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Excess Deaths in 2020

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Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#131

Post by etripe »

caddemon wrote: post #17
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

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…

Well, the first outbreaks in Europe were in Italy and Spain, too, so I'd say they had more of an excuse than the rest of us.

A big contributor (at least according to local epidemiologists) was the numbers here in Belgium were over reported, whereas most countries under reported. There was also an issue getting accurate numbers, because (mostly privately run) elderly homes weren't looking into it carefully enough to distinguish between Covid and other causes. That said, balls were definitely dropped.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#132

Post by JoeData »

Here is some more data.

Deaths from all causes has declined rapidly in the U.S. since January. The red dotted line is my best attempt to correct for reporting lag: https://i.imgur.com/z8M0k2h.png

Excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths every week of the pandemic: https://i.imgur.com/MeGMsRx.png

Total excess deaths in the U.S. were about 500,000 for 2020. The excess breaks down as 77% COVID, 16% non-COVID natural causes, and 7% external causes for the whole year. External causes include homicide, suicide, accidents, overdoses/poisonings.

The count of COVID deaths include COVID as underlying cause of death (91%) and COVID as a contributing cause (9%). Even when including the contributing cause, it looks like COVID deaths were significantly undercounted in the first wave March/April/May and somewhat undercounted in the later waves. https://i.imgur.com/YjZeI2E.png

Deaths from most major categories were higher or unchanged: https://i.imgur.com/TDGwVU9.png

Excess deaths by age group: https://i.imgur.com/oKda9Dl.png

Ages 0-14 had lower than normal deaths in 2020.

Non-COVID excess deaths by age group: https://i.imgur.com/8pJnauz.png

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#133

Post by Thiez »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #115

Big problem with this type of calculation: it is based on the prior n-years of data. These figures do not consider that the just this year, the leading edge of Baby Boomers are achieving their average life expectancy and dying. There needs to be some corrective math that takes the birth rate at (current year - average life expectancy) into account.

I doubt a rising wave of baby boomer deaths is going to have a significant change on those statistics, but if your objection is correct, the death rate should continue to rise, so in a couple of years we can look back and see if you were right. Or look at mortality by age.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#134

Post by petertodd »

audunw wrote: post #73
heswrongsoru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're made for each other. Excess deaths capture the deaths from lockdown related causes too, like my grandmother, who died when her social life was indefinitely stopped, and teenagers that committed suicide due to lockdowns Excess deaths don't tell us how deadly COVID really was, they tell us how deadly COVID plus the COVID response really were. Someday historians will argue: which was worse? The disease or the tre…

The problem with blaming the response, is that a strong response with very strict lockdowns is sometimes a result of a weak early response. That is, if you hesitate with doing lockdowns, you'll eventually be forced to do a much more severe and longer lasting lockdown anyway. A weak response will also overrun the hospitals, which makes it difficult for them to diagnose and treat other diseases. Norway has had no signi…

Sweden had an abnormally low death rate in 2019; Norway did not. Averaged over the past two years, Sweden's death rate in 2019 and 2020 is just 1.2% above 2018, as compared to Norway's 0.48% below 2018.

It's quite likely that many people who would have died in 2019 in a normal year died in 2020 instead.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/611743/number-of-deaths-... https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#135

Post by xxxxxxx12 »

tgb wrote: post #129
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…

They're arguing simultaneously "lockdowns had no impact on people's behavior and therefore had no benefit" and "lockdowns had massive negative costs". Lo and behold that is the exact mistake the paper is making! It's basing the cost analysis off the following question: >Suppose you could either live a year of life in the COVID era, or X months under normal conditions. What’s the value of X that makes the AVERAGE Amer…

> "lockdowns had no impact on people's behavior and therefore had no benefit" and "lockdowns had massive negative costs"

I think you're overlooking the idea that "lockdowns", as we know them, do little other than impose massive costs and anxieties on society, while failing to achieve their main objective i.e. complete immobilization and eradication.

So you end up with all the costs of the policy with little upside because the dynamics of spread seem very heterogeneous, mass-spread seems to happen in relatively few people in very particular scenarios (crowded indoor areas - notice that lockdown ends up pushing the entire society, especially the least healthy and most vulnerable, indoors).

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#136

Post by neatze »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #103
neatze wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is light years ahead in medical emergency services, when compared to US, this my limited observation, I am EMT volunteer in US.

That's interesting. I'm a layman at best, but I've always heard that the US health care infrastructure is really good, as long as you are eligible for care in the first place. Given the potential astronomical cost of a sudden uninsured health emergency, it would seem that the money is there for it to be that way at least. I'm not american so I've only heard anecdotes though.

I meant in terms of emergency services response in general and transport/care from incident to hospital. I can't speak much about care in hospitals. But initial response to COVID was substantially worse in US then in Europe, in my subjective perspective.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#138

Post by JoeData »

SpaceNinja wrote: post #108

The true covid death rate has been tricky to record in the UK, a positive test result within 28 days prior to death is recorded as a covid death, even if the death was caused by something else. We obviously don't know enough about COVID to know if it is contributing all the COVID registered deaths.

The UK government publishes other ways to measure COVID deaths. the "positive test result with 28 days of death" results in the lowest count:

Deaths in England and Wales in 2020

    80,830  Covid-19 as underlying cause of death or contributing factor
    77,161  Increase in deaths (from all causes) from 2019 to 2020
    73,444  Covid-19 as underlying cause of death on death certificate
    70,013  Any death within 28 days of a positive Covid test
Sources:

https://fullfact.org/health/liam-fox-death-figures/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/uk-official-co...

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#139

Post by RacfeelBudkind »

CountDrewku wrote: post #110
allturtles wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. How is it that people who think the lockdowns were net beneficial need to wait 'decades' to decide, but you're allowed to conclude now that they were a terrible idea? It seems to me we should all state our positions now with the information we have available now, and let the future take care of itself.

Because he/she stated it as a personal opinion while the other person said it as a matter of fact that couldn't be questioned. I'll go a step further and actually suggest that authoritarian lockdown measure haven't done as much as they've been touted as doing. This is pretty easy to see by comparing states with less lockdown measures vs. ones that went full economy shutdown. Most of the "open" states aren't any worse…

> Most of the "open" states aren't any worse off than the ones who went lockdown crazy and in some cases they're actually better off when you look at spread and death.

This could also indicate that states where Covid-19 had a bigger impact responded by enacting stronger mitigations. What makes you prefer your interpretation?

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#140

Post by vmception »

CountDrewku wrote: post #110
allturtles wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. How is it that people who think the lockdowns were net beneficial need to wait 'decades' to decide, but you're allowed to conclude now that they were a terrible idea? It seems to me we should all state our positions now with the information we have available now, and let the future take care of itself.

Because he/she stated it as a personal opinion while the other person said it as a matter of fact that couldn't be questioned. I'll go a step further and actually suggest that authoritarian lockdown measure haven't done as much as they've been touted as doing. This is pretty easy to see by comparing states with less lockdown measures vs. ones that went full economy shutdown. Most of the "open" states aren't any worse…

All while the topology in all jurisdictions is so different that it will never be possible to directly compare
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