4 ms·
> "death with COVID ≠ death from COVID" My favourite take on this: "I have Type 1 diabetes. I am healthy enough to run ultramarathons. If I get atta
by Ensorceled 5y ago
> "death with COVID ≠ death from COVID"
My favourite take on this:
"I have Type 1 diabetes. I am healthy enough to run ultramarathons.
If I get attacked by a bear & the ICU has trouble managing my blood sugar while caring for my bear attack wounds...and I die... the bear is the cause of my death. "[1]
But it's irrelevant since these meta studies always use excess deaths over average because of reportings issues (both logistical and political).
Start here https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
[1] https://twitter.com/cadiulus/status/1300408867717812231 https://twitter.com/cadiulus/status/1300408867717812231
- marcosdumay 5y ago> But it's irrelevant since these meta studies always use excess deaths over average because of reportings issues (both logistical and political). Exactly, deciding the cause of a single death is a messy complex task that doesn't have correct answers. Deciding the number of deaths due to a cause is much simpler and can be done most of the times.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rmk 5y agoExcess mortality is a rough proxy of death from COVID. In the bear attack example, the proximal cause of death is the Bear attack, and diabetes is a comorbidity. The death of the diabetic arose out of complications stemming from the bear attack, so it's reasonable to categorize it as a bear attack death. I'm assuming that you are arguing that from the excess deaths standpoint, death from x vs. death with x both count as death from x, to which I agree. I also think it's a reasonable characterization.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoThis could be solved if we used tagging in the data. E.g. everything should be tagged that played a role. Bear, ICU skill, T1D, etc.