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One interesting thing that I can see there is that the current excess for many countries seem to be no worse so far from a larger excess in the early weeks of 2

One interesting thing that I can see there is that the current excess for many countries seem to be no worse so far from a larger excess in the early weeks of 2017. Another very surprising thing is to see no excess mortality in Sweden, a country criticized for a laxer strategy against COVID-19. I was not expecting to see that.

downerending 7y ago
I leaned towards Doomer, especially early on, but must admit that looked at on the scale of years, it's possible that this will turn out to be a blip followed by a new normal of (say) a three-percent higher rate. One caveat is that over the long run, everyone dies exactly once. A more interesting stat will be life-expectancy (i.e., presumed years lost). But then again, most people dying aren't losing that many years of their life expectancy. (Apologies for being grim.)
- cameldrv 7y ago
  Yes, but this is with everything locked down. The trick is going to be figuring out how to unlock without the doomer scenario occurring.
  - downerending 7y ago
    I meant that this is what I think might happen if/as lockdown is slowly released. There will be some trick in figuring out how slow is slow enough, and perhaps we'll go back and forth a bit, but this looks like what will happen. If we keep things locked down too long, immense numbers of people will die from that. We need to minimize all deaths, not just deaths from the virus.
    - antpls 7y ago
      > We need to minimize all deaths, not just deaths from the virus The recent events lead me to believe that it is not what countries are doing. Even WHO posted a figure in 2019 of 8 millions of deaths per year from Tabacco. The covid19 will not reach that level anytime soon, yet every country in the world accepted a major economy self-sacrifice to "save" people from covid19. How to explain that?
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        People choose to smoke. Nobody chooses Covid-19. (Yes, I know, people are in different cultures, and some of those cultures promote smoking while others discourage it. Still, smoking isn't an infection. You don't catch it from people around you, other than second-hand smoke.) More: People smoked. The people who die from smoking this year are for the most part not dying from this year's smoke. They're dying from smoke from 20 or 30 years ago (or perhaps from 20 or 30 years of cumulative smoke). Even more: They're already trying pretty hard to get people to stop smoking. And yet one more: There are 8 billion people in the world. If we don't stop Covid-19, maybe 30% of the world's population is going to get it this year, or maybe next. Of those, maybe 1% to 3% are going to die. That's 24 to 72 million people. That's why Covid-19 gets a bigger push than tobacco.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        I don't understand what you are saying. If deaths from covid continued at the current rate without increasing, then there would be about 2 million by the end of the year, about 1/4th of your number for tobacco. But if people didn't take drastic action, do you think it would not double at least twice more? That's only two weeks of 10% growth per day. And where would it stop?
        antpls 7y ago
        My theory is : no matter the lockdown, the virus will always be there (it will come back) and people who would die from it will die from it anyway, but due to the lockdown they just won't die all at same time. If they won't die from covid19, they will die from another flu or another complication. The lockdown only buys them time so a vaccine can be developed specifically for covid19 How much economy (including lives that depend on the economy) are we willing to sacrifice to save 0.001% of the world population.... ? I'm sorry but all of this doesn't make sense in regards to the "effort" made to save elderlies in the past.
rovolo 7y ago
Sweden is on the same track as Switzerland, but about a week behind. They will probably show up on the map in either 1 or 2 weeks. http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
- lukasm 7y ago
  and deaths are up to 5 weeks behind cases.
  - rovolo 7y ago
    My 'week behind' is from comparing per-capita cumulative deaths. The number of confirmed cases doesn't track as well between countries, probably due to different testing strategies. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden all have similar per-capita cases, but Denmark has half the death rate as Sweden and Norway has half the death rate of Denmark.
- rovolo 7y ago
  JFYI: Sweden is now in the "Very High" bucket for week 14. There's a disclaimer above the map: > As always, the number of deaths in the recent weeks should be interpreted with caution as adjustments for delayed registrations may be imprecise.
eric_b 7y ago
Yep, so far this is on the order of a bad flu year in terms of excess mortality. Given that Sweden seems no worse yet than other countries it suggests that the lockdown may not be as effective as claimed.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Too early to tell there. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/virus-deaths-rise-sweden-sticks-low-scale-lockdown-70114439 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/virus-deaths-rise-sw... > For weeks, the numbers of COVID-19 cases and fatalities were proportionally similar between Sweden and Denmark, but while the economic results of the strict isolation are being felt in Denmark, Sweden’s mortality rate has reached more than 88 dead per million, compared with around 47 dead per million in Denmark.
seren 7y ago
Keep in mind that the various lockdown are also greatly decreasing road accidents, or ski, or climbing, or whatever other dangerous activities, so the absence of a bump is not so straight forward.
yread 7y ago
Note that Euromomo reporting is seriously delayed for probably most countries. Here are Dutch numbers that include better estimates for week 14 https://twitter.com/DToshkov/status/1249693421201129480 https://twitter.com/DToshkov/status/1249693421201129480 https://twitter.com/statistiekcbs/status/1248552559637389312 https://twitter.com/statistiekcbs/status/1248552559637389312
- vogre 7y ago
  It's worth noting that previous major flu seasons were around January. So it's pointless to compare current death numbers with another March weeks. You need to compare it to previous flu seasons.

downerending 7y ago

I leaned towards Doomer, especially early on, but must admit that looked at on the scale of years, it's possible that this will turn out to be a blip followed by a new normal of (say) a three-percent higher rate. One caveat is that over the long run, everyone dies exactly once. A more interesting stat will be life-expectancy (i.e., presumed years lost). But then again, most people dying aren't losing that many years of their life expectancy. (Apologies for being grim.)

cameldrv 7y ago
Yes, but this is with everything locked down. The trick is going to be figuring out how to unlock without the doomer scenario occurring.
- downerending 7y ago
  I meant that this is what I think might happen if/as lockdown is slowly released. There will be some trick in figuring out how slow is slow enough, and perhaps we'll go back and forth a bit, but this looks like what will happen. If we keep things locked down too long, immense numbers of people will die from that. We need to minimize all deaths, not just deaths from the virus.
  - antpls 7y ago
    > We need to minimize all deaths, not just deaths from the virus The recent events lead me to believe that it is not what countries are doing. Even WHO posted a figure in 2019 of 8 millions of deaths per year from Tabacco. The covid19 will not reach that level anytime soon, yet every country in the world accepted a major economy self-sacrifice to "save" people from covid19. How to explain that?
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      People choose to smoke. Nobody chooses Covid-19. (Yes, I know, people are in different cultures, and some of those cultures promote smoking while others discourage it. Still, smoking isn't an infection. You don't catch it from people around you, other than second-hand smoke.) More: People smoked. The people who die from smoking this year are for the most part not dying from this year's smoke. They're dying from smoke from 20 or 30 years ago (or perhaps from 20 or 30 years of cumulative smoke). Even more: They're already trying pretty hard to get people to stop smoking. And yet one more: There are 8 billion people in the world. If we don't stop Covid-19, maybe 30% of the world's population is going to get it this year, or maybe next. Of those, maybe 1% to 3% are going to die. That's 24 to 72 million people. That's why Covid-19 gets a bigger push than tobacco.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      I don't understand what you are saying. If deaths from covid continued at the current rate without increasing, then there would be about 2 million by the end of the year, about 1/4th of your number for tobacco. But if people didn't take drastic action, do you think it would not double at least twice more? That's only two weeks of 10% growth per day. And where would it stop?
      - antpls 7y ago
        My theory is : no matter the lockdown, the virus will always be there (it will come back) and people who would die from it will die from it anyway, but due to the lockdown they just won't die all at same time. If they won't die from covid19, they will die from another flu or another complication. The lockdown only buys them time so a vaccine can be developed specifically for covid19 How much economy (including lives that depend on the economy) are we willing to sacrifice to save 0.001% of the world population.... ? I'm sorry but all of this doesn't make sense in regards to the "effort" made to save elderlies in the past.

rovolo 7y ago

Sweden is on the same track as Switzerland, but about a week behind. They will probably show up on the map in either 1 or 2 weeks. http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

lukasm 7y ago
and deaths are up to 5 weeks behind cases.
- rovolo 7y ago
  My 'week behind' is from comparing per-capita cumulative deaths. The number of confirmed cases doesn't track as well between countries, probably due to different testing strategies. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden all have similar per-capita cases, but Denmark has half the death rate as Sweden and Norway has half the death rate of Denmark.
rovolo 7y ago
JFYI: Sweden is now in the "Very High" bucket for week 14. There's a disclaimer above the map: > As always, the number of deaths in the recent weeks should be interpreted with caution as adjustments for delayed registrations may be imprecise.

eric_b 7y ago

Yep, so far this is on the order of a bad flu year in terms of excess mortality. Given that Sweden seems no worse yet than other countries it suggests that the lockdown may not be as effective as claimed.

ceejayoz 7y ago
Too early to tell there. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/virus-deaths-rise-sweden-sticks-low-scale-lockdown-70114439 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/virus-deaths-rise-sw... > For weeks, the numbers of COVID-19 cases and fatalities were proportionally similar between Sweden and Denmark, but while the economic results of the strict isolation are being felt in Denmark, Sweden’s mortality rate has reached more than 88 dead per million, compared with around 47 dead per million in Denmark.

seren 7y ago

Keep in mind that the various lockdown are also greatly decreasing road accidents, or ski, or climbing, or whatever other dangerous activities, so the absence of a bump is not so straight forward.

yread 7y ago

Note that Euromomo reporting is seriously delayed for probably most countries. Here are Dutch numbers that include better estimates for week 14 https://twitter.com/DToshkov/status/1249693421201129480 https://twitter.com/DToshkov/status/1249693421201129480 https://twitter.com/statistiekcbs/status/1248552559637389312 https://twitter.com/statistiekcbs/status/1248552559637389312

vogre 7y ago
It's worth noting that previous major flu seasons were around January. So it's pointless to compare current death numbers with another March weeks. You need to compare it to previous flu seasons.