The Great Mask and Vaccination Debate of 2021

I know what you mean. I don't refer to the Covid statistics anywhere near as much now as I did a year ago, when it seemed that we were never going to stem the number of deaths that we appeared to be suffering.

For me though, the problem throughout this pandemic has always seemed to be that the statistics were never fully put into context, so it was difficult for you to ever fully evaluate the true risk to yourself and your family.
 
Well, I imagine there are some few folks who test Covid positive after an automobile accident or fall or something else that killed them, the probability that this is a statistically significant part of the overall Covid death numbers is quite small.

Also, there is a separation between Covid infection reporting and Covid death reporting, and those who assign cause of death for death certificates do choose the most probable cause. Someone killed by a fall off a cliff who also happened to test positive for Covid postmortem is not going to have Covid listed as the cause of death on their death certificate. (And, sadly, I have enough recent experience with deaths and death certificates, not related to Covid, to know this to be true.)
 
I tend to trust the worldometer site for reliable statistics given the sources and methods they've listed on their about page explaining how they collect data. I understand their data is only as accurate as the govt websites they're getting it from and it's true there's no real way of knowing how accurate those figures are, but I lean towards believing them, at least for Australia. There's no way to definitively track deaths specific to Covid because it's on the medical professional that signs the death certificate to make the determination. That can be further complicated by a lack of autopsies to confirm the cause of death in many cases too.

We can only go by what's reported though and for all intents and purposes, even if 20% of Australian covid related deaths have been misreported, then that's still 800 deaths that were potentially avoidable if the vaccine was made available sooner. I know that no system is perfect, but I find it very difficult to accept being told that there is a lack of vaccines to go around when the stuff is being made in Australia in the first place! That's just poor management on behalf of the government and it's something that I personally consider unforgivable. Nothing I've read in the media has convinced me that our Government put the health of Australians first, so as a result, I'm very much looking forward to the next election.
 
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Brian, I have no doubt whatsoever that the death certificates will record the actual cause of death, but that's not what is quoted in the statistics, at least not in the UK.

As I said earlier, to appear in the Covid "death" statistics here, the person who died has only to have tested positive for Covid within 28 days of their death.

It may be different elsewhere, but that's the way things are in the UK, and it makes it hard to establish just how many people have actually died of Covid, and how many died of something else but were infected within 28 days prior to their death.
 
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