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We can use deaths-above-replacement (among other things) to determine how many more people died than normal from all causes, and then whittle down the obviously

We can use deaths-above-replacement (among other things) to determine how many more people died than normal from all causes, and then whittle down the obviously-not-from-contracting-covid deaths from there. The submission goes into very specific detail about how they did this, and they account for many of the potential confounders related to doing this analysis. I believe we can be much more precise than you're giving us credit for in determining if contracting COVID was the direct cause of someone's death, even with comorbidities. To be totally honest, when I see someone say, "we can't ever be totally sure" I nearly wholly discount that opinion, because it's very cheap to proffer, almost always true, and of very little value.

fastball 6y ago
It is of immense value to say this when you have people in this very thread saying we might as well count everyone who had COVID as a death from COVID. Also one of us is confused, and I don't think it is me. From what I've gleaned from this article, the 900,000 figure is not (as you say) "determining if contracting COVID was the direct cause of someone's death", but rather trying to figure out how many people would have died if this had been a "normal" year, i.e. if we could go to a parallel universe and make COVID never exist. This is absolutely not the same thing, as such a scenario will also count deaths as a result of our response to the virus as a death "due to the virus". This is my impression as they seem to be including things like suicide (criteria "c") and people who died because people with actual COVID were taking up hospital beds (criteria "b").
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  "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." I think this is the correct way to think about this problem, as it is likely to be an underestimate, rather than an overestimate. In other words, counting suicides probably doesn't matter, as the number is very low. The paper says as much: "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." The paper overall goes into very great detail about what was and wasn't included and why, which is vastly more rigorous than what you seem to be presenting, which is effectively throwing up your hands and saying, "we'll never know!"

fastball 6y ago

It is of immense value to say this when you have people in this very thread saying we might as well count everyone who had COVID as a death from COVID. Also one of us is confused, and I don't think it is me. From what I've gleaned from this article, the 900,000 figure is not (as you say) "determining if contracting COVID was the direct cause of someone's death", but rather trying to figure out how many people would have died if this had been a "normal" year, i.e. if we could go to a parallel universe and make COVID never exist. This is absolutely not the same thing, as such a scenario will also count deaths as a result of our response to the virus as a death "due to the virus". This is my impression as they seem to be including things like suicide (criteria "c") and people who died because people with actual COVID were taking up hospital beds (criteria "b").

TameAntelope 6y ago
"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." I think this is the correct way to think about this problem, as it is likely to be an underestimate, rather than an overestimate. In other words, counting suicides probably doesn't matter, as the number is very low. The paper says as much: "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." The paper overall goes into very great detail about what was and wasn't included and why, which is vastly more rigorous than what you seem to be presenting, which is effectively throwing up your hands and saying, "we'll never know!"