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Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

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Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#31

Post by roenxi »

luu wrote: post #16
roenxi wrote: post #4

What really interests me is that, looking at an all-cause mortality graph [0] the coronavirus is clearly detectable but ultimately the numbers are pretty much business as usual. Although there are more deaths than is routine, going purely by deaths the situation is mostly normal. It'll be fun when the dust settles to going back to look at alternative approaches to estimate how effective the lockdowns were. [0] https:…

> the numbers are pretty much business as usual . . . going purely by deaths the situation is mostly normal The article notes that, through July 25, there were 235,610 excess U.S. deaths. The link you gave shows that excess deaths started March 28th, for a period of ~119 days. Wikipedia says that the U.S. had 291,557 combat deaths during WWII, which was over a ~1366 day period of U.S. combat involvement if we count t…

> I would be curious to know what rate of death you would consider abnormal.

Well, clearly this is an abnormal number of deaths. Pretty much every week is statistically Very Unlikely.

But it is 20% higher than the background rate. Quitting a job as a day labourer and going into roofing is something like a 400% death rate. People voluntarily subject themselves to some pretty outsized risks.

> Wikipedia says that the U.S. had 291,557 combat deaths during WWII...

That is about a decade worth of car accidents. So on the one hand, horrific. On other other hand, the raw number of deaths is not the biggest issue at play. It didn't stop Americans marching over to the other side of the world to fight people.

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#32

Post by rimliu »

matsemann wrote: post #26

Euromomo lets one easily compare the mortality for various European countries: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps . I think this is much easier to grasp than the tables in the linked paper. The very first graph shows that it's not "just another flu". Abnormally many deaths, even with the strict measures. Mainly for those aged 45 and older (but also not just "old people" dying, lots in the group 45-64). Further d…

When talking about the Sweden don't look just at the current year. Take a lookt at the previous and compare it to the neighbours.

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#33

Post by KMag »

zdkl wrote: post #22
luu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the numbers are pretty much business as usual . . . going purely by deaths the situation is mostly normal The article notes that, through July 25, there were 235,610 excess U.S. deaths. The link you gave shows that excess deaths started March 28th, for a period of ~119 days. Wikipedia says that the U.S. had 291,557 combat deaths during WWII, which was over a ~1366 day period of U.S. combat involvement if we count t…

Is WW2 generally perceived in america as having caused many deaths among american military aged males? I'm sure we can point to D-day and other punctual events as being outstandingly bloody but does this extend to the whole conflict? I'd be particularily interested in comparing the above ratio for Vietnam, or to German or Russian (combat & non-) WW2 deaths.

Having grown up in the US in the 1980s and 1990s, the American Revolution and WWII both loom large in the mythology of American exceptionalism, so I think the sacrifices of the soldiers weigh psychologically disproportionately.

I think most college-educated Americans are aware that the Soviets lost nearly endless waves of soldiers against the Nazis. I also think most Americans are largely indifferent to the numbers of German rank-and-file soldiers killed, as if sympathy for the enemy dead would somehow diminish admiration for the heroes who defeated the Nazis.

On a side note, I have a Scottish friend who still swears up and down that Americans weren't involved in D-Day. I tried pointing him at Wikipedia entries for Utah and Omaha beaches, but I get the impression he believes it's just American propaganda that the US had much involvement in WWII before the Nazis were on the retreat.

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#34

Post by unishark »

evgen wrote: post #15
pattusk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes but it's not like they surveyed every country in the world though. I would expect China or India to have a higher number of deaths overall if the data were available. It just does not seem like a meaningful statistic given the sample they are studying.

> I would expect China or India to have a higher number of deaths overall if the data were available. You would be incorrect. Perhaps the reason this death rate was mentioned is because the US is an outlier in both absolute numbers as well as per capita deaths.

The US is not an outlier in per capita deaths. It is at the higher end of the range, especially among developed countries, though many countries have similar rates (such as most of Latin America).

And this statement captures all the info one needs, in my opinion. But abstracts are partly about selling the importance of the paper, so there's some leeway in how facts are presented.

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#35

Post by unishark »

pattusk wrote: post #21
evgen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would expect China or India to have a higher number of deaths overall if the data were available. You would be incorrect. Perhaps the reason this death rate was mentioned is because the US is an outlier in both absolute numbers as well as per capita deaths.

I'll probably get downvoted for this, but anyways: Maybe I should have added reliable to data. I'm highly skeptical of the ~4000 deaths figure reported as the death count for China and I have the sense that the authors of the study were too or they would have included it in their study. As for India, when you factor in rural areas, I don't think the reporting and data would be as reliable as for the US. [1] To go bac…

It seems likely India has the most total cases already. But India has a much younger population so I don't know if that really translates to twice the deaths that they report.

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#36

Post by m0zg »

It's dumb to do this analysis now, when we're in the _middle_ of the epidemic. According to most experts, we're looking at the end of 2021 for the whole thing to play itself out. Take a look at the steep incline the curves have taken on in the countries which previously were "better" than the US and Sweden. In the US deaths are declining (in spite of slight rise in cases), in Sweden hardly anyone is dying at all. Take a look at countries that were "worse" too - Italy for example. Exponential growth in cases. Deaths will lag, as they usually do.

My prediction is that unless a miracle happens and an amazing vaccine (or a therapeutic) is developed, Swedish strategy will "win" this one. The curves aren't looking good at all for other European countries heading into winter, and their economies are decimated, so they can't tolerate full shutdown anymore.

It's a virus. It's endemic. _Everyone_ will get it eventually, if not now, then a month or two from now. There's really no way around this simple fact.

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#37

Post by threatripper »

This study only looks at all-cause mortality - which is reasonable once the epidemic is over.

Is it over? I don't think so. Cases are rising quickly in Europe now that winter is coming. We should refrain from issuing judgement on the matter and comparing strategies of different countries until at least next spring when cases go down again in all countries. There may be some surprises coming in winter.

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#38

Post by tpm »

rimliu wrote: post #25
luu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the numbers are pretty much business as usual . . . going purely by deaths the situation is mostly normal The article notes that, through July 25, there were 235,610 excess U.S. deaths. The link you gave shows that excess deaths started March 28th, for a period of ~119 days. Wikipedia says that the U.S. had 291,557 combat deaths during WWII, which was over a ~1366 day period of U.S. combat involvement if we count t…

And what happens if you repeat these calculations over different period? There is a "harvesting" theory which claims that COVID causes some deaths to happen sooner. So it is a possiblity that there were many more deaths in April 2020, compared to Aprild 2019, but there will be way fewer in April 2021. Somewhat similar "dry tinder" theory is sometime applied to Sweden: they had fewer excess deaths during the flu seaso…

Well Covid-19 causes all deaths happen sooner than they would without it, the important question is how much sooner, and early research shows its much sooner (like 10 years too early in the median case, which would mean the harvesting theory is wrong).

https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#39

Post by coldtea »

>While the US had a lower COVID-19 mortality rate than high-mortality countries during the early spring, after May 10, all 6 high-mortality countries had fewer deaths per 100 000 than the US.

I'm not sure why the factor this in at all. Why not compare each country to its OWN baseline mortality -- as opposed to confusingly compare between high and low mortality countries?

Re: Excess All-Cause Mortality in the US and 18 Comparison Countries

#40

Post by phreeza »

threatripper wrote: post #27
wombatmobile wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has similar obesity rates to USA, and dramatically lower COVID mortality.

Australia counts 0.1% of the population as infected while the US counts 2.4% of the population as infected. Where in the study did they control for that when looking at the mortality (which is counted per population and not per infected)? EDIT: My point is that the epidemic is not over yet and countries with a low immunity could be hit harder later on. It's just too early to compare mortality numbers.

Why would you want to do that? At the end of the day, successful pandemic response is a question of how well you prevent deaths overall, not how likely infected people are to die.
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