Stand Down

Jonathan Turley @JonathanTurley

Only one opinion today. No matinee rulings. It is Babcock v. Kijakazi ... supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf…

On the Covid front, here’s an interesting story from Epoch Times, with sourcing to CDC—which means that the insurance CEO from Indiana wasn’t just blowing smoke. HOWEVER …

Please read this carefully, as there seems to be an internal contradiction regarding percentages of deaths in the 18-49 cohort. My reading of this is that the 40% refers to overall national stats—not to the 18-49 cohort. The proper percentage for that age group seems to be 24%—which is still a wild increase.

EXCLUSIVE: Nationwide Surge In Deaths Among People Aged 18-49: A State by State Overview

Highest state sees 65 percent increase in prime-age mortality, only 36 percent attributed to COVID-19

Naturally, there’s a lot of uncertainty about causality, due to the way Covid deaths have been recorded—remember, these death certificate stats go back to October, 2020. But also remember that the insurance CEO who flagged this stated that even a 10% increase in mortality was a once in 200 year phenomenon—wildly improbable. Drug ODs, while up sharply, are highly unlikely to account for the huge increases—even if the correct percentage for the 18-49 cohort is 24% rather than 40%.

Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis of death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by The Epoch Times.

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Comparing 2020 to 2019, mortality increased some 24 percent for those 18–49, with less than a third of those excess deaths involving COVID. For those 50–84, it increased less than 20 percent, with over 70 percent of that involving COVID. For those even older, mortality jumped about 16 percent, with nearly 90 percent of that involving COVID.

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… Overall, a part of the surge could be likely blamed on drug overdoses, which increased to more than 101,000 in the 12 months ending June 2021 from about 72,000 in 2019, the CDC estimated. …