Excess Deaths in 2020 • Hacker News Board

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#181

Post by amanaplanacanal » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

xxxxxxx12 wrote: post #135

tgb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're arguing simultaneously "lockdowns had no impact on people's behavior and therefore had no benefit" and "lockdowns had massive negative costs". Lo and behold that is the exact mistake the paper is making! It's basing the cost analysis off the following question: >Suppose you could either live a year of life in the COVID era, or X months under normal conditions. What’s the value of X that makes the AVERAGE Amer…

> "lockdowns had no impact on people's behavior and therefore had no benefit" and "lockdowns had massive negative costs" I think you're overlooking the idea that "lockdowns", as we know them, do little other than impose massive costs and anxieties on society, while failing to achieve their main objective i.e. complete immobilization and eradication. So you end up with all the costs of the policy with little upside be…

It depends some on how lockdowns are implemented. Where I live, for instance, they outlaw indoor dining but still allow outdoor dining, which seems to me to be exactly what they should do.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#182

Post by melling » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #123

aqme28 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even by state. Hawaii had a strict lockdown but low excess mortality. Arizona and Texas had weak lockdowns but high excess mortality.

There's absolutely no correlation between lockdown policy and mortality. For example, click the link above and compare Florida to California. Florida has been wide open since last summer (over 9 months now) and has performed about the same as California. And you can cherry pick Hawaii, but New York and New Jersey have been among the most strict lockdowns and they find themselves in the top 3. It seems to help to be a…

This is a falsehood that people have been promoting since last summer

From the WSJ on July 16th, 2020, someone trying to promote the idea that it was only a Blue state problem:

=======•••

“Here are some real numbers to put things into context, and it's obvious the problem is certain incompetent blue state governors.

As of today:

Florida (population 23M) COVID deaths: 4,782

Texas (population 30M) COVID deaths: 3,561

New York (population 19M) Covid deaths: 25,014

New Jersey (population 9M) COVID deaths: 15,665”

=====

I recently compared these numbers in early March I believe

Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths

New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths

New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths

Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths

——————-

NY: 48,410/25,014 = 1.9 times more death

FL: 31,523/4,782 = 6.5 times more death

Florida and Texas lead in deaths after the first wave

March 6, 2021

Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths

New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths

New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths

Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#183

Post by xxxxxxx12 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #178

xxxxxxx12 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that normative claims like "they ought", "government should", etc. are precisely the faculty-lounge, haughty idealism, that's worth absolutely nothing to people as they are , spoken from a position of privilege, condescension and fake expertise? Notice how teachers act as though they're above everyone else? Refusing to work, whereas normal people that aren't of means largely kept working, and didn't ac…

This has nothing to do with what I or the other poster said. I'll reiterate that many people who were forced to work were not happy about that fact. You're somewhere between pretending those people don't exist and claiming that those lower class people who didn't want to work but had to are also morally bankrupt. It's neither coherent nor respectful of those you claim to be defending.

Per your bio, you work at Google. You're divorced from the experience of struggling people.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#184

Post by DataDaoDe » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

JoeData wrote: post #142

DataDaoDe wrote: post #32

One thing I would like to know, and I don’t know enough about mortality measures so maybe someone who does could chip in, would be essentially what is the probability of observing a year like 2020 with respect to all cause mortality. Is it in 99th-percentile or are we looking at an observation within a standard deviation of the expected value,etc.

Short answer: In the U.S., 12 standard deviations. In the U.S., deaths were 16%-17% higher than expected. The death rate was 17.8% higher than in 2019. Excess deaths were higher in 1918, but every other year since 1900 is lower. Using 1946-2019 as our sample, the average yearly change in death rate is -0.2% with a standard deviation of about 1.47 (percentage points). The biggest increase in this year range was 3.1% (…

Thanks! That blog post was an interesting read, age adjusted mortality rates was something that hadn't occurred to me as someone unfamiliar with this type of data.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#185

Post by JoeData » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 9:52 PM UTC

gmiller123456 wrote: post #162

JoeData wrote: post #132

Here is some more data. Deaths from all causes has declined rapidly in the U.S. since January. The red dotted line is my best attempt to correct for reporting lag: https://i.imgur.com/z8M0k2h.png Excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths every week of the pandemic: https://i.imgur.com/MeGMsRx.png Total excess deaths in the U.S. were about 500,000 for 2020. The excess breaks down as 77% COVID, 16% non-COVID natural causes,…

>Excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths every week of the pandemic: https://i.imgur.com/MeGMsRx.png Not entirely sure how to parse that statement, but I think most people would interpret that as "non-COVID excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths", which doesn't match what's on your graph. E.g. for week 15, expected deaths = 55k, deaths - COVID = 63k and all deaths=79k. The only truthful way to interpret your statement is th…

> "excess deaths (including COVID deaths) exceeded COVID deaths"

Yes, that's what I meant. I didn't think it was ambiguous. Lots of people think that COVID deaths were exaggerated. There are countries (with not very many COVID deaths) where the number of excess deaths is less than the number of COVID deaths. There are even countries with negative excess deaths for the whole year, even though they had some COVID deaths.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#186

Post by joshuamorton » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 9:53 PM UTC

gmiller123456 wrote: post #180

joshuamorton wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm using the second interpretation. It doesn't mean that there was one non covid death on each interval, but that there was one non covid death above the baseline of the expected number of deaths. Or in other words, deaths were always higher than expected, even after accounting for deaths attributed to covid. The number of unattributed excess deaths is fewer than the number of covid attributed excess deaths, bit…

>there was one non covid death above the baseline of the expected number of deaths While a true (and interesting) statement, that's not what the OP said. He said "Excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths", not "Excess deaths minus COVID deaths exceeded expected deaths". Again, the second statement is true (based on his graph), but not all all what he said.

> He said "Excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths"

Yes, and this is the right statement!

Excess deaths minus covid deaths should be zero, because the null hypothesis is that covid is the only thing contributing to the excess deaths.

That there are additional excess deaths beyond covid deaths is interesting (and means, as I originally said, that covid deaths are undercounted, or that some other unknown force is killing people).

The statement you provide as an alternative "Excess deaths minus COVID deaths exceeded expected deaths", doesn't make sense. Excess deaths are already above the expected deaths.

Let me run an example.

Last year, 100 people died each month. This is the expected number of deaths. This year, 150 people died each month. This gives us 50 excess deaths. 40 deaths are attributed to Covid. So, 10 are of unknown origin. This is interesting!

If the excess deaths - covid deaths exceeded expected deaths, you'd have to have 40 covid deaths, 110 deaths of unknown origin, and 100 "expected" deaths, which would also be quite interesting, but abjectly terrifying too (the death rate would need to more than double).

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#187

Post by extra88 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

JoeData wrote: post #185

gmiller123456 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths every week of the pandemic: https://i.imgur.com/MeGMsRx.png Not entirely sure how to parse that statement, but I think most people would interpret that as "non-COVID excess deaths exceeded COVID deaths", which doesn't match what's on your graph. E.g. for week 15, expected deaths = 55k, deaths - COVID = 63k and all deaths=79k. The only truthful way to interpret your statement is th…

> "excess deaths (including COVID deaths) exceeded COVID deaths" Yes, that's what I meant. I didn't think it was ambiguous. Lots of people think that COVID deaths were exaggerated. There are countries (with not very many COVID deaths) where the number of excess deaths is less than the number of COVID deaths. There are even countries with negative excess deaths for the whole year, even though they had some COVID death…

I'd expect lower or negative excess deaths in countries with very effective COVID responses because those responses can also prevent other causes of death. Masks, hand washing, social distancing also prevent the flu and other diseases. Lockdowns and working from home can reduce commuting and traffic-related deaths (though I heard in some places in the U.S. car deaths were up, possibly because drivers were driving faster and more recklessly on the lightly trafficked roads).

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#188

Post by amanaplanacanal » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #38

StavrosK wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because it would give people a better intuitive sense of how bad COVID is in a larger civilizational/historical context. Over the past 12+ months, people have accepted enormous infringements on freedoms in their everyday lives. Many of the public health measures that we take as a matter of course in the "new normal" - lockdowns, social distancing, extended closing of churches, etc.- are things that would have been al…

That doesn’t seem like an empirical question at all. Whether it’s a good thing depends on what you value.

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#189

Post by rm445 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

bjornsing wrote: post #173

whizzter wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a datapoint on Sweden, we have a normally pretty well functioning breast cancer screening system where women between 40-74 are to be offered a screening opportunity every other year. In 2019 more than 800 000 screenings were done (with 8288 cancer cases discovered in the country that year) and this system has been credited for pushing down the yearly cancer deaths due to earlier discoveries. In 2020 there was 160…

Ok, but again: The primary reason for this is the significant spread of SARS-CoV-2 which has overwhelmed hospitals. This in turn could have been prevented with lockdown(s). Right?

The hospitals weren't (all) overwhelmed but were focused on managing the pandemic. Fewer appointments scheduled, procedures pushed back, no weekend services, that kind of thing. Perhaps an element of patients huddling at home and being less proactive in their own care.

(Btw I'm not in healthcare. If anything my point is a logical alternative to the idea that overwhelmed covid wards could be the only thing affecting other services. But it's my impression of how things seemed to be, at least in the UK).

Re: Excess Deaths in 2020

#190

Post by ryandrake » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 11:18 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #60

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…

> caused by the lockdown (i.e. delayed elective medical procedures, suicides, etc.) That's a dangerous way to phrase it. People would delay the elective medical procedures due to covid, even without lockdown. Overwhelmed hospitals would enforce the same. The covid/lockdown split of excess deaths is very complicated in itself.

I would argue that in a lot of places, including most of the USA, lockdown didn't really happen. We had these lame, unenforced stay-at-home "orders" which people ignored, mask "mandates" that were openly disregarded and even publicly protested, business "closures" that were unevenly enforced. I think you'd have a hard time correlating anything that happened in the USA in 2020 with a lockdown, since nothing was really locked. It seems like a huge exaggeration to call what most of the world did a "lockdown".