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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

#191

Post by username90 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #154
username90 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

This is the number of years lost with social distancing. You could make this same argument about anything that causes large amounts of deaths.

Places that didn't do social distancing didn't lose much more, there is no evidence that social distancing saved more than I estimated here. My estimate was even very generous in your favour since I estimated death without social distancing to be the worst in the world. But we could estimate to be roughly the death rate in Florida, in which case most of the social distancing did basically nothing.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#192

Post by Daishiman »

dadjoker wrote: post #155
standardUser wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there had been no mitigation efforts the death toll would have skyrocketed as our healthcare systems collapsed.

And know that...how? Because "correlation = causation" is a legitimate scientific hypothesis now? Any legitimate scientific study has things like control groups to verify that the studied action wouldn't have happened otherwise, something I learned if high school biology in the first week. Your statement has none of that. And, any time you do look at places with NPIs vs non NPIs (Jutland in Denmark, or compare FL and…

There are tons of places where you can directly observe the effects of lockdown measures.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#193

Post by UncleOxidant »

nostromo wrote: post #133
UncleOxidant wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

All available data is showing that this past year has been detrimental to poor students. Imagine trying to learn on an old phone, using a cellular internet connection in a bedroom you share with your sister. So, while I'm glad you enjoyed your year at home -- the focus here was on the impact on students.

It hasn't been detrimental for all students. Some have thrived. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=some-students-have-taken-to...

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#194

Post by tshaddox »

whimsicalism wrote: post #163
Sebb767 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality. This part is especially doubtful for me, as there are factors moving it in either direction. For one, the pandemic measures also helped a lot for things like the flu, which had less cases and therefore caused less deaths. On the other hand, problems caused by lack of exercise and social interaction have definitely increased. Lastly, I'm quite sure…

I would generally expect non-covid deaths to be down as is indicated by correlations between mortality and economic decline, the fact that suicides haven't trended substantially upwards, and the fact that cars are off the road.

There are around 30,000 to 35,000 car deaths per year in the US over the last ten years, and around 35,000 to 45,000 deaths from suicide. Those are terrible number sin absolute terms, of course, but even if those went to 0 for a year during the pandemic, that’s still less than 15% of the deaths currently attributed to COVID-19 in the US.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#195

Post by txsoftwaredev »

treeman79 wrote: post #116
tomp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. It's invalid reasoning to use this study to "upplay" the pandemic. It includes deaths due to depressions and delayed medical interventions, which you could argue isn't the result of COVID directly, but the result of lockdowns. So when people use this study to claim "see, this many lives were lost, we were right to institute lockdowns" - that's circula…

Number saved due to lockdown Number died due to lock down Personally I lost access to badly needed medical care due to lockdown. Was quite scary. Eventually got Covid. Sucked but nothing compared to what else I’ve been through. So initially was dismissive. However definitely some lasting changes to my clotting levels. I have to be perfect with blood thinners these days, we’re before covid I could fudge with them.

"Personally I lost access to badly needed medical care due to lockdown. Was quite scary."

My nearly 70 year old mother is in the same boat. She recently dealt with breast cancer treatments (a rare form) and thankfully was given the all clear before covid. She still needed to do follow up visits, more testing etc. but due to covid was told to stay away. Even though she was more comfortable with the risk of getting covid vs. ensuring her cancer is in remission they wouldn't see her.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#196

Post by fullshark »

crazygringo wrote: post #131
grawprog wrote: post #41

>the discrepancy between reported deaths and analyses of death rates compared to expected death rates, sometimes referred to as “excess mortality,” suggests that the total COVID-19 death rate is many multiples larger than official reports. So...not as many people died as we thought were going to so we're now just going to arbitrarily say any excess death was a covid death just to make sure the numbers look like what…

That's not what they do at all. Just a few sentences later, they break down changes in death rates into 6 categories -- 3 that are increases but also 3 that are decreases . But in any case, it's a pretty reasonable first-order assumption that excess deaths are from COVID, that can then be analyzed in more detail per-population to see if it continues to be plausible, e.g. whether excess deaths were also correlated in…

They then say that they considered all the 3 factors that lead to increases to be COVID deaths:

> The main potential increases in excess mortality due to deferred care and increases in drug overdose and depression are hard to quantify at this point or are of a much smaller magnitude. Given that there is insufficient evidence to estimate these contributions to excess mortality, for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality

Basically the 6 factor breakdown is a way to decrease the volume of expected deaths to make the excess mortality number larger. 100% of which was attributed to COVID.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#197

Post by xkjkls »

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

You do realize that 95% of COVID deaths have occured after April 2020, right?

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#198

Post by philwelch »

teachingassist wrote: post #173
philwelch wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some more factors might be hospital crowding early in the pandemic, people avoiding medical treatment, and increased homicide rates.

> people avoiding medical treatment People avoiding medical treatment is awkward in the figures, because - medical treatment sometimes kills people. First link I found suggests that medical treatments cause 800,000 deaths per year in the USA. If medical treatments are really down, I'd guess we might actually expect mortality figures to be temporarily down (but, higher later).

If medical treatment causes more deaths than it prevents on average, we’re probably doing it wrong, though maybe it looks different in the short term as you imply.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#199

Post by hervature »

xkjkls wrote: post #174
hervature wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, all valid points. But we can assign numbers to all these things and the error bars are sufficiently large that there is ample room for debate. As for 2. is it obvious? My niece doesn't know that there are other humans like her, I would gladly take a year at the end of my life to give that gift to her. Given the current vaccination rates, many people will not see normal until 2022. For 3. it cuts both ways, h…

> is it obvious? My niece doesn't know that there are other humans like her, I would gladly take a year at the end of my life to give that gift to her. I'm not sure she is going to agree with you when she visits you toward the end of your life. > For 3. it cuts both ways, how many new alcoholic parents and child abuse that ruins an entire lifetime? It's far from obvious what the effects of COVID-19 are on child abuse…

> I'm not sure

That sounds like it is not obvious.

> The data is hard to disaggregate because there are so many conflicting factors

Basically sums up COVID policies. The point remains, I have yet to see any clear objective policy making that even tries to estimate impact on life of all citizens. In absence of anything resembling a consideration of all age groups, I just ignore any opinion of lockdown both for and against.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#200

Post by lostlogin »

whimsicalism wrote: post #154
username90 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

This is the number of years lost with social distancing. You could make this same argument about anything that causes large amounts of deaths.

> You could make this same argument about anything that causes large amounts of deaths.

The cumulative time wasted by humanity each day by putting seatbelts on or by stopping for red lights.

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