>>>>>I am sure you have heard that hospitals often attribute death to the C-19 even when people die of underlying conditions. My brother's father-in-law died this year, in his 90-s, he got C-19 when recovering from a broken hip operation. Officially he died of C-19. Although a friend of mine, a doctor, said that he believe that having hip operation at this age could have been more contributing factor.
>>>>>The problem, nobody knows.
>>>
>>>In places like New Zealand with fewer than 50 deaths total attributed to C19, it can be easier to review. Almost all of these deaths were in nursing homes or with major co-morbidities- "already circling the drain" as one whistler-past-the-graveyard put it... though one was a gunshot victim counted as C19 because he died within 28 days of a positive C19 test.
>>>
>>>I do wonder about this "within 28 days of a C19 test" definition that tends to inflate tallies. Until now, cause of death came from a death certificate signed by the patient's MD or a coroner. Why the change? Curiously, deaths within 28 days of vaccination are not automatically counted as vaccine side effects.
>>>
>>>Anyway: my own review of data agrees with yours, that people of the age of most of us here, generally are better off jabbed if there's C19 community spread. Jury is still out on younger people as vaccine side effects start to be recognized.
>>>
>>>Perhaps good news for 2022: South Africa's experience suggests that Omicron may be the beginning of the end of the pandemic as the bug mutates itself into a doddering shadow of its former self. Some argue that Omicron meets the old definition of a vaccine (an attenuated/weakened strain that confers immunity to its nasty relatives). If true, then history cycles back to the dawn of vaccination that is named after Variolae vaccinae, the weak Cowpox bug that Jenner used to immunize against the far nastier Smallpox.
>>
>>There's an entire science devoted to the study of infectious diseases with people who spend their whole lives researching these concepts. The concept of "co-morbidity" wasn't created when COVID started. If a 98 year old dies with cancer, did the cancer kill him? What if a woman with diabetes is hit by a bus and has a stroke on the operating table?
>>
>>The accepted answer (based on decades of experience and study) is: when in doubt, count it for all comorbidities. As numbers grow sufficiently large, outliers lose significance. New Zealand, with tiny numbers, probably vastly overstates their COVID deaths (40 instead of 50). But if you look at "excess deaths" for areas where COVID is endemic (basically everwhere else) the numbers suggest a vast UNDERcounting of COVID mortality.
>>
>
>I'm not sure about the UNDERcounting at least in the US where Federal $'s are involve.
>As for the cases, go to the CDC website below and compare the # of cases estimated by antibody testing and 100 million + and the # of cases reported 45 million +.
>https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#national-lab
>
>A couple of other things that might interest you -
>There is no age breakdown for New Jersey so I'll use Florida.
>When you click on Florida and scroll down and hover over the 0-17 age marker you will see that in that age group the average estimate is 48.3% with antibodies with a range of 44.6% to 51.1%. To me that means that requiring vaccination for all kids younger than 17 would be a waste of $160 million (you can add another $80 million for each booster shot) which could be used for other lifesaving actions. As for the data ("follow the science") -
>The US government pays about $80 for a two dose vaccination for covid-19. There are about 4 million people age 16 and under in Florida. Total cost $320 million. Total deaths in Florida from Covid-19 for people aged 16 and below in almost 2 years - 31 or over $10 million for every live saved IF all of the deaths could have been prevented with vaccine. http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/covid19-data/covid19_data_latest.pdf
> Meanwhile the mortality rate for Campylobacteriosis ranges from about 50/100k < 1year old to 10/100k age 10-14 and the infant mortality rate is 7.24% or over 1600/year.
>

It's so discouraging to see this kind of misinformation being perpetuated.

The issue with COVID isn't that it's dangerous for children (though it certainly can be), it's that children pass it along just as easily as adults. So while you're knickle-and-diming to keep kids from getting vaccinated, those unvaxed kids act as a reservoir for the disease, passing it on to their more vulnerable relations. Some of whom will certainly die. Far more will be desperately ill.

What is the cost to the State of Florida for putting someone on a ventilator for a week? What is the cost for a course of antivirals or monoclonal antibodies (which aren't effective against the latest strain)?

I understand the impulse to skepticism. But I don't understand the impulse to take positions that are actively pro-COVID. I guess it takes all kinds.

>
>As for the "little blue" masks (security blankets) try this test -
>Put on one of the masks
>Wear the mask for an hour or so
>Get a can of air freshener spray, go indoors and give a quick spray
>If you can't smell the spay go get tested for Covid - you have lost your sense of smell
>
>
>>Anyways, this is something experts grapple with all the time and it's very mundane. But it has been sensationalized by pro-COVID provocateurs who spread FUD about the vaccine, masks, closures and everything else. Almost nothing these people have ever said about COVID was true, but when their lies are punctured they're quickly back up with a new theory, a new accusation and a new bogeyman.
>>
>>It turns out that the greatest weakness modern man has to a disease like COVID is the ease with which we spread lies and disinformation.