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

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

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 489 posts

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

#181

Post by lostapathy »

cma wrote: post #162
lostapathy wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wait to draw any serious conclusions until after the pandemic is "over" in both countries you're comparing. It sure seems like this virus doesn't need much of a foothold to take off, and just because an island has been able to deny that so far doesn't mean they'll be able to deny the virus until they are fully vaccinated and out of the woods.

How about China itself?

I'm not sure it's fair to compare an authoritarian country to a western country that's nominally free.

What western government could pull off welding doors shut the way they did in China? Even if the government had emergency powers that "allowed" it, would they have had willing workers to do it?

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

#182

Post by karmelapple »

virtuallynathan wrote: post #132
disordinary wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but the covid restrictions have meant that the normal death rate is lower. Because people aren't traveling and commuting the road toll is down, because people are at home and social distancing workplace deaths are down. So excess mortality is up and the base deathrate is down meaning excess mortality is actually higher than shown.

This is not the case with automotive fatalities, they were up in 2020. "A 24% spike in roadway death rates is highest in 96 years"

I find this both surprising and not.

Early in the pandemic, when most everything was shut down, I had to run an errand and ended up driving down some streets I’ve driven many times before. The percentage of cars driving erratically on the road was much higher than usual.

I figure one of these might explain it:

1. People are stressed / distracted, and driving poorly because of it 2. Most drivers are well-meaning and conscientious, but most of those conscientious people were staying at home as public health officials directed, so the few people left on the road were more disproportionately less conscientious 3. Fewer cars on the road meant I noticed the bad drivers more readily

Other hypotheses?

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

#183

Post by sneak »

ianai wrote: post #84
sneak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disheartening seeing people in the US mad at the 30% vaccine hesitant there, while 6B+ at the gates have no vaccines available at all. The US isn't an island, and the borders are nowhere near closed. The variants that grow in the other 96% of humans that aren't americans will doubtlessly end up there, and will be end up tending toward vaccine resistance due to selection pressure. I think this is going to get muc…

This might be a blindspot among the US citizens. I know the European countries have united to supply vaccines to the developing world with their Covax program. But I don't think the US is doing anything similar. I'm not even sure how the US would go about doing that. Would it have to be a Presidentially-ordered/led initiative? As a private citizen, I'd be 100% for the US helping to vaccinate the world. It's an obviou…

> It's an obvious benefit to the US to not have variants arising outside its shores and coming into the country.

I hope you meant this as a way to sell it, because this view is a terrible, terrible way to approach the world, as it lives outside of the US are only to be preserved insofar as doing so protects USians.

Saving human lives is sufficient reason itself.

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

#184

Post by nanis »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #33
sneak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disheartening seeing people in the US mad at the 30% vaccine hesitant there, while 6B+ at the gates have no vaccines available at all. The US isn't an island, and the borders are nowhere near closed. The variants that grow in the other 96% of humans that aren't americans will doubtlessly end up there, and will be end up tending toward vaccine resistance due to selection pressure. I think this is going to get muc…

You're getting downvoted but I do believe you're correct. I'm a healthy 21 year old, please govt., give my vaccine to other countries. I will take it if offered, but I'd prefer to give it to those who really need it all things considered. Let me get the vaccine when others are safe.

Far more people in poorer countries will die from the economic consequences of lockdowns and travel restrictions than the disease. Decisions that were neither inevitable nor necessary will lower the opportunities for people to double their incomes from $1-$5/day for at least the next decade.

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

#185

Post by corty »

cma wrote: post #162
lostapathy wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wait to draw any serious conclusions until after the pandemic is "over" in both countries you're comparing. It sure seems like this virus doesn't need much of a foothold to take off, and just because an island has been able to deny that so far doesn't mean they'll be able to deny the virus until they are fully vaccinated and out of the woods.

How about China itself?

China might be fine, or it might not be. But only a fool would trust CCP numbers.

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

#186

Post by ansible »

todfox wrote: post #60
throwaway3699 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvoted but I do believe you're correct. I'm a healthy 21 year old, please govt., give my vaccine to other countries. I will take it if offered, but I'd prefer to give it to those who really need it all things considered. Let me get the vaccine when others are safe.

Your altruism is laudable but don't think this can't hurt you. I know a healthy, athletic 25 year old who has needed an inhaler every day for the last year because of her moderate, non-hospitalized Covid case. Her lung damage will probably not heal any further at this point. I would get vaccinated ASAP. You're as deserving as anyone else. You don't want to risk spending the rest of your life with impaired breathing.

I know a guy that caught it bad, he was less than 50 years old. Almost died, like really, he would have died but they brought him back. He is doing better, but is far from completely recovered.

I know other people who treat this like some kind of joke. You just don't know how bad you might react to it.

I am most worried about the long term effects. If you die, that's one thing, but having lingering after-effects would really suck.

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

#187

Post by chmod600 »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #138
chmod600 wrote: post #99

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.

The post I responded to said "imagine if nobody did anything". I gave Florida as an example. Saying that California also flouted restrictions does not really refute that.

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

#188

Post by cmeacham98 »

danenania wrote: post #134
ngngngng wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The community I grew up in in California purposefully threw rallies and went out of their way to rebel against every single restriction. I keep this in mind when people say California's restrictions didn't work. Edit: This was in Orange County CA, not rural. And when I say "rallies" I'm talking thousands of people, not small gatherings.

Still, the vast majority of cases in California have been in the metropolitan areas that have also had the strongest restrictions.

The vast majority of cases will basically always be in big cities because that's where the most people live. We'd need per-capita data for it to be a useful comparison.

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

#189

Post by whatever1 »

hedora wrote: 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…

The mortality is 0.5% WITH functional healthcare. Thankfully we do not have data of mortality from places where healthcare collapsed, although India might provide us with a glimpse of what Covid looks like in its unmitigated form.

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

#190

Post by anarazel »

danenania wrote: post #134
ngngngng wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The community I grew up in in California purposefully threw rallies and went out of their way to rebel against every single restriction. I keep this in mind when people say California's restrictions didn't work. Edit: This was in Orange County CA, not rural. And when I say "rallies" I'm talking thousands of people, not small gatherings.

Still, the vast majority of cases in California have been in the metropolitan areas that have also had the strongest restrictions.

SF fared a lot better than LA, which was a lot looser with restrictions...
Post reply on HN