Interesting post there OLAC from the World Socialist Web Site, which I must admit I have never heard of and suspect may not be totally unbiased. It makes some interesting points particularly about the lack of testing, and I have had similar thoughts about the numbers in Germany. That there is some delay in reporting and some genuine difficulties where you draw the line on comorbidities in undisputed. However having done a bit of research I have found clear evidence that care home cases are being included in the German statistics being produced by the Robert Koch Institute, with the obvious caveat that they can only include those that are known about. As I posted on Coronavirus:the thread in Jet Blast yesterday analysing the RKI situation report for yesterday 10 May 2020:
Of the 13,708 residents of care homes in Germany reported as infected 2,708 have died, so about 20% mortality of those tested positive.
I have also seen the excess mortality figures for the three weeks up to mid April for Germany. These show an increase of 10% in the seasonally adjusted deaths. So at least up till then the scale of excess mortality was dramatically lower than the recent ONS data for the UK. This is not to say that there is no problem. But deaths in care homes officially make up more than a third of the total 7,500 in Germany so far reported. So I think we can safely conclude that they are included.
Last edited by lederhosen; 11th May 2020 at 12:05.