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And that's recorded cases. There might be people who died from Covid-19 who weren't tested post-mortem, especially in February when the virus was flying under

by colmvp 6y ago

And that's recorded cases. There might be people who died from Covid-19 who weren't tested post-mortem, especially in February when the virus was flying under the radar. NYTimes had an article which showed a number of places around the world have had a surge in deaths compared to the same time period in previous years. And even if you subtract the known Covid-19 cases, there's still a sharp increase in the count.

busymom0 6y ago
That's the exact opposite of what's happened. The number of deaths being reported includes "probable deaths". It's even more than the actual confirmed cases. Look at the graph on the last page for NYC for example: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-deaths-confirmed-probable-daily-04222020.pdf https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-d...
- mennis16 6y ago
  Just because they are counting probable deaths does not mean they aren't also undercounting the true deaths. Given the rate of testing confirmed is clearly << true, so I don't see why there is so much objection to using some form of probable deaths. And I haven't seen any legit claims that the specific mechanism for determining probable deaths used in NYC is net overcounting. Excess death data so far suggests that they are indeed undercounting true deaths. While it is certainly possible lockdown has caused some additional immediate deaths, it is also likely other deaths (eg decreased car accidents) have gone down. So it will require further analysis once this is all said and done and more data is available, but my money is that the US has undercounted deaths thus far.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  Well the flu deaths are all counted as probable deaths, what you call "confirmed cases" for flu deaths is at least an order of magnitude lower (in Germany in the 2017/18 flu outbreak it was a couple of hundred, while the outbreak is typically blamed for around 25000 deaths in that year, based on statistics). To highlight the spike in deaths being significantly higher than even the worst flu over the last years look at the data from Euromono https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ It's even worse if one considers that so far the deaths have been quite localised compared to e.g. the flu.
  - postalrat 6y ago
    Their charts also show how mild the last few flu seasons were. I assume during that time people aged and became ready to be reaped by the next big flu or coronavirus.

by colmvp 6y ago

busymom0 6y ago

That's the exact opposite of what's happened. The number of deaths being reported includes "probable deaths". It's even more than the actual confirmed cases. Look at the graph on the last page for NYC for example: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-deaths-confirmed-probable-daily-04222020.pdf https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-d...

mennis16 6y ago
Just because they are counting probable deaths does not mean they aren't also undercounting the true deaths. Given the rate of testing confirmed is clearly << true, so I don't see why there is so much objection to using some form of probable deaths. And I haven't seen any legit claims that the specific mechanism for determining probable deaths used in NYC is net overcounting. Excess death data so far suggests that they are indeed undercounting true deaths. While it is certainly possible lockdown has caused some additional immediate deaths, it is also likely other deaths (eg decreased car accidents) have gone down. So it will require further analysis once this is all said and done and more data is available, but my money is that the US has undercounted deaths thus far.
cycomanic 6y ago
Well the flu deaths are all counted as probable deaths, what you call "confirmed cases" for flu deaths is at least an order of magnitude lower (in Germany in the 2017/18 flu outbreak it was a couple of hundred, while the outbreak is typically blamed for around 25000 deaths in that year, based on statistics). To highlight the spike in deaths being significantly higher than even the worst flu over the last years look at the data from Euromono https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ It's even worse if one considers that so far the deaths have been quite localised compared to e.g. the flu.
- postalrat 6y ago
  Their charts also show how mild the last few flu seasons were. I assume during that time people aged and became ready to be reaped by the next big flu or coronavirus.