4 ms·

What about the excess deaths compared to other times?

gravyjones 5y ago
1. People stopped going to the hospital. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-29/coronavirus-people-avoid-visits-to-doctor https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-29/coronavi... 2. Untrained nurses were operating the ventilators, resulting in deaths. 3. Massive unemployment 4. Very unheathly eating/drinking/no exercise habits of lockdown. Weight gain stress. I could add more, but #1 is probably the biggest contributor. Surgeries were canceled, preventative care and diagnostic tests were drastically reduced during the "fearful" times. It is really sad.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  2 would be caused by covid. "People get covid induced pneumonia, but due to the overwhelming number of people in need of acute care, more than might normally do so die" is still "people dying due to covid" 1, 3 and 4 still happened in other parts of the world with even stricter lockdowns (Oceania, southeast Asia), but they didn't face the same excess mortality, so that doesn't fully explain things.
  - gravyjones 5y ago
    I hear what you are saying, and maybe I have to look into what happened in other countries to know more. But right now my intiution tells me if there is double digit unemployment, people stop going to the hospital, and they believe it is 'the end of the world', then more deaths will be the result. How many more deaths? Thats the question.
ekianjo 5y ago
> What about the excess deaths compared to other times? So a single factor (COVID) is responsible for the excess death? That's simplification at best, because in reality nothing is ever a single-variable problem.
- Kim_Bruning 5y ago
  Hmm, try looking at <excess deaths> as a computation that takes the delta with a computation based on a control period. (unpacking: It actually measures the delta with a predicted trend. The trend calculation projects what current deaths should be, based on the situation in the past - which you can see as the control period. It's not perfect, but this should, reasonably, exclude most other factors fairly well. )

1. People stopped going to the hospital. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-29/coronavirus-people-avoid-visits-to-doctor https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-29/coronavi... 2. Untrained nurses were operating the ventilators, resulting in deaths. 3. Massive unemployment 4. Very unheathly eating/drinking/no exercise habits of lockdown. Weight gain stress. I could add more, but #1 is probably the biggest contributor. Surgeries were canceled, preventative care and diagnostic tests were drastically reduced during the "fearful" times. It is really sad.

joshuamorton 5y ago
2 would be caused by covid. "People get covid induced pneumonia, but due to the overwhelming number of people in need of acute care, more than might normally do so die" is still "people dying due to covid" 1, 3 and 4 still happened in other parts of the world with even stricter lockdowns (Oceania, southeast Asia), but they didn't face the same excess mortality, so that doesn't fully explain things.
- gravyjones 5y ago
  I hear what you are saying, and maybe I have to look into what happened in other countries to know more. But right now my intiution tells me if there is double digit unemployment, people stop going to the hospital, and they believe it is 'the end of the world', then more deaths will be the result. How many more deaths? Thats the question.

ekianjo 5y ago

> What about the excess deaths compared to other times? So a single factor (COVID) is responsible for the excess death? That's simplification at best, because in reality nothing is ever a single-variable problem.

Kim_Bruning 5y ago
Hmm, try looking at <excess deaths> as a computation that takes the delta with a computation based on a control period. (unpacking: It actually measures the delta with a predicted trend. The trend calculation projects what current deaths should be, based on the situation in the past - which you can see as the control period. It's not perfect, but this should, reasonably, exclude most other factors fairly well. )