some people die from those complications

Close contact to large groups of people causes an increase in infection rate

Increased infection rate causes increased hospitalizations

The people who make decisions on restrictions and precautions look at the data (flawed or not) for those decisions

If the numbers are off by 10% it won't matter in those decisions. 

Normal cruising brings a large number of people from many different areas into a confined space. 

This is highly likely to lead to an increased infection rate. 

 

In the type of statistical analysis and predictive modeling being done, there is always a margin of error.  This isn't like guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, it is more like hurricane path modeling.  They are dealing with likelihood not trying to determine an absolute. 

 

How many new cases are being found per day

How many people require hospitalization

Those are the two stats that matter

 

It is likely that there are people included in the related death statistics that don't belong, it is equally as likely that there are people that died from complications and went untested and not included.  I doubt very much you wouldn't find the same error margin in many recorded causes of death.   

 

[time4u2go]

Another fact is that about 300,000 more people have died in the US in 2020 (through early October) than normally die:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm

Edited October 27, 2020 by time4u2go

[Susan in Maine]

On 10/25/2020 at 7:03 PM, Heymarco said:

Wouldn’t the same logic dictate we shut everything down and wait in a bubble until this passes? Why not restaurants, hotels, water parks, etc? Not sure why cruising is being singled out at this point. 

Lots of those other places ARE closed, or extremely limited.

 

Hotels, while open, are not serving breakfast or servicing rooms on a daily basis. They don't clean your room until you check out. That's really different from expectations aboard a cruise ship.

 

The issue with a cruise ship is that it is a restricted space. That means that people are in closer contact for longer period of time than at a restaurant, for example.

 

And while the passengers may have some flexibility as to how much time they spend with other guests,  the crew doesn't. They are in very cramped spaces.

[Susan in Maine]

On 10/25/2020 at 10:42 AM, not-enough-cruising said:

So the heroin overdose I saw in the ER would not have died if she had not had COVID? 

The motorcycle rider with the closed head injury at my hospital would have miraculously survived his subdural hematoma if not for the Covid in his body? 

 

It is infuriating when the un-informed such as yourself make ridiculous comments about a topic you clearly do not understand. 
 

it has been stated millions of times all over the web “there IS a difference between dying WITH Covid, and dying FROM Covid” The published numbers are not a fair representation of either cohort. 

Likewise there is a difference between dying WITH heart disease and dying FROM heart disease. While a significant % of the deaths from Covid are patients with pre-existing conditions, they would not have died but FOR covid.

 

[Susan in Maine]

34 minutes ago, Heymarco said:

So at the time this was written, 198K were from COVID. What are the other 100K from and why is no one talking about that? This truly shows how great those stats are. 🙄

 

Actually the total deaths as of 10/16 is 21C6,000. The excess deaths may be from Covid. They also may be from people who were afraid to go to the hospital because of covid, or did not get good treatment because of the resources tied up by covid. No one knows why they've died, just that they have.

[Susan in Maine]

2 hours ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

 

OK... fair enough... you want facts. Here you go.

 

Hopsitals are paid addtional funds from the US Government for Covid patients reported as being in Intensive Care, and also for Covid patients they report as death by Covid. 

 

Spin that.  

 

Bottomline... 'You get what you reward for' or 'You get what you pay for'.  And I'm pretty sure that every hospital across our nation is as honest as Fauci. 😉

 

 

Please cite your specific source regarding extra payment to hospitals for Covid patients.

 

The reality is that many hospitals are having to cut staffing and services due to the resources sucked up by Covid patients. Medicare and Medicaid don't pay proportionately for ICU care the way they do for so-called "elective" surgeries - hip replacements, knee surgeries, carpal tunnel, and the like. It's the elective surgeries that are the cash cows for hospitals, NOT acute care patients. If (and that's a big IF), hospitals are getting any more money for Covid patients, it's because they cost so much to treat.

[Susan in Maine]

4 hours ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

 

I don't have any idea if these people (patients) would have died or not, but the hospitals would not have been paid as much. The coding of Covid is a very, very, important revenue stream for hospitals these days. 

 

Please site your source.

 

https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/finance-revenue-cycle/revenue-cycle-management/news/21151583/kaufman-hall-report-covid19-pandemic-caused-hospital-margins-to-plunge-in-first-half-of-2020

 

 

[Goodtime Cruizin]

Here's an NPR article on a study or actually two studies about how the death count as dropped dramatically. 

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/20/925441975/studies-point-to-big-drop-in-covid-19-death-rates?fbclid=IwAR07WEHN84HcbEKKsy8Wta-itSbH3m4S0A3ztLBdaEozzyL0XtG0l9hYA8E

 

[Susan in Maine]

5 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

Here's an NPR article on a study or actually two studies about how the death count as dropped dramatically. 

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/20/925441975/studies-point-to-big-drop-in-covid-19-death-rates?fbclid=IwAR07WEHN84HcbEKKsy8Wta-itSbH3m4S0A3ztLBdaEozzyL0XtG0l9hYA8E

 

 

Yes, we are finally learning to treat the virus, so fewer people are dying. But just as many, if not more, are still getting sick.

[Goodtime Cruizin]

15 minutes ago, Susan in Maine said:

 

Please cite your specific source regarding extra payment to hospitals for Covid patients.

 

The reality is that many hospitals are having to cut staffing and services due to the resources sucked up by Covid patients. Medicare and Medicaid don't pay proportionately for ICU care the way they do for so-called "elective" surgeries - hip replacements, knee surgeries, carpal tunnel, and the like. It's the elective surgeries that are the cash cows for hospitals, NOT acute care patients. If (and that's a big IF), hospitals are getting any more money for Covid patients, it's because they cost so much to treat.

 

One click is all it takes. This was the first of many that are out there. I don't make this stuff up. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/

[yogimax]

9 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

Here's an NPR article on a study or actually two studies about how the death count as dropped dramatically. 

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/20/925441975/studies-point-to-big-drop-in-covid-19-death-rates?fbclid=IwAR07WEHN84HcbEKKsy8Wta-itSbH3m4S0A3ztLBdaEozzyL0XtG0l9hYA8E

 

This is from the article you cite...

 

"Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance."

 

So yes, the death rate has diminished, but would you want to wake up tomorrow knowing there was a 7.6% chance it would be you last day on earth?
 

[Goodtime Cruizin]

Just now, yogimax said:

This is from the article you cite...

 

"Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance."

 

So yes, the death rate has diminished, but would you want to wake up tomorrow knowing there was a 7.6% chance it would be you last day on earth?
 

 

What do you think? Seriously? What kind of question is that? No one wants to die. But given the odds from this past March, I'd say our odds have improved by 18%... from the date this article was written. Which is damn good. I'm thinking it's even better now. And I'll go further to say that the odds are much much greater if you aren't fat, unhealthy, smoke, have diabetes, heart problems, etc. 

[Domino D]

3 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

 

One click is all it takes. This was the first of many that are out there. I don't make this stuff up. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/

This is what it so ridiculous about the news coverage.   Title of the article: Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators

 

Then in the article it says:

Jensen clarified in the video that he doesn't think physicians are "gaming the system" so much as other "players," such as hospital administrators, who he said may pressure physicians to cite all diagnoses, including "probable" COVID-19, on discharge papers or death certificates to get the higher Medicare allocation allowed under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. Past practice, Jensen said, did not include probabilities.

 

Then it says:

Jensen said he thinks the overall number of COVID-19 cases have been undercounted based on limitations in the number of tests available.

 

Then this:

There have been no public reports that hospitals are exaggerating COVID-19 numbers to receive higher Medicare payments.

 

Jensen didn't explicitly make that claim. He simply suggested there is an "avenue" to do so now that "plausible" COVID-19, not just laboratory-confirmed, cases can be greenlighted for Medicare payment and eligible for the 20% add-on allowed under the relief act.

[HBE4]

14 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

 

One click is all it takes. This was the first of many that are out there. I don't make this stuff up. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/

 

One click.  If hospitals were making money, NYC hospitals would be paving the sidewalks with gold.

 

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/healthcare/2020/08/04/qa-do-hospitals-get-paid-more-for-covid-19-patients/112873160/

 

[mpk]

1 hour ago, time4u2go said:

Another fact is that about 300,000 more people have died in the US in 2020 (through early October) than normally die:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm

 

The title of the page you link to is "Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19".   If it is true that death by other causes are miscategorized as coronavirus, that might explain the excess.

[time4u2go]

15 minutes ago, mpk said:

 

The title of the page you link to is "Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19".   If it is true that death by other causes are miscategorized as coronavirus, that might explain the excess.

It doesn't explain how three hundred thousand more people than usual have died so far this year in the US.

[HBE4]

7 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

Look guys believe as you wish. I really don't care. Someone called me out for a source and I delivered it.  Remember FACTS only right? 

 

Fact: Hopsitals are paid more due to the CARES act. 

 

Whether or not hospitals 'cheated'. the numbers to gain and advantage we'll never know unless someone dives into their books. I'm thinking some of the numbers are bogus. As far as NY hospitals lining the streets in gold, it does make you wonder whose pockets and bank accounts are being lined. 

 

Ok, you presented a fact with a link source.

 

But you also suggested something sketchy was going on and the numbers were wildly inflated for profit sake. Nothing other than vague maybes, urban legends of skydiving accidents being counted as CV19 and a one-off of a motorcycle death recorded as CV19 death.  One!

 

Besides, you rightfully posted that despite rising case numbers, deaths are not rising proportionally. Proof that awareness, testing, social distance, early treatment and wearing a mask are working....as opposed to March when everyone was "meh, it's just a flu. I'm not going to let it stop me from enjoying my life".

 

Being careful and aware is different than being fearful or careless. Which would you rather be?

 

[Goodtime Cruizin]

Can you prove the numbers aren't sketchy?

Can you prove that the numbers weren't 'wildly' inflated for profit sake?

 

And your comment regarding awareness, testing, social distance, early treatment and mask wearing are slightly off.  I mean the infection rate is going up while the death rate is going down. My point is the things you mentioned did not slow the death counts, they did though by all reports slowed the infection rates. 

 

I'm fearlessly careful. I wish everyone was as well. 

 

 

[HBE4]

21 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

Can you prove the numbers aren't sketchy?

Can you prove that the numbers weren't 'wildly' inflated for profit sake?

 

You are asking me to prove that a crime was not committed?  Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?  If anything, I feel like the numbers of cases/deaths have been under-reported overall due to the lack of testing during the first half of the pandemic. 

 

Just my opinion. No link to back it up.

 

21 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

And your comment regarding awareness, testing, social distance, early treatment and mask wearing are slightly off.  I mean the infection rate is going up while the death rate is going down. My point is the things you mentioned did not slow the death counts, they did though by all reports slowed the infection rates

 

I disagree.  I think every little thing helps. Wearing a mask may not stop you for getting sick but it could reduce the viral load and make the difference between mild symptoms (or no symptoms) vs severe symptoms .....or severe symptoms vs death.

 

https://apnews.com/article/16cc7a31a327820b9bd1e56a89df5d49

 

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/wearing-a-mask-may-reduce-how-sick-you-get-from-covid-19#How-masks-might-protect-the-wearer-as-well

 

21 minutes ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

I'm fearlessly careful. I wish everyone was as well. 

 

👍. Careful is good.

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by HBE4

[Milwaukee Eight]

9 hours ago, yogimax said:

This is from the article you cite...

 

"Patients in the study had a 25.6% chance of dying at the start of the pandemic; they now have a 7.6% chance."

 

So yes, the death rate has diminished, but would you want to wake up tomorrow knowing there was a 7.6% chance it would be you last day on earth?
 

These numbers apply to “patients” admitted to medical care facilities. Saying 7.6% are going to die is not true for the general population. This only applies to those sick enough to be treated in medical care facilities. 
 

Fear mongering and misleading information. 
 

M8

[Milwaukee Eight]

Here is the link regarding additional funding for COVID19 patients and also the uninsured. It’s a typical Government publication. The net is providers get a 20% additional bump for treatment of COVID19 patients. 
 

https://www.hrsa.gov/coviduninsuredclaim/frequently-asked-questions