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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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The excess deaths are probably caused by the after effects of Corona. Myocarditis and other heart issues are moderately common in people who didn't even have severe cases. Most of the people who have these issues probably don't know they have them. Then there are the severe cases, of which there were a lot, where people were stuck on ventilators and likely had all sorts of complications. Those people often aren't long for this world. There's also a case to be made that isolation caused by the pandemic has increased all cause mortality, bit that's pretty foggy and may not be true. It's also possible that the data is just off.

If the vaccines caused noticeable health risks it would be absurdly easy to see a correlation. Vaccination=higher mortality. That correlation isn't there. Also, hiding a health issue caused by a drug is so outside of the FDAs historical behavioral pattern that it's really ridiculous to lean into some conspiratorial coverup. Remember, when 2 J&J vaccine patients had heart issues out if millions (a rate which is far less than the rate in the random population) the FDA pulled the vaccine immediately. Yet they're covering up mass sickness from other vaccines?

This is one of those conspiracies that's really hard not to be condescending about because it's just so thinly supported.

The excess deaths are probably caused by the after effects of Corona. Myocarditis and other heart issues are moderately common in people who didn't even have severe cases.

If that was the explanation, shouldn't we see a pretty big difference between current excess deaths in mostly vaxxed vs. mostly unvaxxed countries? Do we see it?

I would bet there is no reliable data in unvaccinated countries. Every country developed enough for a vaccine campaign (except for China) has used the Western mrna vaccines. Also, if there was good data it wouldn't be comparable. Africa's mortality is not comparable to countries where half the country is over 50 (or whatever it is). Especially when you factor in all the excess mortality in Africa from other things (AIDS, untreated diseases that wouldn't matter in the developed world, etc)

You should have a look at Hungary -- their rate is lowish for Europe, and a significant number of those who did get it had Sinovac or Sputnik, due to Hungary opting out of the EUs Pfizer/Moderna supply in order to get quicker access.

Also I think Peru used a lot of Sinovac -- not sure they are devoloped enough for you, but clearly moreso than most places in Africa.

Would you trust data from Peru or Hungary? I sure wouldn't. I suspect even US data is quite fuzzy.

Sure, why not? You don't need to be a technostate to count dead people.

The cause of death and data surrounding it would be more what I'm worried about.

That information is not required to calculate excess mortality.

It's required to tell what excess mortality means, which is the whole point of this discussion.

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