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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

#261

Post by raphlinus »

mojomark wrote: post #248
tester756 wrote: post #61

How strong is anti vaccine / anti mask movement in the US? As I see there's very little of it "on the american side of the internet", meanwhile "here" they tend to cause a lot of disruption and shitton of missinformation

I would not conflate "anti-vaccine people" with "anti-mask people". I live in the state of Maryland and yesterday our governor lifted the mask requirement for vaccinated people. I am a fiscal conservative and am vaccinated (got it as soon as I could, because science and common sense informed me that I should). I have relatives, including my own mother, who are far right wing and will not get vaccinated because they b…

I am not in exactly the same place, but respect your comment as being at least logically self-consistent. It reminds me of Jody Lanard's thread[1] about how the new CDC guidelines are "adultifying" in that they transfer the decision back to individuals rather than paternalistic guidelines. The way I think about it is that until recently, the risk calculus was analogous to drunk driving, but is now more similar to riding a motorcycle without a helmet.

[1]: https://twitter.com/EIDGeek/status/1393987801260204034

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

#262

Post by lostapathy »

coldtea wrote: post #255
lostapathy wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> What western government could pull off welding doors shut the way they did in China? Western governments have pulled all kinds of restrictions themselves, from curfews, closed borders, and "let's close all retail businesses" restrictions, to mandatory movement monitoring. Heck, Italy might not have welded doors, but had the Army patrol to enforce strict lockdown, and citizens in northerns cities stay inside. Someti…

Announcing restrictions and enforcing them are two separate animals.

There are not enough police in most of the US to actually enforce closing businesses, let alone confining people to their homes. Especially not when half the populace sees it as a political infringement of their rights.

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

#263

Post by HatchedLake721 »

chmod600 wrote: post #67
HatchedLake721 wrote: post #41

Please don’t look at 7m-13m number and compare it to 7 billion population and say oh it’s only 0.1-0.2%. Pretty much ever country has seen a 15-20% increase in excess mortality rates (20% more people dying than averages in the past), this is huge. This is one of the best up to date visualizations on this topic, scroll down and see breakdowns by country - https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386...

I'm not quite sure what your point is. The absolute number is the number, and zooming in to make it a relative number for dramatic effect doesn't change that. It's kind of like zooming in to a stock market graph so the spikes look bigger.

Because numbers and how people interpret data is hugely important (there was a great article years ago how data visualization tricks can completely make a person misinterpret the presented information)

People can read and shout - I WAS RIGHT!! Only 0.1% people die of covid, lockdowns were unnecessary, masks don’t help, everyone’s a sheep for believing covid is anything more serious than a flu. Now they want to vaccinate us for this, what a joke. Wake up people!!

This is how people can misunderstand and spread misinformation because they don’t have the experience reading and interpreting such data and make conclusions.

Per [1] United States’ current covid deaths is 912k. That is twice the amount USA lost during WW2.

So on one side of the spectrum we have “wake up people, 0.1%, this is a hoax” and on another side we have that more people died from covid in a single year than the sum of all war and terrorist casualties USA had in the last 150 years.

Context matters.

[1] - http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess...

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

#264

Post by rualca »

lostapathy wrote: post #237
bradlys wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think thinking of these places as "islands" really makes sense. The USA could do the same for all people flying or driving in. It just has chosen not to. The US could close its boarders if it wanted to. Just because we have two neighboring countries on north and south borders doesn't mean we couldn't lockdown people from coming in... Literally do not get this argument.

> Just because we have two neighboring countries on north and south borders doesn't mean we couldn't lockdown people from coming in... If there was one thing Trump was all in on, it was closing the southern border. His motivations were obviously not COVID for most of that, but the fact is he was nowhere near able to control that border (let alone close it) despite his best efforts. Before you downvote me, I'm not say…

> If there was one thing Trump was all in on, it was closing the southern border.

Is there any source that even suggests that the US's "southern border" played a remotely relevant role in the US's pandemic?

I mean, COVID spread like wildfire in the US throughout a timespan where the US's central government was quite militant in either denying or downplaying it's gravity. Even today we see states and cities taking militant stances in refusing to implement basic public health precautions. Why is the US's "southern border" suddenly relevant regarding covid-19?

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

#265

Post by spankyspangler »

empthought wrote: post #238
spankyspangler wrote: post #227

That sounds like a pretty wild conspiracy theory. Any basis for this belief?

Virus reservoirs are things. This is why New Zealand has not admitted tourists, and why their case count is so low.

> Virus reservoirs are things.

Clearly I was not suggesting the concept of a virus reservoir was a conspiracy theory. I don't know if you were being deliberately obtuse, but it does not help the conversation.

The parent made 3 claims, increasingly improbable, with the last seeming to be a hateful conspiracy theory.

>> Except these surrounding towns act as virus reservoirs for the large cities.

The assertion is the towns acts as reservoirs for cities. Is that really true?

>> That limits the effectiveness of restrictions.

Is that really what limits the effectiveness of restrictions in cities?

>> The “become COVID-19 carriers to own the libs” strategy kinda worked.

It's pretty obvious this is the conspiracy theory I was talking about. The suggestion seems to be that conservatives in surrounding towns (but not those in the cities) had conspired to develop a biological warfare strategy based on becoming infected in towns and then traveling to infect nearby cities.

This is one of the most hateful, unhinged paranoid delusion I've ever read about COVID. But this kind of thing doesn't raise many eyebrows on sites like HN because people think it's plausible or even likely ("yes it must be those hateful angry racist divisive conspiracy-theory-believing conservatives who are always out to get us, clearly it's conservatives who are to blame for any and all political failings that occur in liberal-run areas").

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

#266

Post by belltaco »

jmahyoung wrote: post #226
andrei_says_ wrote: post #75

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.

Somewhat related, on the opposite point. Elon Musk among others said the counting of deaths was manipulated upwards, with comorbidity being counted as a COVID death even when the patient had 2 or more serious health conditions already. I think there is a desire to overcount which must not be glossed over either.

>I think there is a desire to overcount which must not be glossed over either

So there was overcounting, but somehow excess mortality in 2020-2021 is higher than in normal years? How?

>with comorbidity being counted as a COVID death even when the patient had 2 or more serious health conditions already

A high percentage of people in the US have "serious health conditions" like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure etc. If Covid accelerated their deaths then it should be counted as a covid death because they would likely be otherwise alive now. If you want to get pedantic there's a measure called QALY(quality adjusted life years).

Musk said there would be zero cases in the US by April 2020 among other dumb predictions, so I don't think he's the best person to go to for Covid related information since his domain is technology and not epidemiology. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/03/13/elon-musks-...

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

#267

Post by jointpdf »

kortex wrote: post #119
tester756 wrote: post #61

How strong is anti vaccine / anti mask movement in the US? As I see there's very little of it "on the american side of the internet", meanwhile "here" they tend to cause a lot of disruption and shitton of missinformation

Strong and unevenly distributed. The more rural the area, the less vaccinations are occurring, and also less mask compliance. So the ~33% anti-vaxxers aren't evenly distributed, they are probably 50% in others. As of May 16, there is about 45% vaccinated in New England but This means there will likely be covid hotspots and reservoirs for a long time. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/states-r...

I think reflexively labeling every eligible but unvaccinated person as an anti-vaxxer is a mistake (not that you specifically did this here, but many are quick to shame). Many people are on-the-fence for a variety of reasons, and alienating them makes it more likely that they stay unvaccinated. Here are are two examples:

Just last night I met a guy that lives in my building—a gregarious blue-collar type guy. At one point he got kind of hushed and asked me if I had gotten the vaccine (yes) and what my experience was. He divulged he was hesitant (but “not like that”), citing concerns about possible unknowns or side effects. I just tried to convey my honest (very positive/no side effects) experience, some spare stats about vaccine protectiveness, perks (“you can go to Greece!”), and warmly encouraged him to go for it. I like to think I passed my CHA check, since he nodded his approval and said he was going to keep his appointment.

My sister and her husband (a private school teacher earning ~$40k a year in San Diego) recently lost their insurance, only have internet via the library, etc. She is not an anti-vaxxer by any stretch, but is often (understandably overwhelmed by interacting with the healthcare system. In her case, she just needed some reassurance about access/costs and some help scheduling.

Anyways, there are many others out there like them. What seems like a no-brainer to many of us can often be more complex decision/task for many everyday people. And many of them are right there...just one non-judgmental conversation or helping ha f away from being nudged in the right direction.

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

#268

Post by stubish »

greenwich26 wrote: post #173
candu wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Being an island might make it easier to close borders, but the point is that closing them was likely hugely significant. I'd argue that borders remained open in many countries areas largely due to a lack of will. You could certainly close borders to most tourists and business travelers in any country that does immigration control, like Australia did. You can also close interstate land borders, like Australia did. You can even close borders to major cities, like Australia did. You don't need to close borders to food deliveries, just budget for the logistical headaches. You do have to pay the political and economic cost though. Australia was watching with both envy and horror when we started seeing stories of British people able to go on holidays to Europe again.

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

#269

Post by PeterisP »

orblivion wrote: post #199
PeterisP wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me "countries that did really well" is mainly places like Singapore and Taiwan and South Korea, which got the virus earlier than USA and Europe but took it seriously from the very start.

Okay, if they actually got the virus that early, then these countries are the answer to my question. However... at least for Taiwan that doesn't feel like it adds up: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan They've had fewer than 1700 cases, and that's including a recent massive outbreak. They peaked on March 26th 7-day average with 21 cases a day. Granted, the US took maybe a couple more weeks to ra…

Rapid and strict incoming travel restrictions were a key part of "taking it seriously from the very start" with a big impact on future outcome.

There are all kinds of effective measures (e.g. contact tracing, quarantining of unconfirmed suspect cases) that work when you have 20 cases a day and don't work when you have 2000 cases a day, so going all-in while you still have just a few cases works, because by the time you have many cases, it's too late.

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

#270

Post by orblivion »

eob wrote: post #254
orblivion wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, if they actually got the virus that early, then these countries are the answer to my question. However... at least for Taiwan that doesn't feel like it adds up: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan They've had fewer than 1700 cases, and that's including a recent massive outbreak. They peaked on March 26th 7-day average with 21 cases a day. Granted, the US took maybe a couple more weeks to ra…

Taiwan resident here. Just wanted to include that “massive outbreak” so far means a few hundred cases nationally. That’s bad, it might get a lot worse, and we’re all nervous — but just wanted to add the context because “massive” can mean a lot of things with orders of magnitude difference.

Yep, I only meant that relative to how you've been doing. Obviously y'all are still doing fantastic compared to others. Best of luck.

BTW is there a vaccination drive over there? That's got to calm things down somewhat right?

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