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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> spike@rainier66.com <spike@rainier66.com> <br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 4:59 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><i><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>> </span></i></span><i>OK so Florida and Texas shouldn’t open their schools.</i><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Texas revised their covid-19 death count downward after a change in the rules on how to count them. They now must go by the cause of death listed on the death certificate:<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://thejewishvoice.com/2020/08/cdc-chief-agrees-theres-perverse-economic-incentive-for-hospitals-to-inflate-coronavirus-deaths/">https://thejewishvoice.com/2020/08/cdc-chief-agrees-theres-perverse-economic-incentive-for-hospitals-to-inflate-coronavirus-deaths/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>CDC Director Robert Redfield:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:19.5pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><em><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif;color:#222222'>I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes too, really in the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack, but also have HIV — the hospital would prefer the [classification] for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement.</span></em><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Verdana",sans-serif;color:#222222'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='box-sizing: border-box;overflow-wrap: break-word;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px'><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?474168-1/drs-fauci-redfield-testify-national-strategy-combat-covid-19&live">https://www.c-span.org/video/?474168-1/drs-fauci-redfield-testify-national-strategy-combat-covid-19&live</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Hmmm. This tells me that Texas was gathering covid death data from hospitals previously, but now they are reading actual death certificates. We need a unified system for deciding what is and what is not a covid death. Without that, we have self-contradictory web pages, like those California counties, where the chart is labeled Covid-19 deaths but the fine print says they didn’t necessarily die of Covid-19.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Sheesh, oh well, at least that isn’t political. It’s just business. Economic incentives are not perverse. They are economic. Actual perversion is perverse. Economics is only money.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>But big decisions are still riding on that data.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Now I hafta wonder, since BillK explains that UK is also having a bit of bother on this topic: do nations in general have a way to deal with cases where patients expired WITH covid-19 but it is unclear if they perished OF covid-19? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>What happens if a country is incentivized the other way, to under-report covid deaths, for national pride for example? How far can the whole thing be stretched back the other way? Can Swedish medics claim on death certificates that the patient perished from overdosing on meatballs and ABBA records?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>