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Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

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Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#71

Post by vanniv »

There is an aspect that is missing in this article's analysis: what counts as a COVID-caused death.

In Italy, for example, all in-hospital deaths of COVID-positive patients are recorded as COVID deaths.

If you're 85 years old, with emphysema, heart disease, diabetes, and COVID, and you die of acute respiratory distress... did COVID kill you?

In Italy, it did, 100%

In New York, it is up to the doctor who declares you dead, but it probably did.

In Germany, it most likely didn't.

That is not to say that Germany isn't doing a good job -- they are. They are doing a lot of testing, isolating, and contact tracing. They are also going full-speed-ahead with the experimental hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin treatment, offering it everyone without contraindications, starting almost from the beginning of the outbreak.

Both of those things contribute to the low death rate.

They are also detecting a higher percentage of cases, which automatically lowers the apparent mortality (since every country detects most of the hospitalizations, more testing means finding more inherently non-lethal cases, meaning more detected recoveries)

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#72

Post by s9w »

vanniv wrote: post #71

There is an aspect that is missing in this article's analysis: what counts as a COVID-caused death. In Italy, for example, all in-hospital deaths of COVID-positive patients are recorded as COVID deaths. If you're 85 years old, with emphysema, heart disease, diabetes, and COVID, and you die of acute respiratory distress... did COVID kill you? In Italy, it did, 100% In New York, it is up to the doctor who declares you…

In Germany too. Every death plus Positive sars-cov-2 test == death "from" corona

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#73

Post by vanniv »

Zenst wrote: post #35
malandrew wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die per day due to poverty. That's over 8 million per year. And that's just children while poverty has been the lowest it has ever been. What do you think is going to happen in developing countries in the next few years? Absolute mortality will likely be around 1% or less once you take into account all those that are asymptomatic and much of this 1% would die in the next decade du…

If the media plotted a minute by minute uptodate map showing those deaths due to poverty, people's mindsets would change. But the impact and knock on effects of this pandemic, will not exactly help poverty related deaths and without a doubt, exacerbate them.

This lockdown has already guaranteed many more deaths due to poverty.

Every day it continues, more are added.

But, there is no up-to-the-minute tracker with bright red body counts. There are no stacks of coffins. There are no sob stories.

Because the people who will die because of the lockdown might not die for years yet. A family that was doing OK, now both parents have lost their jobs, one will remain unemployed for years. The family becomes poor, eats lower-quality food for the next 20+ years.

Kids that would have been healthy now get diabetes in their 30s, heart disease in their 40s, and ultimately die of heart attacks in their early 50s, who otherwise would have loved to 80.

Or, kid that used to have a healthy home environment now does not. Gets involved in gangs and drugs. Overdoses at 26. Or is killed in gang violence. Or ends up in prison. It takes three generations for that family to recover.

Millions of families that were not on this path a month ago are now five steps down it -- and every day, some unknowable number of these tragedies goes from possible to probable, or from probable to all-but-unavoidable.

But in virtually all of the cases, even after the fact, you'll never be able to prove that it wouldn't have happened but for the lockdowns.

So, we get to pretend the number is zero, instead of unknowable masses.

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#74

Post by vanniv »

splintercell wrote: post #50
_trampeltier wrote: post #38

I know from italy for ex. if you are tested positive on Corona, no matter how you die (a tank drove over you twice) you will end up in the "death with Corona" spreadsheet. I don't know about other countrys does this handle. Also normaly, if very old people get sick (like my grandma died) they don't go to the emergency hospital. They might go to a hospital, but usually they don't try to save lives at all costs.

How many Corona positive people are dying of non-Coronavirus related issues? Is that number really that much to impact the total figures?

Normally, if be tempted to say "not many, probably"

but

The median fatal case in Italy is an 81-year old with 2 comorbidities (typically two of: heart disease, COPD, diabetes, obesity).

An 81-year-old has a ~10% chance of dying in any given year, and an 81-year-old with serious underlying medical conditions is even likelier to die.

If you're an 81-year-old with serious underlying health issues, you have a material chance of death generally in a 2-month period (which the coronavirus has been there). On top of that, for those folks, every illness is a high-risk occurrence (even a simple cold).

The situation in Italy now is bad enough that there are definitely many COVID deaths that wouldn't have happened without COVID. But it is almost certainly the case that a meaningful number of these patients would have died in those two months anyway. (Roughly 2% of all 80+ population would have died in that time if the virus didn't exist; it seems very likely that that 2% would be disproportionately inclusive of those with serious underlying health issues -- which are the people most killed with COVID.

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#75

Post by vanniv »

s9w wrote: post #56
splintercell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many Corona positive people are dying of non-Coronavirus related issues? Is that number really that much to impact the total figures?

The age distribution is quite a signal that this is plausible. Then we have the Italian study that said only 1% had no other comorbidity. And then you have a few cases with enough details to go looking, usually the first death in a city/region or notable cases. As a random example this: https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/first-l...

Yowza,

Fellow falls hits his head, dies from head trauma -- but because he had COVID, he "succumbed to the virus"

Good grief

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#76

Post by bleah1000 »

fiblye wrote: post #52
AlexCoventry wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, a quick Google tells me that the obesity rate in Germany is higher than it is in the US. I didn't down-vote you, though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Germany I suppose it's possible that the WHO and the CDC use different BMI thresholds, though.

Germans may have a higher rate of obesity, but obese Americans seem to be more chunky than obese Germans. [1] The number of times I've seen someone who's clearly 400+ pounds outside of America has been maybe 4, 5 times? In the US, I'll see at least one or two people around that weight daily. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight

I don't think that proves anything one way or another.

For example, it could mean that there are a smaller number of really obese people in America who are driving up the numbers. Therefore, there are fewer obese people in America when compared to Germany.

Or it could be that your anecdote doesn't hold true. That someone who's visited Germany could say the exact same thing as you, that they always see people who are really obese.

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#77

Post by fiblye »

bleah1000 wrote: post #76
fiblye wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germans may have a higher rate of obesity, but obese Americans seem to be more chunky than obese Germans. [1] The number of times I've seen someone who's clearly 400+ pounds outside of America has been maybe 4, 5 times? In the US, I'll see at least one or two people around that weight daily. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight

I don't think that proves anything one way or another. For example, it could mean that there are a smaller number of really obese people in America who are driving up the numbers. Therefore, there are fewer obese people in America when compared to Germany. Or it could be that your anecdote doesn't hold true. That someone who's visited Germany could say the exact same thing as you, that they always see people who are…

The link I included shows Americans being 20 pounds heavier on average.

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#78

Post by amalik14 »

losvedir wrote: post #13

Worth noting this is from last week. What's Germany's rate now? Since Germany started testing extensively and early, and death is a lagging indicator, I wouldn't be surprised if this creeps up to the more expected ~1.5% we see in Korea or the Diamond Princess. I check the worldometers numbers everyday, and already Germany is up about half a percent from when that article was written, but I'm not totally sure that sit…

I live in germany. German has not tested extensively or even early. In Germany, I have been trying to buy a mask since 3 weeks and you cant even buy it because its sold out.

Germany has acted like a fail state here.

I am suprised how germany has managed to keep such a low death rate because Merkels response to COVID has been worst than developing (so called 3rd world) countries.

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#79

Post by wumms »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #5

I think in the end the number I'll judge countries by is how low they held the death rate per population. A better number would be a population death rate weighted by demographics, but I don't think that'll be easy to construct. Increasing the denominator by testing lots and lots of people is important only if testing lots and lots of people helps you prevent more people from dying. Germany is doing pretty well on th…

> A better number would be a population death rate weighted by demographics

German article with two bar charts (scroll down a bit), the first chart is showing deaths by age group, the second is showing infections by age group: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/swr/datenanalyse-coro... (needs JS enabled)

Re: Germany's Coronavirus Death Rate Is Lower Than in Other Countries

#80

Post by yread »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #5

I think in the end the number I'll judge countries by is how low they held the death rate per population. A better number would be a population death rate weighted by demographics, but I don't think that'll be easy to construct. Increasing the denominator by testing lots and lots of people is important only if testing lots and lots of people helps you prevent more people from dying. Germany is doing pretty well on th…

Death rate also has a lot of caveats. In the Netherlands for example (due to the euthanasia culture? or just NO CODE?) people highly at risk (everyone - even without symptoms or testing positive) are encouraged to think about whether they would even want to be ventilated (and take up valuable resources, spending weeks in coma and have decreased quality of life afterwards). Lots of people don't go to ICUs - only 10% of the deaths happened in an ICU.
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