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Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

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Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#91

Post by mywittyname »

bsimpson wrote: post #12
Teknoman117 wrote: post #4

This is anecdotal at best, but when my grandfather passed last May from COVID, his death certificate did not record the cause of death as COVID. He tested negative twice after his month long bought with it, but only lived for another few weeks until dying of respiratory failure. We were told that because he was not testing positive at the time of death, his cause of death could not be recorded as COVID. I thought cau…

Gets manipulated in the other direction too: financial incentives nudge hospitals to assign coronavirus as a cause of death if you had it when you died, even if it wasn't what actually killed you. I don't know if it's as blatant as "died in a car crash of coronavirus," but enough of my medical friends have mentioned it that I believe there's truth to it.

It's pretty difficult to prove covid was not a contributing factor to a person's death. So unless there's clear evidence it wasn't, it should be listed as a contributing factor.

This isn't really any different than when a person dies some immediate event while also suffering from an underlying illness. If a leukemia patent suffers a an aneurysm, one would expect leukemia to be present on their death certificate.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#92

Post by mynameisvlad »

inetknght wrote: post #82
seoaeu wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when are hospitals paid for having their patients die a specific way?

Since the way you died affects how insurance pays out compensations.

Source? Hospitals bill based on services performed, not based on what the ailment is. Nowhere in my bills did it say I went in for a kidney stone last year.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#93

Post by fighterpilot »

seoaeu wrote: post #68
bsimpson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gets manipulated in the other direction too: financial incentives nudge hospitals to assign coronavirus as a cause of death if you had it when you died, even if it wasn't what actually killed you. I don't know if it's as blatant as "died in a car crash of coronavirus," but enough of my medical friends have mentioned it that I believe there's truth to it.

Since when are hospitals paid for having their patients die a specific way?

Medicare pays 20% more if they say that a patient has COVID[1].

[1] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/21/facebook-p...

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#94

Post by whatisthiseven »

bsimpson wrote: post #12
Teknoman117 wrote: post #4

This is anecdotal at best, but when my grandfather passed last May from COVID, his death certificate did not record the cause of death as COVID. He tested negative twice after his month long bought with it, but only lived for another few weeks until dying of respiratory failure. We were told that because he was not testing positive at the time of death, his cause of death could not be recorded as COVID. I thought cau…

Gets manipulated in the other direction too: financial incentives nudge hospitals to assign coronavirus as a cause of death if you had it when you died, even if it wasn't what actually killed you. I don't know if it's as blatant as "died in a car crash of coronavirus," but enough of my medical friends have mentioned it that I believe there's truth to it.

Isn't it plausible your medical friends mentioned it a lot because...others around them also mentioned it a lot? Doctors and nurses are just as capable as spreading rumors as anyone else.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#95

Post by cronix »

mywittyname wrote: post #16
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #2

In absolute number terms it's more deaths in total in the USA than the Spanish Flu (675k deaths total since it began), HIV (700k deaths total since it began) or any other pandemic. Population has increased so the US did lose a smaller percentage of population but on the other hand Spanish Flu didn't have a vaccine to stop it one year in. Hopefully enough of the population takes the vaccine now to stop this. Note this…

>Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. Most of the downplaying I've seen has revolved around the idea that those who died would have, "died anyway" from some other ailment or that hospitals are finding any reason they can to attribute deaths to covid. So, while you have a great argument, I doubt you'll change any minds because those who disagree flat out reject your premise.

Is "pointing out" data considered downplaying? ~5% of deaths had "covid only" while the remaining 95% had other factors with the average having 4 other factors.

From the CDC:

> Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The number of deaths that mention one or more of the conditions indicated is shown for all deaths involving COVID-19 and by age groups. For over 5% of these deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned on the death certificate. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 4.0 additional conditions or causes per death...

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

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#96

Post by whimsicalism »

kyrra wrote: post #84
mywittyname wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. Most of the downplaying I've seen has revolved around the idea that those who died would have, "died anyway" from some other ailment or that hospitals are finding any reason they can to attribute deaths to covid. So, while you have a great argument, I doubt you'll change any minds because those who disagree flat out reject your premise.

The problem is that there are financial implications for a state saying they have covid deaths. From some of US covid relief packages, the more covid deaths a state had, the more money they get. As well, you get the over-the-top cases where someone that dies of a gunshot is included in the covid death count[0]. Some states have tried to do better by breaking it down a little finer. Like Colorado provides[1] a breakdo…

> As well, you get the over-the-top cases where someone that dies of a gunshot is included in the covid death count[0].

? It's incredibly clear by looking at Colorado's numbers, there was no misclassification at all. Definitely mistakes have been made, but this isn't even an example of one.

Your comment is bizarre. The same case you're criticizing is from the state you go on to praise in the next sentence. These, unequivocally, have never been included in "death by covid" counts.

> financial implications for a state saying they have covid deaths

Yes, but there are also immense legal, financial, and political implications for lying about covid deaths. There is no evidence of this happening on a widespread scale.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#97

Post by hervature »

whimsicalism wrote: post #45
mywittyname wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. Most of the downplaying I've seen has revolved around the idea that those who died would have, "died anyway" from some other ailment or that hospitals are finding any reason they can to attribute deaths to covid. So, while you have a great argument, I doubt you'll change any minds because those who disagree flat out reject your premise.

For the former, if someone is actually willing to listen to evidence, you can cite them numbers of average years of life lost per covid death (~15).

I believe the counterargument is to that what is worse, 1/15 of the population losing 15 years or the entire population losing 1 year keeping in mind that 1 year in your prime is probably worth more than 1 year in your old age. These numbers are not COVID specific, just going off your ~15.

For COVID numbers, even with 1M deaths, that would be 1/330 (US population) losing on average ~15 years vs. everyone losing almost 2 years now. It's emotionally tough to pick a policy when you are condemning one group to statistical death, but you still have to try and be objective. My personal opinion is that we'll be writing books about the "the lost generation" in 10 years about children currently in school.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#99

Post by gizmo686 »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #60
ddingus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the people I know who died, did so after traveling to Florida where they did catch covid, return home and died 40 some days later on a ventilator. Maybe travel in and out of Florida is fluid enough to explain it to some degree.

> did so after traveling to Florida to catch covid uh, what? I don't understand why anyone would willingly try to catch a disease... (get your kids the chickenpox vaccine, don't do those chickenpox parties if those still exist. The vaccine drastically reduces the occurrence shingles later in life. I'm a bit envious that my younger sisters got it, but I got chickenpox as a child. Seeing it flare up in my dad every 18…

FYI, if you have had chickenpox, you can get a shingles vaccine https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/in...

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#100

Post by newacct583 »

timr wrote: post #20

This isn't a "study", it's a statistical model. It reflects the assumptions put into it. To wit: > Our analysis follows four key steps. First, for all locations where weekly or monthly all-cause mortality has been reported since the start of the pandemic, we estimate how much mortality increased compared to the expected death rate....Second, based on a range of studies and consideration of other evidence, we estimate…

Surely you'd agree that "2020 excess deaths are going to be predominantly covid" is a very reasonable hypothesis though, right? And you agree that "2020 has an extraordinarily high excess death rate", because that part is easily measured data, right?

Basically: your response seems a bit nitpicky to me, which tells me that perhaps you're starting from a perspective where you're assuming the article is wrong and looking for holes to poke.

Look, nothing about this paper's conclusions is surprising at all. At all. We all know true covid deaths are higher than reported, because all such metrics underreport, for all diseases (and frankly almost all causes of death). The only question is "By how much?". So you don't like 400k. What's your counter?

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