3 ms·

In 2019, the US had 47,511 deaths from suicide and 28,000 from flu. In 2020, the US had 377,883 deaths from COVID. You're looking at an order of magnitudes mor

In 2019, the US had 47,511 deaths from suicide and 28,000 from flu. In 2020, the US had 377,883 deaths from COVID. You're looking at an order of magnitudes more deaths. And that's before you add in deaths from hospitals being overloaded from COVID. https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/ https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/ https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm According to the New York Times, we're up to 52,244,696 reported cases and 814,970 deaths total so far. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html In 2019: 2,854,838 people died in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

lettergram 5y ago
- woodruffw 5y ago
  Fatal overdoses are up 19k, not 50k[1]. And car fatalities are also up, not down, as discussed extensively in other threads. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/...
enchiridion 5y ago
I appreciate the sources, but the way you presented this is biased. To make it complete you should also post the total deaths and suicides for 2020.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  I looked but didn’t quickly find anything more recent. If you have updated numbers or better sources, I’d happily update my comment.
miketery 5y ago
Not a fair comparison. Years saved should be looked at. Elderly dying from covid is not the same as suicide at 25.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Indeed, it would be interesting to see an excess healthy years lost statistic.
  - axutio 5y ago
    This metric already exists in public health, in the forms of YLL (years life lost) and DALY (disability adjusted life years [lost]). In the case of something like COVID, YLL will simply integrate expected life span minus age at death across the population, while DALY will take into account the effects of lasting disability, for example counting each year of life as only 0.8 "disability adjusted life years" for someone who suffers chronic long COVID. Because of the difficulty of applying objective disability effect proportions, however, YLL is a much easier metric to use and there's a lot more estimates available for it as well. I found an article estimating pandemic YLL in the U.S. over 2020 to be 7,362,555 (massive 95% PI though) [1]. Interestingly, they attribute only about three quarters of these to COVID itself and about one quarter to indirect effects of the pandemic, such as lockdown. Comparing against YLL values for leading causes of death from 2016 [2], the impact of COVID in 2020 was slightly less than that of ischemic heart disease (9,445,400 YLL) but comparable to the next four causes of death (lung cancer, RTAs, pulmonary disease, colo/rectal cancer) combined. [1] https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256835 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256835 [2] https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.0158 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.0158, Table 1
- drjasonharrison 5y ago
  As others have posted, suicide rates decreased over the last few years. Suddenly everyone locally was having a very similar experience. So the number of YLL lost to the small number of 25 year olds dying at their own hand is very very likely much smaller than the much larger number of 50-90 year olds dying. Even the small number of YLL to the death of an elderly person in a care home still had knock on effects for the survivors, from delayed funerals to funerals as super spreader events.

lettergram 5y ago

woodruffw 5y ago
Fatal overdoses are up 19k, not 50k[1]. And car fatalities are also up, not down, as discussed extensively in other threads. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/...

enchiridion 5y ago

I appreciate the sources, but the way you presented this is biased. To make it complete you should also post the total deaths and suicides for 2020.

kayodelycaon 5y ago
I looked but didn’t quickly find anything more recent. If you have updated numbers or better sources, I’d happily update my comment.

miketery 5y ago

Not a fair comparison. Years saved should be looked at. Elderly dying from covid is not the same as suicide at 25.

lordnacho 5y ago
Indeed, it would be interesting to see an excess healthy years lost statistic.
- axutio 5y ago
  This metric already exists in public health, in the forms of YLL (years life lost) and DALY (disability adjusted life years [lost]). In the case of something like COVID, YLL will simply integrate expected life span minus age at death across the population, while DALY will take into account the effects of lasting disability, for example counting each year of life as only 0.8 "disability adjusted life years" for someone who suffers chronic long COVID. Because of the difficulty of applying objective disability effect proportions, however, YLL is a much easier metric to use and there's a lot more estimates available for it as well. I found an article estimating pandemic YLL in the U.S. over 2020 to be 7,362,555 (massive 95% PI though) [1]. Interestingly, they attribute only about three quarters of these to COVID itself and about one quarter to indirect effects of the pandemic, such as lockdown. Comparing against YLL values for leading causes of death from 2016 [2], the impact of COVID in 2020 was slightly less than that of ischemic heart disease (9,445,400 YLL) but comparable to the next four causes of death (lung cancer, RTAs, pulmonary disease, colo/rectal cancer) combined. [1] https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256835 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256835 [2] https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.0158 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.0158, Table 1
drjasonharrison 5y ago
As others have posted, suicide rates decreased over the last few years. Suddenly everyone locally was having a very similar experience. So the number of YLL lost to the small number of 25 year olds dying at their own hand is very very likely much smaller than the much larger number of 50-90 year olds dying. Even the small number of YLL to the death of an elderly person in a care home still had knock on effects for the survivors, from delayed funerals to funerals as super spreader events.