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

Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

thecentersquare.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 600 posts

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#501

Post by [deleted] »

halpert wrote: post #496
freyr wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not what-about-ism. It’s a suggestion that the two numbers being thrown around are accompanied by some bare minimum of detail to have a meaningful conversation. OP made the link to Covid-19, which seems very plausible, but it’s not clear if they have facts to support this or it’s just a guess. Suicides and overdoses are two of the leading causes of death among young Americans. It’s irresponsible to discuss a…

Asking someone to look up some numbers for you to complete your random hypothesis isn't exactly constructive either way.

[deleted]

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#502

Post by strulovich »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #466
lkrubner wrote: post #459

Many people kept insisting "Not many young people are dying from Covid-19" a statement that over looked the fact that, under normal circumstances, not many young people die at all. But there was an article in the New York Times that offered these facts about people aged 20 to 40. July, 2019: 11,000 dead July, 2020: 16,000 dead Both numbers are small in a country where 3 million people die each year, about 250,000 a m…

If you look at expected years of life lost - and the average person is ~30 - you could multiply the numbers by ~47. ~47 x 5,000 = 235k years of life (extra). In the US in 2020 the average age of death from Covid was ~77 [1]. People ~77 are expected to life ~10.2 years [2]. In 2020, there were ~350k Covid deaths [3]. But (very crudely) 3.5M years of life lost. This small group of 11,000 people (3%) made up 7% of years…

This calculation is wrong. While the average 77 years old person will live 10.2 years, it’s not founded and unlikely the people dying from Covid at that age are distributed uniformly.

Most likely a 77 yo dying of Covid is in worse health and have more co morbidities than the average 77 yo.

This calculation is interesting and a good way to look at things, but it requires more nuance that is likely to reduce those numbers.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#503

Post by mike00632 »

bparsons wrote: post #493
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like what-about-ism. You could look these numbers up easily on the CDCs death data, and then you could formulate a coherent thought. Instead, it seems like you're just trying to derail the conversation with as little effort as possible.

The biggest portion of this growth is almost certainly being driven by opioid poisoning. This was growing quickly pre-pandemic, but has skyrocketed in the last two years.

"almost certainly"... So without evidence you conclude that young people are dying at a higher rate NOT because of the deadly global pandemic. QED.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#504

Post by mike00632 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #398
joe_the_user wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has had both a drug-addiction epidemic, a diabetes epidemic and an obesity epidemic. Each these conditions doesn't just reduce lifespan. They also put people in a more fragile life-situation where they need more support. And the US hasn't been at maintaining those kinds of support during the epidemic. Edit: The US life expectancy decline relative to other advanced nations is relevant. Take a look at the following…

And makes people more vulnerable when they contract other diseases. COVID hits harder if you are diabetic and/or obese, for example. The people who try to promote body positivity are doing a disservice to the overweight. You cannot be healthy and fat, and we should not pretend otherwise to spare hurt feelings.

You also cannot be healthy and dead from COVID-19. Everyone preaching healthy eating instead of vaccination during the pandemic is doing a disservice to humanity.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#505

Post by Tiktaalik »

krona wrote: post #442
Tiktaalik wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. It's not an opioid epidemic or crisis, it's a toxic drug crisis. The drugs are poisoned. No one knows what's in them. There's a drug test site in my city that regularly posts examples of what they find on twitter. Totally random ultra dangerous poisons in party drugs. All the time. Here's an example: a drug not safe for humans in a test sample of MDMA. https://twitter.com/GYDTcanada/status/1477444546480984065?s=…

Are you saying coroners aren't doing toxicology reports, or something else?

I'm sure the coroners reports are complete and accurate, but the way this has been portrayed in the media is as "overdoses" and hand waved as an opioid issue. The reality is more complex and the issue is beyond opioids.

Yes these are "overdoses" but when the contents of the drug is not truly what the drug user is told, the drug user has no way to know what the safe dose is of the drug they are using.

Drug use has become a game of russian roulette as no one has any knowledge of what is in the drugs and there's no real safe dosage.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#506

Post by freyr »

timeinput wrote: post #499
freyr wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link or source? Overdose and suicide are two of the leading causes of death among young people. If Covid deaths were 5X higher, we’d see a much much larger overall increase than 40%. Edit: Your numbers are for the total population, not young people. The death rates and leading causes of death are drastically different between young people and the general population.

Do you have a link or source to support your hypothesis? It should be trivial to provide it.

OP says deaths among people 20-40 are up 45%, and inferred that this is due to Covid. That’s the hypothesis being made here. And it contradicts what’s in the parent article, namely that many of these deaths are from causes other than Covid:

“The CDC weekly death counts, which reflect the information on death certificates and so have a lag of up to eight weeks or longer, show that for the week ending Nov. 6, there were far fewer deaths from COVID-19 in Indiana compared to a year ago – 195 verses 336 – but more deaths from other causes – 1,350 versus 1,319.”

I’m suggesting that other leading causes of death among people in this age range could possibly be up this year, and contributing to this uptick, perhaps by a significant amount.

For example, in SF, the number of people in this age range dying of overdoses far outnumbers the people in this age range dying of Covid. Nationally, we are setting record numbers of overdoses, driven mostly by fentanyl.

”In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in November that more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, May 2020 to April 2021, with about three-quarters of those deaths involving opioids — a national record.” [0]

[0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-202...

[1] https://vtdigger.org/2022/01/02/opioid-overdose-deaths-poise...

[2] https://www.wfmj.com/story/45563074/mercer-county-sees-recor...

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#507

Post by mike00632 »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #98
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within my brothers circle of friends / former friends etc, amongst those that participate in recreational drug use, there have been a crazy number of Fentanyl related deaths. They're all between the ages of 25 - 30. I can't help but wonder how much this has an impact.

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 has claimed more lives than COVID-19, auto crashes, gun violence, cancer and suicide in the year 2020.”

To be clear, this is false. Fentanyl overdoses (according to that article) have killed about 80,000 people in a year in the US whereas COVID-19 has killed more than 386,000. It's nowhere close. And that is not to mention all of the people COVID-19 has permanently disabled.

I know the article has some quantifiers elsewhere that could be used to form a true statement if included. But as stated, that is false and it's being used to mislead people into think COVID-19 isn't that serious.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#508

Post by Zigurd »

halpert wrote: post #496
freyr wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not what-about-ism. It’s a suggestion that the two numbers being thrown around are accompanied by some bare minimum of detail to have a meaningful conversation. OP made the link to Covid-19, which seems very plausible, but it’s not clear if they have facts to support this or it’s just a guess. Suicides and overdoses are two of the leading causes of death among young Americans. It’s irresponsible to discuss a…

Asking someone to look up some numbers for you to complete your random hypothesis isn't exactly constructive either way.

It's not just lazy, it's derailing.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#509

Post by freyr »

halpert wrote: post #496
freyr wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s not what-about-ism. It’s a suggestion that the two numbers being thrown around are accompanied by some bare minimum of detail to have a meaningful conversation. OP made the link to Covid-19, which seems very plausible, but it’s not clear if they have facts to support this or it’s just a guess. Suicides and overdoses are two of the leading causes of death among young Americans. It’s irresponsible to discuss a…

Asking someone to look up some numbers for you to complete your random hypothesis isn't exactly constructive either way.

The random hypothesis was made by OP, who inferred that the 45% increase in deaths is due to Covid-19.

I would guess a lot of that 45% is due to Covid, but how much would be a guess, and I suspect OP is just guessing too.

Overdoses are historically one of the leading causes of death among people in this age range, and we’re also setting records for overdose deaths this year [0], but that gets no almost coverage compared to Covid. I think it’s reasonable to keep in mind that overdoses could also be contributing to that 45% uptick, unless we have evidence to the contrary.

[0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-202...

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#510

Post by danielheath »

romanovcode wrote: post #427
danielheath wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s… a substantial way past “pretty much”.

I just realized that I was not a real alcoholic when I stopped drinking altogether without any withdrawal symptoms or anything like that. But yeah, it's a slippery slope for sure.

IIRC, on average it takes a month or two of having alcohol every day to start getting physiologically addicted (but - like most of biology - it can be faster or slower).

For anyone reading who thinks that may apply to them: Talk to your doctor. "Cold Turkey" alcohol withdrawals can kill.

Post reply on HN