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US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

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Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#41

Post by altacc »

thomasfromcdnjs wrote: post #10

I don't really get these excess death calculations. Surely just looking at the past 5 years is not enough. Wouldn't you at least have to take into account generations? (ageing populations) (So maybe 60 years of data?) The linked graphs could easily just represent an older generation dying off. (Even the humps could just be regular flu seasons for an ageing population) Then you have to choose a range for your generati…

Over 60 years you would have to account for the many other factors that also affected mortality, for example better healthcare. That would increase the statistical error and reduce the validity of the results. And it isn't really necessary as long as your baseline contains enough data to be able to prove statistically differences from your comparison groups. Generations are taken into account by splitting the results by age and not looking back too many years, as even with flu, cold winters, etc... life expectancy still changes slowly.

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#42

Post by meragrin_ »

craftinator wrote: post #31
phkahler wrote: post #16

I dont doubt Covid has caused a bunch of these deaths, particularly in the first wave. But it would be nice to break out suicides and overdoses, as mental health issues are on the rise as a result of lockdowns and the economic fallout.

This is FUD.

> This is FUD.

Really?

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/02/9620601...

https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/16/pediatricssu...

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/opioid-overdoses-29-higher-202...

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#43

Post by chollida1 »

phkahler wrote: post #16

I dont doubt Covid has caused a bunch of these deaths, particularly in the first wave. But it would be nice to break out suicides and overdoses, as mental health issues are on the rise as a result of lockdowns and the economic fallout.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/suicides-alberta-bc-s...

Here in Canada we've been told suicides have gone down during the pandemic.

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#44

Post by mrow84 »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #39
ciceryadam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A journalist in Slovakia did a comparison of current weekly deaths vs extreme values for 2000-2019: https://dennikn.sk/2304197/prehliadli-sme-mozno-az-styritisi... - the grey dotted dash line is the extreme values for the last 2 decades, red line is the current deaths, black dotted dash line is the threshold of standard deviation. The most extreme value in the last 2 decades was 1411 deaths per week, last week of 202…

These weekly death stats are not useful because if no one dies in week 1, but everyone dies instead in week 2 (plus those who would have died anyway in week 2), it will show week 2 as being catastrophic, and everyone will just ignore week 1. We need the raw annual data which basically removes this noise.

If you look at the chart the death in 2020/2021 are well outside the extremal values for the previous two decades, and the "mass" contained there is much larger than the cumulative discrepancies for earlier in 2020. At that level of signal I don't think the weekly data can be dismissed as not useful.

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#45

Post by throwaway0a5e »

dcolkitt wrote: post #33
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #25

Does anyone have a list of all countries with annual deaths in 2020, vs prior years for the past decade? Surely the best way to examine the true impact of COVID is to understand the raw death figures, particularly if there were factors such as weak 2019 flu seasons/deaths which may have contributed to mortality displacement?

> Surely the best way to examine the true impact of COVID is to understand the raw death figures Is it though? As an example motor vehicle fatalities went up sharply in 2020. Is this due to the pandemic? If anything the pandemic should have decreased car accidents, because miles driven went down . It seems there’s possibly an orthogonal force at work. Possibly the rising market share of monster pickup trucks, which a…

>Is it though? As an example motor vehicle fatalities went up sharply in 2020. Is this due to the pandemic?

>If anything the pandemic should have decreased car accidents, because miles driven went down. It seems there’s possibly an orthogonal force at work. Possibly the rising market share of monster pickup trucks, which are particularly deadly to pedestrians.

>If anything the pandemic should have decreased car accidents, because miles driven went down. It seems there’s possibly an orthogonal force at work. Possibly the rising market share of monster pickup trucks, which are particularly deadly to pedestrians.

Nice theory but I think it's far more likely that the pandemic completely upended "regular traffic" everywhere causing millions of people to be driving/walking at days/times/places and in traffic conditions that they were not accustomed to and this was a fairly instant change so pretty much everyone was flying by the seat of their pants. Predictable traffic is safe traffic and the pandemic changed normal traffic patterns in pretty much the entire western world creating tons more opportunities for mismatched expectations of behavior between traffic participants.

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#46

Post by ArkanExplorer »

mrow84 wrote: post #44
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These weekly death stats are not useful because if no one dies in week 1, but everyone dies instead in week 2 (plus those who would have died anyway in week 2), it will show week 2 as being catastrophic, and everyone will just ignore week 1. We need the raw annual data which basically removes this noise.

If you look at the chart the death in 2020/2021 are well outside the extremal values for the previous two decades, and the "mass" contained there is much larger than the cumulative discrepancies for earlier in 2020. At that level of signal I don't think the weekly data can be dismissed as not useful.

I looked up Slovakia data specifically.

Deaths: 2020: 59,000 [1] 2019: 52,234 [2] 2018: 53,914 [2]

So a 9.4% increase from 2018 to 2020.

By contrast, Sweden had a 5.7% increase. [3]

Slovakia has lockdown and curfew.

Isn't the conclusion here that lockdown in Europe is failure, when with only voluntary measures Sweden was able to achieve a lower death rate?

[1]https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22594536/in-2020-slovakia-suffere... [2]https://countryeconomy.com/demography/mortality/slovakia [3]https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...

It seems implausible that lockdowns in Slovakia have achieved anything - by contrast lockdown may be contributing to deaths since people are not seeking regular medical care:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-lockdown-may-have-ind...

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#47

Post by ljf »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #46
mrow84 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the chart the death in 2020/2021 are well outside the extremal values for the previous two decades, and the "mass" contained there is much larger than the cumulative discrepancies for earlier in 2020. At that level of signal I don't think the weekly data can be dismissed as not useful.

I looked up Slovakia data specifically. Deaths: 2020: 59,000 [1] 2019: 52,234 [2] 2018: 53,914 [2] So a 9.4% increase from 2018 to 2020. By contrast, Sweden had a 5.7% increase. [3] Slovakia has lockdown and curfew. Isn't the conclusion here that lockdown in Europe is failure, when with only voluntary measures Sweden was able to achieve a lower death rate? [1] https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22594536/in-2020-slovakia-suff…

What else do you know about Sweden that could have skewed their figures? Great healthcare? Strong public support of the measures that were put in place? Trust in govt? Healthy community to start with?

To say that Sweden and Swedes took no steps to protect themselves and their communities is baseless - I assume you do not live there? I have friends in Sweden, and the lives they are living are very very different to the friends in Australia and NZ.

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#48

Post by mrow84 »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #46
mrow84 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the chart the death in 2020/2021 are well outside the extremal values for the previous two decades, and the "mass" contained there is much larger than the cumulative discrepancies for earlier in 2020. At that level of signal I don't think the weekly data can be dismissed as not useful.

I looked up Slovakia data specifically. Deaths: 2020: 59,000 [1] 2019: 52,234 [2] 2018: 53,914 [2] So a 9.4% increase from 2018 to 2020. By contrast, Sweden had a 5.7% increase. [3] Slovakia has lockdown and curfew. Isn't the conclusion here that lockdown in Europe is failure, when with only voluntary measures Sweden was able to achieve a lower death rate? [1] https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22594536/in-2020-slovakia-suff…

Well this is a different topic - the issue I was addressing was the utility of weekly data presented by ciceryadam, which you were questioning.

As to you new point - you are drawing your conclusions from disparate data sources, whilst ignoring confounding factors (as pointed out by ljf). The data on wikipedia give a less dramatic picture, and after adjusting for population things look even less dramatic (10.0 -> 10.8 per 1000 for Slovakia and 9.0 -> 9.5 for Sweden). I don't think you can draw serious conclusions from such limited data.

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#49

Post by tumetab1 »

thomasfromcdnjs wrote: post #10

I don't really get these excess death calculations. Surely just looking at the past 5 years is not enough. Wouldn't you at least have to take into account generations? (ageing populations) (So maybe 60 years of data?) The linked graphs could easily just represent an older generation dying off. (Even the humps could just be regular flu seasons for an ageing population) Then you have to choose a range for your generati…

> I feel like those graphs quite statistically weak. What am I missing?

I think you're just missing the definition of "excess death", it's literally how much more deaths were registered against an average of the last years.

It's just a basic indicator that indicates that something has happened and further investigation is required to clarify the reasons.

If the "excess deaths" was raised because the "baby boomers" generation was dying off a further investigation would be required to identify that.

Re: US Mortality Monitoring – Deaths, Excess, Z-Scores, State Map

#50

Post by craftinator »

meragrin_ wrote: post #42
craftinator wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is FUD.

> This is FUD. Really? https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/02/9620601... https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/16/pediatricssu... https://abcnews.go.com/Health/opioid-overdoses-29-higher-202...

Ah sorry, UI issue on my HN app, it posted my response to the wrong comment. I appreciate the link to the sources regardless, in the current environment that's becoming more and more necessary.
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