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Comment by sdffdsfdsfsddsf | Hacker News Reader

"Death rates change based on how well the healthcare system can keep up."

Not really, actually. At least I haven't seen a number of "people who died because they couldn't receive care" - do you have one? It seems possible that once health care systems are overwhelmed, more people die. But how often, if ever in this pandemic, has that point been reached? I don't think that often - there is no good treatment anyway.

"only a sample size of 500"

It's science. 500 can be a lot, or few. It was a sound and thorough study by acknowledged scientists.

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> At least I haven't seen a number of "people who died because they couldn't receive care" - do you have one?

No, that's impossible to provide between people dying at home because hospitals are full and the general chaos of those situations. And then there's the big difference between quality of care in various countries, death rates of just about everything will be much higher in Mozambique than they will be in Sweden, it's nonsensical to think that quality of medical care will not have an effect.

> It seems possible that once health care systems are overwhelmed, more people die. But how often, if ever in this pandemic, has that point been reached?

Many times in many countries, look at the national totals somewhere like here (https://covid19info.live/), the trend is nearly always that more cases at once translate to much higher death rates. Partly due to not knowing the true number of infections, but mostly due to the availability of medical care.

"No, that's impossible to provide between people dying at home because hospitals are full and the general chaos of those situations."

That's another claim you make, that you should be able to support. Have people been denied hospital care and therefore died at home?

"the trend is nearly always that more cases at once translate to much higher death rates"

Could have any number of explanations, like maybe infected old people homes.

"it's nonsensical to think that quality of medical care will not have an effect."

Again - are there cases of people dying because they couldn't receive care in the US, and how many?

"but mostly due to the availability of medical care."

Again, can you give any examples of people dying because they couldn't receive care? Especially in the US. And show that it is a significant number of people?

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