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Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

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Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#151

Post by fullshark »

kmm wrote: post #113

According to The Economist[1] and this preprint[2], the US had about 600k excess deaths. What could cause such a massive discrepancy? 1: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-... 2: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.21250604v...

They claim COVID led to behavioral changes that lowered the expected volume of death, so the naive excess mortality is an undercount:

> Overall, the evidence suggests reductions of 615,000 deaths, or potentially more, stemming from behavioral changes at the global level. The main potential increases in excess mortality due to deferred care and increases in drug overdose and depression are hard to quantify at this point or are of a much smaller magnitude. Given that there is insufficient evidence to estimate these contributions to excess mortality, for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality

So basically they lowered the expected number of deaths, then claimed all deaths above expectation are COVID.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#152

Post by [deleted] »

teachingassist wrote: post #127
timr wrote: post #20

This isn't a "study", it's a statistical model. It reflects the assumptions put into it. To wit: > Our analysis follows four key steps. First, for all locations where weekly or monthly all-cause mortality has been reported since the start of the pandemic, we estimate how much mortality increased compared to the expected death rate....Second, based on a range of studies and consideration of other evidence, we estimate…

> for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality. This seems reasonable, although I'd suggest it's an underestimate of COVID-19 deaths. Excess deaths counts have been consistently showing negative in countries during periods of time where they have coronavirus under control. Other significant causes of death (including suicide, influenza, road traffic accidents) appear to be down. As such, I'd as…

[deleted]

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#153

Post by mattmanser »

Sebb767 wrote: post #114
timr wrote: post #20

This isn't a "study", it's a statistical model. It reflects the assumptions put into it. To wit: > Our analysis follows four key steps. First, for all locations where weekly or monthly all-cause mortality has been reported since the start of the pandemic, we estimate how much mortality increased compared to the expected death rate....Second, based on a range of studies and consideration of other evidence, we estimate…

> for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality. This part is especially doubtful for me, as there are factors moving it in either direction. For one, the pandemic measures also helped a lot for things like the flu, which had less cases and therefore caused less deaths. On the other hand, problems caused by lack of exercise and social interaction have definitely increased. Lastly, I'm quite sure…

I wouldn't call it at all doubtful. The fact there's less cars on the road can only push excess mortality down, regardless of lack of exercise, so it seems sensible to attribute it all to the pandemic.

Also, suicides aren't significantly up,the physical and psychological effects of lockdown don't happen immediately, while a reduction of car deaths do.

e.g. UK suicides have not significantly changed in 2020:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

So overall I think they're pretty safely assume that any excess deaths are coronavirus, especially as flu has all but disappeared too.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#154

Post by whimsicalism »

username90 wrote: post #124
whimsicalism wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very back of hand numbers, but, assuming this article is true (haven't looked into it) 900,000 death * 15 yll/death [0] = 13.5 million YLL vs ~63 million YLL for Spanish Flu and 0.5 million YLL for typical flu season [1] [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2843747/

Flu seasons before vaccines were much worse than now though, it was like having covid every single year. The Spanish flu was about an order of magnitude worse than the normal flu seasons which is why it was so devastating. > 900,000 death * 15 yll/death [0] = 13.5 million YLL Right, so an average American lost 0.03 years of their life due to covid. I guess some thinks everything they did last year to save that 0.02 o…

This is the number of years lost with social distancing.

You could make this same argument about anything that causes large amounts of deaths.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#155

Post by dadjoker »

standardUser wrote: post #138
tomp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. It's invalid reasoning to use this study to "upplay" the pandemic. It includes deaths due to depressions and delayed medical interventions, which you could argue isn't the result of COVID directly, but the result of lockdowns. So when people use this study to claim "see, this many lives were lost, we were right to institute lockdowns" - that's circula…

If there had been no mitigation efforts the death toll would have skyrocketed as our healthcare systems collapsed.

And know that...how? Because "correlation = causation" is a legitimate scientific hypothesis now? Any legitimate scientific study has things like control groups to verify that the studied action wouldn't have happened otherwise, something I learned if high school biology in the first week. Your statement has none of that. And, any time you do look at places with NPIs vs non NPIs (Jutland in Denmark, or compare FL and TX vs Ny and CA, you see that your assumption is completely invalid.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#156

Post by jschwartzi »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #59
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #2

In absolute number terms it's more deaths in total in the USA than the Spanish Flu (675k deaths total since it began), HIV (700k deaths total since it began) or any other pandemic. Population has increased so the US did lose a smaller percentage of population but on the other hand Spanish Flu didn't have a vaccine to stop it one year in. Hopefully enough of the population takes the vaccine now to stop this. Note this…

> Something to consider if you see anyone trying to downplay this. I admit I'm the morbid one in the group, memento mori and all. But I think the real stat we should track is years of lost life expectancy. That's the only statistic that makes sense when doing cross disease examinations. Not speaking specifically about covid, but more generally, something which primarily kills young people is much bigger deal than som…

YLL is a horrifying metric because it values someone who is 20 over someone who is 60. The only argument I can see for its "usefulness" as a statistic is if you want to imply that the old are less useful than the young. This kind of statement about the bare utility of a human life is the same statement that underlies a lot of how we have treated the disabled or those on welfare in the past. And it only makes sense if you think about a human life in terms of its economic usefulness as some sort of cog in the economic machine that wears out and can be discarded safely after age 67.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#157

Post by bdibs »

throwkeep wrote: post #78
bsimpson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gets manipulated in the other direction too: financial incentives nudge hospitals to assign coronavirus as a cause of death if you had it when you died, even if it wasn't what actually killed you. I don't know if it's as blatant as "died in a car crash of coronavirus," but enough of my medical friends have mentioned it that I believe there's truth to it.

Another financial incentive that exists: Families can get up to $9,000 for funeral expenses if the cause of death is listed as Covid. https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/covid-funeral-reimburs...

Why would that incentivize the hospital though? Isn’t that who determines cause of death?

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#158

Post by xkjkls »

fastball wrote: post #137
TameAntelope wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's considered downplaying to try and attribute these people's deaths to something that didn't kill them. If the answer to the question of, "Would this person be alive were it not for COVID?" is "Yes", then COVID killed that person. You should be able to be fragile and still survive, that isn't an excuse to let someone die.

That's... exactly the point? Dying with COVID does not mean you would be alive today if you hadn't contracted COVID.

That's what he is attempting to imply is a massive overcounting in the data, but additional conditions that people point out as COVID deaths also having are mostly caused by COVID-19. Oh, they died of viral pneumonia after contracting COVID-19; pretty sure they would be in a different scenario had they not caught COVID-19.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#159

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

username90 wrote: post #124
whimsicalism wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very back of hand numbers, but, assuming this article is true (haven't looked into it) 900,000 death * 15 yll/death [0] = 13.5 million YLL vs ~63 million YLL for Spanish Flu and 0.5 million YLL for typical flu season [1] [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3 [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2843747/

Flu seasons before vaccines were much worse than now though, it was like having covid every single year. The Spanish flu was about an order of magnitude worse than the normal flu seasons which is why it was so devastating. > 900,000 death * 15 yll/death [0] = 13.5 million YLL Right, so an average American lost 0.03 years of their life due to covid. I guess some thinks everything they did last year to save that 0.02 o…

You appear to be making the assumption that disease spread would not be different had lockdown not happened. The question isn't cost of lockdown vs cost of disease with lockdown, it's cost of lockdown vs cost of disease without lockdown. Without a lockdown, April and May would probably have had 10x (at least) more cases, and way more than 10x more deaths because hospitals wouldn't have had the space to hold everyone who was sick.

Re: Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19

#160

Post by philwelch »

Sebb767 wrote: post #114
timr wrote: post #20

This isn't a "study", it's a statistical model. It reflects the assumptions put into it. To wit: > Our analysis follows four key steps. First, for all locations where weekly or monthly all-cause mortality has been reported since the start of the pandemic, we estimate how much mortality increased compared to the expected death rate....Second, based on a range of studies and consideration of other evidence, we estimate…

> for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality. This part is especially doubtful for me, as there are factors moving it in either direction. For one, the pandemic measures also helped a lot for things like the flu, which had less cases and therefore caused less deaths. On the other hand, problems caused by lack of exercise and social interaction have definitely increased. Lastly, I'm quite sure…

Some more factors might be hospital crowding early in the pandemic, people avoiding medical treatment, and increased homicide rates.
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