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There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

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Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#171
post #32
post #11

The earth’s population is 7.9b, so the excess deaths are 0.1% of the population. COVID’s mortality rate is about 0.5%, so roughly 1/5 of the population has has had it (or died of other related things, like starvation in developing countries due to the lockdown stopping food harvests in California). Currently, 1.45b doses of a vaccine have been administered, so about as many people have had the vaccine (partially, at…

100% COVID / vaccination isn't the end point. It's R_t So some amount < 100% of people infected / vaccinated will create enough spreading "distance" between that coronavirus won't be able to effectively reproduce, because the (limited) vulnerable hosts will be too "far" apart.

Unfortunately it looks like this virus will be endemic indefinitely. It has spread to animal and human reservoirs we can't reach. Likely it'll end up being another one of those colds that children develop partial immunity against and most everybody catches another mutant of it a few times through their life.

We had the chance to eradicate it 16 months ago. But we weren't all ready. Now we'll have to live with it. And as it stands, if another one of those develops, we'll just blow it again. On a positive note: it looks like we got quick vaccination figured out.

With "we" I mean humanity.

One thing I do wonder is whether we will see permanent "Covid-free" zones such as Australia. Or whether they'll drop their guard after vaccinating.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#172

This has me a bit confused: I look at the stats on cases and deaths per capita across various U.S. states, including California (which was very locked down, at least in theory) and Florida (which was flippant towards risks of contagion), and many states in between. The per capita cases+deaths are nearly identical across many states with very different approaches. This left me really wondering which measures were and…

Nursing homes had the biggest outbreaks. Perhaps only prolonged exposure in confined spaces between elderly people was the only pathway that mattered. In some ways I think of it like a fire spreading. There will be spots that burn easily and quickly. But once they burn out, the fire has nowhere else to go that burns as well.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#173
post #95

This has me a bit confused: I look at the stats on cases and deaths per capita across various U.S. states, including California (which was very locked down, at least in theory) and Florida (which was flippant towards risks of contagion), and many states in between. The per capita cases+deaths are nearly identical across many states with very different approaches. This left me really wondering which measures were and…

IMHO if you want to understand what an effective response looks like - don't look at North America or Europe. Think Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and many parts of Africa, all of which had vastly better outcomes. Of course, I'm not an epidemiologist or public health expert, so while I have some guesses I'm not sure what exactly they did that was more effective - but there's no question that it was more effective.…

The average age in many African countries is in the mid teens, and we know that age is one of the strongest risk gradients. So Africa is not at all comparable with the aging West. Australia and NZ have the huge advantage of no land borders. Everything and everyone comes through a few ports and airports, which already had the infrastructure established to tightly control and monitor everything. Meanwhile most European or North American countries can't close their sprawling land borders without starving their populations. (And the U.S. couldn't close its land borders even if it wanted to.)

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is from earlier: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/excess-mortality-across-countr... Interestingly Sweden that got famous for defying lockdowns saw an uptick of 1.5% excess mortality per 100K people compared to 12.9% for the US that was relatively more locked down. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it sure is an interesting data point.

> the US that was mostly locked the US was not mostly locked down, and indeed made noncompliance with safety measures a major partisan identity issue for the faction controlling the federal executive, the upper federal legislative house, most state governments, and much of law enforcement even in the other states. It mostly had modest, inconsistent, uncoordinated, and largely unenforced restrictions. A few jurisdicti…

Fixed mostly to relatively. That wasn't my main point really. I thought the data points were interesting.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Count of covid cases and deaths has been highly politicized and manipulated in Florida to the point of firing people for reporting them. Not sure how possible it is to get accurate info in this environment.

Do you have a reliable source that the covid deaths in FL were manipulated downward?

This one seems a good place to start:

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-ss-prem-covid...

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida didn't lock down (EDIT: except a few weeks at the beginning), and their death numbers are middle-of-the-pack[1], just marginally worse than California, which did heavy lockdowns. We should probably assume that, in addition to not following some practices we should have, we also did a lot that we didn't have to. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html list the states by "of all time" a…

California is huge and had numerous places actively(purposefully) flout public health measures like quarantine, lockdowns and restrictions on gatherings. It's hard to compare the two.

[deleted]

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#177

This has me a bit confused: I look at the stats on cases and deaths per capita across various U.S. states, including California (which was very locked down, at least in theory) and Florida (which was flippant towards risks of contagion), and many states in between. The per capita cases+deaths are nearly identical across many states with very different approaches. This left me really wondering which measures were and…

I've always thought the main driver of spread was probably not the political football issues like masks in public and businesses being open or closed, but what people are doing behind closed doors with family and friends. Lockdowns don't have much effect on this.

There was a study released not long ago that came to that same conclusion regarding schools. It found that most students who were infected didn't catch it at school, but from family members and friends after hours.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not typify the US as "mostly locked down"

Would you typify the US as more Locked Down than Sweden? Because their numbers are better. If their approach was worse why are their numbers not worse?

I've heard it suggested that there was a lot of voluntary distancing and othet measures taken in sweden. It wouldn't suprise me if there was more actual distancing in "not locked down" sweden than in "locked down" US. But perhaps the protests etc I've seen on TV wetrre exagerated?

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#179

This has me a bit confused: I look at the stats on cases and deaths per capita across various U.S. states, including California (which was very locked down, at least in theory) and Florida (which was flippant towards risks of contagion), and many states in between. The per capita cases+deaths are nearly identical across many states with very different approaches. This left me really wondering which measures were and…

Count of covid cases and deaths has been highly politicized and manipulated in Florida to the point of firing people for reporting them. Not sure how possible it is to get accurate info in this environment.

Only Rebekah Jones, who left her last three jobs with criminal charges, has claimed that. None of her claims have ever been substantiated by a single legit source.

Only followers of fringe left wing Twitter believe any of that.

Re: There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic

#180
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get that. I guess I just mean that the worst pandemic of the last 100 years and (so far) it's maybe 17% deaths over the baseline. That feels kinda low.

17% excess mortality (and that’s assuming this 1% baseline we pulled out of the air, remember) doesn’t mean that the pandemic is only responsible for those excess deaths – a bunch of people who might have otherwise been expected to get hit by a car worked from home all year, or died from COVID instead, etc. So the pandemic is responsible for the 17% (in this scenario) uplift above baseline plus an unknown portion of…

Apparently suicides and deaths from starvation were also up significantly.

It will indeed be interesting to see how the distribution of deaths plays out.

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