4 ms·

The graph on the left shows that America is doing much better than Europe as far as case fatality rate goes, about half that of Britain/Spain or Italy. Yet som

The graph on the left shows that America is doing much better than Europe as far as case fatality rate goes, about half that of Britain/Spain or Italy. Yet somehow that positive information is turned into a negative sentiment of look how much worse the situation is, our people are younger. Perhaps the explanation is that the two measures are fully correlated: Patients in the US are younger, hence die less often.

Recurecur 6y ago
The obvious interpretation of this is that in some places like Italy, the older population received much more exposure than it did in the US. In Italy, this was due to so many extended families living in the same home. In fact, things would have skewed even younger in the US except for the nursing home debacle in NY and NJ. It's worth pointing out that there's quite a disconnect between the US media coverage of the mortality rate here, versus the higher mortality rate in Britain, France, and other EU countries. There is also a good chance that COVID mortality in the US is being significantly overcounted. Regardless, there's little choice at this point - we need to keep the economy open as we wrestle with minimizing hospital visits and fatalities. Let's hope improved treatments are developed at a high rate!
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  >There is also a good chance that COVID mortality in the US is being significantly overcounted. It seems experts (CDC among other) suggest the mortality is quite a bit undercounted, since there are many deaths for which the person is not tested, since we lacked the testing capabilities. One interesting place to see it is expected death rates versus actual death rates while COVID is here, and note there is no other known thing that spiked at the same time to account for the excess deaths. What science groups or medical groups are claiming it's overcounted? For example, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-covid-19-deaths-are-counted1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-covid-19-deat... https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/05/13/854873605/fauci-says-u-s-death-toll-is-likely-higher-other-covid-stats-need-adjusting-too https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/05/13/8548736...
  - Junk_Collector 6y ago
    Is this really true though? Most states report separate numbers for cases and confirmed cases as well as deaths and confirmed deaths. In Texas there is something like a 3 order of magnitude difference between the number of reported cases and the number of confirmed cases and you can see wild discontinuities in the reporting data as they periodically change their methodology and or criteria. New York, for instance, was reporting deaths were Covid-19 might have contributed rather than confirmed deaths. My biggest problem is that while it is trivial to find mountains of Covid visualizations, raw data with clear explanations of it's criteria and methodology is very hard to come by. I think it's quiet likely that some locations are over reporting and others are under reporting.
    - ChrisLomont 6y ago
      >Is this really true though? According to the research papers and professional groups I've looked as this is true. If you want to discount experts that are well aware of the problems, methodologies, etc., then I don't know how you'll reach any conclusion. Non-experts are rarely more accurate than experts on complex issues. As to methodology, CDC lists and recommends methodologies for all diseases, and COVID deaths are counted by them using the same methodology that all deaths are, whether cancer, heart attack, car wreck, etc. So there is nothing special about how COVID deaths are counted from their recommendations. Many states seems to have political pressure to downplay COVID, but I've not seen credible complaints (or any complaints) by whistleblowers claiming they're pressured to increase death counts. And overall death counts versus expected death counts gives a picture of likely COVID caused deaths that makes them far undercounted. I expect scientists to arrive at pretty good counts eventually, then political and nonsense spreaders to ignore anything that doesn't suit their narratives. Here's [1] some CDC covid methodology info - if you google CDC COVID methodology or CDC disease methodology you'll find plenty of methodology on data collection. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/purpose-methods.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidvi...
      - Junk_Collector 6y ago
Viliam1234 6y ago
I find it fascinating how most comparisons of COVID-19 impact in USA vs Europe typically include only those European countries that have it worse. Here are the countries that have worse outcomes: Spain, UK, Italy, France, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands. And here are the ones that have better outcomes: Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia, Czechia, Poland, Croatia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Slovakia. Next time you see a graph where USA is only compared to Italy, Spain, and UK, someone is trying to manipulate you. I assume that the excuse would be like "we only included the big countries that matter", but that wouldn't really explain forgetting Germany.
- glofish 6y ago
  I believe your list has many countries that will fare like Florida, having less industrialization and mobility the disease takes longer to ramp up. I have come to believe that the rate of the spread of the disease is a primarily a reflection of how people live rather than what measure they take - if a dozen people live in a house with one bathroom how are they going to isolate? Germanic countries like Sweden where a more pronounced distancing was the norm even before the pandemic fare much better. Google "waiting for bus sweden" to see what I mean. The behavior of Swedes used to be a meme.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    That certainly has an impact, but if you compare e.g. Sweden and Germany, Sweden has 3× more COVID-19 deaths per capita. So I suppose both the lifestyle and measures matter.

Recurecur 6y ago

The obvious interpretation of this is that in some places like Italy, the older population received much more exposure than it did in the US. In Italy, this was due to so many extended families living in the same home. In fact, things would have skewed even younger in the US except for the nursing home debacle in NY and NJ. It's worth pointing out that there's quite a disconnect between the US media coverage of the mortality rate here, versus the higher mortality rate in Britain, France, and other EU countries. There is also a good chance that COVID mortality in the US is being significantly overcounted. Regardless, there's little choice at this point - we need to keep the economy open as we wrestle with minimizing hospital visits and fatalities. Let's hope improved treatments are developed at a high rate!

ChrisLomont 6y ago
>There is also a good chance that COVID mortality in the US is being significantly overcounted. It seems experts (CDC among other) suggest the mortality is quite a bit undercounted, since there are many deaths for which the person is not tested, since we lacked the testing capabilities. One interesting place to see it is expected death rates versus actual death rates while COVID is here, and note there is no other known thing that spiked at the same time to account for the excess deaths. What science groups or medical groups are claiming it's overcounted? For example, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-covid-19-deaths-are-counted1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-covid-19-deat... https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/05/13/854873605/fauci-says-u-s-death-toll-is-likely-higher-other-covid-stats-need-adjusting-too https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/05/13/8548736...
- Junk_Collector 6y ago
  Is this really true though? Most states report separate numbers for cases and confirmed cases as well as deaths and confirmed deaths. In Texas there is something like a 3 order of magnitude difference between the number of reported cases and the number of confirmed cases and you can see wild discontinuities in the reporting data as they periodically change their methodology and or criteria. New York, for instance, was reporting deaths were Covid-19 might have contributed rather than confirmed deaths. My biggest problem is that while it is trivial to find mountains of Covid visualizations, raw data with clear explanations of it's criteria and methodology is very hard to come by. I think it's quiet likely that some locations are over reporting and others are under reporting.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    >Is this really true though? According to the research papers and professional groups I've looked as this is true. If you want to discount experts that are well aware of the problems, methodologies, etc., then I don't know how you'll reach any conclusion. Non-experts are rarely more accurate than experts on complex issues. As to methodology, CDC lists and recommends methodologies for all diseases, and COVID deaths are counted by them using the same methodology that all deaths are, whether cancer, heart attack, car wreck, etc. So there is nothing special about how COVID deaths are counted from their recommendations. Many states seems to have political pressure to downplay COVID, but I've not seen credible complaints (or any complaints) by whistleblowers claiming they're pressured to increase death counts. And overall death counts versus expected death counts gives a picture of likely COVID caused deaths that makes them far undercounted. I expect scientists to arrive at pretty good counts eventually, then political and nonsense spreaders to ignore anything that doesn't suit their narratives. Here's [1] some CDC covid methodology info - if you google CDC COVID methodology or CDC disease methodology you'll find plenty of methodology on data collection. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/purpose-methods.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidvi...
    - Junk_Collector 6y ago

Viliam1234 6y ago

I find it fascinating how most comparisons of COVID-19 impact in USA vs Europe typically include only those European countries that have it worse. Here are the countries that have worse outcomes: Spain, UK, Italy, France, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands. And here are the ones that have better outcomes: Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia, Czechia, Poland, Croatia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Slovakia. Next time you see a graph where USA is only compared to Italy, Spain, and UK, someone is trying to manipulate you. I assume that the excuse would be like "we only included the big countries that matter", but that wouldn't really explain forgetting Germany.

glofish 6y ago
I believe your list has many countries that will fare like Florida, having less industrialization and mobility the disease takes longer to ramp up. I have come to believe that the rate of the spread of the disease is a primarily a reflection of how people live rather than what measure they take - if a dozen people live in a house with one bathroom how are they going to isolate? Germanic countries like Sweden where a more pronounced distancing was the norm even before the pandemic fare much better. Google "waiting for bus sweden" to see what I mean. The behavior of Swedes used to be a meme.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  That certainly has an impact, but if you compare e.g. Sweden and Germany, Sweden has 3× more COVID-19 deaths per capita. So I suppose both the lifestyle and measures matter.