4 ms·

Coronavirus: Care home deaths 'far higher' than official figures

27 points by DanBC 7y ago

DanBC 7y ago
I'm submitting this because there are people on HN who think we're over-counting deaths to Covid-19. This article shows that in some countries we're under-counting covid-19 deaths by thousands. In the UK we have two counts. There's the daily count from PHE. That's the number used for sources like Worldometers. It only counts people who died in hospital who were tested positive for covid-19. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ We also have the ONS numbers. These are based on death certification and then coding by statisticians. There's some lag involved. Here's the most recent version, issued on 3rd April. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  I have never heard anyone claiming that deaths from covid-19 are over-counted. It is clear that, if anything, they are indeed under-counted. Edit: this is getting ridiculous being downvoted for reasonable comments. Is this HN? No serious source claims that deaths are over-counted. Ignore fake news from conspirationists. The US seem to be sinking if that what is happening on your side of the pond.
  - moron4hire 7y ago
    Find some Republicans on Facebook the day after NYC updated their estimate of COVID-19 deaths to include unconfirmed cases.
  - overthemoon 7y ago
    Just my own perspective, but claims of over-counting appear to be getting more common. There were several demonstrations (granted, over-covered in the media) over the weekend in the US about opening the country up again, and accusations of inflating death toll numbers.
  - michaelbuckbee 7y ago
    It's becoming a conservative media talking point (Tucker Carlson, Brit Hume): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-death-overcount-anthony-fauci https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/coronavirus-co...
  - docdeek 7y ago
    There were many suggestions that Italy was over-counting because anyone who died WITH COVID-19 was counted as having died OF COVID-19.
  - rsynnott 7y ago
    It’s very much conspiracy theorist stuff, but it’s definitely a thing.
  - lolc 7y ago
    Even if you test every single death, there is the problem of determining who dies with Corona versus who dies of Corona. In the current situation, these numbers are hard to keep apart. A lot of bodies are disposed of before viral spread and cause of death are assessed. We will be able to guess at the numbers, but the error bars will remain big.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    In this thread we have at least one person saying deaths are over-counted, and there are plenty of similar comments on HN. I agree about the down voting.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      This is noise. Ignore it, don't amplify it.
- pixelrevision 7y ago
  The unfortunate reality is that anyone who is claiming that at this point likely has made up their mind on this. We’ve got huge problems right now with media trust.
- makomk 7y ago
  The reality is that we're probably doing both. We're undercounting Covid-19 deaths due to the headline figures in the UK mostly only counting deaths that occur in hospitals, and also overcounting because not all of those deaths are caused by Covid-19: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654 Also, this is a terrible, clickbaity headline. When they say that the care home deaths are "far higher" than official figures, they mean that they're far higher than the figures for the number of deaths two weeks ago. For something that's growing exponentially. As the analysis at the bottom points out, "the hospital figures show deaths have been increasing at a similar rate", so this is sad but not exactly surprising. (It might not be exactly the same rate of growth as hospital deaths, but the numbers given in the article are only very approximate.)
smoyer 7y ago
In the U.S., it's pretty broadly assumed that in hot-spots like NYC, the death rate is also being under-counted. Apparently, those who die in their apartments are not added to the official death-toll. Another method for finding these excess deaths is to compare January or February to the rate in the same month of 2019 and then extrapolate the expected death rate for April 2020. This number will obviously be lower than the actual death rate so the difference should be considered COVID-19 related. Note that even this is probably low since other factors like deaths from car accidents (which I would expect to be down this year) aren't considered. Since we're burying many of the dead without testing, I think the best numbers we're going to get will come from statisticians/actuaries.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Do you know where one can get up-to-date, raw mortality numbers? CDC doesn't publish anything until they've had time to categorize them, but CDC's processes are seriously in question right now.
  - ivanonymous 7y ago
    My understanding is that there are variable lags up the chain, and some states don't report deaths for months. NYC as it happens is a relatively prompt reporter. Not sure if there is any public information locally before it's reported upwards, e.g. if you could send volunteers to county health offices. This was discussed fairly widely recently when people were interpreting recent decline in year over year deaths as evidence that COVID responses were saving lives (e.g. less driving). But it was almost all just typical reporting lag. Demonstrated by an animated graphic: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/fxau85/the_recent_drop_in_us_pneumonia_deaths_is/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/fxau85/the...
  - RobertoG 7y ago
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ They are making an effort in keep things updated. Of course, they depend on the official figures of every country or state that are not very accurate at the moment. The sources that they are using in any case are there too.
chongli 7y ago
Does anyone else feel like this has been a long time coming for seniors’ care homes and retirement centres? For years, I have heard many outrageous stories of elderly abuse and neglect at these types of places. I’m sure some of them aren’t terrible, but I’ve always felt they were essentially warehousing elderly people so that their families didn’t have to look after them. All of this is of course because their offspring, the present working-age demographic, are busier than ever at work. It used to be (and perhaps still is in some countries) that people would live in multigenerational homes. Grandparents would participate in the rearing of their grandchildren and in turn receive care and support from their offspring. Houses were never empty during the day, as they so often are in the suburbs we occupy these days. Perhaps it’s time we reconsider our ideas around the nuclear family and revisit the traditional way of life.
- base698 7y ago
  By busier than ever do you mean spending 5 hours a day watching TV and surfing Reddit? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption#Statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption#Stati...
  - aneesh297 7y ago
    Most of the TV consumption is from the elderly[1]. Maybe they're the ones who need to put down the remote? You're absolutely right about reddit though. [1]https://www.statista.com/chart/15224/daily-tv-consumption-by-us-adults/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15224/daily-tv-consumption-by...
    - ta1771 7y ago
      Pffft, okay. "Netflix and chill", and Snapchat/Instagram/TikTok mouth-breathers are the elderly? Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune viewers don't have shit on the new gen.
- makomk 7y ago
  Multi-generational homes aren't exactly a terribly safe idea either during this Covid-19 pandemic. They're suspected to be one of the reasons why some communities have had much worse death tolls than others. Younger members of the family go out to work and socialize and bring the disease back into the house.

27 points by DanBC 7y ago

I'm submitting this because there are people on HN who think we're over-counting deaths to Covid-19. This article shows that in some countries we're under-counting covid-19 deaths by thousands. In the UK we have two counts. There's the daily count from PHE. That's the number used for sources like Worldometers. It only counts people who died in hospital who were tested positive for covid-19. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ We also have the ONS numbers. These are based on death certification and then coding by statisticians. There's some lag involved. Here's the most recent version, issued on 3rd April. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

mytailorisrich 7y ago
I have never heard anyone claiming that deaths from covid-19 are over-counted. It is clear that, if anything, they are indeed under-counted. Edit: this is getting ridiculous being downvoted for reasonable comments. Is this HN? No serious source claims that deaths are over-counted. Ignore fake news from conspirationists. The US seem to be sinking if that what is happening on your side of the pond.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Find some Republicans on Facebook the day after NYC updated their estimate of COVID-19 deaths to include unconfirmed cases.
- overthemoon 7y ago
  Just my own perspective, but claims of over-counting appear to be getting more common. There were several demonstrations (granted, over-covered in the media) over the weekend in the US about opening the country up again, and accusations of inflating death toll numbers.
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  It's becoming a conservative media talking point (Tucker Carlson, Brit Hume): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-death-overcount-anthony-fauci https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/coronavirus-co...
- docdeek 7y ago
  There were many suggestions that Italy was over-counting because anyone who died WITH COVID-19 was counted as having died OF COVID-19.
- rsynnott 7y ago
  It’s very much conspiracy theorist stuff, but it’s definitely a thing.
- lolc 7y ago
  Even if you test every single death, there is the problem of determining who dies with Corona versus who dies of Corona. In the current situation, these numbers are hard to keep apart. A lot of bodies are disposed of before viral spread and cause of death are assessed. We will be able to guess at the numbers, but the error bars will remain big.
- DanBC 7y ago
  In this thread we have at least one person saying deaths are over-counted, and there are plenty of similar comments on HN. I agree about the down voting.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    This is noise. Ignore it, don't amplify it.
pixelrevision 7y ago
The unfortunate reality is that anyone who is claiming that at this point likely has made up their mind on this. We’ve got huge problems right now with media trust.
makomk 7y ago
The reality is that we're probably doing both. We're undercounting Covid-19 deaths due to the headline figures in the UK mostly only counting deaths that occur in hospitals, and also overcounting because not all of those deaths are caused by Covid-19: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654 Also, this is a terrible, clickbaity headline. When they say that the care home deaths are "far higher" than official figures, they mean that they're far higher than the figures for the number of deaths two weeks ago. For something that's growing exponentially. As the analysis at the bottom points out, "the hospital figures show deaths have been increasing at a similar rate", so this is sad but not exactly surprising. (It might not be exactly the same rate of growth as hospital deaths, but the numbers given in the article are only very approximate.)

smoyer 7y ago

In the U.S., it's pretty broadly assumed that in hot-spots like NYC, the death rate is also being under-counted. Apparently, those who die in their apartments are not added to the official death-toll. Another method for finding these excess deaths is to compare January or February to the rate in the same month of 2019 and then extrapolate the expected death rate for April 2020. This number will obviously be lower than the actual death rate so the difference should be considered COVID-19 related. Note that even this is probably low since other factors like deaths from car accidents (which I would expect to be down this year) aren't considered. Since we're burying many of the dead without testing, I think the best numbers we're going to get will come from statisticians/actuaries.

moron4hire 7y ago
Do you know where one can get up-to-date, raw mortality numbers? CDC doesn't publish anything until they've had time to categorize them, but CDC's processes are seriously in question right now.
- ivanonymous 7y ago
  My understanding is that there are variable lags up the chain, and some states don't report deaths for months. NYC as it happens is a relatively prompt reporter. Not sure if there is any public information locally before it's reported upwards, e.g. if you could send volunteers to county health offices. This was discussed fairly widely recently when people were interpreting recent decline in year over year deaths as evidence that COVID responses were saving lives (e.g. less driving). But it was almost all just typical reporting lag. Demonstrated by an animated graphic: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/fxau85/the_recent_drop_in_us_pneumonia_deaths_is/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/fxau85/the...
- RobertoG 7y ago
  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ They are making an effort in keep things updated. Of course, they depend on the official figures of every country or state that are not very accurate at the moment. The sources that they are using in any case are there too.

chongli 7y ago

Does anyone else feel like this has been a long time coming for seniors’ care homes and retirement centres? For years, I have heard many outrageous stories of elderly abuse and neglect at these types of places. I’m sure some of them aren’t terrible, but I’ve always felt they were essentially warehousing elderly people so that their families didn’t have to look after them. All of this is of course because their offspring, the present working-age demographic, are busier than ever at work. It used to be (and perhaps still is in some countries) that people would live in multigenerational homes. Grandparents would participate in the rearing of their grandchildren and in turn receive care and support from their offspring. Houses were never empty during the day, as they so often are in the suburbs we occupy these days. Perhaps it’s time we reconsider our ideas around the nuclear family and revisit the traditional way of life.

base698 7y ago
By busier than ever do you mean spending 5 hours a day watching TV and surfing Reddit? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption#Statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption#Stati...
- aneesh297 7y ago
  Most of the TV consumption is from the elderly[1]. Maybe they're the ones who need to put down the remote? You're absolutely right about reddit though. [1]https://www.statista.com/chart/15224/daily-tv-consumption-by-us-adults/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15224/daily-tv-consumption-by...
  - ta1771 7y ago
    Pffft, okay. "Netflix and chill", and Snapchat/Instagram/TikTok mouth-breathers are the elderly? Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune viewers don't have shit on the new gen.
makomk 7y ago
Multi-generational homes aren't exactly a terribly safe idea either during this Covid-19 pandemic. They're suspected to be one of the reasons why some communities have had much worse death tolls than others. Younger members of the family go out to work and socialize and bring the disease back into the house.