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In the link: >COVID-19 associated UK deaths >Deaths of people who have had a positive test result These are people who died who tested positive for the the v

In the link: >COVID-19 associated UK deaths >Deaths of people who have had a positive test result These are people who died who tested positive for the the virus not people who died as a result of having the virus. Not very useful numbers since the virus spreads in hospitals.

thu2111 6y ago
It's actually even more useless than that. The wording has to be taken entirely literally: in the last few days it was discovered that PHE was reporting a COVID death as anyone who ever tested positive and who has subsequently died. Not of COVID. Not even with COVID. Someone who has ever had it, and then died any time later for any reason at all. Under this definition COVID-19 is a terminal disease from which nobody ever recovers. If it hadn't been noticed, the English death toll would eventually have matched the case count. Matt Hancock was apparently furious when he found out, now a review of PHE has been triggered as they've been serving the UK with bogus stats for months. Notethe coviddata site says PHE wasn't even deduplicating tests until 2nd July. So "case count" before then was also misleading. 30,000 positive cases vanished overnight and that assumes they did the deduplication correctly, but the government is so bad at data handling that at this point it's unclear if any stats can be trusted. This stuff is really important and it's clear a lot of people on HN are in denial about it, because each time it gets brought up a torrent of downvotes follows. The COVID stats are wrong. They're not even just useless, they're actively misleading. They lead to beliefs like this one: In the UK, we were loosing 1100 people a day entirely through covid which is not true and has never been true. It's a belief based on assuming the stats are measuring what actually matters/what people want to know. In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus.
- KaiserPro 6y ago
  There are two sets of stats here, one from Public health england (PHE) and one from the Office for National Statistics(ONS). I am referencing the ONS when I say 1100 people a day, why? because the ONS stats can be compared to many years previous. PHE ones are collected by some consultancy company and are trash. The average daily death rate is found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... > In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus. The stats are measuring how many deaths are occurring above the normal average death rate for that period. _something_ caused an extra 1100 deaths a day. Sure you can say covid is a _very_ mild virus. It might be for some, but out of my friends that have had it (as in tested positive) 1 desaturated to 88% every night. 1 had a fever for 14 days(as in bedbound) 3 had a week long fever, 5 were asymptomatic 3 had epic shits for a weeks. All of these people are < 40. of the people that were > 40 and tested positive, all 3 died. However that's because at the time they were only testing inpatients. So, with the greatest of respect, you can take your "mild virus" and "its really not 1100 extra deaths a day" and shove it up your arse.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    The source you cited is https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ which isn't reporting excess mortality, that site reports data from PHE and other regional bodies. As you know, those values are wrong, which is why they're now labelled as "COVID associated deaths", a label which speaks to the meaninglessness of the values. Excess deaths is an entirely different statistic. We can assume total mortality is correct, but that says nothing about what causes it. For example, many excess deaths are clearly not caused by COVID because COVID isn't mentioned on the death certificate, but rather some other problem, even with the ultra-lax reporting and suddenly changed death certificate standards that the UK has introduced. In reality lock down has caused some deaths. The virus has caused some - or slightly accelerated some, it's not really clear how much life-years reduction has really taken place given the absolutely on-average mortality profile. I'm very sorry to hear about your friends, but bear in mind "epic shits" aren't even a recognised symptom of COVID. It's a respiratory disease. There's a lot of conflation going on where people are reporting things that aren't COVID as if it was some new but hitherto unknown side effect of the virus. In reality, other kinds of illness didn't stop because a new virus turned up and people can still get sick with the flu or many other diseases - as they do every year - even though COVID is more well known by this point.
    - KaiserPro 6y ago
      > "epic shits" aren't even a recognised symptom of COVID. http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/04/stomach-complaints-common-in-covid-19-patients.html http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/04/stomach-compla... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172493/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172493/ And thats just two, there are many more. Bear in mind they were _all_ covid positive. It wasn't someone saying "I had the snuffles". Lab confirmed covid cases. They are also medical, either nurses or doctors. > In reality lock down has caused some deaths. The virus has caused some - or slightly accelerated some, it's not really clear how much life-years reduction has really taken place given the absolutely on-average mortality profile. excess mortality in april was ~880(with smoothing) people a day. but sure, its all just a conspiracy. Given that the normal causes of excess death have been significantly truncated: driving, drinking and sports, its fairly reasonable to assume that standard causes of death have dropped. We can expect significant spike in deaths from chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes and copd, but that takes time. > ultra-lax reporting and suddenly changed death certificate standards that the UK has introduced. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877302/guidance-for-doctors-completing-medical-certificates-of-cause-of-death-covid-19.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... actually its been tightened up, and been told to be more specific. Normally an old person dying in a home is put down to "old age", or, if they fall down the stairs: "terminal event" (falls are a massive killer) before you start talking about attending doctors, none of that happens in practice. Its whoever needs the ash cash that certifies the death.(it depends on the consultant. I know of one who managed to buy a porche with the ash cash. Although I think the payments have stopped now) Or if its outside hospital, who ever answers the phone. Look, I'm never going to change your mind, but just look at those stats. Something caused a huge spike. That spike started dropping before lockdown ended. That looks like a standard epidemic curve to me. I don't see how it can be reasonably read differently
- pw201 6y ago
  > If it hadn't been noticed, the English death toll would eventually have matched the case count. In about 60 years or so. >> In the UK, we were loosing 1100 people a day entirely through covid > which is not true and has never been true. Excess death stats (all cause deaths over and above the average for the time of year) are available[1] and peak at 12000 in a week or about 1700 a day. I'd say you deserve your downvotes in this case. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/htgq14/oc_uk_deaths_20102020/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/htgq14/oc_...
  - thu2111 6y ago
    The inability to use data is maddening. Excess deaths is not the same thing as "deaths caused by COVID". This conflation relies on the assumption that you can virtually empty hospitals out and have no effect on mortality at all, which is absurd. What are all those surgeons doing, exactly? If COVID is so deadly, why do some countries show no difference in excess deaths vs previous years?
    - pw201 6y ago
      > Excess deaths is not the same thing as "deaths caused by COVID". This conflation relies on the assumption that you can virtually empty hospitals out and have no effect on mortality at all, which is absurd. I know that excess deaths aren't the same as deaths caused by COVID. The idea that you can lockdown in week 13 and have 12,000 excess deaths per week 3 weeks later because hospitals were "virtually empty" also seems absurd. Emergency healthcare remained available and the messaging was that people should still go to hospital if they were ill. I do expect deaths because routine healthcare was limited during lockdown, including people who died during the period of lockdown because they couldn't get hospital treatment (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/08/more-people-dying-at-home-during-covid-19-pandemic-uk-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/08/more-people-...), but without further evidence, I'd be sceptical that this was the dominant effect. I'm not sure what you're claiming here: are you saying that deaths because people couldn't access healthcare are almost entirely the cause of the UK's excess death peak? What is your evidence for that claim? > If COVID is so deadly, why do some countries show no difference in excess deaths vs previous years? https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking... has Germany's recorded COVID-19 deaths and excess deaths as 8,538 and 7,549 respectively, and Switzerland's at 1,668 and 1,567. Your question seems to boil down to "why did some countries do so much better at containing the epidemic than others?" I don't know, although Germany and Switzerland seem better organised than the UK so that might have something to do with it.

thu2111 6y ago

It's actually even more useless than that. The wording has to be taken entirely literally: in the last few days it was discovered that PHE was reporting a COVID death as anyone who ever tested positive and who has subsequently died. Not of COVID. Not even with COVID. Someone who has ever had it, and then died any time later for any reason at all. Under this definition COVID-19 is a terminal disease from which nobody ever recovers. If it hadn't been noticed, the English death toll would eventually have matched the case count. Matt Hancock was apparently furious when he found out, now a review of PHE has been triggered as they've been serving the UK with bogus stats for months. Notethe coviddata site says PHE wasn't even deduplicating tests until 2nd July. So "case count" before then was also misleading. 30,000 positive cases vanished overnight and that assumes they did the deduplication correctly, but the government is so bad at data handling that at this point it's unclear if any stats can be trusted. This stuff is really important and it's clear a lot of people on HN are in denial about it, because each time it gets brought up a torrent of downvotes follows. The COVID stats are wrong. They're not even just useless, they're actively misleading. They lead to beliefs like this one: In the UK, we were loosing 1100 people a day entirely through covid which is not true and has never been true. It's a belief based on assuming the stats are measuring what actually matters/what people want to know. In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus.

KaiserPro 6y ago
There are two sets of stats here, one from Public health england (PHE) and one from the Office for National Statistics(ONS). I am referencing the ONS when I say 1100 people a day, why? because the ONS stats can be compared to many years previous. PHE ones are collected by some consultancy company and are trash. The average daily death rate is found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... > In reality the stats are measuring what's easy to measure. It leads to huge over-reaction to what is in reality an extremely mild virus. The stats are measuring how many deaths are occurring above the normal average death rate for that period. _something_ caused an extra 1100 deaths a day. Sure you can say covid is a _very_ mild virus. It might be for some, but out of my friends that have had it (as in tested positive) 1 desaturated to 88% every night. 1 had a fever for 14 days(as in bedbound) 3 had a week long fever, 5 were asymptomatic 3 had epic shits for a weeks. All of these people are < 40. of the people that were > 40 and tested positive, all 3 died. However that's because at the time they were only testing inpatients. So, with the greatest of respect, you can take your "mild virus" and "its really not 1100 extra deaths a day" and shove it up your arse.
- thu2111 6y ago
  The source you cited is https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ which isn't reporting excess mortality, that site reports data from PHE and other regional bodies. As you know, those values are wrong, which is why they're now labelled as "COVID associated deaths", a label which speaks to the meaninglessness of the values. Excess deaths is an entirely different statistic. We can assume total mortality is correct, but that says nothing about what causes it. For example, many excess deaths are clearly not caused by COVID because COVID isn't mentioned on the death certificate, but rather some other problem, even with the ultra-lax reporting and suddenly changed death certificate standards that the UK has introduced. In reality lock down has caused some deaths. The virus has caused some - or slightly accelerated some, it's not really clear how much life-years reduction has really taken place given the absolutely on-average mortality profile. I'm very sorry to hear about your friends, but bear in mind "epic shits" aren't even a recognised symptom of COVID. It's a respiratory disease. There's a lot of conflation going on where people are reporting things that aren't COVID as if it was some new but hitherto unknown side effect of the virus. In reality, other kinds of illness didn't stop because a new virus turned up and people can still get sick with the flu or many other diseases - as they do every year - even though COVID is more well known by this point.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    > "epic shits" aren't even a recognised symptom of COVID. http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/04/stomach-complaints-common-in-covid-19-patients.html http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/04/stomach-compla... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172493/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172493/ And thats just two, there are many more. Bear in mind they were _all_ covid positive. It wasn't someone saying "I had the snuffles". Lab confirmed covid cases. They are also medical, either nurses or doctors. > In reality lock down has caused some deaths. The virus has caused some - or slightly accelerated some, it's not really clear how much life-years reduction has really taken place given the absolutely on-average mortality profile. excess mortality in april was ~880(with smoothing) people a day. but sure, its all just a conspiracy. Given that the normal causes of excess death have been significantly truncated: driving, drinking and sports, its fairly reasonable to assume that standard causes of death have dropped. We can expect significant spike in deaths from chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes and copd, but that takes time. > ultra-lax reporting and suddenly changed death certificate standards that the UK has introduced. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877302/guidance-for-doctors-completing-medical-certificates-of-cause-of-death-covid-19.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... actually its been tightened up, and been told to be more specific. Normally an old person dying in a home is put down to "old age", or, if they fall down the stairs: "terminal event" (falls are a massive killer) before you start talking about attending doctors, none of that happens in practice. Its whoever needs the ash cash that certifies the death.(it depends on the consultant. I know of one who managed to buy a porche with the ash cash. Although I think the payments have stopped now) Or if its outside hospital, who ever answers the phone. Look, I'm never going to change your mind, but just look at those stats. Something caused a huge spike. That spike started dropping before lockdown ended. That looks like a standard epidemic curve to me. I don't see how it can be reasonably read differently
pw201 6y ago
> If it hadn't been noticed, the English death toll would eventually have matched the case count. In about 60 years or so. >> In the UK, we were loosing 1100 people a day entirely through covid > which is not true and has never been true. Excess death stats (all cause deaths over and above the average for the time of year) are available[1] and peak at 12000 in a week or about 1700 a day. I'd say you deserve your downvotes in this case. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/htgq14/oc_uk_deaths_20102020/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/htgq14/oc_...
- thu2111 6y ago
  The inability to use data is maddening. Excess deaths is not the same thing as "deaths caused by COVID". This conflation relies on the assumption that you can virtually empty hospitals out and have no effect on mortality at all, which is absurd. What are all those surgeons doing, exactly? If COVID is so deadly, why do some countries show no difference in excess deaths vs previous years?
  - pw201 6y ago
    > Excess deaths is not the same thing as "deaths caused by COVID". This conflation relies on the assumption that you can virtually empty hospitals out and have no effect on mortality at all, which is absurd. I know that excess deaths aren't the same as deaths caused by COVID. The idea that you can lockdown in week 13 and have 12,000 excess deaths per week 3 weeks later because hospitals were "virtually empty" also seems absurd. Emergency healthcare remained available and the messaging was that people should still go to hospital if they were ill. I do expect deaths because routine healthcare was limited during lockdown, including people who died during the period of lockdown because they couldn't get hospital treatment (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/08/more-people-dying-at-home-during-covid-19-pandemic-uk-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/08/more-people-...), but without further evidence, I'd be sceptical that this was the dominant effect. I'm not sure what you're claiming here: are you saying that deaths because people couldn't access healthcare are almost entirely the cause of the UK's excess death peak? What is your evidence for that claim? > If COVID is so deadly, why do some countries show no difference in excess deaths vs previous years? https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking... has Germany's recorded COVID-19 deaths and excess deaths as 8,538 and 7,549 respectively, and Switzerland's at 1,668 and 1,567. Your question seems to boil down to "why did some countries do so much better at containing the epidemic than others?" I don't know, although Germany and Switzerland seem better organised than the UK so that might have something to do with it.