> The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 6 November 2020 was 14.3% higher than the five-year average.
But it is good to know that the measures to control COVID-19 are also suppressing flu and pneumonia (though not enough to make up for COVID-19 mortality).
It's still very subjective. The thing is that people that are dying of COVID-19 would very likely have died in the new few years, so if you compare deaths over the the last few years to a previous time period their would be very little difference.
I really hope that is "14.3% higher than the 5 year average mortality rate for the first week of November from 2015 - 2019" not "14.3% higher than the 5 year average mortality rate for the entire time period from the start of 2015 to the end of 2019." Because mortality is pretty strongly seasonal.
Edit: "So far this year, up to 6 November, 517,650 people have died from any cause in England and Wales. This is 58,555 more than the five-year average." So the definitely seasonality adjusted excess mortality for the year to date is about 12.7% (or 12.4% possibly, depending on how the leap day was handled).
what these numbers and the media and your average joe terrified of dying seem to miss is something thats qualitative, not quantitative: quality of life. length of life could be enhanced for many, safe and securely shackled to a bed in a quasi-coma with a feeding tube down your throat. such a person may very well ask to die. it pains me to see ederly and terminally ill people saying goodbye to loved ones on zoom connections. to me, that is a crime against humanity, in the name of safety and security. there are others. we are in a difficult place, to be sure, but how we live matters. but nobody talks about this very basic concept without fear of being labelled a "covidiot".
If _everyone_ wore masks and followed very basic guidelines, the virus would be dead in the water and we could go about living mostly normal lives. People could visit their loved ones, say goodbye to the terminally ill, work, have outdoor dining, see drive in movies. Scarce little impact on quality of life.
Instead vast swathes of the U.S. and other countries flout even the most basic precautions making it impossible for the rest of us to live normal lives.
The argument that being safe == poor quality of life presents a false dichotomy. The truth is that we can be safe _and_ have the same quality of life. Instead many have chosen the third option: they believe that their "right" to shop at Walmart without an extra piece of clothing is more important than people being able to say goodbye to loved ones; more important than their neighbor's wellbeing; more important than the economy.
I would further argue that not only would quality of life not suffer if everyone took basic precautions, in many ways QoL would be _better_. As the statistics are showing we've seen a massive dropoff in cold/flu related deaths, even with poorly implemented COVID protections. Less auto accidents and less pollution. A rise in work from home. The list goes on.
Contrary to the doom and gloom of this year, COVID was really a chance to build a better world. We might just yet do it in small ways. But much of the potential good is being squandered, as it always is, by selfish, ignorant, hateful people.
I think it's very hard to see people dying and suffereing (often) alone. But I'm not sure what the solution to that is...do we open the Covid units up to visitors and ignore the consequence to spread from doing that?
Unfortunately, the politicization has turned this issue into a binary decision with bad outcomes on both ends. I think there is a place for people to engage in a more "normal" life even in the context of the pandemic...but it's hard to define that space in 2020.
Also, in my view, the covidiots aren't the people that wish they could be with their sick or dying relatives/friends. Those are the people that absolutely refuse (as a matter of principle) to do the bare minimum to help contain this...or worse, the people who pack clubs, parties, etc fantasizing that his pandemic doesn't really exist.
> what these numbers and the media and your average joe terrified of dying seem to miss is something thats qualitative, not quantitative: quality of life.
What? What led you to come up with that absurd baseless assertion? I see or saw no such thing ever anywhere. Ever.
What I do see is people forced to social distancing and into lockdowns because irresponsible, egocentric, and outright sociopath people have been perpetually and actively contributing for the disease to spread far and wide due to their apalling behavior.
They keep referencing 5 year average instead of what the maximum deaths were in any of the past 5 years. There were some flu death years that were pretty bad but never got any attention so wonder if that is why they don't mention how it compares to one of the maximums.
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.
Sweden had pretty good numbers over the summer, but sadly have a spike of cases over the last month. Essentially half of the total covid cases in Sweden have occurred in time. So with some lag, I'd expect another jump in deaths soon, too.
The twitter thread linked above is from August, so definitely does not account for these rapidly changing numbers.
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 gone from 77.4 to 81.3 for men, 82.0 to 84.7 for women. "Crude death rate" has gone from 10.5 to 8.6 (per 1000). Source: https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subje... As a bottom line, I'd suggest Sweden's demographics changes in the last 20 years have been crazy pants.]
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.
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.
In Germany the number of deaths from COVID-19 is below the number of people who died from influenza in 2017/2018. So far COVID-19 klilled about 13000 people, while the official numbers for influenza 2017/18 is between 20000 and 25000.
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.
Yes, the long-haulers and COVID-19 heart damage are particularly concerning. Also there is some evidence suggesting that a large fraction hospitalized for COVID-19 end up with mental health issues even if they did not have them before. Some of that might be down to the traumatic experience but there's some reason to think COVID-19 infections cause neurological impacts.
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, particularly if recovering from the disease shortens lifespans for an appreciable number of patients. We'll know when we know.
Add to that the health complications of missed cancer scans, "quarantine 15" weight gain, economic turmoil, lost education, drug addiction and mental health. I'm guessing middle aged people's death rates will be increasing the next few years with cancer, heart disease and suicides all increasing.
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*
"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%."
I suspect we might even see a reduction in all cause mortality: Those who were going to die in 2020-2025 without the virus for health reason, were more likely to die this year because of covid.
Maddening that they don't manage to present clear data points - deliberately, or because they don't know any better?
Like what is the point of comparing flu deaths between January and August with Covif219 deaths in the same time period? Perhaps those two diseases have different seasons? (Maybe not, but they way they present it, it is impossible to know). Perhaps all the flu deaths happen in December and all the Corona deaths in March? (Just an example). Also for example Sweden had exceptionally few deaths last years, leaving exceptionally many people "ripe to die" this year (what Marginal Revolution calls the "Dry Cinder Effect").
Also comparing to averages can also be very misleading. It is in fact to be expected that any given year deviates from the average. It would be very odd if every year was exactly on the average.
Then in the middle of comparing death rates of previous years, they seem to jump to absolute counting of Covid19 deaths again ("The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show"). When the whole point of looking a death rates of previous years is to establish how many excess deaths were really attributable to Covid19.
exactly. to boot, if you look at death rates for all of the UK, they have been on an upward trend for the past several years so it is no surprise that deaths would higher this year than in any year in the past five years https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/dea...
Might be true, and likely is for England, but not for Wales.
The data presented on this website doesn't show the flu death curves for 2017 - 2020, only the spike of this year. And you cannot compare a spike with a 5 year average. You either compare the absolute numbers or the curves.
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.
CogentHedgehog|5 years ago
> The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 6 November 2020 was 14.3% higher than the five-year average.
But it is good to know that the measures to control COVID-19 are also suppressing flu and pneumonia (though not enough to make up for COVID-19 mortality).
dmichulke|5 years ago
mjbeswick|5 years ago
JoshuaDavid|5 years ago
Edit: "So far this year, up to 6 November, 517,650 people have died from any cause in England and Wales. This is 58,555 more than the five-year average." So the definitely seasonality adjusted excess mortality for the year to date is about 12.7% (or 12.4% possibly, depending on how the leap day was handled).
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
lvass|5 years ago
anewguy9000|5 years ago
fpgaminer|5 years ago
Instead vast swathes of the U.S. and other countries flout even the most basic precautions making it impossible for the rest of us to live normal lives.
The argument that being safe == poor quality of life presents a false dichotomy. The truth is that we can be safe _and_ have the same quality of life. Instead many have chosen the third option: they believe that their "right" to shop at Walmart without an extra piece of clothing is more important than people being able to say goodbye to loved ones; more important than their neighbor's wellbeing; more important than the economy.
I would further argue that not only would quality of life not suffer if everyone took basic precautions, in many ways QoL would be _better_. As the statistics are showing we've seen a massive dropoff in cold/flu related deaths, even with poorly implemented COVID protections. Less auto accidents and less pollution. A rise in work from home. The list goes on.
Contrary to the doom and gloom of this year, COVID was really a chance to build a better world. We might just yet do it in small ways. But much of the potential good is being squandered, as it always is, by selfish, ignorant, hateful people.
anewerguy001|5 years ago
Unfortunately, the politicization has turned this issue into a binary decision with bad outcomes on both ends. I think there is a place for people to engage in a more "normal" life even in the context of the pandemic...but it's hard to define that space in 2020.
Also, in my view, the covidiots aren't the people that wish they could be with their sick or dying relatives/friends. Those are the people that absolutely refuse (as a matter of principle) to do the bare minimum to help contain this...or worse, the people who pack clubs, parties, etc fantasizing that his pandemic doesn't really exist.
rualca|5 years ago
What? What led you to come up with that absurd baseless assertion? I see or saw no such thing ever anywhere. Ever.
What I do see is people forced to social distancing and into lockdowns because irresponsible, egocentric, and outright sociopath people have been perpetually and actively contributing for the disease to spread far and wide due to their apalling behavior.
destitude|5 years ago
beagle3|5 years ago
marcell|5 years ago
It's certainly more than last year, or the year before that, but it's not an outlier for the last two decades.
fairity|5 years ago
Yes, the world has become a safer place to live in over the years.
Given the downward trend in age adjusted deaths per million over time, it makes a lot of sense to compare only the most recent years to 2020.
See here to compare monthly mortality rates for every country in 2020 to the the prior 5 year period: https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
IvyMike|5 years ago
The twitter thread linked above is from August, so definitely does not account for these rapidly changing numbers.
(Recent data is available all over the place--here's one source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ )
mcguire|5 years ago
[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 gone from 77.4 to 81.3 for men, 82.0 to 84.7 for women. "Crude death rate" has gone from 10.5 to 8.6 (per 1000). Source: https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subje... As a bottom line, I'd suggest Sweden's demographics changes in the last 20 years have been crazy pants.]
thebruce87m|5 years ago
Looking at the outliers Norway, Denmark on one side and Peru and Ecuador is so much more interesting: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking...
51Cards|5 years ago
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.
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
bryanlarsen|5 years ago
pnutjam|5 years ago
belval|5 years ago
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.
jansan|5 years ago
fl0wenol|5 years ago
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.
majkinetor|5 years ago
mmastrac|5 years ago
CogentHedgehog|5 years ago
thdrdt|5 years ago
anoncake|5 years ago
samatman|5 years ago
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, particularly if recovering from the disease shortens lifespans for an appreciable number of patients. We'll know when we know.
x87678r|5 years ago
intotheabyss|5 years ago
*given that they contract covid
mcguire|5 years ago
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-...
beagle3|5 years ago
gazillionaire|5 years ago
Like what is the point of comparing flu deaths between January and August with Covif219 deaths in the same time period? Perhaps those two diseases have different seasons? (Maybe not, but they way they present it, it is impossible to know). Perhaps all the flu deaths happen in December and all the Corona deaths in March? (Just an example). Also for example Sweden had exceptionally few deaths last years, leaving exceptionally many people "ripe to die" this year (what Marginal Revolution calls the "Dry Cinder Effect").
Also comparing to averages can also be very misleading. It is in fact to be expected that any given year deviates from the average. It would be very odd if every year was exactly on the average.
Then in the middle of comparing death rates of previous years, they seem to jump to absolute counting of Covid19 deaths again ("The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show"). When the whole point of looking a death rates of previous years is to establish how many excess deaths were really attributable to Covid19.
marstall|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
rurban|5 years ago
Here are some proper curves where you can see the UK (England) problem: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country
And compare to other countries with a similar failing nursing system, to the ones with a proper one.
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
lvass|5 years ago
kylewins|5 years ago
just-juan-post|5 years ago
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
mamon|5 years ago