The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show • Hacker News Board

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#21

Post by adammichaelc » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

spfzero wrote: post #18

mchusma wrote: post #4

For some context at 1M deaths so far, and pessimistically if we end 2020 with 1.5M global deaths, this would be https://ourworldindata.org/births-and-deaths ), and with most deaths being of the elderly.

Of the 1.5 M, only a small fraction would be from Covid 19 exclusively; CDC states 94% of deaths listing Covid 19 as a cause had co-morbidities, meaning other things that they also died from other than Covid 19. So the actual increase in deaths from 2019 to 2020 will probably be significantly lower than 3%.

I am curious why this is being downvoted. The CDC reported this a couple weeks ago.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm?fb...

https://wgntv.com/news/coronavirus/new-cdc-report-shows-94-o...

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#22

Post by thatsamonad » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #20

rapjr9 wrote: post #19

One thing I don't see being taken into account in articles like this one is that the vaccines will not be 100% effective. The US FDA has set the bar at 50% effective. So even people who get the vaccine can still become infected. Maybe with less severe disease and less ability to spread it further, but we don't know that yet. On a whole population level a vaccine will be a major help in reducing the effects of the vir…

Not to mention people who will refuse to get the vaccine, and those people are more likely to be carrying it anyway due to misbehavior.

> more likely to be carrying it anyway due to misbehavior

I’m not sure about that. I’ve been pretty strict about physical distancing, mask wearing, and all of the other things necessary to help combat the spread of the virus. I’m also someone who gets a flu shot every year and I make sure my child is vaccinated.

That being said - I am majorly skeptical about a vaccine being rushed through the approval process for political reasons and how safe it will be for me and my family. I may refuse it if it seems like it will do more harm than good and/or the process isn’t transparent and the safety data aren’t made available.

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#23

Post by Zacru » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 6:12 AM UTC

adammichaelc wrote: post #21

spfzero wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the 1.5 M, only a small fraction would be from Covid 19 exclusively; CDC states 94% of deaths listing Covid 19 as a cause had co-morbidities, meaning other things that they also died from other than Covid 19. So the actual increase in deaths from 2019 to 2020 will probably be significantly lower than 3%.

I am curious why this is being downvoted. The CDC reported this a couple weeks ago. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm?fb... https://wgntv.com/news/coronavirus/new-cdc-report-shows-94-o...

My guess is because it's kind of misrepresenting the data. While it's technically true, most of those co-morbitities were things like respiratory failure or pneumonia. So while it's not an outright lie, it's also not a particularly insightful bit of information when presented without further explanation.

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#24

Post by m0zg » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

lefrenchy wrote: post #17

jjeaff wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that sweden's new deaths have gone down (but their overall deaths are much worse than other scandinavian countries), but the US graphs shows no slowing of the death rate that I can tell.

It's funny that many arguments against social democratic economic policies from Nordic countries are on the basis of them being smaller countries and therefore not comparable. But somehow when it's a contagious disease though, we should totally use them as a model example..

We'll see in another year. Truth of the matter is: C19 is endemic, and everyone will get it sooner or later, much like common cold. Another, more pernicious mistake people make is they assume we're out of the woods with this, whereas we'll never be out of the woods. Is it worth curing a headache by decapitation?

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#25

Post by ithkuil » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:14 AM UTC

thatsamonad wrote: post #22

bmitc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention people who will refuse to get the vaccine, and those people are more likely to be carrying it anyway due to misbehavior.

> more likely to be carrying it anyway due to misbehavior I’m not sure about that. I’ve been pretty strict about physical distancing, mask wearing, and all of the other things necessary to help combat the spread of the virus. I’m also someone who gets a flu shot every year and I make sure my child is vaccinated. That being said - I am majorly skeptical about a vaccine being rushed through the approval process for pol…

Makes sense. Yet, in our current hyper-polarized climate applying fine grained, measured judgement is increasingly hard; if you are for or against X, you're automatically assumed you belong to one of the few camps that carry that flag

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#26

Post by Tainnor » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

thatsamonad wrote: post #22

bmitc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention people who will refuse to get the vaccine, and those people are more likely to be carrying it anyway due to misbehavior.

> more likely to be carrying it anyway due to misbehavior I’m not sure about that. I’ve been pretty strict about physical distancing, mask wearing, and all of the other things necessary to help combat the spread of the virus. I’m also someone who gets a flu shot every year and I make sure my child is vaccinated. That being said - I am majorly skeptical about a vaccine being rushed through the approval process for pol…

I don't know about the US, but at least in Germany, no vaccine is being "rushed through". What is happening is that we're pumping a lot of money into the process in order to expedite it and remove idle time - for example, typically pharma companies wouldn't start preparations for a phase 2 or 3 trial before the previous phases were successful due to the high likelihood of failure. Now they will do precisely that, allowing them to save time, at the risk of having wasted a lot of resources for nothing if the previous phases do indeed turn out to be a failure.

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#27

Post by pedrocr » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 8:42 AM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #13

Reminder: Sweden has had no excess deaths since early June https://news.yahoo.com/sweden-records-first-week-no-15544144...

Finland, Denmark and Norway had less excess deaths the whole year and much less COVID19. It's amazing how people keep trying to make Sweden out to be a success by comparing it favorably to the worst cases. Detailed source:

https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#28

Post by pedrocr » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 8:44 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #24

lefrenchy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that many arguments against social democratic economic policies from Nordic countries are on the basis of them being smaller countries and therefore not comparable. But somehow when it's a contagious disease though, we should totally use them as a model example..

We'll see in another year. Truth of the matter is: C19 is endemic, and everyone will get it sooner or later, much like common cold. Another, more pernicious mistake people make is they assume we're out of the woods with this, whereas we'll never be out of the woods. Is it worth curing a headache by decapitation?

The 4000+ extra COVID19 deaths they've had are years of life lost even if in the end the same number of people die. And their economic downturn was no better either.

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#29

Post by thu2111 » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 10:53 AM UTC

mcgt wrote: post #15

aeternum wrote: post #9

This seems to assume all of the excess deaths are directly attributable to Covid-19, but shouldn't we consider the possibility that our reaction to Covid-19 could also play a role, things like: generally increased levels of stress, suicide rate, elderly more depressed due to no in-person visitors, less exercise?

I'm looking into this gap right now. In the US for example, deaths from dementia so far this year are much higher than the average for the past five years (up until ~Aug 15). There's also a not insignificant amount of notes saying deaths are being underreported in a lot of jurisdictions. Pretty much across the board jumps for most major causes of death. Haven't pulled in anything on suicides yet. Interestingly though…

Isn't it more likely that deaths from other kinds of respiratory diseases are being re-classified as COVID?

Re: The Covid-19 pandemic is worse than official figures show

#30

Post by makomk » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 12:52 PM UTC

lefrenchy wrote: post #17

jjeaff wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that sweden's new deaths have gone down (but their overall deaths are much worse than other scandinavian countries), but the US graphs shows no slowing of the death rate that I can tell.

It's funny that many arguments against social democratic economic policies from Nordic countries are on the basis of them being smaller countries and therefore not comparable. But somehow when it's a contagious disease though, we should totally use them as a model example..

They're probably a more realistic model than (say) the even smaller New Zealand - which seems to be the current favourite of people opposed to the Swedish model, especially since things started going badly throughout the rest of Europe - because Sweden hasn't taken advantage of their smaller size in the same way that New Zealand did. As far as I know they don't have any restrictions on travel from the rest of the EU, meaning they're still exposed to incoming infections from all those other countries with their much bigger populations, and elimination is just inherently more sensitive to rare, random events than strategies which involve living with the virus because achieving exactly zero active infections is so crucial to its success.