4 ms·

Deaths can lie too. What does it take for a death to be labelled as covid-19 death? That the person who died was merely tested positive, or do they do autopsies

by yason 6y ago

Deaths can lie too. What does it take for a death to be labelled as covid-19 death? That the person who died was merely tested positive, or do they do autopsies for all those who tested positive? How about covid-19 deaths that aren't counted as covid-19 deaths, for a reason or another? How about people dying less of regular influenza this year because of covid-19 and lockdowns? Even looking back at monthly 2020 deaths in comparison to earlier years might not truly reveal the final impact of covid-19.

cm2187 6y ago
In the US, if the person tested positive, it is classified as covid19 death. Also it seems that 98% of covid19 deaths have at least one comorbidity, 75% at least two. So I would expect that in many cases the virus may have just accelerated something that would have happened within a few months anyway. So you kind of need to look at how the full year death rate evolved to have an idea of the net impact of the virus.
- ajross 6y ago
  That's a misunderstanding of how death works. Everything is a comorbidity on some level. > just accelerated something that would have happened within a few months anyway That's absolutely not what this means. Asthma is a comorbidity. Are asthmatics just a few months from death? I have hypertension, am I about to kick the bucket? Sixty percent of the US population (no doubt including many of the posters on this very thread) are overweight, yet somehow we keep coming back. Almost nothing kills "by itself". Everything adds up, and eventually the body stops working. Other diseases work this way too, yet you don't complain that yearly influenza deaths are inflated. Would you have argued that AIDS deaths were "really" due to the final infection and not HIV?
  - cm2187 6y ago
    The study I got these numbers from doesn't seem to classify asthma or obesity as a comorbidity. The largest ones are hypertension, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrilation, active cancer in past 5y, heart failure, COPD, dementia, stroke and chronic liver disease. Not familiar with all items in this list but some seem pretty serious.
    - ajross 6y ago
      So you think that stroke victims and retirees with dementia are just months from the grave? FWIW: I've personally been living with diagnosed atrial fibrilation for almost three decades. Diabetes is, literally, a lifelong illness for its sufferers. In fact, please cite me any of those factors which will reasonable by expected to kill you in months. Even heart failure and cancer patients tend to live years to decades with treatment.
      - cm2187 6y ago
        Of the people who died of this virus, yes, it is likely that a not insignificant percentage were in pretty bad shape. We are not talking about the whole population who have these comorbidities in the country.
    - afpx 6y ago
      This shows the full list of conditions that are high risk: https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-you-are-at-higher-risk https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-yo... A lot of people fall into those categories.
kube-system 6y ago
Many coroners in my state have been quoted as saying they are unable to test the dead, as tests are prioritized for the living. Our state health department says that they do not report suspected COVID-19 deaths to the CDC if the person did not test positive.
rechristened 6y ago
I believe, at least in New York, people are being counted as covid-19 deaths if they were in contact with someone who was diagnosed. They can count as a covid-19 death without ever being tested for it.
DanBC 6y ago
This is tricky to understand, but "all cause excess mortality" is pretty well understood by statisticians. They use it all the time for flu. Here's one document from the UK that mentions the kind of testing they do to arrive at "deaths to flu" figures. They have international programmes to see what respiratory diseases are circulating, they test people who arrive in hospital for those, they know roughly how many people in the population they expect to die (because RTAs, cancer, heart disease, etc all stay sort of stable from one year to the next). They also do survey work to see if people have flu symptoms but haven't seen a doctor, and they can see how many people attend various healthcare settings for flu. It's all a lot more complicated than "did someone write flu on a death certificate". https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/526405/Flu_Annual_Report_2015_2016.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

by yason 6y ago

cm2187 6y ago

In the US, if the person tested positive, it is classified as covid19 death. Also it seems that 98% of covid19 deaths have at least one comorbidity, 75% at least two. So I would expect that in many cases the virus may have just accelerated something that would have happened within a few months anyway. So you kind of need to look at how the full year death rate evolved to have an idea of the net impact of the virus.

ajross 6y ago
That's a misunderstanding of how death works. Everything is a comorbidity on some level. > just accelerated something that would have happened within a few months anyway That's absolutely not what this means. Asthma is a comorbidity. Are asthmatics just a few months from death? I have hypertension, am I about to kick the bucket? Sixty percent of the US population (no doubt including many of the posters on this very thread) are overweight, yet somehow we keep coming back. Almost nothing kills "by itself". Everything adds up, and eventually the body stops working. Other diseases work this way too, yet you don't complain that yearly influenza deaths are inflated. Would you have argued that AIDS deaths were "really" due to the final infection and not HIV?
- cm2187 6y ago
  The study I got these numbers from doesn't seem to classify asthma or obesity as a comorbidity. The largest ones are hypertension, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrilation, active cancer in past 5y, heart failure, COPD, dementia, stroke and chronic liver disease. Not familiar with all items in this list but some seem pretty serious.
  - ajross 6y ago
    So you think that stroke victims and retirees with dementia are just months from the grave? FWIW: I've personally been living with diagnosed atrial fibrilation for almost three decades. Diabetes is, literally, a lifelong illness for its sufferers. In fact, please cite me any of those factors which will reasonable by expected to kill you in months. Even heart failure and cancer patients tend to live years to decades with treatment.
    - cm2187 6y ago
      Of the people who died of this virus, yes, it is likely that a not insignificant percentage were in pretty bad shape. We are not talking about the whole population who have these comorbidities in the country.
  - afpx 6y ago
    This shows the full list of conditions that are high risk: https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-you-are-at-higher-risk https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/if-yo... A lot of people fall into those categories.

kube-system 6y ago

Many coroners in my state have been quoted as saying they are unable to test the dead, as tests are prioritized for the living. Our state health department says that they do not report suspected COVID-19 deaths to the CDC if the person did not test positive.

rechristened 6y ago

I believe, at least in New York, people are being counted as covid-19 deaths if they were in contact with someone who was diagnosed. They can count as a covid-19 death without ever being tested for it.

DanBC 6y ago

This is tricky to understand, but "all cause excess mortality" is pretty well understood by statisticians. They use it all the time for flu. Here's one document from the UK that mentions the kind of testing they do to arrive at "deaths to flu" figures. They have international programmes to see what respiratory diseases are circulating, they test people who arrive in hospital for those, they know roughly how many people in the population they expect to die (because RTAs, cancer, heart disease, etc all stay sort of stable from one year to the next). They also do survey work to see if people have flu symptoms but haven't seen a doctor, and they can see how many people attend various healthcare settings for flu. It's all a lot more complicated than "did someone write flu on a death certificate". https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/526405/Flu_Annual_Report_2015_2016.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...