But how are they to run a fear campaign if they can't manipulate the numbers, and how will the companies profiting from the scare be successful if they can't use shady tactics to achieve their desired goals?

Dying isn't the only outcome, and you can't work while you're sick. This isn't some flu, it has long term implications for 10-30% of those infected and is extremely contagious. Many ICUs are at capacity or beyond it, and it wasn't long ago NYC and Milan were storing bodies in refrigerated containers. A small percentage of a big number is still a big number, if anything our response has been underwhelming.

How do you want to explain away the excess death numbers? We are undercounting COVID deaths in the US, especially in rural areas where vaccination rates are lower. Globally the same thing is true. Excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 are higher than tallied COVID fatalities and other explanations don't account for the magnitude of the difference.

What's disingenuous is saying everyone is too afraid of the virus when non-tech sectors still have to go in to work, all of the financial support for those impacted dried up, 20% of all inpatient beds registered with the HHS are in use specifically for COVID, etc.

A million or more Americans are dead of COVID and most of those were easily preventable. The only thing saving us from that number being much higher is an extremely high-tech medical system and passable infrastructure. If we had a death rate like Brazil with the case loads we're experiencing maybe more people would take it seriously and get a jab. Or not, at this point I expect nothing from US citizens. It's unbelievable to me that antivax sentiment has been allowed to fester in the "marketplace for free ideas" that we've forgotten how life was before robust public vaccination campaigns.

Ah yes, a Gallup poll is certainly reflective of actual medical reality. Especially when a non-zero number of people die from Covid while claiming it isn’t real.

Shut up with your conspiracy nonsense.

Obesity is a huge factor. If we had a zero obesity rate I suspect that would cut the infection fatality rate by at least 2/3.

https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...

https://cardiologyres.org/index.php/Cardiologyres/article/vi...

https://reason.com/2022/01/03/cdc-covid-19-children-hospital...

That's kind of where I'm at this point. I just want to know the non obese number to know what I need to do for myself besides vaccination and already having the virus. Or can I just go on with life? It's really the same way I want to know how many people die of Lung cancer that aren't smokers so I can get radon detectors for home and not be around people that smoke and potentially any other risk factors I'm at.

80% of hospitalizations in the US were overweight or obese, the number is even more egregious for under-65 hospitalizations and deaths.

There's some data (small sample, vaccinated people only) at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/pdfs/mm7101a4-H.pdf .

Fair question. We are still operating in the real world. US has an obesity epidemic and that should be fixed, that doesn't prevent the real-world death and healthcare stresses that we are seeing and will be many years of work before the obesity epidemic is tackled. We have to operate in the world we live in with the precautions we take.

We can't just blanket say: "Well you all are obese, so we aren't going to do anything" and instead are trying to do something that might help millions more not die. I have a lot of reservations about many of the tactics, but at the same time the answer is not "do nothing" (which I don't think you are recommending, but is the recommendation of some that repeat these talking points).

Brazil has a lower obesity rate and much higher fatalities. It's a multifaceted problem and I think it's irresponsible to paint this as a "if you die from COVID it's your fault because you had comorbidities". That's eugenics. If you're drunk and get into a car crash the ER is still going to treat you. It's a shame governments worried so much about messaging instead of sending free PPE and paying people + small businesses to stay home for a month or so and actually enforce it.

And what is your point exactly? COVID can kill an individual thousands of times faster than they can shed their other comorbities. So then what? In an ideal world, the government would have focused on health YEARS ago, but that's not real life. In real life my grandmother cannot walk and is overweight, and thus cannot do almost anything about it. So should she just die in your scenario? And that's fine because she's older and fat?

Maybe in the past, but today since everyone is obese by the standards a couple generations back it’s not significant datapoint.

This terminology ("with") has been used problematically in the past including calling into question covid death numbers. Including a commonly repeated line of: "All deaths right now are accounted to covid because everyone has covid." and then downplaying the severity of what is going on. We should be more clear about the use of language when stating things like this because, frankly, the words we use matter. This post in particular does not explain what the goal of your statement is.

I looked at a few of these and funny enough it calls out that covid is still partially responsible for the excess deaths, just not directly: i.e. full ICU beds, lack of care due to covid healthcare stresses, and other indirect causes. There are other excess death causes right now including drug epidemics but we should not attempt to downplay that a large amount of the excess deaths are directly accountable to the covid situation.