<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Raidion</author><text>I think where that 5% figure is used incorrectly: if you look at the other factors, they seem to not be &amp;quot;someone had a stroke, caught covid, and died&amp;quot;, they&amp;#x27;re stuff like &amp;quot;Someone had Covid, developed pneumonia and died&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The top &amp;quot;other factors&amp;quot; are (in order): Pneumonia, &amp;quot;everything else&amp;quot;, respiratory failure, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiac arrest, heart disease, acute respiratory distress syndrome, etc.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s pretty clear to say that far more than 5% died of Covid induced complications, not that they died of &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; causes and also tested Covid positive. Saying the 5% number is almost certainly abuse of statistics, especially given the notable uptick in mortality in the US.</text><parent_chain><item><author>cronix</author><text>Is &amp;quot;pointing out&amp;quot; data considered downplaying? ~5% of deaths had &amp;quot;covid only&amp;quot; while the remaining 95% had other factors with the average having 4 other factors.&lt;p&gt;From the CDC:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The number of deaths that mention one or more of the conditions indicated is shown for all deaths involving COVID-19 and by age groups. For over 5% of these deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 4.0 additional conditions or causes per death...&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cdc.gov&amp;#x2F;nchs&amp;#x2F;nvss&amp;#x2F;vsrr&amp;#x2F;covid_weekly&amp;#x2F;index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cdc.gov&amp;#x2F;nchs&amp;#x2F;nvss&amp;#x2F;vsrr&amp;#x2F;covid_weekly&amp;#x2F;index.htm&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mywittyname</author><text>&amp;gt;Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this.&lt;p&gt;Most of the downplaying I&amp;#x27;ve seen has revolved around the idea that those who died would have, &amp;quot;died anyway&amp;quot; from some other ailment or that hospitals are finding any reason they can to attribute deaths to covid.&lt;p&gt;So, while you have a great argument, I doubt you&amp;#x27;ll change any minds because those who disagree flat out reject your premise.</text></item><item><author>AnotherGoodName</author><text>In absolute number terms it&amp;#x27;s more deaths in total in the USA than the Spanish Flu (675k deaths total since it began), HIV (700k deaths total since it began) or any other pandemic. Population has increased so the US did lose a smaller percentage of population but on the other hand Spanish Flu didn&amp;#x27;t have a vaccine to stop it one year in. Hopefully enough of the population takes the vaccine now to stop this.&lt;p&gt;Note this also means COVID has been the number 1 cause of fatalities in total. The other top killers are heart disease and cancer. Heart disease kills ~660k a year and cancer 600k a year. We&amp;#x27;re not that much over 1 year now since the first cases in the USA. This means that COVID is absolute top cause of fatalities at the moment. For anyone that may feel the need to mention car crashes, guns or drugs those don&amp;#x27;t even rank in the top 10 of fatalities in the USA.&lt;p&gt;Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19</title><url>http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>allturtles</author><text>Many of those &amp;#x27;additional causes&amp;quot; are things caused by COVID-19.&lt;p&gt;e.g. per that table, out of 560K deaths coded as COVID-19, 257K were also coded as &amp;quot;influenza or pneumonia&amp;quot;. That&amp;#x27;s because Covid causes pneumonia.</text><parent_chain><item><author>cronix</author><text>Is &amp;quot;pointing out&amp;quot; data considered downplaying? ~5% of deaths had &amp;quot;covid only&amp;quot; while the remaining 95% had other factors with the average having 4 other factors.&lt;p&gt;From the CDC:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The number of deaths that mention one or more of the conditions indicated is shown for all deaths involving COVID-19 and by age groups. For over 5% of these deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 4.0 additional conditions or causes per death...&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cdc.gov&amp;#x2F;nchs&amp;#x2F;nvss&amp;#x2F;vsrr&amp;#x2F;covid_weekly&amp;#x2F;index.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cdc.gov&amp;#x2F;nchs&amp;#x2F;nvss&amp;#x2F;vsrr&amp;#x2F;covid_weekly&amp;#x2F;index.htm&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>mywittyname</author><text>&amp;gt;Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this.&lt;p&gt;Most of the downplaying I&amp;#x27;ve seen has revolved around the idea that those who died would have, &amp;quot;died anyway&amp;quot; from some other ailment or that hospitals are finding any reason they can to attribute deaths to covid.&lt;p&gt;So, while you have a great argument, I doubt you&amp;#x27;ll change any minds because those who disagree flat out reject your premise.</text></item><item><author>AnotherGoodName</author><text>In absolute number terms it&amp;#x27;s more deaths in total in the USA than the Spanish Flu (675k deaths total since it began), HIV (700k deaths total since it began) or any other pandemic. Population has increased so the US did lose a smaller percentage of population but on the other hand Spanish Flu didn&amp;#x27;t have a vaccine to stop it one year in. Hopefully enough of the population takes the vaccine now to stop this.&lt;p&gt;Note this also means COVID has been the number 1 cause of fatalities in total. The other top killers are heart disease and cancer. Heart disease kills ~660k a year and cancer 600k a year. We&amp;#x27;re not that much over 1 year now since the first cases in the USA. This means that COVID is absolute top cause of fatalities at the moment. For anyone that may feel the need to mention car crashes, guns or drugs those don&amp;#x27;t even rank in the top 10 of fatalities in the USA.&lt;p&gt;Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19</title><url>http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths</url></story>