There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by mojomark » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:45 PM UTC

Have we completely lost our ability to report at responsible scientists/engineers? There are no units on the y-axis of the subject graphs. Also 7m == 7 meters. 7M == 7 million. There are no legends for the color coding. This is absolutely the worst, most ambiguous (hence most confusing) presentation of data I have ever witnessed in my 20nyear career as an engineer.

If the author can't at least present evidence for their case within a reasonably accepted scientific standard framework (e.g. graph legends, correct units, etc.) , than the evidence should ve dismissed until they can.

Where is the peer review for this content? Why is this low caliber content showing up in my HN feed?

Can we please do better?

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

#212

Post by vmception » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:46 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #51

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…

No state had an optimal viral mitigation strategy. The optimal strategy being impractical or even impossible.

Densely populated places that would have acted flippantly would have been much worse.

Densely populated places with mixed unit housing had hurt themselves with the strategy they chose.

So basically California and New York could just barely keep numbers as close to Florida numbers by locking down hard. The methods California and New York chose could have been even more optimized, but not possible for a US government to do.

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

#213

Post by anarazel » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:46 PM UTC

anarazel wrote: post #190

danenania wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Of course SF has a good hospital coverage, displaced a lot of poorer residents. Thus fewer people working high-risk jobs in SF actually end up counted in SF's stats.

But I don't think that SF's 62 deaths/100k (compared to e.g. 240 for LA and 232 for Miami) is solely explained by that, and that the tighter (and more adhered to) restrictions did play a role.

Without the poorly considered relaxations in Oct/Nov, despite clear indicators for a worsening situation, it'd have ended up better...

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

#214

Post by Spooky23 » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:46 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #158

auxym wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some canadian provinces are still closing down schools at the moment.

Why? Sincere question. Is there science to back it up or is it just fear of making a wrong decision?

They have vaccine shortages. The issue is the teachers, not the kids.

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

#215

Post by greenwich26 » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

atweiden wrote: post #86

Covid makes your country worse. It’s like having endemic malaria. No one wants endemic malaria in their country, and costly government intervention was required to rid the developed world of it. Similarly, it’s disheartening to see so many people — especially on partisan lines — promulgate the talking point that we just need to “learn to live with it”. This is insanity. Annual mRNA booster vaccines ad infinitum, with…

You literally can't close the American brder. As a strict lower bound (based on CBP encounters) 3000 people walk through the desert or jump the fence every day, and statistically many of them have Covid. This is a constant source term to the growth equation that precludes a Melbourne solution, even if the borders were officially closed and optimal lockdowns.

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

#216

Post by breck » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #92

josh_today wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not questioning the numbers but genuinely curious how the exponential math works in this case. Thanks

Per Google, the US is at 33 million total cases.

Estimates of true infection rate were around 100M in March. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-models

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

#217

Post by disordinary » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:47 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #120

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.

On the other hand, people have been avoiding going to the doctor, so diagnosis and treatment of all sorts of preventable/treatable diseases (like cancer) is down, leading to excess death, disability, and suffering.

Most of those diseases have a long tail so we won't see the death rate from them for 2020 probably. They'll increase the death rate in a year or two unfortunately.

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

#218

Post by giantg2 » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:48 PM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #117

umvi wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this had been a "real" plague, of the kind humanity has faced repeatedly in the past (and has been expected for some time now), we would have been totally and utterly screwed. Not necessarily. Part of the reason there was so much pushback against public health mandates was because covid was so tame. You are being forced, by the government, to wear a mask, isolate from others, and stop going to work for an entire…

I can accept that the initial worst case mortality claims turned out to be too high. But I can’t accept this claim: > a disease that, for the vast majority who get it, just makes it so you can't taste or smell anything for a few days along with fatigue and flu-like symptoms People who’ve been sick and survived, even with minimal symptoms, are experiencing long term health issues. It’s one thing to recognize that the…

"People who’ve been sick and survived, even with minimal symptoms, are experiencing long term health issues."

I would say 65-80% of non-hospitalized people being fine is consistent with the prior comment's use of "vast majority".

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

#219

Post by rualca » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:48 PM UTC

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.

Assymptomatic carriers have been observed to carry the virus and spread it to those around them for periods that range between a few weeks up to a couple of months.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...

All it takes is a single spreader moving from outside of the metro area to negate the effect of the lockdown, specially if a considerable portion of the population is quite militant in their refusal to follow even the most basic health and safety precautions.

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

#220

Post by dham » Sun, May 16, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #108

ergot_vacation wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for summing up the relevant numbers, it's helpful in putting all this in context. .1% isn't nothing, but it isn't really a disaster either. The Black Death was 30-50% of the population in Europe. The "Spanish" Flu of 1918 killed about .64% of the US population. Things could still get worse of course. But barring that, and considering the absolute disaster that Covid has revealed our political system and interl…

"The Black Death was 30-50% of the population in Europe. The "Spanish" Flu of 1918 killed about .64% of the US population." The populations were much lower back then. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, so there are probably many more deaths to come.

Hong Kong flu killed (100,000 people) 0.05% of US population in 1969. Would be around 160,000 people today. Although as a whole we were much more healthier back then. Lower weight etc. It's no inconceivable that if the same exactly Hong Kong flu hit the United states today there would be more deaths than Covid, due to the much poorer health of the nation.