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>the discrepancy between reported deaths and analyses of death rates compared to expected death rates, sometimes referred to as “excess mortality,” suggests tha

>the discrepancy between reported deaths and analyses of death rates compared to expected death rates, sometimes referred to as “excess mortality,” suggests that the total COVID-19 death rate is many multiples larger than official reports. So...not as many people died as we thought were going to so we're now just going to arbitrarily say any excess death was a covid death just to make sure the numbers look like what we think they should? These are the kinds of statistical shenanigans that have been going on all year and people wonder why people question 'the science.'

mypalmike 5y ago
Comparison of expected versus actual outcomes is a reliable method to estimate the overall effect of a new input. Can you specifically point out how such analysis constitutes "shenanigans"?
- exporectomy 5y ago
  It includes deaths caused by the response to covid, such as people avoiding hospital for other diseases and whatever the deathy consequences of lockdowns might be.
  - mypalmike 5y ago
    Of course. This is addressed in the article.
crazygringo 5y ago
That's not what they do at all. Just a few sentences later, they break down changes in death rates into 6 categories -- 3 that are increases but also 3 that are decreases. But in any case, it's a pretty reasonable first-order assumption that excess deaths are from COVID, that can then be analyzed in more detail per-population to see if it continues to be plausible, e.g. whether excess deaths were also correlated in time and place with COVID, etc. And isn't this precisely the kind of double-checking of official numbers that is valuable? Official statistics don't always tell the truth -- witness Cuomo specifically undercounting nursing home deaths. The shenanigans we should be concerned with aren't this -- it's shenanigans in official reporting. Thank goodness we live in a democracy with free speech where these kinds of things can be questioned. Challenging findings to produce stronger, more trustworthy final results ultimately increases faith in science, don't you think? It sounds like you're arguing findings should never be challenged, which isn't science at all.
- fullshark 5y ago
  They then say that they considered all the 3 factors that lead to increases to be COVID deaths: > The main potential increases in excess mortality due to deferred care and increases in drug overdose and depression are hard to quantify at this point or are of a much smaller magnitude. Given that there is insufficient evidence to estimate these contributions to excess mortality, for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality Basically the 6 factor breakdown is a way to decrease the volume of expected deaths to make the excess mortality number larger. 100% of which was attributed to COVID.

mypalmike 5y ago

Comparison of expected versus actual outcomes is a reliable method to estimate the overall effect of a new input. Can you specifically point out how such analysis constitutes "shenanigans"?

exporectomy 5y ago
It includes deaths caused by the response to covid, such as people avoiding hospital for other diseases and whatever the deathy consequences of lockdowns might be.
- mypalmike 5y ago
  Of course. This is addressed in the article.

crazygringo 5y ago

That's not what they do at all. Just a few sentences later, they break down changes in death rates into 6 categories -- 3 that are increases but also 3 that are decreases. But in any case, it's a pretty reasonable first-order assumption that excess deaths are from COVID, that can then be analyzed in more detail per-population to see if it continues to be plausible, e.g. whether excess deaths were also correlated in time and place with COVID, etc. And isn't this precisely the kind of double-checking of official numbers that is valuable? Official statistics don't always tell the truth -- witness Cuomo specifically undercounting nursing home deaths. The shenanigans we should be concerned with aren't this -- it's shenanigans in official reporting. Thank goodness we live in a democracy with free speech where these kinds of things can be questioned. Challenging findings to produce stronger, more trustworthy final results ultimately increases faith in science, don't you think? It sounds like you're arguing findings should never be challenged, which isn't science at all.

fullshark 5y ago
They then say that they considered all the 3 factors that lead to increases to be COVID deaths: > The main potential increases in excess mortality due to deferred care and increases in drug overdose and depression are hard to quantify at this point or are of a much smaller magnitude. Given that there is insufficient evidence to estimate these contributions to excess mortality, for now we assume that total COVID-19 deaths equal excess mortality Basically the 6 factor breakdown is a way to decrease the volume of expected deaths to make the excess mortality number larger. 100% of which was attributed to COVID.