San Diego Supervisor Says Only 6 of 194 Recorded Deaths ‘Pure’Coronavirus Deaths | Hacker News Reader

San Diego Supervisor Says Only 6 of 194 Recorded Deaths ‘Pure’Coronavirus Deaths

dailywire.com

11 pointsmrfusion17 comments

What a teachable case of the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy.

Suppose we had packs of wild dogs roaming the streets. Sure, they'd maul some people to an early death, but a lot of those people had underlying conditions that made them unable to run as fast! We should only count the true mauling cases, the ones where clearly the packs of wild dogs were the only factor in their demise.

Unfortunately your comparison leaves out a lot. We have a large percentage of covid19 infected people with no symthoms whatsoever. How does that square with your pack of wild dogs? I believe that is what is being pointed out here. You have asymptomatic elderly people dieing in their 70's and 80's, testing positive and their death being attributed to Covid19. It's not easy to tease that apart. But it's easy to dismiss as unreasonable to say. Asking if 20% of those death shouldn't be attributed to Covid19 is a valid question.

We have a very reliable baseline number on how many people die per day. It’s completely reasonable to assume that all deaths in excess of that number are, directly or indirectly, caused by Covid.

No, we do not. Because every. single. other. thing. in society has changed in the past three months. We have evidence of people refusing to call emergency services due to fear of contracting covid. We have evidence of an increase in death that _can't_ be attributed to covid. There is really no comparison between now and last year at this time. Literally everything is different.

> We have evidence of people refusing to call emergency services due to fear of contracting covid.

Which is indirectly because of Covid, that's my whole point.

That is from our _response_ to Covid. One is within our control.

Let's say you rob a bank, and you get in a gunfight with the police. If the police accidentally shoot a bystander, you are charged with their homicide. That's because you were the root cause of that person being shot.

The same goes for coronavirus deaths - ultimately the excess mortality is due to the virus, even when those deaths are not directly attributable.

We do the same thing when calculating hurricane death tolls - you don't have to be hit by a flying tree to have your death count as a hurricane death, you could just as easily die because the power was out and your ventilator failed, or because your insulin supply ran out.

So if I see the pack of dogs from 100 yards away, and die of a heart attack as a result, what was the cause of death?

And I'm asking that seriously, because somewhere someone lost their job last month, and had a heart attack. (probably several people given the immense number of layoffs)

What is the "cause" in that case?

I'd submit that their are many causes, and some are degrees-of-freedom away from the actual virus (like the heart attack above).

Statistics are definitely complicated, and assigning a cause of death is usually not easy (maybe for a gunshot it's easy), but what about the 90 year old guy with hardened arteries, diabetes, and cancer who dies of a heart attack while in the hospital being treated for the flu? Any yes, there are tons of COVID deaths like that (basically any nursing home death).

I'd bet that five years from now we'll still be arguing about this.

No, this is a misapplication of the fallacy. In a NTS fallacy, there is an existing definition accepted by all involved. A claim is made of an intrinsic characteristic, contrary evidence presented, then the definition is changed to discount the evidence.

I don't agree with the '6 cases' conclusion, but in this case, we do not have a universal accepted definition as a starting point. Instead, there is serious and valid question of how to evaluate causality when numerous factors contribute to an outcome.

Of course this is easily extendable - the elderly don’t die from old age, they die from conditions accumulated as you get older. So any elderly person who dies prematurely due to coronavirus is not a “pure” coronavirus death.

> the country’s top infection disease expert, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci,

I see this with nearly every mention of Fauci. In my experience, there is never a "top" expert for a broad topic such as "infection disease".

What other broad topics are informing your experience?

> What other broad topics are informing your experience?

I'll bite.

So, I find the Austrian school Economists best at explaining the impact the Federal Reserve has on markets. I consider several individuals who claim to be from that school to be my preferred experts when I want to understand what is happening with the Federal Reserve.

However, I would not proclaim these experts to be the "country's top Federal Reserve experts" simply because there can be no authoritative source for this claim as there are other experts in the field with very different (and equally well supported) positions on Federal Reserve activity.

Thank you. It was a sincere question.

As reported by The Daily Wire, so clearly no chance of confirmation bias...

They seem to be reporting on this article https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/202...

I'm sure there is a selection bias at play for what the daily wire chooses to report on. And I'm sure there is confirmation bias informing the opinions being reported on, there always is. But how would the fact that the daily wire is reporting on it, specifically, contribute to a confirmation bias, in this case?

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