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Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

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Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#521
post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The random hypothesis was made by OP, who inferred that the 45% increase in deaths is due to Covid-19. I would guess a lot of that 45% is due to Covid, but how much would be a guess, and I suspect OP is just guessing too. Overdoses are historically one of the leading causes of death among people in this age range, and we’re also setting records for overdose deaths this year [0], but that gets no almost coverage compa…

A really useful exercise you can do for yourself (I did it) is to download the CDC total US deaths data and plot each of the past 7 years as lines on an x axis that goes from week 1 to week 52 of the year. Keeping in mind that this graph does not take cause of death into account, you will note two striking features: 1) the death curves for the 5 years up to and including 2019 are extremely similar, with the exception…

That’s a good suggestion. Here are the excess deaths for 25-44 year olds: https://imgur.com/a/b4Pobrh

There’s definitely a significant rise in excess deaths among 25-44 year olds coinciding with the Delta peak in August/September.

Something interesting though: In the Covid “valley” of June/July, when Covid-related deaths were at a record low nationally, 25-44 year olds still had a ~35% increase in excess deaths. I’d expect a drop in excess deaths close to prepandemic levels if they were being driven mainly by (short-term) Covid effects during that time. It seems like the baseline death rate increased independently of number of active Covid cases.

Covid deaths were accompanied by a steady increase in overdose deaths starting in early 2019 (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm), rising from from 68k to 97k over the course of the pandemic.

I don’t have time at the moment to do the math, but I’d suspect most of the increase we’ve seen in the past year is due to Covid, but with the increase in overdoses and other causes contributing much than noise since 2019. This could explain the higher death rate that persisted throughout the summer.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#522
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also hint that excess deaths from lockdown policies are higher than expected. COVID deaths are almost certainly undercounted by some factor, but suicides and drug overdoses are skyrocketing. These numbers would make sense if the cure is worse than the disease too.

Assuming that all covid deaths are accounted for and all the rest of the excess deaths are from lockdown, there would have to be at least as many excess deaths as covid deaths to start saying the cure is worse than the disease. From the numbers it seems like there would be about 800k covid deaths to 200k excess (in the USA), so that would indicate the disease was 4x worse than the cure. Of course those are all assump…

Usually, when people say the cure is worse than the disease, they are suggesting that [cure + disease] is worse than [disease without cure]. I am sorry that was imprecise.

There is an assumption here that the lockdowns have reduced the number of COVID deaths. That is not necessarily the case, and actually the evidence points to the contrary: looking at state data, it looks like strict lockdown policies taken in some states in the US were ineffective at best, and may have been harmful.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#523
post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The random hypothesis was made by OP, who inferred that the 45% increase in deaths is due to Covid-19. I would guess a lot of that 45% is due to Covid, but how much would be a guess, and I suspect OP is just guessing too. Overdoses are historically one of the leading causes of death among people in this age range, and we’re also setting records for overdose deaths this year [0], but that gets no almost coverage compa…

A really useful exercise you can do for yourself (I did it) is to download the CDC total US deaths data and plot each of the past 7 years as lines on an x axis that goes from week 1 to week 52 of the year. Keeping in mind that this graph does not take cause of death into account, you will note two striking features: 1) the death curves for the 5 years up to and including 2019 are extremely similar, with the exception…

>And 2) 2020 and 2021 have very large Covid-surge-shaped excess death bumps that imply an incredibly strong correlation between Covid and the deviation in deaths from “normal” years.

It would be more accurate to say "COVID-19 impacted years" than "incredibly strong correlation between Covid".

A lot of government and public policy changes were quickly made during these times. Are you willing to say with complete certainty that the lockdowns and associated increase in poor mental health had no impact?

We also had global supply chain crunches which affected food and medication availability (among other things). Are you willing to say that having certain brands of prevention / life saving drugs completely unavailable (forcing people to consult doctors for substitutes or go without) had no impact?

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#524
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also hint that excess deaths from lockdown policies are higher than expected. COVID deaths are almost certainly undercounted by some factor, but suicides and drug overdoses are skyrocketing. These numbers would make sense if the cure is worse than the disease too.

Assuming that all covid deaths are accounted for and all the rest of the excess deaths are from lockdown, there would have to be at least as many excess deaths as covid deaths to start saying the cure is worse than the disease. From the numbers it seems like there would be about 800k covid deaths to 200k excess (in the USA), so that would indicate the disease was 4x worse than the cure. Of course those are all assump…

AU has opened up a vaccine claims scheme explicitly recognising that the vaccine itself can lead to injury/hospitalisation/death.

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/covid-19-vaccine-claims...

https://www.health.gov.au/news/reduction-in-threshold-of-no-...

"The evidence requirements for claims $20,000 and over, including death and broader operation of the scheme will be published shortly. Claims relating to a death will not require evidence of hospitalisation."

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#525
post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not mis-read your comment, it was a continuation of the commentary on how mandated WFH and government-enforced isolation has essentially just moved deaths from column A to column B over the long run. people are actually closer than ever to their family (or house-mates) due to COVID Yes, this is the perception for many people who have family or housemates. In the same way the rich have gotten richer, the sociall…

As always in our beloved capitalist society where we live according to the laws of the jungle: The vulnerable and poorest suffer the most.

> The vulnerable and poorest suffer the most.

Don’t blame this on capitalism; this is a fact of nature. That humans have cobbled together a wealthy civilization capable of actually attempting to provide some measure of care for the weak is a staggering miracle.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And makes people more vulnerable when they contract other diseases. COVID hits harder if you are diabetic and/or obese, for example. The people who try to promote body positivity are doing a disservice to the overweight. You cannot be healthy and fat, and we should not pretend otherwise to spare hurt feelings.

You also cannot be healthy and dead from COVID-19. Everyone preaching healthy eating instead of vaccination during the pandemic is doing a disservice to humanity.

Why not both? Adults are capable of parsing two noncontradictory messages at once.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A really useful exercise you can do for yourself (I did it) is to download the CDC total US deaths data and plot each of the past 7 years as lines on an x axis that goes from week 1 to week 52 of the year. Keeping in mind that this graph does not take cause of death into account, you will note two striking features: 1) the death curves for the 5 years up to and including 2019 are extremely similar, with the exception…

>And 2) 2020 and 2021 have very large Covid-surge-shaped excess death bumps that imply an incredibly strong correlation between Covid and the deviation in deaths from “normal” years. It would be more accurate to say "COVID-19 impacted years" than "incredibly strong correlation between Covid". A lot of government and public policy changes were quickly made during these times. Are you willing to say with complete certa…

I think you’ll see that I very explicitly said I am not willing to definitively say those things, but that I am highly skeptical that those types of effects would be so responsive to the changes in number of Covid cases.

Does it in any way make sense to you that Covid cases falling by X% in a given week would directly cause an immediate corresponding drop in depression, drug overdose, or prescription drug supply chain issues? That would be absolutely incredible to me. It did however cause an immediate corresponding decline in excess deaths, regardless of assigning any cause. That tells me something.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#528
post #379

My hypothesis is that this is caused from diabetes. I first learned about this when my friend was diagnosed with diabetes at the beginning of the pandemic. He said that Stanford was investigating a potential connection. Now there is a bit more literature [1]. If you go to [2] and select "Weekly Number of Deaths by Cause Subgroup" and then "Other select causes" from the dropdown, you will see that diabetes jumped up a…

Interestingly enough, over 40% of all COVID deaths are diabetics. - https://nypost.com/2021/07/16/diabetics-make-up-40-of-covid-...

Well, about 10% of the US has diabetes, and there is a good chance many of those people have other health issues.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#529

I feel like article like this one are commonly used by the anti-vaccine community. They point to those ominous, rising death numbers and understand them as evidence for the dangers of mRNA vaccines. It would therefore (among other reasons) be helpful to understand where exactly that rise in numbers comes from, is it vaccines (which I don't think, else we'd be seeing a similar spike in, say, Europe)? Or is it being ca…

Official numbers for Europe are available at https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ They have graphs with excess deaths by age groups and you can see that 2021 looks worse than 2020, with a noticeable upwards trend starting around week 16 of 2021.

Did you confuse 2020 with 2021? Because I can't find any other upwards around week 16 than tbe one in 2020.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#530
post #281

I can already see this being used as a source that the vaccines are the reason for the increased deaths. Could anyone point out if how vaccines as the casue could be ruled out by this data?

You could check for excess mortality among vaccinated and unvaccinated people. I think the data is very clear: vaccination does not lead to excess mortality (unlike COVID).

A study of covering seven sites in the US from December 14, 2020 from July 31, 2021 found lower non-COVID mortality among vaccination individuals:

> During December 2020–July 2021, COVID-19 vaccine recipients had lower rates of non–COVID-19 mortality than did unvaccinated persons after adjusting for age, sex, race and ethnicity, and study site.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043e2.htm

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