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The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

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Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#61

Post by mcguire »

samatman wrote: post #21
Loughla wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problems have had advancements in treatment in the last 20 years? HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes. Those are just three things off the top of my head that I know have improved, even without data to support me. I'm not sure, with the speed of technological improvements in the last decade, that 20 years is appropriate.

Over the last two decades, life expectancy has either peaked in the developed world, or has even declined for some demographics. Seems appropriate to me.

Not in Sweden. Life expectancy has gone from 77.4 to 81.3 for men since 2000. It does go up every year except for 2014/2015 (80.4 to 80.3).

https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subje...

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#62

Post by mcguire »

majkinetor wrote: post #54
belval wrote: post #3

The part I found interesting was the number of death from flu and pneumonia: 5 year average: 28,140 deaths 2020 so far: 18,325 deaths (does not include November and December!) COVID 2020: 53,675 deaths So while it does seem to be killing some people who would've died from the flu/pneumonia anyway, it's still nearly double the 5 year average which would make it one hell of a bad flu strain.

I am 100% certain that bunch of so called covid deaths were due to other things non covid related.

And a bunch of non-COVID deaths were COVID related. This is why you look at all-cause mortality---where in the US/UK at least, things look worse, not better.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#63

Post by cool_dude85 »

mcguire wrote: post #18
marcell wrote: post #2

This really depends on how far back you look. I was looking at the data for Sweden the other day. If you look at the last 20 years in terms of overall mortality, 2020 is right around the middle: https://mobile.twitter.com/TLennhamn/status/1295269941109764... It's certainly more than last year, or the year before that, but it's not an outlier for the last two decades.

What does "Cumulative Excess Deaths" mean and why does it spend a lot of time trending down? [Edit] And what is "Age Adjusted + Population Adjusted Deaths"? (Yes, I get "population adjusted".) [As of 2019, Sweden's population has increased 16% since 2000, 13% in the 0-17 yrs and 35% in 65+ yrs groups. The population of "Foreign Born" is up 97% (!) vs 11% growth in Swedish citizens. In that time, life expectancy has g…

Conceptually, age adjustment is something like population adjustment with consideration for age or age bins. As a simple example, suppose you find that the death rate for people 0-64 is X% and 65+ is Y% in 2019.

These rates change in 2020, but the proportion of the population in these age groups changes, too. So you set a baseline proportion (maybe equal to 2019), compute the per-age-group death rates in 2020, and rescale the total death rate so that the age proportions are the same as the 2019 baseline.

The ultimate goal is to correct for the effects of changing age demographics in computing the death rate. You'd use it if want to look at changes that are corrected for, for example, the population as a whole aging.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#64

Post by 51Cards »

marcell wrote: post #2

This really depends on how far back you look. I was looking at the data for Sweden the other day. If you look at the last 20 years in terms of overall mortality, 2020 is right around the middle: https://mobile.twitter.com/TLennhamn/status/1295269941109764... It's certainly more than last year, or the year before that, but it's not an outlier for the last two decades.

There are underlying trends in that chart that aren't evident on first glance. The latest data on that chart is from July 2020, several months ago when Sweden had their numbers under decent control.

Even at that take a look at the last few columns, more particularly the slope from month to month in the last couple years. Note how from July 2019 through March 2020 the levels were at or below the previous years, however in the last few months the slope accelerates to an increasing upward monthly trend. I would be quite curious to see this chart with August, Sept, and Oct 2020 data included to see if that acceleration continued. Consider this is what Sweden's case count has looked like: https://i.imgur.com/ofUhXvK.png

In essence this chart is really showing only about 4 months of pandemic influence, and at a time when Sweden was doing pretty well. But in those last 4 months there is a clear accelerating trend in relation to the previous years. I won't say this was cherry picked to be misleading, but at the least it is an incomplete representation of what is happening now.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#65

Post by mcguire »

samatman wrote: post #28

The interesting question, to me, is whether we will see a visible spike in all-cause mortality for, let's say, 2020-2025. COVID-19 is particularly hard on the elderly, which is by no means an inevitable fact about epidemics. Every person who dies of this disease would have lived longer, which makes their death a tragedy: but how much longer? Cards on the table: my suspicion is that we won't. I could be wrong, particu…

February through July, an average of 9.3 years of life lost.

https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1...

"Deaths among adults 65 and older accounted for 80% of excess YLL in April but only 36% of excess YLL in June. Since April, working age adults 20-64 have accounted for 47% of excess YLL, and males 20 to 64 have contributed 34%."

https://healthcostinstitute.org/hcci-research/the-impact-of-...

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#66

Post by intotheabyss »

samatman wrote: post #28

The interesting question, to me, is whether we will see a visible spike in all-cause mortality for, let's say, 2020-2025. COVID-19 is particularly hard on the elderly, which is by no means an inevitable fact about epidemics. Every person who dies of this disease would have lived longer, which makes their death a tragedy: but how much longer? Cards on the table: my suspicion is that we won't. I could be wrong, particu…

The way I look at covid for older demographics is that they now have an additional top killer in addition to cancer and cardiovascular disease. So effectively, people are about 2x more likely to die this year* than they would have otherwise. So if their odds of surviving one year from 60 to 61 was 5% last year, then they're odds of dying are 10% this year* . The same can sort of be applied for under 40s. If they had a 0.01% chance of dying in the next year, then they now have a 0.02% chance this year*

*given that they contract covid

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#67

Post by fl0wenol »

belval wrote: post #3

The part I found interesting was the number of death from flu and pneumonia: 5 year average: 28,140 deaths 2020 so far: 18,325 deaths (does not include November and December!) COVID 2020: 53,675 deaths So while it does seem to be killing some people who would've died from the flu/pneumonia anyway, it's still nearly double the 5 year average which would make it one hell of a bad flu strain.

Keep in mind we have no control for these numbers as a point of comparison; these are numbers which factor in efforts to quarantine and reduce contact spreading among the symptom-less.

The western world is much more cavalier when it comes to the flu and cold viruses (shopping and coming into work sick, not wearing masks on public transport, etc.)

I think the measures account for the lower flu/pneumonia deaths as a side effect.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#68

Post by mamon »

The worst thing is: healthcare in my country is so focused on some bogus COVID "pandemic" that it starts to neglect other branches of medicine. Yes, there will be more deaths this year than average, but those people won't die from coronavirus, they will die from untreated cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc.

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#69

Post by [deleted] »

marcell wrote: post #2

This really depends on how far back you look. I was looking at the data for Sweden the other day. If you look at the last 20 years in terms of overall mortality, 2020 is right around the middle: https://mobile.twitter.com/TLennhamn/status/1295269941109764... It's certainly more than last year, or the year before that, but it's not an outlier for the last two decades.

[deleted]

Re: The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

#70

Post by yread »

jansan wrote: post #24
carlob wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a better analogy would be a bat is not a type of bird.

Fun fact: The Bible counts bats as birds. Leviticus 11: 19 “And these you shall detest among the birds;a they shall not be eaten; they are detestable: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, the kite, the falcon of any kind, every raven of any kind, the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind, the little owl, the cormorant, the short-eared owl, the barn owl, the tawny owl, the carrion vu…

Interesting, I never knew ostrich or heron were "haram". Herons used to be a famous delicacy in mediaval Europe.

https://survlivel.cultu.be/heron-stew

And ostriches are moderately popular now

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