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Excess Deaths in 2020

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Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#101

Post by calvano915 »

Clewza313 wrote: post #90
xxxxxxx12 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought that the purpose of lockdown (in the UK at least) was to prevent health care from being overwhelmed Which never really pans out (field hospitals, hospital ship sent to NYC, etc.) - they got strained and perhaps local spots overwhelmed, but never doomsday scenarios we hear bandied about without any evidence. His point is that lockdown doesn't really change behavior and places that don't have strong mandate…

If you're looking for a doomsday scenario, what's happening in India right now is probably the worst we've seen since the pandemic started. Essentially every hospital in every major city is full and there are patients dying outside.

Was also looking real bad in Brazil a few weeks ago.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#102

Post by hn8788 »

shlant wrote: post #68
lettergram wrote: post #42

I’m always fairly torn by these numbers (I’ve done a lot of research and tracked this[1]). There’s a lot of confounding factors... The lockdowns increased the rate of suicides substantially. Largely suicides occur in people 65+, so a 100% increase in suicides would be some 150k deaths in the same age range as COVID. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml Murder is also up some 50% and there were rio…

> The lockdowns increased the rate of suicides substantially why did you link to stats that only go to 2018? Suicides are down in 2020[1] 1. https://www.axios.com/suicide-decreased-in-2020-pandemmic-me...

Succesful suicides were down, but attempted suicides and overdoses were both much higher.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#103

Post by mekkkkkk »

neatze wrote: post #44
sim_card_map wrote: post #5

For some reason Europe saw a lot fewer excess deaths in 2020. For example, in Germany it was only ~ +3%, and Sweden, which didn't lock down and had no mask mandates, had a lower death rate than in 2012: https://i.redd.it/73x3fysmu7k61.png

Europe is light years ahead in medical emergency services, when compared to US, this my limited observation, I am EMT volunteer in US.

That's interesting. I'm a layman at best, but I've always heard that the US health care infrastructure is really good, as long as you are eligible for care in the first place. Given the potential astronomical cost of a sudden uninsured health emergency, it would seem that the money is there for it to be that way at least. I'm not american so I've only heard anecdotes though.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#104

Post by efnx »

erfgh wrote: post #98

I'm suprised by the number of people arguing for and against the lockdowns using just deaths statistics. Lockdowns of the duration that we experienced should be illegal because they take away the citizens' liberties to an extent that no government should be able to take them away. It has nothing to do with health.

If I read your comment correctly, whether or not the lockdowns are legal should Not have anything to do with health. So what you are saying is that you don’t care if it’s a health risk - nobody should ever be able to order you to stay in your home by fear of fines or imprisonments etc.

IMO that would be fine so long as we had a citizenship that was well educated and the topic of virus spread had not been politicized to the point that certain groups believe the virus itself is a conspiracy.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#105

Post by allturtles »

spookthesunset wrote: post #99
RacfeelBudkind wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot…

> Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. It will be decades before we know the answer to this, if we ever do. Trying to justify these lockdowns while in the middle of the storm is fools errand. Heads are running way to hot and brains aren’t thinking clearly. What we’ve done over the last year represents one of the largest uncontrolled public health experiments ever performed. The b…

You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. How is it that people who think the lockdowns were net beneficial need to wait 'decades' to decide, but you're allowed to conclude now that they were a terrible idea?

It seems to me we should all state our positions now with the information we have available now, and let the future take care of itself.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#106

Post by hedora »

spookthesunset wrote: post #99
RacfeelBudkind wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot…

> Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. It will be decades before we know the answer to this, if we ever do. Trying to justify these lockdowns while in the middle of the storm is fools errand. Heads are running way to hot and brains aren’t thinking clearly. What we’ve done over the last year represents one of the largest uncontrolled public health experiments ever performed. The b…

The lockdowns weren’t unprecedented. We did something similar in 1918, and it backfired in the same ways. As a bonus, last time, a much more deadly strain emerged and ended up ripping through the population killing young adults and middle aged people.

If they hadn’t locked down for the first wave, they probably would have reached herd immunity before the second, more devastating wave. This time, we have a vaccine, so we’ll probably avoid that, at least.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that it’s a safe bet that people will take a dim view of the 2020 lockdown in hindsight.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#107

Post by petertodd »

Miner49er wrote: post #95
joshuahedlund wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicides declined in 2020 [1] Cost benefit analysis is important. But it's pretty clear the vast majority of excess deaths were covid related, because there's a very strong correlation between excess deaths and reported covid cases/deaths, even when you look at different states that had different peaks at different times, and no such correlation to other responses like different types of lockdowns. More delayed / ind…

Yeah, but some claim overall "deaths of despair" went up [1], which is probably better to use here. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deaths-of-despair-during-c...

For example, overdoses and suicides are often quite difficult to distinguish.

Suicidal ideation does appear to have increased: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm?s_cid=mm... But it doesn't correlate well to actual suicide rates. It's also quite possible that the emphasis on suicides has in fact raised awareness enough to prevent them. Or perhaps the way people are dealing with the stresses that lead to suicide has changed, resulting in that being expressed in some other way. Or a mix of all these factors.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#108

Post by SpaceNinja »

The true covid death rate has been tricky to record in the UK, a positive test result within 28 days prior to death is recorded as a covid death, even if the death was caused by something else. We obviously don't know enough about COVID to know if it is contributing all the COVID registered deaths.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#109

Post by bjornsing »

HideousKojima wrote: post #40

I'm curious if there's a good way to breakdown how much is caused by COVID vs., say, caused by the lockdown (i.e. delayed elective medical procedures, suicides, etc.). For example the US suicide rate declined from 2018 to 2019, but went back up in 2020. Naively assuming that all of the increase was due to the effects of the lockdowns would attribute ~2,880 suicides to them (or more if in a counterfactual world the su…

> In the UK a study predicts a 7.9-9.6% increase in breast cancer deaths within 5 years of diagnosis due to diagnostic delays caused by COVID. [...] Basically I guess what I'm really trying to get at is that while COVID is certainly a terrible disease, there seems to have been little to no cost-benefit analysis performed by policy makers regarding the lockdowns and other attempts to combat it.

I see this line of reasoning a lot, even in mainstream media here in Sweden, but it seems flawed to me. As I see it diagnostic delays and delayed elective care is caused by a lack of lockdown or other stringent decease control measures. It’s when hospitals are overrun by people infected with SARS-CoV-2 that they have to delay other care. This happens due to rapid spread of the virus, which happens when lockdown is not imposed.

What’s the argument for the parents opposite line of reasoning?

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#110

Post by CountDrewku »

allturtles wrote: post #105
spookthesunset wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. It will be decades before we know the answer to this, if we ever do. Trying to justify these lockdowns while in the middle of the storm is fools errand. Heads are running way to hot and brains aren’t thinking clearly. What we’ve done over the last year represents one of the largest uncontrolled public health experiments ever performed. The b…

You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. How is it that people who think the lockdowns were net beneficial need to wait 'decades' to decide, but you're allowed to conclude now that they were a terrible idea? It seems to me we should all state our positions now with the information we have available now, and let the future take care of itself.

Because he/she stated it as a personal opinion while the other person said it as a matter of fact that couldn't be questioned.

I'll go a step further and actually suggest that authoritarian lockdown measure haven't done as much as they've been touted as doing. This is pretty easy to see by comparing states with less lockdown measures vs. ones that went full economy shutdown. Most of the "open" states aren't any worse off than the ones who went lockdown crazy and in some cases they're actually better off when you look at spread and death.

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