Johns Hopkins Study Saying COVID-19 Has ‘Relatively No Effect on Deaths’ in U.S.
Deleted After Publication
Quiet Disclosure By CDC
This JHU study concludes that total U.S. deaths are unchanged from previous years. This same conclusion had been reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
in October of 2020 (see links).
The CDC has quietly disclosed on its website:
“For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned.…”
(÷ 9 months = +23,000/month).
Source: PatientCareOnline.com)
Despite contrary reports in the mainstream media, the CDC reported that COVID death counts declined by August 30th, 2020.
As of November, deaths related to COVID have further declined.
Johns Hopkins Study Saying COVID-19 Has ‘Relatively No Effect on Deaths’ in U.S. Deleted After Publication
(Image: cdc.gov)
Conventional wisdom is that COVID-19 has caused thousands of deaths in the United States and nearly 1.5 million worldwide. This perception has been directly challenged by a study published by Johns Hopkins University on November 22.
Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Johns Hopkins University, critically analyzed the impact that COVID-19 had on U.S. deaths. According to Briand, the impact of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States can be fully understood by comparing it to the number of total deaths in the country.
According to the study, “in contrast to most people’s assumptions, the number of deaths by COVID-19 is not alarming. In fact, it has relatively no effect on deaths in the United States.”
Wait, what? Really?
That’s what it says. And, it should come as no surprise that the study was deleted within days.
Luckily, a back-up copy remains on The Wayback Machine, and we can still read the study.
So, how exactly did the study conclude that COVID-19 has had “relatively no effect on deaths”? Here’s how the study made this determination:
After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September, which includes the period from before COVID-19 was detected in the U.S. to after infection rates soared.
Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.
According to Briand, “The reason we have a higher number of reported COVID-19 deaths among older individuals than younger individuals is simply because every day in the U.S. older individuals die in higher numbers than younger individuals.”
Briand’s analysis found that the range of deaths amongst the older population has remained within the range of past years.
So, if COVID-19 has actually had no significant impact on U.S. deaths, why does it not appear that way?
To answer that question, Briand shifted her focus to the deaths per causes ranging from 2014 to 2020. There is a sudden increase in deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19. This is no surprise because COVID-19 emerged in the U.S. in early 2020, and thus COVID-19-related deaths increased drastically afterward.
Analysis of deaths per cause in 2018 revealed that the pattern of seasonal increase in the total number of deaths is a result of the rise in deaths by all causes, with the top three being heart disease, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia.
“This is true every year,” explained Briand. “Every year in the U.S. when we observe the seasonal ups and downs, we have an increase of deaths due to all causes.”
Here’s where things get interesting.
When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.
COURTESY OF GENEVIEVE BRIAND
Graph depicts the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018.
This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19.
This is likely the main explanation as to why COVID-19 deaths drastically increased while deaths by all other diseases experienced a significant decrease.
“All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers. We found no evidence to the contrary,” Briand concluded.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Briand addressed the question of whether COVID-19 deaths can be called misleading since the infection might have exacerbated and even led to deaths by other underlying diseases.
“If [the COVID-19 death toll] was not misleading at all, what we should have observed is an increased number of heart attacks and increased COVID-19 numbers.But a decreased number of heart attacks and all the other death causes doesn’t give us a choice but to point to some misclassification,” Briand replied.
In other words, the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the U.S. is considered problematic only when it increases the total number of deaths or the true death burden by a significant amount in addition to the expected deaths by other causes.
Since the crude number of total deaths by all causes before and after COVID-19 has stayed the same, one can hardly say, in Briand’s view, that COVID-19 deaths are concerning.
Briand also mentioned that more research and data are needed to truly decipher the effect of COVID-19 on deaths in the United States.Throughout the talk, Briand constantly emphasized that although COVID-19 is a serious national and global problem, she also stressed that society should never lose focus of the bigger picture — death in general.
The death of a loved one, from COVID-19 or from other causes, is always tragic, Briand explained. Each life is equally important and we should be reminded that even during a global pandemic we should not forget about the tragic loss of lives from other causes.
According to Briand, the over-exaggeration of the COVID-19 death number may be due to the constant emphasis on COVID-19-related deaths and the habitual overlooking of deaths by other natural causes in society.
source: waybackmachine
The study found that “This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years.” In fact, “the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19.”
Briand concludes that the COVID-19 death toll in the United States is misleading and that deaths from other diseases are being categorized as COVID-19 deaths.
There have been reports of inflated COVID-19 deaths numbers for months. Patients who never tested positive for the disease had COVID-19 as their cause of death on their death certificates. In May, Jared Polis, the Democrat governor of Colorado, disputed official coronavirus death counts, saying even those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were inflated as the result of including people who tested positive for the coronavirus but died of other causes. In July, a fatal motorcycle accident victim was listed as a COVID-19 death.
On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University explained that they deleted the article on the study because it “was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic.”
Marvis Gutierrez and Ariella Shua, the managing editors of the JHU newsletter, assured Lead Stories that the article/study was not censored. “The article in question was retracted last night, as it was being used to spread misinformation about the pandemic. We have preserved the article as a PDF and posted an Editor’s Note: with full clarification about our decision, highlighting the inaccuracies of the study…We were not censored, but decided to retract the article based on the reasons outlined in the Editor’s Note.””
The author of the article on Briand’s study, Yanni Gu, responding to the article being pulled, posted the following on LinkedIn:
Today, on November 27th, The News-Letter officially posted their reason for retracting the article, stating inaccuracies in the analysis.
I am frustrated at the explanation, and I think it is disrespectful to Dr. Briand’s hard work putting data together and doing an honest analysis.
If her analysis was to be contradicted, then at least an equal-level analysis should be done to provide more data and thus a new conclusion. Dr. Briand and her work deserve such respect.
I have received many messages asking the reason for taking the article down, and so I would like to officially express my opinions here. I even got emails saying that thanks to me, people now will not be wearing masks or practicing social distancing.
They called me “a COVID denier and a minimizer” and that I have no idea the damage and the lives cost in me writing such an article. I was devastated to receive such accusations, but I stand my ground. The goal is never to undermine the effects of COVID-19 but to suggest a possible over-exaggeration in death numbers due to the pandemic.
Professor Briand also responded to the pulling of the article, saying “Their decision to retract the article was their own. Yanni Gu did an excellent at reporting the content of the presentation. The full presentation is available at: Covid-19 Deaths: A Look at U.S. Data – YouTube. I explain during the presentation where I found and downloaded the data from, so anyone can easily replicate my analysis.”
Please take the time to listen to a thorough analysis & breakdown of this story from theLastAmericanVagabond:
Statistically in any given year, a certain number of people die. This is reality, the circle of life. While it is an emotionally heart-wrenching experience for those going through it, loved ones close to it and all those who are also touched, it is important to step back and take a more macro view when considering public policies and making decisions effecting the lives of society as a whole.
Such is the case in the current crisis that is changing the way we, our children and their children will experience life if we blindly stumble down the path being born out.
If we are truly in the “pandemic of the century”, the most important statistic we should be looking at is “all-cause deaths” year over year. If more people are passing from this most deadly, never before seen novel corona virus, then the numbers should bare this out…….such is not the case.
A recent study published using actual data from the CDC has been retracted after publication. Wonder why that would be? It does not seem to jive with the mainstream narrative being shoved down the throats of the fearful masses.
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