Originally Posted by
tarquinbeech
There are an awful lot of "opinions" being posted (no names mentioned, no pack drill) on here about how terrible Donnie is at running the most powerful country in the World, how he wants to sacrifice his people on the altar of capitalism, how he is just plain bat-shyte crazy (pun intended), how his odds are drifting in the marketplace from sub-evens to not-such-a-cert etc etc etc....yes, yes, I've got 50 smackers on the fruit-loop to win a 2nd term.
Some of the people posting the above, have a clear political agenda, some are plainly worried about loss of life, destabilisation of World economies....some have friends and family there, some live there.
Soooooo......my simple question is, how many USA deaths to Covid will there be, and will Donnie survive to win the next election (the two are, IMO, directly linked)
Facts to aid in decision.....USA has a declared population of 330 million people, of which 36,000 die annually in car accidents 67,000 died of drugs overdoses and 15,000 by homicides.
Leading causes of death are heart disease 647,000, cancer 600,000, accidents 170,000, chronic respiratory diseases 160,000, strokes 146,000, alzheimers 121,000, diabetes 83,000, flu 55,000, kidney disease 51,000 and suicide 47,000
My gut reaction is there will more than the normal flu deaths 55,000 and somewhere below those normally of respiratory diseases ie 160,000
My main concerns are those I have expressed over the Italian figures ie one report I read on a science forum was showing 48% of Italian deaths marked as Covid had at least 2 other contributing pre-existing conditions ie they were already very sick but Covid "pushed them over the edge"....same with a Guardian report on German deaths v Italian deaths ie it's all in the methodology as to how the figures compare.
Anyway, I'm having a stab at 70,000 (50,000 normally die of flu anyway and another 20,000 of those seriously ill from respiratory diseases getting marked as Covid deaths).
IMO, if he can keep the deaths below 70,000 he will be seen to have managed the crisis well, above that figure and he will start to struggle for re-election.
Floated that figure past Doctor Miriam who said I'm way too high, she's still a bit Mehhhh about the whole Covid thing anyway, as are most Mexicans (850 cases, 16 dead)....I keep telling her it's early days yet.
ps In my search for the above stats I also came across the least common causes of death in the USA.....here are a few,
shot by police 986, lightning strike 31, lawnmower deaths 75, crushed by vending machine 2, taking a "selfie" 2 and finally, killed in Black Friday Sales stampede 1