Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

healthdata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 387 posts

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#121

Post by makomk »

tidydata wrote: post #62
chmod600 wrote: post #13

It looks like Florida is two shades "better" than California in the diagram, which would put the total Florida death rate as better than California. That would be interesting because Florida did almost no lockdown. How could that be?

I think you’re talking about Figure 5 which is the ratio of total to reported COVID related deaths. This would mean that CA underreported COVID related deaths compared to Florida. Figure 7, the cumulative total death rate, is probably more relevant to the point you’re trying to make, in which case FL and CA are in the same bin. One conclusion you might draw is that the effectiveness of lockdowns cannot be inferred fr…

If California did underreport Covid-related deaths compared to Florida, that in itself would be interesting because endless column inches were spent on claims that Florida was underreporting its Covid deaths as part of a cover-up by its evil right-wing leaders and we definitely didn't see nearly so many claims that California was doing this.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#123

Post by UncleOxidant »

hervature wrote: post #97
whimsicalism wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 almos…

> or the entire population losing 1 year

Except we didn't lose a year. A lot of us actually kind of liked the last year. Many got to work from home and discovered it was a lot less stressful than commuting into an office every day, for example. I have a feeling that some of us are going to recall the last year with a bit of nostalgia in the future.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#124

Post by username90 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #66
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have to wait 20+yr for the controversy to simmer down but I bet when you run the numbers using a metric like YPLL (which is the typical metric used for these sorts of comparisons) the difference between Covid and other big pandemic outbreaks over history is going to be more minor.

Very back of hand numbers, but, assuming this article is true (haven't looked into it) 900,000 death * 15 yll/death [0] = 13.5 million YLL vs ~63 million YLL for Spanish Flu and 0.5 million YLL for typical flu season [1] [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2843747/

Flu seasons before vaccines were much worse than now though, it was like having covid every single year. The Spanish flu was about an order of magnitude worse than the normal flu seasons which is why it was so devastating.

> 900,000 death * 15 yll/death [0] = 13.5 million YLL

Right, so an average American lost 0.03 years of their life due to covid. I guess some thinks everything they did last year to save that 0.02 or so years was worth it. Basically you save a week by social distancing and locking down for a year.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#125

Post by whimsicalism »

grumpyautist wrote: post #111
whimsicalism wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, une…

Prior to April 2020 the diagnostic criteria for a covid death required 0 testing whatsoever. Combine that with financial incentives to record something as covid, and the lack of other income for hospitals as patients wouldn't come for minor things and elective operations were cancelled and you have a perfect storm for bad data

Not going to keep arguing about this, but there are a huge number of different ways we can confirm that our counts are roughly accurate.

There are obvious signals in total excess death counts indicating the number of deaths due to covid, we can do retrospective random testing of early classified covid deaths.

There is no evidence of some systematic conspiracy or anything of the sort. I encourage you to consider that you might be engaging in motivated reasoning.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#127

Post by teachingassist »

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…

> for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality.

This seems reasonable, although I'd suggest it's an underestimate of COVID-19 deaths.

Excess deaths counts have been consistently showing negative in countries during periods of time where they have coronavirus under control.

Other significant causes of death (including suicide, influenza, road traffic accidents) appear to be down.

As such, I'd assume that COVID-19 deaths are likely somewhat higher than excess mortality figures. I'm prepared to accept the assumption that they're approximately the same.

[Edited to note: the linked article discusses this with further detail and evidence]

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#128

Post by DennisP »

cronix wrote: post #95
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.

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…

The relevant question is whether the person would have died anyway, without covid. If not, that's a covid death.

Put another way, people in perfect health shouldn't be the only ones whose covid deaths are counted.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#129

Post by exporectomy »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #59
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. I admit I'm the morbid one in the group, memento mori and all. But I think the real stat we should track is years of lost life expectancy. That's the only statistic that makes sense when doing cross disease examinations. Not speaking specifically about covid, but more generally, something which primarily kills young people is much bigger deal than som…

I wonder if that measure should be used for criminal justice as well. As well as showing that killing an old person is less harmful, it also excludes babies. Both these groups seem to have lives that are worth less even to themselves and so it's (however distasteful) not as bad if they die. We already do that with abortion by valuing an unborn baby's life less.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#130

Post by grumpyautist »

whimsicalism wrote: post #125
grumpyautist wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to April 2020 the diagnostic criteria for a covid death required 0 testing whatsoever. Combine that with financial incentives to record something as covid, and the lack of other income for hospitals as patients wouldn't come for minor things and elective operations were cancelled and you have a perfect storm for bad data

Not going to keep arguing about this, but there are a huge number of different ways we can confirm that our counts are roughly accurate. There are obvious signals in total excess death counts indicating the number of deaths due to covid, we can do retrospective random testing of early classified covid deaths. There is no evidence of some systematic conspiracy or anything of the sort. I encourage you to consider that…

How can you retrospectively test the people who died prior to April? How can you confirm any of the data that was generated by guesswork?

I'm fairly sure there is no tissue available to test from any of those bodies

The situation was ripe for fraud, and there is no way to prove it didn't happen en masse. Human nature suggests it did happen. The evidence of what caused those deaths is destroyed shortly after the paperwork is filled out. The whole thing is set up in such a manner that suggests inflation of the numbers, and to have no way to counter the claims as all evidence is gone

Post reply on HN