Of all the "facts" flying around, this one is not only one of the most powerful by itself, but is also (even if it is in some way false) a great distilled example of all the unimaginably strong incentives pulling at the world right now, which I hope gives people an appreciation of how little they can actually know for sure.

Even with such a fact slapping you in the face, I mentioned this to someone and the response was basically "hospitals and doctors exist to help people, they would never take advantage of the system like that". There was no continuing the conversation from there. Who knows how reality works, but at the least we've had radically different life experiences if you don't think this could cause the case count to be pulled strongly in the upwards direction away from the actual number. And I'm sure there are other influences pulling it back down, so maybe all the forces are balancing themselves out.

People will point out the handful of facts that have convinced them that the situation leans one way, without realizing there's likely a boatload of facts on both sides that are simply too numerous for any one person to gather and make sense of. This is fine, but when people start acting as if the evidence is settled, one way or another, I can't help but despair.

Hello fellow seeker! Seriously it's always refreshing to find people who don't KNOW things. And despair not, this crisis is making our numbers grow faster than any virus. We will soon take back the world. :)

Haha, keep on being flexible! I appreciate your mindset infinitely more than the uncritical like their status quo.

It could be, but the numbers still seem to indicate that covid deaths are under reported, not over reported. The reported number of covid deaths is 30-50% lower than overall increase in mortality compared to historical data.

Thanks