Johns Hopkins Retracts Newsletter: "They Would Have Died Anyway"(?)

[Guest]

I stumbled across this story by accident. Johns Hopkins has retracted a newsletter which says that so many deaths "due to COVID-19" have been miscategorized that the numbers appear to be completely bogus. It's alleged that Johns Hopkins retracted it because it was being used to "spread disinformation".

With caveat that the person who published this report is not a credentialed medical researcher, but a journalist:

"Briand also claimed in her analysis that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may be incorrectly categorized as COVID-19-related deaths. However, COVID-19 disproportionately affects those with preexisting conditions, so those with those underlying conditions are statistically more likely to be severely affected and die from the virus."

In other words, the 'Rona has snuffed few aside from those who would have died anyway, but the report goes on to say that more research is needed.

Archived here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iO0K75EZAF8dkNDkDmM3L4zNNY0X-Xw5/view

Edited December 1, 2020 by Guest
Clarity

[feuergnom 22]

on a long enough timeline, everyones rate of survival drops to zero....

[olofscience 420]

4 hours ago, markharju said:

In other words, the 'Rona has snuffed few aside from those who would have died anyway

You're parroting right wing shills nicely, but you're a bit late on this one.

The fact is when the virus spreads, hospitals fill up that otherwise wouldn't. Germany is close to running out of ICU beds. If people were dying anyway, then ICU usage would remain roughly the same and countries won't run out of hospital beds.

I live right next to a Nightingale (field) hospital here in the UK. We didn't have to use them in the first wave, but the regular hospitals are now filled up enough that they're now accepting patients.

Also "preexisting conditions" could mean anything - I'm an athlete, I swim competitively, play waterpolo, but I have hay fever allergy. If you count something like that as "preexisting conditions" then that could mean practically everyone.

So, it's absolute bullshit that "they would have died anyway". Also I'd dare you to say that to the relatives who lost family to the virus, say it to their face.

Edited December 1, 2020 by olofscience

[feuergnom 22]

@markharju btw: I really appreciate that you changed the tone of your posts

[GeorgiaDon 340]

The article in question was written by a journalism student, about a lecture given by an economist with no medical or public health  training, and published in the student newspaper.  It is disingenuous at best to pretend that a newspaper article about a lecture like this one is in any way an official statement by the Hopkins medical/public health school.  The economist in question apparently.had an agenda,  as they misstated key facts about the disease and completely ignored several published studies that show a large number of excess deaths since February, compared to all previous years for which such records have been kept.  It's not surprising, I suppose, that an economist would seek to downplay the pandemic if they valued money more than lives.

I'm sure everyone can appreciate that an article.in the student newspaper is in no way an official statement by a University about anything.  I assume the student journalist accurately reported.what the economics professor said.  I think in that case the appropriate response would not have been to remove the article from the on line version of the paper.  Rather, there should have been a vigorous debate in subsequent issues of the paper, and the economics prof should have been criticized for using their lecture to spread easily debunked misinformation.  

Edited December 1, 2020 by GeorgiaDon

[Guest]

"It is disingenuous at best to pretend that a newspaper article about a lecture like this one is in any way an official statement by the Hopkins medical/public health school. "

Agreed. I thought that I did make what I believed were appropriate caveats....

[GeorgiaDon 340]

I didn't mean to suggest that you were being disingenuous and I apologise that I worded things so it could be read that way.  I think the source you quoted did deliberately phrase things to leave the wrong impression.

[nwt 131]

1 hour ago, markharju said:

"It is disingenuous at best to pretend that a newspaper article about a lecture like this one is in any way an official statement by the Hopkins medical/public health school. "

Agreed. I thought that I did make what I believed were appropriate caveats....

So by "Johns Hopkins" and "newsletter" you meant "student newspaper" and by "journalist", you meant "journalism student"? Those are important differences.

[kallend 1,619]

1 hour ago, markharju said:

"It is disingenuous at best to pretend that a newspaper article about a lecture like this one is in any way an official statement by the Hopkins medical/public health school. "

Agreed. I thought that I did make what I believed were appropriate caveats....

Your "caveat" was that the author of the "report"  was a "journalist".

 "caveat that the person who published this report is not a credentialed medical researcher, but a journalist:"

Rather misleading.

[wmw999 2,114]

Again, that could come from a willingness to believe the characterization of the source where he found that, and not deliberate deceit on his part. 
Wendy P. 

[billvon 2,379]

10 hours ago, markharju said:

In other words, the 'Rona has snuffed few aside from those who would have died anyway, but the report goes on to say that more research is needed.

Well, that's similar to saying that the 9/11 attacks killed few people; most of the people who died had pre-existing conditions and would have died anyway.

[nwt 131]

27 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Again, that could come from a willingness to believe the characterization of the source where he found that, and not deliberate deceit on his part. 
Wendy P. 

It's possible, but my understanding of his followup was that when he made his initial post he understood the author was a journalism student not representing Johns Hopkins, and that was why I responded the way I did. Maybe he was mislead as well, but that wasn't clear to me from his response.

[Guest]

Thanks to all for the comments. Yes, student paper - that should have been pointed out. However, none of this was to scoff about COVID-19. Quite the opposite; accurate information is more important than ever. I just found the whole thing a little peculiar. It's well that the university retracted it but also kept it available with a disclaimer.

[nwt 131]

3 minutes ago, markharju said:

Thanks to all for the comments. Yes, student paper - that should have been pointed out. However, none of this was to scoff about COVID-19. Quite the opposite; accurate information is more important than ever. I just found the whole thing a little peculiar. It's well that the university retracted it but also kept it available with a disclaimer.

The university didn't retract it because they didn't publish it. It was published and retracted by "The Students of Johns Hopkins" as clearly indicated at the top of the document.

[kallend 1,619]

51 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Again, that could come from a willingness to believe the characterization of the source where he found that, and not deliberate deceit on his part. 
Wendy P. 

Then again, he has shown a willingness repeatedly to troll the forum with right wing talking points of dubious veracity ever since it became apparent that Trump lost to Biden.

[gowlerk 1,901]

It is always difficult and contentious trying to determine how many people died of the virus. The most common way that the epidemiologists would approach it is to look at the statistics. They would compare the number of deaths during the period of the pandemic with the number of deaths that could be expected during normal times

[jakee 1,254]

2 hours ago, markharju said:

Quite the opposite; accurate information is more important than ever. 

So you posted the finding of the original article, along with your own "in other words" synopsis of the article, without at any point indicating that you didn't think the article was accurate?

 

Because you wanted to provide accurate information?

[Guest]

12 hours ago, jakee said:

So you posted the finding of the original article, along with your own "in other words" synopsis of the article, without at any point indicating that you didn't think the article was accurate?

 

Because you wanted to provide accurate information?

...did you see the caveats in the original post?

[wmw999 2,114]

The caveat was :With caveat that the person who published this report is not a credentialed medical researcher, but a journalist

Except the person who published the article was a journalism student, and it wasn't Johns Hopkins but the student newspaper that published it. The disagreement is with the easy inference that it was associated with some kind of Johns Hopkins outlet that involved actual experienced people. Even if you claim it wasn't an implication, the inference is pretty gigantically there.

It's like saying "The NY Times publishes article saying Billvon is a duck" without identifying it as being on the funny pages, or "Fox News says there was massive fraud in the election (even though it was an opinion commentator)" Oh wait -- Fox News did say that, until they didn't.

Part of intellectual honesty is acknowledging the actual source of something, and not just fitting it into your ideological structure.

Wendy P.

[SkyDekker 1,119]

All brought to you by the same people who decry real journalism as fake news.

[billvon 2,379]

5 hours ago, wmw999 said:

Except the person who published the article was a journalism student, and it wasn't Johns Hopkins but the student newspaper that published it . . .

It should be noted that this is one way that the echo chamber generates news.

Someone says "Here's a picture of Biden molesting a little girl!  Her parents confirmed it!"  And the news goes viral.  FOX does a story on it.  OAN does a story saying "Journalist confirms that parents are outraged that Biden molested a little girl."  FOX News then does a story on "OAN reporter confirms . . ." AP does a story on misinformation and cites both those stories.

Trump supporters then say "See?  EVERYONE says it's true!  Even AP is talking about it!  What, don't you believe AP?"

Meanwhile it turns out that it wasn't her parents who claimed that, it was someone in the comments section of the Facebook post of a Photoshopped picture of Biden.  But that's lost in the distant (days ago) mists of the past.  And that doesn't matter any more; what matters is what the echo chamber is saying about it.

In the OP in this thread, the goal isn't getting the information out there, caveats or not.  It is getting exactly one snippet - about how coronavirus isn't really killing many people at all - into that echo chamber.

 

[jakee 1,254]

13 hours ago, markharju said:

...did you see the caveats in the original post?

Yes. As I said, it gave no indication that you thought the conclusion of the article you both posted and summarised in your own words was not correct, reliable or based on anything other than sound data and methodology.

Once again, a very strange way of making sure that accurate information is being relayed.

[nwt 131]

13 hours ago, markharju said:

...did you see the caveats in the original post?

Did you see the multiple posts calling out your caveats as factually incorrect?

e: Honestly hard to give the benefit of the doubt to his intentions at this point

Edited December 2, 2020 by nwt
explained in post

[Guest]

1 hour ago, jakee said:

Yes. As I said, it gave no indication that you thought the conclusion of the article you both posted and summarised in your own words was not correct, reliable or based on anything other than sound data and methodology.

Once again, a very strange way of making sure that accurate information is being relayed.

...nice way to twist my words. At no point did I say that I thought it was legitimate. I was holding it up as an example of how a cascade of decisions can lead to misunderstanding.

[wolfriverjoe 1,339]

24 minutes ago, markharju said:

...nice way to twist my words. At no point did I say that I thought it was legitimate. I was holding it up as an example of how a cascade of decisions can lead to misunderstanding.

Ha. 

You said:
 

Quote

In other words, the 'Rona has snuffed few aside from those who would have died anyway, but the report goes on to say that more research is needed.

How is that not spreading the 'disinformation'.