Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

ons.gov.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 119 posts

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#41

Post by KaiserPro »

chrisco255 wrote: post #8
bb123 wrote: post #2

This is pretty damming to anyone who claims "its just the flu": “More than three times as many deaths were recorded between January and August this year where COVID-19 was the underlying cause compared to influenza and pneumonia." “The mortality rate for COVID-19 is also significantly higher than influenza and pneumonia rates for both 2020 and the five-year average." “Since 1959, which is when ONS monthly death recor…

The number of deaths from flu, pneumonia, and Covid are about 50% higher than the year 2000 (Jan-Aug) and about 25% higher than the year 1983. Do those numbers justify draconian shutdowns and bankrupting half of humanity? I'm not so sure. In the early days, we believed that Covid was 10-20 times deadlier than the flu, and that's what was used to justify the draconian measures. Note also these numbers are for the UK,…

> Covid does not seem to have the same seasonality that the flu has,

[citation needed]

Considering that covid-19 is a pandemic, and has not yet reached the point where its endemic, we can't actually know that.

> The number of deaths from flu, pneumonia, and Covid are about 50% higher than the year 2000 (Jan-Aug)

Correct, welcome to averages.

In april the total mortality was between 50 and 125% higher than normal (per week, looking at total deaths, not counting where covid was mentioned.) That peak was neatly 3-4 weeks after lockdown was imposed. So to answer your question "justify the draconian measures" do you want to re-run that experiment? because I don't like the look of those odds. Looking at the USA, where they've tried it, it doesn't look too hot either.

see raw data here https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#42

Post by boomboomsubban »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #4

This chart from Sweden says its not worse than influenza: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ejd0IpdVcAASTqR?format=jpg&name=... Looking at the source data, the numbers seem roughly right: https://knoema.de/atlas/Schweden/Sterblichkeitsrate I don't know what to think anymore.

Why show five graphs between 1990-2000, and zero for the next twenty years?

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#43

Post by logicchains »

prox wrote: post #32
fabian2k wrote: post #18

I think it is important to keep in mind that Covid-19 is still contained to some extent due to various measures. The influenza numbers are for the most part without any behaviour changes or rules (the influenza season ended roughly when Covid started to spread). The Covid-19 deaths would be higher if it were able to spread unhindered through the entire population. And even in this somewhat unfair comparison Covid cau…

It’s also contained because unleashing it would totally overwhelm almost any nation’s hospitals, cause a cascading death toll because no treatment could be given.

>It’s also contained because unleashing it would totally overwhelm almost any nation’s hospitals, cause a cascading death toll because no treatment could be given.

This is clearly not true because it didn't overwhelm Sweden's hospitals, or Japan's, or South Dakota's, even though they didn't have lockdowns, just voluntary social distancing.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#44

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

richrichardsson wrote: post #35
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that despite what you might think, Swedes do socially distance. So if they have what looks like a bad flu season despite all the changes to everyday life you can assume that it's at the very least worse than influenza for which no such restrictions are done.

I've seen a joke that is along the lines of, "Swedes are looking forward to the relaxing of the 2m social distancing rule, so that they can resume the 10m social distancing of the past." I'm of the opinion that comparing countries is mostly a pointless exercise, because there are so many variables involved.

Agreed. But you can compare Sweden to itself and it's pretty clear that Sweden had a much stronger reduced social life during Covid compared to the mentioned flu seasons.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#45

Post by born_a_skeptic »

tremon wrote: post #20
born_a_skeptic wrote: post #3

I'm not a statistician or a scientist, but I don't it does any good to lump everything together over the past ~9 months and compare it to Influenza and Pneumonia. Just think about it. We barely knew anything about covid or how to treat it at the start of the year. Now, it seems like we have a better understanding and how to potentially treat it. Compare this to Influenza/Pneumonia, which I'm just guessing we've been…

I don't think you can lump everything together Why not? Do you think the number of previously recorded deaths will suddenly decrease because we've found a better treatment? These people died, they should be included in the statistics.

I edited my comment. I could have been more clear.

I should have added that I think it depends on what the creator of the graphics/information is trying to show. If it's a pure death rate comparison, then sure you could lump everything together.

However, if you want to show a more real-time comparison, you choose to segment the data based on time.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#46

Post by _y5hn »

logicchains wrote: post #16
titzer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at the daily and monthly numbers. April was absolutely horrific, with daily deaths spiking at 15x and April at more than 10x. Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. The overall death rate is going down because the age demographic of infection has changed as well. Basically, it's hitting more younger people and older peo…

>Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. Comparing places with and without lockdowns there's actually little evidence that lockdowns led to a reduction in mortality: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp... . What was associated with a reduction in mortality was social distancing.

Lockdown was due to being unprepared. It's a long time since nearly all nations opened up again, though measures vary wildly and is researched on.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#47

Post by fabian2k »

prox wrote: post #32
fabian2k wrote: post #18

I think it is important to keep in mind that Covid-19 is still contained to some extent due to various measures. The influenza numbers are for the most part without any behaviour changes or rules (the influenza season ended roughly when Covid started to spread). The Covid-19 deaths would be higher if it were able to spread unhindered through the entire population. And even in this somewhat unfair comparison Covid cau…

It’s also contained because unleashing it would totally overwhelm almost any nation’s hospitals, cause a cascading death toll because no treatment could be given.

That's an additional factor if you get to the limits of your healthcare system. At that point Covid gets more lethal because many people don't get adequate care, and every other critical illness also get more lethal because the hospitals are overflowing.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#48

Post by collyw »

prox wrote: post #32
fabian2k wrote: post #18

I think it is important to keep in mind that Covid-19 is still contained to some extent due to various measures. The influenza numbers are for the most part without any behaviour changes or rules (the influenza season ended roughly when Covid started to spread). The Covid-19 deaths would be higher if it were able to spread unhindered through the entire population. And even in this somewhat unfair comparison Covid cau…

It’s also contained because unleashing it would totally overwhelm almost any nation’s hospitals, cause a cascading death toll because no treatment could be given.

Sweden showed that not to be the case. It's the only real control I know of for the hypothesis that you present as fact.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#49

Post by titzer »

logicchains wrote: post #16
titzer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at the daily and monthly numbers. April was absolutely horrific, with daily deaths spiking at 15x and April at more than 10x. Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. The overall death rate is going down because the age demographic of infection has changed as well. Basically, it's hitting more younger people and older peo…

>Lockdowns flattened the curve, care improved, mask wearing improved, and overall better hygiene, particularly at nursing homes. Comparing places with and without lockdowns there's actually little evidence that lockdowns led to a reduction in mortality: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp... . What was associated with a reduction in mortality was social distancing.

This is a really difficult causal inference to make. There are so many confounding variables, from quality of healthcare to age demographic of infection, etc. It's also noisy. A nursing home getting infected and many older folks dying can completely spike the numbers. So I pretty much don't trust their statistics, especially if they are reporting 3 significant figures like "7.49 days doubling the number of fatalities". Even just misaligning the starts of the exponential growth phase of curves (does it begin at 1 case per 100k, 5, 100?) can throw this way off.

Re: Deaths due to Covid-19 compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia

#50

Post by jMyles »

nebolo wrote: post #30
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #4

This chart from Sweden says its not worse than influenza: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ejd0IpdVcAASTqR?format=jpg&name=... Looking at the source data, the numbers seem roughly right: https://knoema.de/atlas/Schweden/Sterblichkeitsrate I don't know what to think anymore.

Even if this data was correct, the difference is that in 2020 there were pretty stringent measures in place to reduce the spread of Covid (which were not in place in the past for major influenza outbreaks). We do not have a clean counterfactual to what the number of deaths would be in the absence of those measures, but the height of the outbreak in Italy can perhaps serve as some approximation, and there the excess m…

Not sure if you misread, but MrBuddyCasino's comment was about Sweden.
Post reply on HN