Fool Me Once
On December 2 , Joe Biden announced there may be 250,000 further deaths due to COVID between 'now and January'. Now, Joe has had a history of adding a zero here and there to his estimates, but this one was widely published without challenge, and at least 250,000 isn't 250,000,000. But is even this number remotely reasonable? It took eight months, between March and the end of October, for the US to reach a total of 250,000 COVID deaths. And keep in mind that health authorities throughout this time have repeated that COVID deaths are calculated as any death in which the decedent tested positive for COVID, whatever the underlying cause. Someone killed in a skydiving accident would be a COVID death if he tested positive. Someone who died in a hospice from terminal cancer would be a COVID death that way. On December 5, there were 2,190 COVID deaths that day in the US. which seems to be generally consistent with the totals in recent weeks. (The numbers jump around in the ...