5 ms·

This is excess mortality, as in “above what would be expected in a normal year based on demographics”. So, if looking at historical trends and the current demo

This is excess mortality, as in “above what would be expected in a normal year based on demographics”. So, if looking at historical trends and the current demographics as compared with those trends we had a prior expectation of your 1%, then what we we actually observed is 1.17%.

timmg 5y ago
Yeah, I get that. I guess I just mean that the worst pandemic of the last 100 years and (so far) it's maybe 17% deaths over the baseline. That feels kinda low.
- msbarnett 5y ago
  17% excess mortality (and that’s assuming this 1% baseline we pulled out of the air, remember) doesn’t mean that the pandemic is only responsible for those excess deaths – a bunch of people who might have otherwise been expected to get hit by a car worked from home all year, or died from COVID instead, etc. So the pandemic is responsible for the 17% (in this scenario) uplift above baseline plus an unknown portion of that baseline itself. To be honest one cause, which changed a lot of behaviour that rolls into the baseline, pushing the global baseline up that much seems pretty impressive to me. Would be also interesting to consider distribution of that excess and how China fared in the excess mortality department. After the early days they seemed to keep it tightly under control, and they contain an enormous portion of the world’s population. That might suggest that excess mortality elsewhere was even further above baseline and the excess mortality only looks this good because 1.2 billion people mostly stuck to baseline?
  - claytongulick 5y ago
    Apparently suicides and deaths from starvation were also up significantly. It will indeed be interesting to see how the distribution of deaths plays out.
    - msbarnett 5y ago
      > Apparently suicides and deaths from starvation were also up significantly Out of curiosity, do you have any sources on that? I’ve been interested in this topic after observing, locally, a number of politicians who had previously pushed hard to cut funding for mental health and who were ideologically opposed to the concept of lockdowns suddenly and vocally expressing a great deal of concern about mental health & a supposed uptick in suicides that was (they claimed) going to be worse than COVID itself. When all was said and done, though, suicide rates in my locality were significantly lower than average: https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/suicide-deaths-in-alberta-in-2020-fewer-than-what-was-recorded-last-year-1.5228242 https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/suicide-deaths-in-alberta-in-2020...
    - licyeus 5y ago
      Suicides were down (in USA) for 2020: https://www.axios.com/suicide-decreased-in-2020-pandemmic-mental-health-26196eaf-a245-4d21-85eb-eeb864a24449.html https://www.axios.com/suicide-decreased-in-2020-pandemmic-me...
    - sellyme 5y ago
      Whoever told you that was almost certainly lying. This was a very common claim amongst anti-lockdown protestors where I live, turns out when the yearly national suicide prevention report was published suicides had gone down significantly.
    - belltaco 5y ago
      How is it "apparent"? Suicides have been down https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-suicides-have-decreased-during-the-covid-19-pandemic https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-suicides-have-dec... Where are you getting your information from.
- bdcravens 5y ago
  An extra death for every 6 deaths seems pretty substantial to me, especially considering the skewed morbidity across age groups.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  17% increase seems kind of big, no? If plane crashes increased 17% in a single year, it would be bit. If cancer deaths increased 17% in a year, it would be pretty remarkable.
  - reader_mode 5y ago
    Remarkable yes - but society stopped for a year, how remarkable is that ? This is full on war state for a year or so. From what I can see in 2021 death rates in the US came to 1980s levels. It will also be interesting to see how death rates behave in the following years post covid, since it did affect elderly population disproportionately.
    - belltaco 5y ago
      It's only 17% due to the lockdowns. If not the deaths would be way higher, not just because of the higher numbers of people infected, but also because of overburdened hospitals unable to provide critical care and oxygen.
- umanwizard 5y ago
  Is it actually worse than the flu pandemics in the 50s and 60s?

timmg 5y ago

Yeah, I get that. I guess I just mean that the worst pandemic of the last 100 years and (so far) it's maybe 17% deaths over the baseline. That feels kinda low.

msbarnett 5y ago
17% excess mortality (and that’s assuming this 1% baseline we pulled out of the air, remember) doesn’t mean that the pandemic is only responsible for those excess deaths – a bunch of people who might have otherwise been expected to get hit by a car worked from home all year, or died from COVID instead, etc. So the pandemic is responsible for the 17% (in this scenario) uplift above baseline plus an unknown portion of that baseline itself. To be honest one cause, which changed a lot of behaviour that rolls into the baseline, pushing the global baseline up that much seems pretty impressive to me. Would be also interesting to consider distribution of that excess and how China fared in the excess mortality department. After the early days they seemed to keep it tightly under control, and they contain an enormous portion of the world’s population. That might suggest that excess mortality elsewhere was even further above baseline and the excess mortality only looks this good because 1.2 billion people mostly stuck to baseline?
- claytongulick 5y ago
  Apparently suicides and deaths from starvation were also up significantly. It will indeed be interesting to see how the distribution of deaths plays out.
  - msbarnett 5y ago
    > Apparently suicides and deaths from starvation were also up significantly Out of curiosity, do you have any sources on that? I’ve been interested in this topic after observing, locally, a number of politicians who had previously pushed hard to cut funding for mental health and who were ideologically opposed to the concept of lockdowns suddenly and vocally expressing a great deal of concern about mental health & a supposed uptick in suicides that was (they claimed) going to be worse than COVID itself. When all was said and done, though, suicide rates in my locality were significantly lower than average: https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/suicide-deaths-in-alberta-in-2020-fewer-than-what-was-recorded-last-year-1.5228242 https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/suicide-deaths-in-alberta-in-2020...
  - licyeus 5y ago
    Suicides were down (in USA) for 2020: https://www.axios.com/suicide-decreased-in-2020-pandemmic-mental-health-26196eaf-a245-4d21-85eb-eeb864a24449.html https://www.axios.com/suicide-decreased-in-2020-pandemmic-me...
  - sellyme 5y ago
    Whoever told you that was almost certainly lying. This was a very common claim amongst anti-lockdown protestors where I live, turns out when the yearly national suicide prevention report was published suicides had gone down significantly.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    How is it "apparent"? Suicides have been down https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-suicides-have-decreased-during-the-covid-19-pandemic https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-suicides-have-dec... Where are you getting your information from.
bdcravens 5y ago
An extra death for every 6 deaths seems pretty substantial to me, especially considering the skewed morbidity across age groups.
madeofpalk 5y ago
17% increase seems kind of big, no? If plane crashes increased 17% in a single year, it would be bit. If cancer deaths increased 17% in a year, it would be pretty remarkable.
- reader_mode 5y ago
  Remarkable yes - but society stopped for a year, how remarkable is that ? This is full on war state for a year or so. From what I can see in 2021 death rates in the US came to 1980s levels. It will also be interesting to see how death rates behave in the following years post covid, since it did affect elderly population disproportionately.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    It's only 17% due to the lockdowns. If not the deaths would be way higher, not just because of the higher numbers of people infected, but also because of overburdened hospitals unable to provide critical care and oxygen.
umanwizard 5y ago
Is it actually worse than the flu pandemics in the 50s and 60s?