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But then we get to the question of whether those deaths were caused by COVID or other causes. We know that traffic fatalities in some areas have risen drastica

by ddxxdd 6y ago

But then we get to the question of whether those deaths were caused by COVID or other causes. We know that traffic fatalities in some areas have risen drastically due to the lockdowns: https://abc7.com/traffic-fatalities-california-highway-patrol-speeding-covid-19/6198603/ https://abc7.com/traffic-fatalities-california-highway-patro... We also know that doctor visits have gone down due to the coronavirus, leading to medical staff being laid off: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/02/826232423/covid-19-hits-some-health-care-workers-with-pay-cuts-and-layoffs https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/02/8262324... We also know that hospitals are financially incentivized to diagnose a patient as COVID positive: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fac... And there are German serological studies that suggest a COVID death rate of 0.39%, in contrast with the NYC study that claims a death rate of 1% Taking this altogether, and we have plenty of wiggle room to suggest that even the excess deaths don't necessarily imply that COVID is extremely deadly.

ageitgey 6y ago
You are conflating a lot of different things. Traffic fatalities were actually down overall (total numbers), but up per mile driven. In other words, people were driving much less and dying in lower total numbers, but the people who were driving were driving faster and thus a bit more likely to die. That article is poorly written to generate headlines and clicks. Arguing over a specific IFR is also kind of pointless because the disease is so age and condition dependent. Whether the true overall IFR in a population is 1% or 0.4% doesn't really matter - it's a bad representation of the overall situation. COVID is a disease that kills a very large percentage of 80+ but is quite low risk for younger people. A single number doesn't capture or represent that. Demographic differences between 2 cities could easily cause a large skew in actual IFR. Hospitals are (possibly) financially incentivized to diagnose COVID in the US. But this is a world-wide disease and no other country has the insane US healthcare system where that would matter. > Taking this altogether, and we have plenty of wiggle room to suggest that even the excess deaths don't necessarily imply that COVID is extremely deadly. That's not correct. It's absolutely clear from the numbers across many countries that COVID is extremely deadly if you are 80+ and not deadly at all if you are 15. Make of that what you will. Arguing over IFRs and hospital reimbursement is missing the point. It's simultaneously true that COVID is very deadly for some groups but may not be deadly at all for you and your friends. There's a good argument to be made over how much of the excess death is due to secondary effects (untreated heart attacks, delayed cancer treatments, etc). But there's no way to arrange the numbers such that COVID doesn't obviously kill a lot of old people. Just look at the death rates in care homes / retirement homes. It was like a plague ravaging them.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > and not deadly at all if you are 15 Very low risk, but not no risk.
  - ageitgey 6y ago
    Yes, not zero risk. But to give you an idea of the risk, here are the numbers from England (only, not entire UK): - Total COVID deaths: 28,137 - Deaths, 0-19 years of age: 18 - Deaths, 0-19 years of age, no pre-existing condition: 3 You are definitely going to see individual news reports on those 3 cases because they are exceptional and scary. But you aren't going to see individual news reports on the 25,721 people aged over 60 who died of COVID during the same period. And keep in mind that not only are the raw numbers astronomically higher for the older age ranges, but those older age ranges are also much smaller populations. So it's even worse than it appears. For example, 15,020 people aged 80+ died of COVID. But 80+ year olds are only 4.6% of the population in England. Under 18s make up more like 25% of the population but only account for 18 deaths. That's about as close to low risk as you can get without being zero risk.
- int_19h 6y ago
  > Hospitals are (possibly) financially incentivized to diagnose COVID in the US. That depends. Some, apparently, are incentivized to do exactly the opposite. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/nurses-accuse-georgia-hospital-of-manipulating-covid-19-test-results.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issue...
- ddxxdd 6y ago
  1. My link stated that in certain areas, such as Connecticut, traffic fatalities went up. 2. My overall point is that a certain number of excess deaths are atrributable to the lockdown itself, rather than Covid. IIRC, the total number of reported deaths in NYC from heart disease, heart attacks, cancer, and a whole bunch of other diseases went down drastically; either Covid-19 magically cures all these other ailments, or a bunch of deaths are being mislabelled as Covid-related.
stefan_ 6y ago
There is no wiggle room. The fucking deaths doubled. This is just FUD.
arrrg 6y ago
> And there are German serological studies that suggest a COVID death rate of 0.39%, in contrast with the NYC study that claims a death rate of 1% That’s in the same ballpark. You can expect great precision with these estimations.

by ddxxdd 6y ago

ageitgey 6y ago

You are conflating a lot of different things. Traffic fatalities were actually down overall (total numbers), but up per mile driven. In other words, people were driving much less and dying in lower total numbers, but the people who were driving were driving faster and thus a bit more likely to die. That article is poorly written to generate headlines and clicks. Arguing over a specific IFR is also kind of pointless because the disease is so age and condition dependent. Whether the true overall IFR in a population is 1% or 0.4% doesn't really matter - it's a bad representation of the overall situation. COVID is a disease that kills a very large percentage of 80+ but is quite low risk for younger people. A single number doesn't capture or represent that. Demographic differences between 2 cities could easily cause a large skew in actual IFR. Hospitals are (possibly) financially incentivized to diagnose COVID in the US. But this is a world-wide disease and no other country has the insane US healthcare system where that would matter. > Taking this altogether, and we have plenty of wiggle room to suggest that even the excess deaths don't necessarily imply that COVID is extremely deadly. That's not correct. It's absolutely clear from the numbers across many countries that COVID is extremely deadly if you are 80+ and not deadly at all if you are 15. Make of that what you will. Arguing over IFRs and hospital reimbursement is missing the point. It's simultaneously true that COVID is very deadly for some groups but may not be deadly at all for you and your friends. There's a good argument to be made over how much of the excess death is due to secondary effects (untreated heart attacks, delayed cancer treatments, etc). But there's no way to arrange the numbers such that COVID doesn't obviously kill a lot of old people. Just look at the death rates in care homes / retirement homes. It was like a plague ravaging them.

DanBC 6y ago
> and not deadly at all if you are 15 Very low risk, but not no risk.
- ageitgey 6y ago
  Yes, not zero risk. But to give you an idea of the risk, here are the numbers from England (only, not entire UK): - Total COVID deaths: 28,137 - Deaths, 0-19 years of age: 18 - Deaths, 0-19 years of age, no pre-existing condition: 3 You are definitely going to see individual news reports on those 3 cases because they are exceptional and scary. But you aren't going to see individual news reports on the 25,721 people aged over 60 who died of COVID during the same period. And keep in mind that not only are the raw numbers astronomically higher for the older age ranges, but those older age ranges are also much smaller populations. So it's even worse than it appears. For example, 15,020 people aged 80+ died of COVID. But 80+ year olds are only 4.6% of the population in England. Under 18s make up more like 25% of the population but only account for 18 deaths. That's about as close to low risk as you can get without being zero risk.
int_19h 6y ago
> Hospitals are (possibly) financially incentivized to diagnose COVID in the US. That depends. Some, apparently, are incentivized to do exactly the opposite. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/nurses-accuse-georgia-hospital-of-manipulating-covid-19-test-results.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issue...
ddxxdd 6y ago
1. My link stated that in certain areas, such as Connecticut, traffic fatalities went up. 2. My overall point is that a certain number of excess deaths are atrributable to the lockdown itself, rather than Covid. IIRC, the total number of reported deaths in NYC from heart disease, heart attacks, cancer, and a whole bunch of other diseases went down drastically; either Covid-19 magically cures all these other ailments, or a bunch of deaths are being mislabelled as Covid-related.

stefan_ 6y ago

There is no wiggle room. The fucking deaths doubled. This is just FUD.

arrrg 6y ago

> And there are German serological studies that suggest a COVID death rate of 0.39%, in contrast with the NYC study that claims a death rate of 1% That’s in the same ballpark. You can expect great precision with these estimations.