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Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

nytimes.com

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Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#11

Post by raverbashing »

dijonman2 wrote: post #10
raverbashing wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, number of alcohol deaths > rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year Covid deaths in the US: 300k in 2020 Looks like another misrepresentation by the "covid skeptics"

Regardless of which side you’re on I think everyone needs to be willing to engage in civil discourse. We’re more divided than ever and should actively work to fix it. It’s true that some people are anti lockdown and there may be merit. There may not be. The truth is we won’t know for a few years until we have more information.

There's no debate to be had with blatant incorrect facts

This is not about "maybe the person is right" or "these are debatable" it's about A > B but being claimed otherwise with one of the numbers being in TFA to push an agenda

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#12

Post by shrikant »

Is this some glitch in the Matrix? I could swear I saw this exact post on the front page a couple of days back, with at least a couple of the exact same comments! What even is happening!

Edit: No, it's either a bug in HN, or the post's been bumped for visibility. Screenshot of a search I did just about now: https://i.imgur.com/Sr1S3eB.png

Edit edit: Actually, could be a bug too, the relative and absolute timestamps on the post and comments don't match at all! :-O

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#13

Post by Mountain_Skies »

raverbashing wrote: post #11
dijonman2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of which side you’re on I think everyone needs to be willing to engage in civil discourse. We’re more divided than ever and should actively work to fix it. It’s true that some people are anti lockdown and there may be merit. There may not be. The truth is we won’t know for a few years until we have more information.

There's no debate to be had with blatant incorrect facts This is not about "maybe the person is right" or "these are debatable" it's about A > B but being claimed otherwise with one of the numbers being in TFA to push an agenda

There are ways to correct inaccurate facts that don't lower discourse. Adding a pithy comment to the end of a correction is not productive and only serves to add emotion and tribalism to the discussion. Adding a source for the data helps too since there's no reason to believe one set of data over another if they're both unsourced. This instead invites tribalism to be the determinate of which set of data is correct and ignores the possibility that both are wrong.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#15

Post by TaylorAlexander »

Somewhat by chance, I quit alcohol around March 15, 2020 a few days before our first lockdown. I haven't had a drink since. It was just the right time for me, but I am VERY happy I was not still drinking during all those difficult times.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#16

Post by brigandish »

raverbashing wrote: post #8
lbj wrote: post #6

Quoted post unavailable.

From the article, number of alcohol deaths > rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year Covid deaths in the US: 300k in 2020 Looks like another misrepresentation by the "covid skeptics"

Deaths from alcohol != deaths from lockdown. Have you factored in the deaths from cancer, for instance? In the UK, the Macmillan Trust, a cancer charity, have estimated that there are 50,000 missing diagnoses that will be a possible 17,915 deaths in the 12 months following the report[1].

Precision is often as important as accuracy.

[1] https://www.macmillan.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/we-make-...

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#17

Post by krageon »

rnk wrote: post #3
Melatonic wrote: post #2

Not surprised at all to hear this - there was a period (maybe a few months into the initial lockdown) I was regularly hearing my neighbours completely lose their shit on a regular basis. Not even the same people either - random, different people each time. WFH + high stress + forced close proximity + drunkenness is a recipe for disaster

The whole world that stayed home is stressed, depressed, not recovered. This includes high functioning adults, kids, teenagers. I am in this group as is most of my friends.

> The whole world that stayed home is stressed, depressed, not recovered.

Generalising about the "whole world" based on your depressed friend group is not very productive.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#18

Post by raverbashing »

brigandish wrote: post #16
raverbashing wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, number of alcohol deaths > rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year Covid deaths in the US: 300k in 2020 Looks like another misrepresentation by the "covid skeptics"

Deaths from alcohol != deaths from lockdown. Have you factored in the deaths from cancer, for instance? In the UK, the Macmillan Trust, a cancer charity, have estimated that there are 50,000 missing diagnoses that will be a possible 17,915 deaths in the 12 months following the report[1]. Precision is often as important as accuracy. [1] https://www.macmillan.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/we-make-...

This is an important debate to have but the actual number is not directly measurable now. This can go both ways as well as in: more burdened health system because of less restrictions can't deal with cancer patients

Increased consumption of alcohol can of course lead to more cancers in the future as well

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#19

Post by hnlmorg »

brigandish wrote: post #16
raverbashing wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, number of alcohol deaths > rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year Covid deaths in the US: 300k in 2020 Looks like another misrepresentation by the "covid skeptics"

Deaths from alcohol != deaths from lockdown. Have you factored in the deaths from cancer, for instance? In the UK, the Macmillan Trust, a cancer charity, have estimated that there are 50,000 missing diagnoses that will be a possible 17,915 deaths in the 12 months following the report[1]. Precision is often as important as accuracy. [1] https://www.macmillan.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/we-make-...

It’s a pointless argument because the only way to prove that lockdown resulted in more deaths is to spin up a parallel universe and see how many more people would have died if we didn’t go into lockdown.

Since we cannot do that you are all comparing the COVID deaths despite lockdown (which is still an order of magnitude higher then any of the estimates provided for deaths resulting from the lockdown). So you’re not making a like for like comparison.

And since you raise the point that precision is often as important as accuracy, it should be noted that those MacMillan figures are due to COVID as a wider concern, not lockdown in isolation. Hospitals were already cancelling appointments even before lockdown happened because of staffing issues. This would only have been a bigger problem if we hadn’t gone into lockdown (remember that the U.K. only went into lockdown to slow the burden on the NHS). So you cannot really use that estimated figure in its entirety given it wasn’t solely contributed to by the lockdown. And in fact if we hadn’t gone in lockdown the NHS might have been further overwhelmed resulting in even worse care for cancer patients. Once again, we can only prove your figures here by spinning up a parallel universe.

Re: Alcohol-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, a study shows

#20

Post by ejb999 »

Epiphany21 wrote: post #5

Recently (within the last two years) I had to help someone suffering with alcoholism/DTS and I was horrified by the abysmal outpatient support the medical system here provides. If he didn't have health insurance and a ride I would not have been able to convince him to go, and he could have died. It's very hard to argue with his contempt for hospitals and doctors when all they do is give you an overpriced potassium IV…

>>then push you out the door and tell you to find an AA group.

What is it exactly you want the hospital to do if your friend won't stop drinking?

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