3 ms·

> The first wave of COVID killed a bunch of doctors and nurses I never heard about it before. Could you provide link to your claim?

by slaw 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
com2kid 5y ago
Some interesting numbers at https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/new-report-reveals-continued-government-failure-to-track-and-report-covid-19-deaths-of-nurses https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/new-report-reveal... and https://abcnews.go.com/Health/3600-us-health-workers-died-covids-1st-year/story?id=76944085 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/3600-us-health-workers-died-co... All of that is pre-delta, remember that when COVID first hit in 2020 we still didn't have a good idea how it spread. The tl;dr is that the US government doesn't do a good job of collecting statistics of how many health care workers died of COVID. 1.5k nursing home workers seems to be the one reliable # from the first article, and The Guardian is saying around 3600 healthcare workers in total. https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/21/who-estimate-115000-health-workers-have-died-from-covid-19-as-calls-for-vaccine-access-grow/ https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/21/who-estimate-115000-heal... WHO reports over 100k deaths of healthcare workers world wide. So statistically a small #, but it doesn't account for the # of nurses who got COVID and had long term symptoms that kept them from going back to work, or who just decided to no longer work at all. And it looks like these #s are highly biased towards major population centers, so it wasn't an even distribution from the country or anything.
- jefftk 5y ago
  1.5k nursing home workers out of a total of about 600k. That's 0.25%. Across the whole population, we've had 810k deaths out of 330M, which is also 0.25%. So we still have the same number of nursing home workers per capita. Except that, considered per nursing home resident, it's an increase, because the rate of nursing home residents dying has been much higher than the general population.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's true, but it is an excellent advertisement for the risks of the job to others who may not have thought about this beforehand. So one person may die and a multiple may walk.
    - jefftk 5y ago
      How is it an excellent advertisement for the risks of the job, when it is the same level of covid risk experienced by the population at large?
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Because it is not the same level of risk. This can be trivially seen by comparing the percentage of health care workers that ended up with severe cases of COVID (or that died) compared to the regular population. Especially in the beginning of the pandemic when it wasn't really clear what we were dealing with and how it was spreading a lot of health care workers got very high doses and ended up in serious trouble. This isn't unusual for such situations, but it is unusual for it to happen at this scale.
        jefftk 5y ago
        com2kid gave 1.5k for the number of US nursing home worker deaths [1], which is the same 0.25% as the general population. [2] I could definitely believe that more american healthcare workers are dying than the general population, but what stats is this coming from? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656232 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656471
        jacquesm 5y ago
        The thing to look at is when those deaths happened. And when they did they were disproportionate. Once personal protection for health care workers became widespread those severe cases and deaths dropped to much lower levels.

> The first wave of COVID killed a bunch of doctors and nurses I never heard about it before. Could you provide link to your claim?

by slaw 5y ago

> The first wave of COVID killed a bunch of doctors and nurses I never heard about it before. Could you provide link to your claim?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

com2kid 5y ago

Some interesting numbers at https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/new-report-reveals-continued-government-failure-to-track-and-report-covid-19-deaths-of-nurses https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/new-report-reveal... and https://abcnews.go.com/Health/3600-us-health-workers-died-covids-1st-year/story?id=76944085 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/3600-us-health-workers-died-co... All of that is pre-delta, remember that when COVID first hit in 2020 we still didn't have a good idea how it spread. The tl;dr is that the US government doesn't do a good job of collecting statistics of how many health care workers died of COVID. 1.5k nursing home workers seems to be the one reliable # from the first article, and The Guardian is saying around 3600 healthcare workers in total. https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/21/who-estimate-115000-health-workers-have-died-from-covid-19-as-calls-for-vaccine-access-grow/ https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/21/who-estimate-115000-heal... WHO reports over 100k deaths of healthcare workers world wide. So statistically a small #, but it doesn't account for the # of nurses who got COVID and had long term symptoms that kept them from going back to work, or who just decided to no longer work at all. And it looks like these #s are highly biased towards major population centers, so it wasn't an even distribution from the country or anything.

jefftk 5y ago
1.5k nursing home workers out of a total of about 600k. That's 0.25%. Across the whole population, we've had 810k deaths out of 330M, which is also 0.25%. So we still have the same number of nursing home workers per capita. Except that, considered per nursing home resident, it's an increase, because the rate of nursing home residents dying has been much higher than the general population.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's true, but it is an excellent advertisement for the risks of the job to others who may not have thought about this beforehand. So one person may die and a multiple may walk.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    How is it an excellent advertisement for the risks of the job, when it is the same level of covid risk experienced by the population at large?
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Because it is not the same level of risk. This can be trivially seen by comparing the percentage of health care workers that ended up with severe cases of COVID (or that died) compared to the regular population. Especially in the beginning of the pandemic when it wasn't really clear what we were dealing with and how it was spreading a lot of health care workers got very high doses and ended up in serious trouble. This isn't unusual for such situations, but it is unusual for it to happen at this scale.
      - jefftk 5y ago
        com2kid gave 1.5k for the number of US nursing home worker deaths [1], which is the same 0.25% as the general population. [2] I could definitely believe that more american healthcare workers are dying than the general population, but what stats is this coming from? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656232 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29656471
        jacquesm 5y ago
        The thing to look at is when those deaths happened. And when they did they were disproportionate. Once personal protection for health care workers became widespread those severe cases and deaths dropped to much lower levels.