For international data, The Economist has the charts of excess mortality through 2020 for different countries:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-...
Excess Deaths in 2020
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Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#12In a year when Geico is giving their customers an across the board rebate on their premiums because driving miles are down so much, and driving accidents are the third or fourth leading cause of death in a non-pandemic year, I think we'd need to adjust downward the baseline. I wonder if these calculations take that into account?
Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#13Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#14I'd like to see a version of this analysis that incorporates all-cause mortality from a much larger time period; say the past fifty years rather than the past five.
While that would be interesting, it would be a less direct measure of COVID's impact, as other variables are introduced.
Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#15I'd like to see a version of this analysis that incorporates all-cause mortality from a much larger time period; say the past fifty years rather than the past five.
While that would be interesting, it would be a less direct measure of COVID's impact, as other variables are introduced.
The tricky thing about discussing covid-19 mortality is that there are always confounding variables. The disease is deadlier for people with pre-existing conditions, particularly cardiovascular.
A common line of argument online is "it's just the flu, and we don't panic like this for flu season every year." Observing a spike in total deaths puts that line of thought to the test.
Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#16Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#17For some reason Europe saw a lot fewer excess deaths in 2020. For example, in Germany it was only ~ +3%, and Sweden, which didn't lock down and had no mask mandates, had a lower death rate than in 2012: https://i.redd.it/73x3fysmu7k61.png
Germany was one of the countries that I remember handling it pretty well in the early days though. Italy, Spain, Belgium, and to some extent UK and France were the ones towards the top of the Worldometers per capita deaths IIRC.
What I wonder from that table though is why does Germany seem to have a higher death rate than peer countries over the prior few years? They are in line with Estonia and noticably higher than all the other countries listed.
Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#18Re: Excess Deaths in 2020
#19For some reason Europe saw a lot fewer excess deaths in 2020. For example, in Germany it was only ~ +3%, and Sweden, which didn't lock down and had no mask mandates, had a lower death rate than in 2012: https://i.redd.it/73x3fysmu7k61.png
That's interesting, why is that?
Probably a combination of:
- US letting it rip through vulnerable populations with the promise of "herd immunity" being right around the corner
- Fewer hospital beds available in less populous areas.
- Taking COVID seriously became a culture war issue. So while some countries might've had its youth catch it while mostly keeping it away from older populous, the US had the opposite: less vulnerable youth took it relatively seriously, with lots of 60+ flaunting safety measures they felt were oppressive