is there a simpler explanation than 'covid deaths are undercounted for political reasons? genuinely asking, since I can think of no other reason for such a huge expense to be incurred by this company.
And because a death of say a heart attack - after a bad case of Covid that weakens the heart - goes down as a "heart attack" instead of Covid. The issue that general deaths are up is genuinely something we should be very worried about. Attributing it to the vaccine because of the year in which it happened is just lazy ass cherry picking.
It seems especially egregious without data since you could claim covid fatigue or higher risk behavior after the introduction of vaccines also caused upticks.
If there were under-reporting in 2021 similar to 2020 then we should see about a 1.06x payout difference in 2021, not 2.64x. Not recording deaths as covid wouldn't affect life insurance payouts. So there would need to be ~2.64x more covid deaths in 2021 (after most folks got the vaccine in March-May) than in 2020 with no vaccines. This doesn't seem right to me. What would explain this is if while covid didn't get much worse in 2021 people are dying more anyway, or the covid deaths are more concentrated in insured people.
Just getting sick doesn't trigger a life insurance payout, but a glance at cumulative cases vs deaths on the data tracker suggests that in 2021 covid is less deadly than in 2020 on a per-case basis. That matches what I see on the news and people around me pretty well.
I suspect that the life insurance vs covid risks skew differently with age. Life insurance policies tend to be high for working people and lower once retired. Since the purpose of life insurance is to replace lost income for the insured's dependents most people drop or reduce their policies when they retire. So that 2.64x factor on payouts should be under the factor for deaths unless the deaths are concentrated in younger, healthier people. I have no idea what that correction would look like so I ignored it.
* Assuming the second half of 2022 which hasn't happened yet looks like the first half. Reality won't be exactly 2x the total so far.
I would expect pre-rapid-ubiquity covid tests had a lot to do with this. Speaking personally, the covid testing sites I went to all loved to charge tests as doctor's visits.
And according to the scientists who actually study this stuff for a living, Covid side effects and long term damage are increasing the likelihood of all kinds of "non-covid related" deaths. that's what we should be scared about - not vaccines.
I didn't quite follow everything he said and I don't quite follow everything in this substack. Ever since that Financial Times excess death coronavirus stuff https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac8... that whole concept of excess deaths has been an idea kept around in my mind. It's an interesting concept, hard to make causal connections from it though and derive various conclusions other than a change in an average rate.
A few things: reporting lag for death claims are typically 3-18 months. Covid claims are obviously still occurring in 2021. It has been widely reported that non covid related deaths during the pandemic, specifically related to heart disease and diabetes, were much higher likely due to delayed medical consultation.
I didn’t take the time to read more of who this is but I question their understanding of how financials for life insurance work. “$6 billion increase in expenses is hard to weather.” Actually, no, it’s called reserves and you are statutorily required to hold them.
This seems like a puff piece of intellectual dishonesty to push an unsubstantiated claim that the covid vaccine is causing deaths, and there is some sort of conspiracy around it.
For the non antivax-conspiracy-nonsense take on why this might be happening correlated with the worldwide spread of Covid, here's just a few on long term damage from Covid on heart, kidneys, lungs, and liver.
... a review of COVID-19's extensive effects on virtually all the organs. It causes inflammation, endotheliitis, vasoconstriction, hypercoagulability, and edema. Lymphocytopenia, elevated D-dimer, elevated fibrin degradation products (FDPs), and disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) are observed. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT), venous thromboembolism, pulmonary embolism (PE), systemic and pulmonary arterial thrombosis and embolism, ischemic stroke, and myocardial infarction (MI) are reported.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7470660/
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[ 10.7 ms ] story [ 83.4 ms ] threadJust getting sick doesn't trigger a life insurance payout, but a glance at cumulative cases vs deaths on the data tracker suggests that in 2021 covid is less deadly than in 2020 on a per-case basis. That matches what I see on the news and people around me pretty well.
I suspect that the life insurance vs covid risks skew differently with age. Life insurance policies tend to be high for working people and lower once retired. Since the purpose of life insurance is to replace lost income for the insured's dependents most people drop or reduce their policies when they retire. So that 2.64x factor on payouts should be under the factor for deaths unless the deaths are concentrated in younger, healthier people. I have no idea what that correction would look like so I ignored it.
* Assuming the second half of 2022 which hasn't happened yet looks like the first half. Reality won't be exactly 2x the total so far.
> Overall deaths in 2021 increased from 2020 by 1%, according to the CDC data on death rates.
A more rational alternative might be the entire medical system is under increased stress and people have been avoiding care/treatment.
I didn't quite follow everything he said and I don't quite follow everything in this substack. Ever since that Financial Times excess death coronavirus stuff https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac8... that whole concept of excess deaths has been an idea kept around in my mind. It's an interesting concept, hard to make causal connections from it though and derive various conclusions other than a change in an average rate.
A few things: reporting lag for death claims are typically 3-18 months. Covid claims are obviously still occurring in 2021. It has been widely reported that non covid related deaths during the pandemic, specifically related to heart disease and diabetes, were much higher likely due to delayed medical consultation.
I didn’t take the time to read more of who this is but I question their understanding of how financials for life insurance work. “$6 billion increase in expenses is hard to weather.” Actually, no, it’s called reserves and you are statutorily required to hold them.
This seems like a puff piece of intellectual dishonesty to push an unsubstantiated claim that the covid vaccine is causing deaths, and there is some sort of conspiracy around it.
Long covid: Damage to multiple organs presents in young, low risk patients: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4470
More than 50 long-term effects of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95565-8
Many Show Long-Term Organ Damage After COVID - WebMD https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210401/many-show-long-term...
... a review of COVID-19's extensive effects on virtually all the organs. It causes inflammation, endotheliitis, vasoconstriction, hypercoagulability, and edema. Lymphocytopenia, elevated D-dimer, elevated fibrin degradation products (FDPs), and disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) are observed. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT), venous thromboembolism, pulmonary embolism (PE), systemic and pulmonary arterial thrombosis and embolism, ischemic stroke, and myocardial infarction (MI) are reported. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7470660/
It's not the flu. At all.
1 - Vaccines for Covid-19 were available starting in 2021
2 - Life insurance payouts increased substantially in 2021
And the conclusion by the author is that 1 is the cause of 2. No evidence is provided, just casual begging the question.