With 92% vaccinated Portugal registers highest daily COVID deaths in year | Hacker News Reader

With 92% vaccinated Portugal registers highest daily COVID deaths in year

theportugalnews.com

32 pointsbelter24 comments

The propaganda headline has nothing to do with the article and also is completely wrong. According to [1], daily deaths now at 39, but on 01/31/2021 7 times that at 303.

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/portugal/

edit: typos.

You are right about the figures, but they are at their daily peak for cases which seems newsworthy considering many countries are mandating the covid vaccine.

So, cases are at their highest but deaths are a fraction of what they used to be? Sounds like an endorsement of the vaccines

From the article:

"...It is the highest number of deaths of people with covid-19 in 24 hours since February 25, 2021, when 49 people also died..."

Which is not what your headline submission says. Also, the article makes no statement about the relation to the vaccination status.

The actual title talks to relevance of the post instead of the title of "Covid-19: Portugal Update, 21 January" that might force you dig into the numbers, before judging relevance, something I did before posting.

Nothing more factual that the title, and it's a fact that for practically the last almost 12 months is the highest number of daily deaths since the peak around one year ago of 303 the 28 Jan 2021.

As several countries, France, Spain, Italy now face the Omicron wave, there are lots of open questions if we are facing the end of Covid, or just preparing for a different wave.

HN decided to flag a factual post as "propaganda", but even if you not are Portuguese speaker ( Google translate is pretty good ) have a look at the front news of today for the top 5 or 6 Portuguese newspapers: I provide them below for your convenience, and decide then if post was relevant or factual or not...

https://www.cmjornal.pt/

https://www.cmjornal.pt/sociedade/detalhe/-43-mortos-e-58-13...

https://expresso.pt/

https://expresso.pt/sociedade/covid-19-aumento-de-casos-vai-...

https://www.dn.pt/

https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/portugal-com-mais-58-131-casos-e...

https://www.jn.pt/

https://www.jn.pt/nacional/quarto-dia-consecutivo-acima-dos-...

https://www.publico.pt/

https://www.publico.pt/2022/01/22/sociedade/noticia/covid19-...

Well, you should have 'judged relevance' that more carefully then, because your submitted title is factually wrong, by a long shot.

"Número de mortos por Covid em Portugal é o mais alto desde março. Terceiro dia com 40 mil novos casos"

https://www.tsf.pt/portugal/sociedade/portugal-regista-40090...

You go and translate it in case you need it...

Just read my first post and that should tell you everything that was wrong with your title. Because you insist on your alternative fact that 303 is somehow less than 39, I think propaganda is the right interpretation of the spin you are trying to give this story.

No. You are the one being disingenuous. The core issue here is the curve and the trend. You use one data point and ignore the trend of all the few months and the last few days.That goes to the core of relevance or not of the post.

It could not be, more clear, from the diagram: "Novos Casos e Óbitos desde o início da pandemia"

at the center of this article: https://www.cmjornal.pt/sociedade/detalhe/-43-mortos-e-58-13...

It is such a notable event, that made the front pages of every single newspapers on the day of reference I provided. According to your argument, just propaganda...Maybe you could argue where do you see the elements of disinformation?

The factual statement that Portugal is practically at 90% vaccination or ... The factual statement, another wave is popping up with thousands of cases ( fortunately this time, it seems, with less serious consequences)?

43 is still much less than 303, according to the math I learned in school.

> In the last 24 hours 40 more people were hospitalised with covid-19

Without context this doesn't sound super alarming. In a country of 10 Million, at ostensibly the peak of a wave of infection, 40 people per day are hospitalized. How does that differ from seasonal flu? Or from regular variations in hospitalization? It sounds like it could be a rounding error...

Table "Total Coronavirus Deaths in Portugal" helps a little bit with the context as it goes back to 15 Feb 2020

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/portugal/

Wow last winters peak prior to vaccines was brutal in daily deaths. So far it’s lower by orders of magnitude, hope it’s just not a factor of timing since deaths lag cases.

Program ramp up was of Nov/Dec 2020

https://www.ft.com/content/1b9f5dd0-0ddb-449d-b11d-f27998502...

Any chance of a non-paywalled version?

https://archive.is/FhnlE

Thanks!

And OWD completely disagrees with the articles assumption.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

Maybe I am missing something, but not seeing in what disagrees, also note OWD is per million.

Death rate from covid is low in Portual and Spain (compared to USA) since summer, possibly because of the high vaccination rate. Unfortunately, the covid death rate is still much higher than flu.

No it's actually much lower than flu now.

See this infographic from the local paper. Sorry in Spanish: https://www.elperiodico.com/es/ext_resources/infographics/20... Gripe is flu. Contagios is infections and Muertes deaths. They compare cases with deaths between recent flu epidemics and current covid figures.

Full article: https://www.elperiodico.com/es/sociedad/20220102/variante-om....

Of course not all cases of the flu would have been reported but covid is highly under reported now too as most people don't do the official test anymore after home testing positive.

El periódico is a left leaning paper that was very pro-measures up until now so it really looks like things are turning.

Don't forget the narrative by the media is that it's all the unvaccinated people's fault that the virus keeps spreading. This is now clearly patently false in the era of Omicron.

Is the point to be accurate or to isolate and purge a certain segments of the population? Maybe groups that tend to be more independent minded.

Never mind all the people who got sick before the vaccine and don’t see the point.

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