A puzzle I'm facing right now professionally is in what way to take Corona into account in actuarial longevity / mortality models. Current thinking is it doesn't impact the long term best estimate of longevity. We will probably resume the ever upward trend in lifespans after we've successfully managed this storm. But what to think of the 1-in-200 year shock scenario? Do we expect another pandemic in the next 200 years (:: Yes, return frequency of pandemics is about 20-30 years)? Is this the biggest we can face or are there even bigger shocks (Black Death-like scenarios)? How to account for differences in policy response (these models use data from many countries as a baseline) and expected future responses (will we learn something from this crisis). And then the kicker: How to model this rigourously enough to get your model past supervisors.
Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
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Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#92This study does not account for the statistical significance of changes in population structure. This study compares 2020 to data including 2015. The 65-and-older population in the US grew by over a third (34.2% or 13,787,044) during the past decade, and by 3.2% (1,688,924) from 2018 to 2019. The world is aging in all of the countries reported in this study. The peeks in March are interesting.
This is a great point and could be modelled providing that you have access to prospective mortality tables. I fear they are not easily available for most countries and some might be guarded by actuarial societies. For a bias that might balance things out: measuring covid by excess mortality also fails to account for less deaths by traffic and other infectious diseases. I've never come across mortality tables that are broken down to causes of death.
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are quite a few risk increases associated with general shutdown. This is one with large impact. Another large impact is mental illness, in particular presenting in suicide and substance abuse. On the other side, many other common risks are reduced: workplace injury, other transmissible ailments. If the purpose of the analysis is to determine whether the preventive measure is effective and not overwrought, an ex…
> There are quite a few risk increases associated with general shutdown. [...] Another large impact is mental illness Although there clearly is a harmful impact on mental health caused by "general shutdown", it's not clear that it's a net negative. Compared to the potential alternative (higher mortality, overwhelmed health systems, and anxiety about insufficient measures being taken) it may be a net positive.
Don’t you think the evidence for this level of infringing on peoples basic rights should be less flimsy than ‘may be a net positive’?
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#94How can we separate out deaths of despair (suicides, overdoses, etc.) brought on by lockdowns?
I would expect deaths of despair to be slow-moving and not follow peaks of infection, as is with excess mortality: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-deat...
It would actually be pretty unsurprising because this would be related to the measures, which should be related to infection levels.
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and it is usually people that were on the way out. You haven't looked at the data closely enough if you believe this. Covid is killing people an average of 10 years early. Most of these people needed no assistance in their day to day life before they died. This isn't the frail, very elderly, population you think it is.
I have seen extremely strong amplification of risk by stuff like obesity, diabetes and the rest of the metabolic syndrome buddies. A lot of the dead were having chronic conditions or were already old.
Turns out a lot of people have heart conditions or diabetes. Doesn't meant they were going to die.
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#96I'm very confounded by the "Excess mortality by age group" data in the US. It _appears_ as if the mortality increase is _almost the same for all age groups_, especially at the beginning and after the initial hump. 15-64 yr olds had a 32% higher chance of dying at the hump and stayed above 11% for most of the year. Wow. All the previous findings were that COVID is _extremely unlikely_ to kill you if you are under 50,…
As early as Spring last year, mortality increase was estimated to be about the same for all age groups.
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
domestic violense is up which hurts kids too. Millions will die of starvation around thec world because of extended lockdowns in te west and we could go on.
> because of extended lockdowns in te west I'd rather phrase it as "because of inadequate social support during lockdown". A few countries paying low support had money to do more. Blaming that just on long lockdown is missing all the other possible solutions. As for the effect on mortality of the lockdowns themselves, it will be interesting to look at Australia in a few months where the infections stayed relatively l…
I agree but I am talking about the consequences on third world countries of a slowing economy.
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#98Am I the only one who wished they showed cumulative deaths over the course of the year?
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am confused by this. Either this person is only mobile in indoor spaces for some reason or this person lives somewhere they were doing police checkpoints if you leave your house (like Bangalore). I've spent at least 2x more hours outside, walking, riding bikes, hiking, hitting golf balls, etc. There's nothing else to do but be outside. The fact that I don't have to go into the office and no longer can or want to vi…
Changing routines is hard. Just because people can spend time moving about outside doesn't mean they will. Just like because people can eat healthy food in appropriate amounts doesn't mean we don't have an obesity problem. For example, someone could have used to walk to work, or walk to lunch. Or just spent more time walking about an office building than their home office. Or had a routine of hitting the gym after wo…
I get the motivation thing but what else is there to do on a Saturday besides go hiking or take the dog on a long walk.
We’ve been through this for eight months now and people should be getting outside just for sheer boredom.
Re: Excess mortality from March to December of 2020
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a counterpoint, Japan seems to be undergoing a startling rise in suicide rates. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-...
Japan and China always had problems with suicide, because of culture.
That doesn't explain the rise in the graph this year, does it?