Meanwhile, as the political debate over the response to the virus heats up, some have argued that death reports are being deliberately skewed.
I had a customer at work yesterday who told me, "My sister is a nurse at {local hospital}. She told me that the government pays $3500 for every death certificate that says 'COVID-19.' on it. So, unless someone takes a bullet to the head, their death will always be due to the COVID-19." I didn't really have much of a reply to that. He started out by saying that the virus was a fake, that he didn't know anyone who had it, and neither did we. One of my co-workers said that another co-worker's daughter had had it and recovered, and I said that the son-in-law of a friend was the first person in the city to die of it. He said that someone was lying, either us, or the people who told us this. Then he started in on the $3500 rant.
BTW, if anyone has noticed a lack of posting I'm going through one of the worst weeks of my life, one tragic thing, and a bunch of other overwhelming things all at once. In a week or so I'll probably be reading more at my normal rate.
I'm all for entertaining a wide range of opinions and perspectives, but there has to be some baseline level of reason, mutual respect and acknowledgement that no one personal has all the answers to everything. It sounds like the person you were talking to didn't meet any of those requirements.
Really sorry to hear that you're going through such a difficult time (plus having to deal with obnoxious customers as well!). Wishing you all the best!
Solid assessment of the challenges involved with determining a single cause of death in general, let alone during a pandemic. It seems like the best data for policy making will eventually come from widespread, widely available tests that can be performed on a large random sample of the population rather than looking at death certificates.
I had a customer at work yesterday who told me, "My sister is a nurse at {local hospital}. She told me that the government pays $3500 for every death certificate that says 'COVID-19.' on it. So, unless someone takes a bullet to the head, their death will always be due to the COVID-19." I didn't really have much of a reply to that. He started out by saying that the virus was a fake, that he didn't know anyone who had it, and neither did we. One of my co-workers said that another co-worker's daughter had had it and recovered, and I said that the son-in-law of a friend was the first person in the city to die of it. He said that someone was lying, either us, or the people who told us this. Then he started in on the $3500 rant.
BTW, if anyone has noticed a lack of posting I'm going through one of the worst weeks of my life, one tragic thing, and a bunch of other overwhelming things all at once. In a week or so I'll probably be reading more at my normal rate.
I'm all for entertaining a wide range of opinions and perspectives, but there has to be some baseline level of reason, mutual respect and acknowledgement that no one personal has all the answers to everything. It sounds like the person you were talking to didn't meet any of those requirements.
Really sorry to hear that you're going through such a difficult time (plus having to deal with obnoxious customers as well!). Wishing you all the best!
Solid assessment of the challenges involved with determining a single cause of death in general, let alone during a pandemic. It seems like the best data for policy making will eventually come from widespread, widely available tests that can be performed on a large random sample of the population rather than looking at death certificates.