Excess Deaths in 2020 • Hacker News Board

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#91

Post by ohlookabird » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

sim_card_map wrote: post #5

For 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

It seems to vary also a lot by region. Take for instance this local news article from yesterday about excess death in some east German states: https://www.dnn.de/Region/Mitteldeutschland/Uebersterblichke...

Among other things it says the excess death in last December among members of a large health insurer (AOK) rose to 250% of the previous year in various heavy hit regions like Zwickau, Görlitz and Sächsische Schweiz ("So stieg die Übersterblichkeit im vergangenen Dezember unter den sächsischen AOK-Mitgliedern in den Landkreisen Zwickau, Görlitz und Sächsische Schweiz auf 250 Prozent des Vorjahresniveau.").

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#92

Post by majormajor » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #87

RacfeelBudkind wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot…

In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination, and we apparently did a terrible job keeping it out of nursing homes (so the percentage that caught it that died was higher than it would have been across the whole population). So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max. There were strategies that were developed after the 1918 pandemic that probably would have saved more people than t…

> So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max.

You are very cavalier with somewhere around 1.1-1.6 million extra deaths, to date. That's your GOOD number?

If that's your anti-intervention argument, I'm unconvinced. Saving a million lives is worth a lot to me.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#93

Post by sgt101 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #87

RacfeelBudkind wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot…

In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination, and we apparently did a terrible job keeping it out of nursing homes (so the percentage that caught it that died was higher than it would have been across the whole population). So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max. There were strategies that were developed after the 1918 pandemic that probably would have saved more people than t…

>In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination

Where did that number come from?

So - 2 to 3x... Nope. 8 - 10x.

What I want to know is why you have constructed this belief and want to propagate it when it is refuted by a google search in 10 seconds flat?

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#94

Post by DeusExMachina » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #85

xxxxxxx12 wrote: post #56

FWIW, an economist published this paper recently estimating "the cost/benefit ratio of lockdowns in Canada, in terms of life-years saved, is between 3.6–282": > Generally speaking, the ineffectiveness of lockdown stems from voluntary changes in behavior. Lockdown jurisdictions were not able to prevent noncompliance, and non-lockdown jurisdictions benefited from voluntary changes in behavior that mimicked lockdowns. T…

I thought that the purpose of lockdown (in the UK at least) was to prevent health care from being overwhelmed, at which point deaths would drastically increase. So we don't really know how many people would have died without lockdown to make a comparison, but it would have been a lot higher. If the health service is completely overloaded it means people would start dying from all sorts of other things too. Am I missi…

I guess the point is that if lockdowns are ineffective, you are going to reach the overload point regardless. The fact that it did not happen means that I would not have happened anyway.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#95

Post by Miner49er » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

joshuahedlund wrote: post #48

HideousKojima wrote: post #40

I'm curious if there's a good way to breakdown how much is caused by COVID vs., say, caused by the lockdown (i.e. delayed elective medical procedures, suicides, etc.). For example the US suicide rate declined from 2018 to 2019, but went back up in 2020. Naively assuming that all of the increase was due to the effects of the lockdowns would attribute ~2,880 suicides to them (or more if in a counterfactual world the su…

Suicides declined in 2020 [1] Cost benefit analysis is important. But it's pretty clear the vast majority of excess deaths were covid related, because there's a very strong correlation between excess deaths and reported covid cases/deaths, even when you look at different states that had different peaks at different times, and no such correlation to other responses like different types of lockdowns. More delayed / ind…

Yeah, but some claim overall "deaths of despair" went up [1], which is probably better to use here.

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deaths-of-despair-during-c...

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#96

Post by majormajor » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

xxxxxxx12 wrote: post #86

jonplackett wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that the purpose of lockdown (in the UK at least) was to prevent health care from being overwhelmed, at which point deaths would drastically increase. So we don't really know how many people would have died without lockdown to make a comparison, but it would have been a lot higher. If the health service is completely overloaded it means people would start dying from all sorts of other things too. Am I missi…

> I thought that the purpose of lockdown (in the UK at least) was to prevent health care from being overwhelmed Which never really pans out (field hospitals, hospital ship sent to NYC, etc.) - they got strained and perhaps local spots overwhelmed, but never doomsday scenarios we hear bandied about without any evidence. His point is that lockdown doesn't really change behavior and places that don't have strong mandate…

> Which never really pans out (field hospitals, hospital ship sent to NYC, etc.) - they got strained and perhaps local spots overwhelmed, but never doomsday scenarios we hear bandied about without any evidence.

"The thing you were trying to prevent didn't happen, therefore you didn't need to try to prevent it" is really curious reasoning. "It didn't happen, therefore it was because we did this things" is also a weak claim, but the reverse seems far sillier. Especially if you look at the hot spots where things got worst, like Italy or India. Instead of being glad we avoided that, we're whining that we had to do anything at all.

> His point is that lockdown doesn't really change behavior and places that don't have strong mandates end up largely practicing safer behavior anyway.

Again, this is a curious claim. If lockdown doesn't really change behavior, how can lockdown be responsible for the things it's being blamed for like isolation and economic impact? That is then the fault of the pandemic, and the natural behavior changes that resulted, instead!

Note how toilet paper was gone from grocery stores BEFORE any official action was taken.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#97

Post by runako » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #87

RacfeelBudkind wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot…

In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination, and we apparently did a terrible job keeping it out of nursing homes (so the percentage that caught it that died was higher than it would have been across the whole population). So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max. There were strategies that were developed after the 1918 pandemic that probably would have saved more people than t…

> 2-3x more people, max

Rounding, that's possibly another 1-2 million people. Those are big numbers!

Also one quibble in that most of the US did not have an extended lockdown. Here in GA ours lasted basically a month. As others have said, people voluntarily stayed home, in part because the exponents of letting the disease "run its course" tended to exhibit a level of comfort with millions of deaths that perhaps is not widely shared in the population.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#98

Post by erfgh » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

I'm suprised by the number of people arguing for and against the lockdowns using just deaths statistics.

Lockdowns of the duration that we experienced should be illegal because they take away the citizens' liberties to an extent that no government should be able to take them away. It has nothing to do with health.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#99

Post by spookthesunset » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

RacfeelBudkind wrote: post #75

HideousKojima wrote: post #40

I'm curious if there's a good way to breakdown how much is caused by COVID vs., say, caused by the lockdown (i.e. delayed elective medical procedures, suicides, etc.). For example the US suicide rate declined from 2018 to 2019, but went back up in 2020. Naively assuming that all of the increase was due to the effects of the lockdowns would attribute ~2,880 suicides to them (or more if in a counterfactual world the su…

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot…

> Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread.

It will be decades before we know the answer to this, if we ever do. Trying to justify these lockdowns while in the middle of the storm is fools errand. Heads are running way to hot and brains aren’t thinking clearly.

What we’ve done over the last year represents one of the largest uncontrolled public health experiments ever performed. The best part is all the billions caught up in the experiment never consented and many don’t even know it was an experiment.

Society has never, ever had a pandemic plan that includes what we’ve done over the 14 months.

Only through the passage of time, when all the people who instituted these policies are no longer with us and all the costs of these lockdowns will be laid bare, will history truly be able to judge our actions.

(Personally I think history will take an incredibly dim view of lockdowns and those who enacted them)

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#100

Post by sgt101 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

RacfeelBudkind wrote: post #75

HideousKojima wrote: post #40

I'm curious if there's a good way to breakdown how much is caused by COVID vs., say, caused by the lockdown (i.e. delayed elective medical procedures, suicides, etc.). For example the US suicide rate declined from 2018 to 2019, but went back up in 2020. Naively assuming that all of the increase was due to the effects of the lockdowns would attribute ~2,880 suicides to them (or more if in a counterfactual world the su…

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot…

I think, very sadly, that India is giving us an insight now. It must be remembered that the situation in India is into a society with some immunity from earlier infections and also some immunity from vaccination (I think ~10% combined) which muddies the water a bit. But, still the picture of an unmoderated c19 epidemic is horrifying.