TallGuyJohninBKK

If you consider the above-cited COVID deaths of some 300 people per week in the U.S. lately -- many of which could have been prevented -- to be a "nothingburger," I guess that says a lot about the value you place on human life.

Not quite, as the U.S. Census Bureau has explained: "Throughout 2020, as mandates changed and more became known about the virus, we saw spikes and dips in deaths that reached a peak by November and December during the holiday and winter months, when people were more likely to gather indoors. Deaths began to drop In January 2021. By April that year, the United States saw a decline in deaths corresponding to increases in vaccinations. And that June, death levels returned to near June 2019 levels. [emphasis added] This decline was short-lived, though, as the Delta variant caused another spike in deaths in July and August. Deaths dropped slightly in the fall, but then the Omicron variant emerged just as holiday travel picked up in December 2021." https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/03/united-states-deaths-spiked-as-covid-19-continued.html

It's misleading, to say the least, to present a chart that shows the CUMULATIVE COVID deaths count in the U.S. (which is going to continue growing over time regardless) and try to claim that says anything about how COVID deaths occurred during different specific periods of time. The following CDC chart does show how COVID deaths in the U.S. rose and fell during different specific periods of time. Quite a different chart and quite a different look. Source:

1. It's the publisher of the cited study, along with other experts, that is disavowing / denouncing the "misreporting" of the study by The Telegraph and other often right-wing publications that claimed the study's non existent link between vaccines and excess deaths, not just fact-checkers who have likewise rebuffed those unsupported claims. From the publisher's above-cited/linked statement: "Various news outlets have claimed that this research implies a direct causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality. This study does not establish any such link." 2. As for people "putting 2 and 2 together," oh yes they have..... There were COVID excess deaths during the pandemic before COVID vaccines were rolled out predominantly in 2021, and there continued to be excess deaths after, as the study correctly reported. But as above-cited/linked Health Feedback reported: "The overwhelming cause of excess deaths between 2020 and 2022 was due to COVID-19 itself. There are many possible explanations for the remaining excess deaths that were not directly caused by COVID-19; however, the evidence is clear that the vaccines saved millions of lives and they are not associated with excess deaths." ... Conclusion The available evidence shows that COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives. Although many countries experienced excess deaths up to 2022, this total would have been far higher without the vaccine rollout."

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2024/06/fact-check-bmj-did-not-attribute-excess-deaths-since-covid-19-pandemic-to-vaccines.html

Second fact-checking report rejecting news reports that the BMJ published study had linked pandemic excess deaths with COVID vaccinations: No, scientists have not concluded that COVID-19 vaccines may have contributed to persistent excess deaths June 7 2024 The Verdict Misleading A study into excess deaths does not draw a causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths, nor is it designed to. ... The report discussed in The Telegraph article is a real, peer-reviewed study published in BMJ Public Health Journal. However, the study does not draw any causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths, nor was it designed to do so. ... The verdict An article from The Telegraph claims that scientists have found that COVID-19 vaccines may be linked to an increase in excess deaths. However, this is a misleading interpretation of a study that found that Western nations continued to report excess deaths after COVID-19 containment measures and vaccines had been introduced. The researchers did not draw a causal link between COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths. We have, therefore, rated this claim as misleading. " (more) https://www.logicallyfacts.com/en/fact-check/misleading-no-scientists-have-not-concluded-that-covid-19-vaccines-may-have-contributed-to-persistent-excess-deaths

Journal article suggesting Covid-19 vaccines contributed to excess deaths skewed: S’pore experts Jun 08, 2024 SINGAPORE – Covid-19 mRNA vaccines may have contributed to the 3.1 million excess deaths – that is, the number of deaths beyond what would be normal – in 47 Western countries between 2020 and 2022, suggested an article in a journal. But experts in Singapore disagreed with the article published on June 3 in the BMJ Public Health journal, one of more than 60 titles published by the British Medical Journal. They said the piece was “unbalanced” and that correlation is not the same as causation. The Ministry of Health (MOH) said it is aware of the article. Its spokesman told The Straits Times: “MOH has studied excess deaths in Singapore from 2020 to 2022. Our studies showed that the excess deaths could be accounted for by deaths directly due to Covid-19, or due to underlying medical conditions which were made worse by Covid-19 infections.” (more) https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/journal-article-suggesting-covid-19-vaccines-contributed-to-excess-deaths-skewed-s-pore-experts

Jeffrey S Morris, Professor of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote on X: “[T]his study does not accurately represent the existing understanding about sources of excess deaths, downplaying the COVID-19 deaths that are clearly the driving factor throughout 2020-2022, as I will show, and implicitly magnifying the potential role of vaccines beyond what is supported by the data. “Also, many popular media articles about this study, including the Telegraph article […] blatantly misrepresent the content of the paper. “They make it sound as if the paper was primarily about vaccines, which it is not, or provides evidence for vaccines being a potential driving factor, which it does not.” https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/covid19-vaccines-lowered-excess-deaths-during-pandemic-contrary-headline-the-daily-telegraph/ https://twitter.com/jsm2334/status/1798835958806405575

COVID vaccines saved millions of lives – linking them to excess deaths is a mistake June 6, 2024 ... The major cause of the excess deaths reported in the first two years of the BMJ Public Health study was deaths from COVID. But by 2022, excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths in many countries. Possible explanations for these excess deaths include longer-term effects of earlier COVID infections, the return of infections such as influenza that had been suppressed during the COVID control measures, adverse effects of lockdowns on physical and mental health, and delays in the diagnosis of life-threatening infections as health services struggled to cope with the pandemic and its aftermath. We do need to look very carefully at how the pandemic was managed. There is still considerable debate about the effectiveness of different behavioural control measures, such as self-isolation and lockdowns. Even when such interventions were effective at reducing transmission of COVID, what were the harms and were the gains worth the harms? Nevertheless, we can be confident that the excess deaths seen in recent years were not a consequence of the vaccination campaign. (more) https://theconversation.com/covid-vaccines-saved-millions-of-lives-linking-them-to-excess-deaths-is-a-mistake-231776

"In June 2024, researchers from the Netherlands published a study in the journal BMJ Public Health looking at excess mortality across 47 countries from January 2020 to December 2022. They identified that excess deaths were high during this period[1]. In its coverage of this study, the Daily Telegraph published an article with the headline “Covid vaccines may have helped fuel rise in excess deaths”. This article was widely shared online by people with a history of sharing misinformation, claiming that it was mainstream media recognition of the harms of COVID-19 vaccines. As this review will explain, the study provided no evidence that vaccines were responsible for these excess deaths and that the Telegraph’s headline runs contrary to findings from previous studies, which showed that COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives." ... The study didn’t analyze the impact of vaccination, nor did it examine the relationship between mortality and vaccination status. There is therefore no evidence from these findings to support the Telegraph headline’s claim that vaccines may have contributed to excess deaths... (more) https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/covid19-vaccines-lowered-excess-deaths-during-pandemic-contrary-headline-the-daily-telegraph/ Also: BMJ, the publisher of the British Medical Journal and publisher of BMJ Public Health where the cited study was published, issued a public statement responding to news outlets' "misreporting" of the study, and clarifying that the study did not establish a causal link between COVID vaccination and excess mortality. Link: https://bit.ly/3RfBJGA https://twitter.com/bmj_company/status/1798751750046019666 Other experts in the field also weighed in with similar views rejecting the claims made by The Telegraph article and similar media reports elsewhere.

Jim, your observations above are both very helpful and instructive, and much appreciated! 🙂

No, COVID is not just like the flu in the extent of illness and death caused, even in current times. Source:

I'm looking at issues pertaining to existing U.S. IRAs and Roth IRAs.... In the U.S., earnings and distributions from Roth IRAs are not taxable in perpetuity, period. Earnings from regular IRAs can grow tax deferred in perpetuity at present, but a person once they're in their early 70s would have to start taking modest annual taxable distributions. So when Thailand says they want to tax all income worldwide for Thailand residents, do they mean all undistributed earnings or only distributions from IRA accounts? And if they want to start Thailand taxing earnings and/or distributions from my various IRA accounts, it's not clear to me whether those would be protected by the U.S.-Thai tax treaty and-or whether I'd be entitled to a dollar for dollar offset on my U.S. taxes for Thai taxes imposed on my IRAs, considering there are differing tax rates involved.

"In only the fall and winter months last season, Covid sent more than half a million people in the US to the hospital and killed 40,000, according to data presented at the meeting. The people most likely to get seriously ill or die were unvaccinated, Link-Gelles said, and among the children who were hospitalized, half had no underlying conditions." https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/05/health/fda-vaccine-advisers-covid-shot/index.html AND "COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of symptomatic disease and hospitalization by about 50% compared to people not up to date on vaccination. Over 95% of adults hospitalized in 2023-2024 due to COVID-19 had no record of receiving the latest vaccine." https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/background/index.html#:~:text=Over 95% of adults hospitalized,of receiving the latest vaccine AND Still about 300 people per week dying of COVID in the U.S., better than before, but still....: Source:

If you bothered to actually read either the full OP news report or the linked full study report it's based on, you'd know.

The older Americans get after their peak earning years, the less they tend to spend. How much less? The latest DepositAccounts study finds consumers 65 and older spend an average of 20.8% less annually than all consumers — $57,818 versus $72,967. That amount varies significantly by state, too. We analyzed various data sources to delve into these differences and look at how much consumers spend in their retirement years on housing, food, transportation, Medicare, entertainment and personal care across the U.S. Here’s what we found. Poster's Note: the full list/charts of least and most expensive states including all 50 state rankings are listed on the linked website below. Also listed there are the projected breakdowns for each state by individual type of costs, such as housing, food, transportation, Medicare, entertainment and personal care. https://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/retirement-years-study.html

How about Udon Thani or Pattani? If I were a betting man! 🙂

My thoughts exactly!

Researchers who compared the ability of cloth and surgical masks and KN95 and N95 respirators to impede SARS-CoV-2 leakage into the environment show that the "duckbill" N95 won handily, stopping 98% of the virus that causes COVID-19. A University of Maryland (UMD) research team, which published the findings last week in eBioMedicine, collected breath samples from volunteers with community-acquired COVID-19 infections starting in May 2020. ... N95s as standard of care in healthcare settings All masks and respirators reduced exhaled virus at least 70%, but the duckbill N95 reduced SARS-CoV-2 load 98% (95% confidence interval [CI], 97% to 99%) and performed significantly better than cloth or surgical masks or KN95s. Cloth masks impeded more virus than surgical masks and KN95s. The study didn't test the face coverings as wearer protection against SARS-CoV-2 in the surrounding air. (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/n95-respirator-gets-top-billing-stopping-sars-cov-2-viral-leakage-air Discussion "Our study demonstrated that N95 respirators were significantly more efficacious as source control than all other types of masks and respirators used in this study. Conversely, the KN95s that we used did not perform any better as source control than loose-fitting cloth and surgical masks. The finding regarding N95 respirators is consistent with a previous experimental study with manikins21 showing that N95 reduced more viral load compared to cotton and surgical masks. Another study also showed that N95 respirators blocked more cough-generated aerosols than cloth and medical procedure masks as well as neck gaiters.22 Importantly, our study further demonstrated that the inexpensive duckbill N95 respirators we used were highly efficacious even when used by untrained study participants who did not undergo respirator training or a prior fit test. ... All of the masks and respirators used in this study were efficacious as source control for SARS-CoV-2. They all demonstrate a source control factor of over 70, suggesting a substantial reduction in the viral RNA load when wearing a mask or respirator." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(24)00192-0/fulltext#

I wish the OP poll had had an option for "wait and see," because that's what I would have chosen. #1. They haven't actually adopted the policy yet, much less begun to enforce it... And look what apparently has happened to their prior adopted proposal that seems to have gone in the bin. #2. Even if they adopt the latest proposal as explained here lately, given the involvement of various countries' tax treaties with Thailand, it's going to be an individual call on what the particular impacts might be for any nationality and individual income sources. #3. I've lived in the same rented home here for many years with my Thai wife, who has a good job in Thailand. In our situation, I'm struggling to see how I could possibly do the less than 6 months in country approach, especially since I haven't kept a 2nd home back in my home country, and I'm not going to abandon my wife over taxes. That said, if they really go thru with the current plan, it might well hasten us to both relocate back to my home country. Too many unknowns right now, as usual....

And on average, still had many more years to live had not COVID cut their lives short: "The same figures reveal that the average number of life years lost per U.S. coronavirus death in 2020 was 14 years." ... In fact, life expectancy increases with age. While babies born in the U.S. today can expect to live to be 79, Americans who are 65 today can expect to live to 85, according to the United Nations World Population Prospects. Current 80-year-olds, in turn, can expect to live to an average age of 90 [emphasis added]. The pandemic, in other words, has killed many Americans who otherwise might have expected to live for years or even decades longer. A 65-year-old who dies from COVID-19 might ordinarily have expected to live until 85 – a difference of two decades, or roughly a quarter of the average American’s total expected life span at birth." https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/16/americans-lost-more-years-of-life-to-covid-19-in-2020-than-to-all-accidents-combined-in-a-typical-year/

The data you're citing is correct, but the impression you're implying is misleading, as specific people who manage to survive into their older ages statistically live LONGER than the average life expectancy for someone at birth... Meaning, people who have died from COVID even at older ages, overall, would have lived for many more years had COVID not cut short their lives. But it is a familiar and typical anti-vaxer attempt at misleading with the false "they would have died anyway" argument. Average Covid-19 victim dies years before they otherwise would What was claimed The average age of Covid-19 deaths is higher than the average life expectancy, which means that people who get Covid live longer. Our verdict This isn’t how life expectancy works. Life expectancy is an average, pulled down by people who die young. As you age, your life expectancy increases. People dying from Covid-19 lose about a decade of life on average. ... "Life expectancy is an average, which means it is pulled down by people who die young. It also means that life expectancy increases as you age. " https://fullfact.org/news/boris-johnson-whatsapp-covid-life-expectancy-cummings/

NIH documents show how $1.6 billion U.S. long Covid initiative has failed so far to meet its goals More than three years ago, the National Institutes of Health launched a $1 billion-plus initiative to find the root causes and potential treatments for long Covid, the chronic disease that has quickly changed the lives of millions of Americans. But a lack of visible progress from the initiative, called RECOVER, has drawn months of criticism from patient advocates, researchers, and lawmakers, including at a Senate hearing last week on the NIH’s budget. “We gave [the NIH] a chance and they bungled it,” said John Bolecek, who has lived with long Covid for two years and has closely followed RECOVER. The program has done nothing “to narrow down what’s actually going wrong with people,” or identify treatments, he said. As the NIH assembled RECOVER, it selected three core institutions to lead most of the research: New York University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the North Carolina-based nonprofit Research Triangle Institute. Now, budget and other project documents obtained by The Sick Times, MuckRock and STAT through the Freedom of Information Act show how decisions made early in this process likely contributed to RECOVER’s slow start. (more) https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/31/long-covid-nih-recover-initiative-falls-short-on-causes-treatments/

The [U.S.] National Academies said the condition could involve up to 200 symptoms, make it difficult for people to work and last for months or years One of the nation’s premier medical advisory organizations has weighed in on long Covid with a 265-page report that recognizes the seriousness and persistence of the condition for millions of Americans. More than four years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, long Covid continues to damage many people’s ability to function, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a nongovernmental institution that advises federal agencies on science and medicine. “Long Covid can impact people across the life span, from children to older adults, as well as across sex, gender, racial, ethnic and other demographic groups,” it said, concluding that “long Covid is associated with a wide range of new or worsening health conditions and encompasses more than 200 symptoms involving nearly every organ system.” (more) New York Times https://archive.ph/zFWAb