I wonder what the fentanyl factor is.
It was by far the top cause of death for 18 to 45 year olds in 2020 and 2021.
Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
331–340 of 600 posts
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#332I'm actually surprised it is not higher. For 40-64 year old in the US, the annual chance of death is about half a percent (before covid) so a 40% increase is still a very low mortality rate. https://hdpulse.nimhd.nih.gov/data/deathrates/index.php?stat...
Half a percent is Russian roulette with 2.9 do-overs.
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and it frustrates me to see them framed against another useless tragedy. You know, people need an anchor point for comparison very often. "Holy shit COVID and car crashes are bad, and among younger adults -- believe it or not-- fentanyl is even worse".
Anchoring like that is a problem when it's used to dismiss something: "Eh, more people die from fentanyl, so X isn't so bad" . Which disregards that X may be a new source of increased deaths, not to mention that when X == COVID, the methods needed to mitigate the risk are antithetical to a mindset of "it's no big deal" because that mindset pushes back against taking even some minimal precuations. So, anchoring can he…
> Which disregards that X may be a new source of increased deaths, not to mention that when X == COVID, the methods needed to mitigate the risk are antithetical to a mindset of "it's no big deal" because that mindset pushes back against taking even some minimal precuations.
I don't think anyone has said, "fentanyl is worse for 18-44, therefore COVID is no big deal".
I think the message taken was "two sources of premature death shot way up, passing traffic accidents and suicide, which we all know are really bad in that age group". And maybe "wow, fentanyl is even bigger than COVID as a cause of death among young adults".
It doesn't make me take traffic safety less seriously, either.
Look, I ain't got time each year to compute loss-of-life expectancy numbers, and decide how preventable each and every cause is, and then come up with an analytical ranking of each cause and its "importance" (I did this at one point, but I'm not going to repeat it to understand trends).
I don't work in public health, either. Approximation based on reasonable anchor points and understood risks is just fine.
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also hints that covid-19 related deaths are undercounted in the us.
It could also hint that excess deaths from lockdown policies are higher than expected. COVID deaths are almost certainly undercounted by some factor, but suicides and drug overdoses are skyrocketing. These numbers would make sense if the cure is worse than the disease too.
What is your source for the claim that suicides are skyrocketing? How do you quantify skyrocketing?
In the US, it looks like suicides fell slightly, according to provisional data:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR016.pdf
Even if these statistics are updated upward, I don't see how they can be interpreted as skyrocketing.
Please do your best to stick to facts and source them when convenient.
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct! “ The synthetic and highly addictive drug has claimed more lives than COVID-19, auto crashes, gun violence, cancer and suicide in the year 2020.” https://www.abc12.com/news/fentanyl-number-one-cause-of-deat...
> "The synthetic and highly addictive drug" Funny use of the word 'synthetic' to add extra spookiness. Something like 60% of first-world medicines are natural origin or secondary metabolites of natural origin - the other 40% are all synthetic. [1] [1] https://www.spandidos-publications.com/10.3892/br.2017.909
In general, "synthetic" drugs are more of a menace due to the ease of transportation and production. They don't have to be produced in specific geographic regions and can be very powerful, which adds up to dangerous combination.
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sudden cardiac death has always been surprisingly frequent in healthy athletes, so there’s a lot of room for observational bias here. (2016) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4969030/ > A recent estimate of SCD incidence ranged from 1 in 40,000 to 1 in 80,000 athletes per year.
> surprisingly frequent in healthy athletes More common than in general population?
My understanding is cardiac deaths early in life are mostly caused by congenital issues that are more likely to shake out under stress, and those late in life are dominated by issues acquired via lifestyle.
Among people under 35 (most athletes) athletes are at significantly higher risk. It's possible tables turn later in life, can't really find a source. Anecdotally I knew two people growing up who died suddenly of congenital heart issues, and both were athletes.
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#337i wonder if it has anything related to the covid vaccine rollout? The timing coincides.
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#338Here in the Netherlands there's also a sharp increase in the excess mortality that can't be explained by COVID deaths. https://www.rivm.nl/monitoring-sterftecijfers-nederland
Different countries have different methods of determining if COVID was the cause of death, but so far if I remember correctly only Belgium has excess mortality equivalent to attributed COVID deaths, thanks to their cause qualification method (if COVID is only suspected but wasn't diagnosed, it is attributed to COVID).
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is not saying that elderly people aren’t dying. He’s saying elderly people are not in his sample set. In other words, you read this incorrectly. Also, you do not justify your claim of bias.
>that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying, but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” "that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying" Am I missing something? Is this not a comparison?
Yes, you miss the context of the conversation. No, it is not a comparison.
Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Working from home can remove a lot of the accountability that keeps addicts in check. This is a cruel twist, given that suicide deaths actually decreased in 2020[1], probably for the reason you've mentioned: spending nearly all of your time with others makes you accountable and removes opportunities for self-harm. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR016.pdf
spending nearly all of your time with others makes you accountable and removes opportunities for self-harm. Never would have seen it coming that encouraging people to stay isolated for years at a time and actively fearing their own proximity to one another would be detrimental.
I think you mis-read my comment. The irony is that people are actually closer than ever to their family (or house-mates) due to COVID, which is pushing suicide rates down.