Re: school age children
"We're seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from Covid," he said. "We're seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose, that are above excess, than we had as background, than we are seeing deaths from Covid."
- CDC Director Redfield
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Last year the US saw about 185 drug overdose deaths per day. Yesterday, according to the CDC, the US saw 351 new deaths due to COVID. So for there to be "far greater" deaths that are above what would be expected otherwise, we would be looking at what, at least 550 drug overdose deaths per day, or a threefold increase in drug overdose deaths nationwide?
Annually, as in one year, the US had about 67,000 drug overdose deaths. We are looking at 140,000 deaths from COVID in Four Months and it is far from being contained, and shows every sign of getting worse. But Trump's CDC Director thinks we should all be more concerned by overdoses right now?
Redfield is a political hack. If he is going to make that kind of claim, he needs to support it with the numbers.
Now its possible given the context provided by the article that kiidcarter8 did not link to that Redfield was talking about seeing more overdose deaths in
high school age kids than COVID deaths in
high school age kids which is a far more probable claim.
But even if it then give the statement the context that kiidcarter8 wanted us to ignore, its still idiotic. Because a) COVID is not only a health threat when it leads to deaths, b) you also need to consider the probable deaths of Teachers who are not high school age and c) those high school age kids carrying COVID while not showing symptoms will spread it to populations that are more vulnerable than they are, like their parents and grandparents.
So context doesn't make Redfield's statement any better. In fact, it reveals him to be remarkably ignorant on the issues surrounding the spread of a virus that he was put in place by Trump to protect us from.