7 ms·

Covid Deaths

27 points by kinlan 6y ago

sgt 6y ago
I like the intention, some comments from me: 1. The site starts off with "0 deaths" and hovers there for a second or two. I guess depending on how quickly the API can respond. 2. I personally believe COVID 19 is more comparable to the Spanish flu, therefore it should be illustrated on the same graph. I think that is probably 2-3 times the number of deaths due to COVID.
- mcguire 6y ago
  675,000 deaths in the US from Spanish Flu (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n...) over 2 years.
systemvoltage 6y ago
Key difference would be the age demographics. Wars are so devastating not only because people die, but it is young people who die. As unethical as it sounds and completely from the perspective of impact on human capital, COVID is far less damaging.
- wobblyasp 6y ago
  That is a completely inhumane statement. You may not believe that "the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members"; but how dare you say that someone losing a parent or loved one is "less damaging". And less damaging to what? The economy? The economy will survive. Your grandparents won't.
  - jdxcode 6y ago
    Young people lose more of their own life than older people.
  - pugio 6y ago
    He specifically says "less damaging" ... "on human capital", implying a workforce/economic perspective. I would suggest you consider toning down your outrage. It's important and necessary to be able to compare and contrast tragedies without devolving into arguments about the incommensurability of human life. Such discussions may appear cold and calculating ("inhumane") but we must have them - ignoring a part of reality because it hurts does not make it go away. I have seen reactions similar to yours around people unused to discussing issues like medical triage. If we truly want to understand a phenomenon, mitigate its impact, and do the actual most good, we need to be able to analyze and compare things from all angles: social, economic, political, moral, emotional, etc. So long as such discussions are conducted in a shared context of understanding how weighty and intense these issues are (as it seems to me the parent was doing), they are for the good.
    - lenitabinol 6y ago
      Wise words. Wish more people took this measured approach to complex issues.
    - watwut 6y ago
      United States economically gained on WWII. So at least economically, that was not bigger loss. So I don't think he meant economic loss from the event.
    - wobblyasp 6y ago
      Toning down my outrage? We are talking about human lives. Opening up the economy more broadly WILL equate to more deaths in all age groups. The western world had an opportunity to contain and eradicate the disease. We failed. The weak and infirm should not have to pay the price for our thick headedness.
      - pugio 6y ago
        > Toning down my outrage? We are talking about human lives I would be great very grateful to other HNers if someone could point me towards a book or resource for how to effectively communicate with people who are in this mental groove. I feel as though my point was missed, and I can't think of any more effective way to convey it. (EDIT: I suppose I could say that outrage tends to shut down discussion by inciting emotion over reason. I feel just as strongly about these human lives, which is why I want to be able to talk about them clearly. I do not think saying this will affect the parent's mode, and I'm wondering if there's some better way to do that.)
  - collyw 6y ago
    Disagree. The average age of death from covid seems to be pretty much the same as average age of death in a few countries that I have seen the comparison done (Uk being one of them). Do you really think keeping someone alive in a care home (where most of the deaths occurred) for an extra year or so is the same as someone in tehir 20's being killed? You seem to underestimate the suffering that the economic damage will cause. It's already predicted that more will die from hunger due to the measures that have been taken than from the virus itself. https://time.com/5864803/oxfam-hunger-covid-19/ https://time.com/5864803/oxfam-hunger-covid-19/
    - watwut 6y ago
      Wars kill old people too? Specifically care home people end up dying from lack of nutrition, inability to escape. Old handle hardship of being refuge badly. WWII had higher civilian casualties then soldiers. That is not to remove suffering of soldiers, but people here tend to talk about wars as if it did not affected everyone living there.
    - jay_kyburz 6y ago
      There is no "economic" reason somebody needs to die of hunger. We may choose not to give food to hungry people, and we might choose to not pivot to food production.
      - collyw 6y ago
        Are you going to get food to those people? I personally don't have the money to deliver it to all of them.
  - salt-licker 6y ago
    Quality-Adjusted Life Years is a common measure of disease burden. Also, I think a parent who has lost a child would have something to say to you about the difference in emotional impact
  - vortico 6y ago
    The older I get, the less I value the rest of my life. So it's fair to say that younger deaths are worse than older deaths on a society scale.
    - wobblyasp 6y ago
      You value your life less as you get old; however, much like religion, we should not be forcing our own views on everyone else. There are plenty of elderly who would love nothing more then to continuing to see their children, and their children's children grow up; and who would much rather not die intubated, or worse, suffocating.
      - vortico 6y ago
        Are you saying that elderly prefer to see their children die first or themselves? We're not debating whether they want to die or not, that's obvious. We're debating whether they value their lives more than their children or children's children.
  - cco 6y ago
    My only remaining grandfather is 89 years old. He still skies during the winter, his cognition is still good, that is to say he still has a full life. I would kill him without thinking too hard if it meant saving my nephew, aged 10, from dying. My grandfather lived a full life and I'm sure if he had the choice to trade his life for his great grandchild he'd sacrifice what he has remaining in order to gift the chance at that same full life to his progeny. On a societal scale we think the same way, an 80 year old dying is less bad than a 10 year old dying, its less tragic both emotionally and from society's perspective, economically. Losing a grandparent is tough, losing a sibling in the prime of their life is terrible, and losing a child is devastating. I can't comment on OP's feelings on the subject, they could have aid it in a callous and inhumane way, I don't know their inner thoughts, but the essence is true even if it is painful.
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    “Completely inhumane” is one of those phrases that immediately raises suspicion that someone is not listening but rather had already made their mind up. Do you really think that someone truly has no humanity? Isn’t it more likely that you don’t get where they’re coming from? Even intuitively, war seems much more damaging than a pandemic if an equal number of people die in both.
  - cik2e 6y ago
    Here is a rundown of attempts to quantify the statistical value of a human life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life Obviously, these methods don’t account for the emotional value to loved ones. Maybe they should. Attempts to quantify that could include factors like mental health, and future wages (e.g. losing a parent earlier in life).
  - starwatch 6y ago
    An interesting listen to how human life is valued was published fairly recently. Quite sobering: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-vs-the-economy https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-v...
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    I totally agree. Sorry, I did preface it "As unethical as it sounds". Your comment seems to be "cancelling" mine purely on emotional basis despite of prefacing my intentions. God forbid, if I had purely stated it with no warnings. I agree, it is pretty shitty to thing to say that older people are not as valuable to the society as the young. There is objectivity and truth to it, although it might be unpleasant. I am afraid that this is what's going on in the world today - objectivity takes a backseat, emotional and knee-jerk "cancel" culture prevails. It deeply bothers me.
- mcguire 6y ago
  In countries like Sweden, it's possible that COVID is a net economic positive, by removing unproductive, high-cost individuals.
  - mnd999 6y ago
    Wow, there’s a lot of eugenicists on tonight.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      In my defense, it was sarcasm. Yes, I know it's the firmly held opinion of many here.
      - henrikschroder 6y ago
        I've only ever seen people use that argument as a strawman when attacking people who argue against lockdowns, or who argue that Sweden's outcome is not a disaster.
        mcguire 6y ago
        How about if I stated it in terms of quality adjusted years of life and net health care system costs?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
danhak 6y ago
In public health, mortality and morbidity are often expressed in units of DALY (Disability-adjusted life years) or QALY (Quality-adjusted life years). Because COVID deaths are being predominantly borne by the old, and deaths due to war are predominantly borne by the young, I would be very curious to see the equivalent charts in DALYs. In other words, not "what is the number deaths" but "what is the expected number of healthy years of life lost."
- xnx 6y ago
  Thanks for mentioning DALY. It seems like this would be a much better metric than counting deaths. I've been looking for regularly updated charts using YLL (years of life lost), but DALY seems even better. It's disappointing that DALY isn't the most commonly shared/referenced chart. I need to find COVID DALY numbers compared to other causes of death to better understand this.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  QALY (quality-adjusted ...) is a similar term used in many contexts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year DALY and QALY compared: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29431169/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29431169/ https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-technology-assessment-in-health-care/article/using-qalys-versus-dalys-to-measure-costeffectiveness-how-much-does-it-matter/75D3703E2EBB20E4837B43716EBB8C6E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journa...
collyw 6y ago
Why don't they add in something for comparison, like yearly flu deaths, or road accients so people ca get a real perspective on this. Personally I feel that it has been hyped up beyond belief but I am aware that many disagree. It appears to be around 3 times as bad as normal flu season (going by infection fatality rate), yet for flu we don't really bother much at all. A bad flu season may get some attention in the press but not much more, though a bad flu may double the IFR. We are destroying economies because of covid, and I predict that the long term damage will be far worse than the virus. I think its important to keep a sense of perspective.
- black_puppydog 6y ago
  It seems worse than the flu while we're locking down countries. The same measures applied to regular flu seem to essentially eradicate it (see other thread currently on the front page) while covid is shaping up to overwhelm our healthcare systems here in Europe once again, now that winter is coming. I see this a lot, comparing covid under "lock down, wear masks" treatment with regular influenza under what is really a control treatment...
  - collyw 6y ago
    The obvious test for that hypothesis would be Sweden, who's numbers have been pretty similar to most of Europe. The models used to justify lock down predicted 40,000 deaths there and nothing like that occurred.
- leipert 6y ago
  One thing to consider: This "3 times as bad" happened during summer in the northern hemisphere. Influenza and corona viruses thrive from November to March, so it might likely get worse.
  - collyw 6y ago
    True, but I don't see any reason to assume it will be worse this time round for a number of reasons. (The IFR that I am using as a measure has been dropping rather than rising, as tests show way more asymptomatic cases). * Many of the deaths were in care homes, the initial strategy was to send them there (in the countries that got hit early on). I think everyone realised in hindsight that this was a bad decision. * Many of the most vulnerable people will have died already, the population that is left will be fitter and have more immunity. (A study of Mardid care homes showed 61% of residents had antibodies a few months back, and ~30% of staff). * A lot more is known about the virus now. * Everyone's lifestyle has changed massively.
DevKoala 6y ago
During World War I, the population of the world was 1.7 Billion. Just one of many other flaws in this comparison.
- UncleEntity 6y ago
  Add to the fact the US wasn't in the war for four years as claimed but sent troops in 1917. Add the Civil War (~620,000), Spanish Flu (~675,000) and WWII (405,399) to the chart too.
- starwatch 6y ago
  This chart is about covid in the US though so I suppose the global population isn't really the yardstick you want to use. US population in 1918 was around 100m [1]. If WWI deaths took place over 4 years it'd be around 30k per year [2]. With that as the basis the US covid death rate is quite a bit worse than WWI in terms of absolute numbers. [1]: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=population&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:US&ifdim=country&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&... [2]: Assuming the numbers in the chart are accurate, and that the deaths were evenly distributed across the 4 years
frogpelt 6y ago
The US has always been different than other countries. It's the reason we have more gun deaths than other countries and it will be the reason we will always lead in pandemic deaths if they somehow reach our shores. You will never get 20 million Americans per week to line up for testing unless it's the same 20 million over and over. You will never get Americans to sign up for voluntary contact tracing or vaccines. You can barely get half of us to wear masks all the time. Furthermore, the federal government is limited in what it can enforce. It is up to the states individually to enforce these rules. The populace in many places have no desire to continue a locked-down, mask-mandated existence, regardless of the cost. If COVID-19 had the same symptoms as Ebola all these things would change dramatically. I say all this because the Election is marked on this timeline as if it's going to have a major impact on the pandemic in the U.S. I don't believe it will. We may see an impact but I think it will just be a result of having the pandemic fizzling out due to herd immunity etc.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It strikes me as quite dishonest to put World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, but not World War II on this chart. It's hard to imagine selection criteria that could generate that set of wars other than "don't put anything above the COVID line".
stblack 6y ago
I'm skeptical of the source numbers here. The early dates on the X-axis were over 7-months ago. Full factor mortality adjusted tallies from early months don't seem to be included? I can find no mention of full-factor mortality adjustments on covidtracking.com. In other words, are the numbers verified and adjusted by other methods? Full-factor mortality is among the most accurate measurements of society. Yet there appears to be no mention of it. Did I miss it?
nurettin 6y ago
Why is the US Election day marked on the graph? Is it saying "Lots of Covid deaths, also US Election wink wink"?

27 points by kinlan 6y ago

sgt 6y ago

I like the intention, some comments from me: 1. The site starts off with "0 deaths" and hovers there for a second or two. I guess depending on how quickly the API can respond. 2. I personally believe COVID 19 is more comparable to the Spanish flu, therefore it should be illustrated on the same graph. I think that is probably 2-3 times the number of deaths due to COVID.

mcguire 6y ago
675,000 deaths in the US from Spanish Flu (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n...) over 2 years.

systemvoltage 6y ago

Key difference would be the age demographics. Wars are so devastating not only because people die, but it is young people who die. As unethical as it sounds and completely from the perspective of impact on human capital, COVID is far less damaging.

wobblyasp 6y ago
That is a completely inhumane statement. You may not believe that "the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members"; but how dare you say that someone losing a parent or loved one is "less damaging". And less damaging to what? The economy? The economy will survive. Your grandparents won't.
- jdxcode 6y ago
  Young people lose more of their own life than older people.
- pugio 6y ago
  He specifically says "less damaging" ... "on human capital", implying a workforce/economic perspective. I would suggest you consider toning down your outrage. It's important and necessary to be able to compare and contrast tragedies without devolving into arguments about the incommensurability of human life. Such discussions may appear cold and calculating ("inhumane") but we must have them - ignoring a part of reality because it hurts does not make it go away. I have seen reactions similar to yours around people unused to discussing issues like medical triage. If we truly want to understand a phenomenon, mitigate its impact, and do the actual most good, we need to be able to analyze and compare things from all angles: social, economic, political, moral, emotional, etc. So long as such discussions are conducted in a shared context of understanding how weighty and intense these issues are (as it seems to me the parent was doing), they are for the good.
  - lenitabinol 6y ago
    Wise words. Wish more people took this measured approach to complex issues.
  - watwut 6y ago
    United States economically gained on WWII. So at least economically, that was not bigger loss. So I don't think he meant economic loss from the event.
  - wobblyasp 6y ago
    Toning down my outrage? We are talking about human lives. Opening up the economy more broadly WILL equate to more deaths in all age groups. The western world had an opportunity to contain and eradicate the disease. We failed. The weak and infirm should not have to pay the price for our thick headedness.
    - pugio 6y ago
      > Toning down my outrage? We are talking about human lives I would be great very grateful to other HNers if someone could point me towards a book or resource for how to effectively communicate with people who are in this mental groove. I feel as though my point was missed, and I can't think of any more effective way to convey it. (EDIT: I suppose I could say that outrage tends to shut down discussion by inciting emotion over reason. I feel just as strongly about these human lives, which is why I want to be able to talk about them clearly. I do not think saying this will affect the parent's mode, and I'm wondering if there's some better way to do that.)
- collyw 6y ago
  Disagree. The average age of death from covid seems to be pretty much the same as average age of death in a few countries that I have seen the comparison done (Uk being one of them). Do you really think keeping someone alive in a care home (where most of the deaths occurred) for an extra year or so is the same as someone in tehir 20's being killed? You seem to underestimate the suffering that the economic damage will cause. It's already predicted that more will die from hunger due to the measures that have been taken than from the virus itself. https://time.com/5864803/oxfam-hunger-covid-19/ https://time.com/5864803/oxfam-hunger-covid-19/
  - watwut 6y ago
    Wars kill old people too? Specifically care home people end up dying from lack of nutrition, inability to escape. Old handle hardship of being refuge badly. WWII had higher civilian casualties then soldiers. That is not to remove suffering of soldiers, but people here tend to talk about wars as if it did not affected everyone living there.
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    There is no "economic" reason somebody needs to die of hunger. We may choose not to give food to hungry people, and we might choose to not pivot to food production.
    - collyw 6y ago
      Are you going to get food to those people? I personally don't have the money to deliver it to all of them.
- salt-licker 6y ago
  Quality-Adjusted Life Years is a common measure of disease burden. Also, I think a parent who has lost a child would have something to say to you about the difference in emotional impact
- vortico 6y ago
  The older I get, the less I value the rest of my life. So it's fair to say that younger deaths are worse than older deaths on a society scale.
  - wobblyasp 6y ago
    You value your life less as you get old; however, much like religion, we should not be forcing our own views on everyone else. There are plenty of elderly who would love nothing more then to continuing to see their children, and their children's children grow up; and who would much rather not die intubated, or worse, suffocating.
    - vortico 6y ago
      Are you saying that elderly prefer to see their children die first or themselves? We're not debating whether they want to die or not, that's obvious. We're debating whether they value their lives more than their children or children's children.
- cco 6y ago
  My only remaining grandfather is 89 years old. He still skies during the winter, his cognition is still good, that is to say he still has a full life. I would kill him without thinking too hard if it meant saving my nephew, aged 10, from dying. My grandfather lived a full life and I'm sure if he had the choice to trade his life for his great grandchild he'd sacrifice what he has remaining in order to gift the chance at that same full life to his progeny. On a societal scale we think the same way, an 80 year old dying is less bad than a 10 year old dying, its less tragic both emotionally and from society's perspective, economically. Losing a grandparent is tough, losing a sibling in the prime of their life is terrible, and losing a child is devastating. I can't comment on OP's feelings on the subject, they could have aid it in a callous and inhumane way, I don't know their inner thoughts, but the essence is true even if it is painful.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  “Completely inhumane” is one of those phrases that immediately raises suspicion that someone is not listening but rather had already made their mind up. Do you really think that someone truly has no humanity? Isn’t it more likely that you don’t get where they’re coming from? Even intuitively, war seems much more damaging than a pandemic if an equal number of people die in both.
- cik2e 6y ago
  Here is a rundown of attempts to quantify the statistical value of a human life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life Obviously, these methods don’t account for the emotional value to loved ones. Maybe they should. Attempts to quantify that could include factors like mental health, and future wages (e.g. losing a parent earlier in life).
- starwatch 6y ago
  An interesting listen to how human life is valued was published fairly recently. Quite sobering: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-vs-the-economy https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835571843/episode-991-lives-v...
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  I totally agree. Sorry, I did preface it "As unethical as it sounds". Your comment seems to be "cancelling" mine purely on emotional basis despite of prefacing my intentions. God forbid, if I had purely stated it with no warnings. I agree, it is pretty shitty to thing to say that older people are not as valuable to the society as the young. There is objectivity and truth to it, although it might be unpleasant. I am afraid that this is what's going on in the world today - objectivity takes a backseat, emotional and knee-jerk "cancel" culture prevails. It deeply bothers me.
mcguire 6y ago
In countries like Sweden, it's possible that COVID is a net economic positive, by removing unproductive, high-cost individuals.
- mnd999 6y ago
  Wow, there’s a lot of eugenicists on tonight.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    In my defense, it was sarcasm. Yes, I know it's the firmly held opinion of many here.
    - henrikschroder 6y ago
      I've only ever seen people use that argument as a strawman when attacking people who argue against lockdowns, or who argue that Sweden's outcome is not a disaster.
      - mcguire 6y ago
        How about if I stated it in terms of quality adjusted years of life and net health care system costs?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

danhak 6y ago

In public health, mortality and morbidity are often expressed in units of DALY (Disability-adjusted life years) or QALY (Quality-adjusted life years). Because COVID deaths are being predominantly borne by the old, and deaths due to war are predominantly borne by the young, I would be very curious to see the equivalent charts in DALYs. In other words, not "what is the number deaths" but "what is the expected number of healthy years of life lost."

xnx 6y ago
Thanks for mentioning DALY. It seems like this would be a much better metric than counting deaths. I've been looking for regularly updated charts using YLL (years of life lost), but DALY seems even better. It's disappointing that DALY isn't the most commonly shared/referenced chart. I need to find COVID DALY numbers compared to other causes of death to better understand this.
dredmorbius 6y ago
QALY (quality-adjusted ...) is a similar term used in many contexts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year DALY and QALY compared: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29431169/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29431169/ https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-technology-assessment-in-health-care/article/using-qalys-versus-dalys-to-measure-costeffectiveness-how-much-does-it-matter/75D3703E2EBB20E4837B43716EBB8C6E https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journa...

collyw 6y ago

Why don't they add in something for comparison, like yearly flu deaths, or road accients so people ca get a real perspective on this. Personally I feel that it has been hyped up beyond belief but I am aware that many disagree. It appears to be around 3 times as bad as normal flu season (going by infection fatality rate), yet for flu we don't really bother much at all. A bad flu season may get some attention in the press but not much more, though a bad flu may double the IFR. We are destroying economies because of covid, and I predict that the long term damage will be far worse than the virus. I think its important to keep a sense of perspective.

black_puppydog 6y ago
It seems worse than the flu while we're locking down countries. The same measures applied to regular flu seem to essentially eradicate it (see other thread currently on the front page) while covid is shaping up to overwhelm our healthcare systems here in Europe once again, now that winter is coming. I see this a lot, comparing covid under "lock down, wear masks" treatment with regular influenza under what is really a control treatment...
- collyw 6y ago
  The obvious test for that hypothesis would be Sweden, who's numbers have been pretty similar to most of Europe. The models used to justify lock down predicted 40,000 deaths there and nothing like that occurred.
leipert 6y ago
One thing to consider: This "3 times as bad" happened during summer in the northern hemisphere. Influenza and corona viruses thrive from November to March, so it might likely get worse.
- collyw 6y ago
  True, but I don't see any reason to assume it will be worse this time round for a number of reasons. (The IFR that I am using as a measure has been dropping rather than rising, as tests show way more asymptomatic cases). * Many of the deaths were in care homes, the initial strategy was to send them there (in the countries that got hit early on). I think everyone realised in hindsight that this was a bad decision. * Many of the most vulnerable people will have died already, the population that is left will be fitter and have more immunity. (A study of Mardid care homes showed 61% of residents had antibodies a few months back, and ~30% of staff). * A lot more is known about the virus now. * Everyone's lifestyle has changed massively.

DevKoala 6y ago

During World War I, the population of the world was 1.7 Billion. Just one of many other flaws in this comparison.

UncleEntity 6y ago
Add to the fact the US wasn't in the war for four years as claimed but sent troops in 1917. Add the Civil War (~620,000), Spanish Flu (~675,000) and WWII (405,399) to the chart too.
starwatch 6y ago
This chart is about covid in the US though so I suppose the global population isn't really the yardstick you want to use. US population in 1918 was around 100m [1]. If WWI deaths took place over 4 years it'd be around 30k per year [2]. With that as the basis the US covid death rate is quite a bit worse than WWI in terms of absolute numbers. [1]: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=population&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:US&ifdim=country&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&... [2]: Assuming the numbers in the chart are accurate, and that the deaths were evenly distributed across the 4 years

frogpelt 6y ago

The US has always been different than other countries. It's the reason we have more gun deaths than other countries and it will be the reason we will always lead in pandemic deaths if they somehow reach our shores. You will never get 20 million Americans per week to line up for testing unless it's the same 20 million over and over. You will never get Americans to sign up for voluntary contact tracing or vaccines. You can barely get half of us to wear masks all the time. Furthermore, the federal government is limited in what it can enforce. It is up to the states individually to enforce these rules. The populace in many places have no desire to continue a locked-down, mask-mandated existence, regardless of the cost. If COVID-19 had the same symptoms as Ebola all these things would change dramatically. I say all this because the Election is marked on this timeline as if it's going to have a major impact on the pandemic in the U.S. I don't believe it will. We may see an impact but I think it will just be a result of having the pandemic fizzling out due to herd immunity etc.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

It strikes me as quite dishonest to put World War I, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, but not World War II on this chart. It's hard to imagine selection criteria that could generate that set of wars other than "don't put anything above the COVID line".

stblack 6y ago

I'm skeptical of the source numbers here. The early dates on the X-axis were over 7-months ago. Full factor mortality adjusted tallies from early months don't seem to be included? I can find no mention of full-factor mortality adjustments on covidtracking.com. In other words, are the numbers verified and adjusted by other methods? Full-factor mortality is among the most accurate measurements of society. Yet there appears to be no mention of it. Did I miss it?

nurettin 6y ago

Why is the US Election day marked on the graph? Is it saying "Lots of Covid deaths, also US Election wink wink"?