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Many people kept insisting "Not many young people are dying from Covid-19" a statement that over looked the fact that, under normal circumstances, not many youn

Many people kept insisting "Not many young people are dying from Covid-19" a statement that over looked the fact that, under normal circumstances, not many young people die at all. But there was an article in the New York Times that offered these facts about people aged 20 to 40. July, 2019: 11,000 dead July, 2020: 16,000 dead Both numbers are small in a country where 3 million people die each year, about 250,000 a month. But it's still a 45% increase, so that age group was the worst affected, in terms of the increase in death. The increase in the death rate of old people was not as dramatic, as older people make up the vast majority of all deaths, every year.

freyr 5y ago
How many Covid-related? How many drug overdoses? How many suicides?
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  This seems like what-about-ism. You could look these numbers up easily on the CDCs death data, and then you could formulate a coherent thought. Instead, it seems like you're just trying to derail the conversation with as little effort as possible.
  - freyr 5y ago
    No, it’s not what-about-ism. It’s a suggestion that the two numbers being thrown around are accompanied by some bare minimum of detail to have a meaningful conversation. OP made the link to Covid-19, which seems very plausible, but it’s not clear if they have facts to support this or it’s just a guess. Suicides and overdoses are two of the leading causes of death among young Americans. It’s irresponsible to discuss a 40% increase in deaths and imply this is all Covid-19 without any evidence.
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    - halpert 5y ago
      Asking someone to look up some numbers for you to complete your random hypothesis isn't exactly constructive either way.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - Zigurd 5y ago
        It's not just lazy, it's derailing.
        freyr 5y ago
        What exactly am I derailing? An unsubstantiated claim made by OP that contradicts details provided in the parent article? “Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths … there were far fewer deaths from COVID-19 in Indiana compared to a year ago – 195 verses 336 – but more deaths from other causes – 1,350 versus 1,319 … the moving average of daily deaths from COVID-19 is less than half of what it was a year ago” “Lazy” is not reading the article. And if “derailing” an unfounded assumption to better understand these deaths is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
        justinmcp 5y ago
        Covid is real, vaccines are good, etc, etc. But why has everyone switched like thi? Freyr is correct. The OP put forward the proposition, it's up to them to provide data that makes the case.
      - freyr 5y ago
        The random hypothesis was made by OP, who inferred that the 45% increase in deaths is due to Covid-19. I would guess a lot of that 45% is due to Covid, but how much would be a guess, and I suspect OP is just guessing too. Overdoses are historically one of the leading causes of death among people in this age range, and we’re also setting records for overdose deaths this year [0], but that gets no almost coverage compared to Covid. I think it’s reasonable to keep in mind that overdoses could also be contributing to that 45% uptick, unless we have evidence to the contrary. [0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-2021-insys-kapoor-sackler-purdue-record-deaths/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-202...
    - cbsmith 5y ago
      The leading cause of death for young people is injuries (https://www.wthr.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/state-reports-less-than-10-percent-of-available-icu-beds-staff-capacity-hospitals/531-fa31513c-fce9-42bc-bfe6-90aa4730357a https://www.wthr.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/state-r...). However, injuries are far more likely to be life threatening if health care resources are scarce, as they have become in Indiana. This is precisely the challenge presented by a pandemic. That's precisely why the lethality of the pandemic virus is largely irrelevant. The threat from a pandemic is the overwhelming of health care resources. So it's kind of splitting hairs to worry about whether the cause of death is COVID-19 or not. Either way, it's the pandemic. There's a literally historic shift in the death rate among the young that correlates very well with the the availability of care... and we have the people working in the hospitals saying that this is the underlying problem. Maybe young people have had a 40% increase in deaths from injury, from suicides, from overdoses, or from tipping over vending machines. The specific COD isn't the problem.
    - diordiderot 5y ago
      My little brother died this year. He was electrocuted and his heart stopped immediately. You can keep someones brain alive with cpr for around thirty minutes but they didn't have any available first responders (they have defibs) because of covid calls. They showed up an hour later. Does he count as a covid death.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - bparsons 5y ago
    The biggest portion of this growth is almost certainly being driven by opioid poisoning. This was growing quickly pre-pandemic, but has skyrocketed in the last two years.
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - mike00632 5y ago
      "almost certainly"... So without evidence you conclude that young people are dying at a higher rate NOT because of the deadly global pandemic. QED.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    If you say so, we also have estimate the threat of the disease by excess death.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  I looked up the information in a previous thread. For the United States, using the most conservative Covid numbers, they outweighs these by at least a factor of 5. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29706964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29706964
  - freyr 5y ago
    Do you have a link or source? Overdose and suicide are two of the leading causes of death among young people. If Covid deaths were 5X higher, we’d see a much much larger overall increase than 40%. Edit: Your numbers are for the total population, not young people. The death rates and leading causes of death are drastically different between young people and the general population.
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - timeinput 5y ago
      Do you have a link or source to support your hypothesis? It should be trivial to provide it.
      - freyr 5y ago
        OP says deaths among people 20-40 are up 45%, and inferred that this is due to Covid. That’s the hypothesis being made here. And it contradicts what’s in the parent article, namely that many of these deaths are from causes other than Covid: “The CDC weekly death counts, which reflect the information on death certificates and so have a lag of up to eight weeks or longer, show that for the week ending Nov. 6, there were far fewer deaths from COVID-19 in Indiana compared to a year ago – 195 verses 336 – but more deaths from other causes – 1,350 versus 1,319.” I’m suggesting that other leading causes of death among people in this age range could possibly be up this year, and contributing to this uptick, perhaps by a significant amount. For example, in SF, the number of people in this age range dying of overdoses far outnumbers the people in this age range dying of Covid. Nationally, we are setting record numbers of overdoses, driven mostly by fentanyl. ”In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in November that more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, May 2020 to April 2021, with about three-quarters of those deaths involving opioids — a national record.” [0] [0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-2021-insys-kapoor-sackler-purdue-record-deaths/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-202... [1] https://vtdigger.org/2022/01/02/opioid-overdose-deaths-poised-to-break-vermont-record-set-in-2020/ https://vtdigger.org/2022/01/02/opioid-overdose-deaths-poise... [2] https://www.wfmj.com/story/45563074/mercer-county-sees-recordbreaking-number-of-overdose-deaths-in-2021 https://www.wfmj.com/story/45563074/mercer-county-sees-recor...
- honkdaddy 5y ago
  Scott Alexander actually wrote about COVID related suicides and why they haven't risen nearly as much as one might have expected. https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/why-didnt-suicides-rise-during-covid/ https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/why-didnt-suicides-rise...
- causi 5y ago
  How many drug overdoses and suicides are directly related to covid and its impact on society, and by extension our failure to stop it before it became unstoppable?
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
If you look at expected years of life lost - and the average person is ~30 - you could multiply the numbers by ~47. ~47 x 5,000 = 235k years of life (extra). In the US in 2020 the average age of death from Covid was ~77 [1]. People ~77 are expected to life ~10.2 years [2]. In 2020, there were ~350k Covid deaths [3]. But (very crudely) 3.5M years of life lost. This small group of 11,000 people (3%) made up 7% of years of life lost. By 2021, the average age of Covid death was ~67 - so the average person was losing ~17 years of life [1]. This is because that extra ~5,000 deaths has so much weight. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wvpublic.org/health-science/2021-10-26/gov-justice-warns-average-age-of-coronavirus-deaths-is-decreasing%3f_amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wvpublic.org/health-science... [2] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html [3] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm
- dh5 5y ago
  I'm not sure that calculation makes sense. If someone has already lived to 77 he probably has a much higher chance of living to 78 than the average person. And if someone has lived past 78 does that mean he's lost negative years of life?
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Thanks - added a reference to an actuary table.
  - dlp211 5y ago
    Yep, 78 is life expectancy at birth. Your life expectancy goes up every day you are alive.
    - shalmanese 5y ago
      Well... every day bar one.
- strulovich 5y ago
  This calculation is wrong. While the average 77 years old person will live 10.2 years, it’s not founded and unlikely the people dying from Covid at that age are distributed uniformly. Most likely a 77 yo dying of Covid is in worse health and have more co morbidities than the average 77 yo. This calculation is interesting and a good way to look at things, but it requires more nuance that is likely to reduce those numbers.
keneda7 5y ago
From the article this discussion is about "Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths, Davison said." I am confused why you are completely ignoring this statement and trying to claim the exact opposite.
- shinazueli 5y ago
  Excess deaths by 45% would seem to indicate that the cause of death is simply incorrect. (Or it’s one of myriad tangentially related deaths: procedures not done, doctors not seen, hospital beds not available, on top of COVID related stressors exacerbating drug use and mental health problems.)
robomartin 5y ago
> July, 2019: 11,000 dead > July, 2020: 16,000 dead > But it's still a 45% increase, so that age group was the worst affected, in terms of the increase in death. You can't draw that conclusion at all with, effectively, one data point while assuming the other is a baseline. You need to develop a proper statistical profile, determine the mean, variance/standard deviation, standard error and then try to understand the numbers to make inferences.
disambiguation 5y ago
> July, 2019: 11,000 dead > July, 2020: 16,000 dead Where are you getting those numbers? 2019 - ages 25 - 44: - represent ~320 deaths per 100k. [0] - represent 85M pop. [1] => That's ~272k deaths per year in that age band. You can check my math. [0] (page 3) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db395-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db395-H.pdf [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the... Further, this chart shows covid deaths as a proportion of all cause mortality. [2] For ages under 50, covid accounts for 1-5% of all deaths. For ages over 50, covid accounts for 10-15% of all deaths. [2] (caveat, this is a snapshot of Feb 17 2021 data) https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/ https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/public-health/covid-... In no age band do we see a 45% increase in deaths due to covid.

freyr 5y ago

How many Covid-related? How many drug overdoses? How many suicides?

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
This seems like what-about-ism. You could look these numbers up easily on the CDCs death data, and then you could formulate a coherent thought. Instead, it seems like you're just trying to derail the conversation with as little effort as possible.
- freyr 5y ago
  No, it’s not what-about-ism. It’s a suggestion that the two numbers being thrown around are accompanied by some bare minimum of detail to have a meaningful conversation. OP made the link to Covid-19, which seems very plausible, but it’s not clear if they have facts to support this or it’s just a guess. Suicides and overdoses are two of the leading causes of death among young Americans. It’s irresponsible to discuss a 40% increase in deaths and imply this is all Covid-19 without any evidence.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - halpert 5y ago
    Asking someone to look up some numbers for you to complete your random hypothesis isn't exactly constructive either way.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Zigurd 5y ago
      It's not just lazy, it's derailing.
      - freyr 5y ago
        What exactly am I derailing? An unsubstantiated claim made by OP that contradicts details provided in the parent article? “Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths … there were far fewer deaths from COVID-19 in Indiana compared to a year ago – 195 verses 336 – but more deaths from other causes – 1,350 versus 1,319 … the moving average of daily deaths from COVID-19 is less than half of what it was a year ago” “Lazy” is not reading the article. And if “derailing” an unfounded assumption to better understand these deaths is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
      - justinmcp 5y ago
        Covid is real, vaccines are good, etc, etc. But why has everyone switched like thi? Freyr is correct. The OP put forward the proposition, it's up to them to provide data that makes the case.
    - freyr 5y ago
      The random hypothesis was made by OP, who inferred that the 45% increase in deaths is due to Covid-19. I would guess a lot of that 45% is due to Covid, but how much would be a guess, and I suspect OP is just guessing too. Overdoses are historically one of the leading causes of death among people in this age range, and we’re also setting records for overdose deaths this year [0], but that gets no almost coverage compared to Covid. I think it’s reasonable to keep in mind that overdoses could also be contributing to that 45% uptick, unless we have evidence to the contrary. [0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-2021-insys-kapoor-sackler-purdue-record-deaths/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-202...
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    The leading cause of death for young people is injuries (https://www.wthr.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/state-reports-less-than-10-percent-of-available-icu-beds-staff-capacity-hospitals/531-fa31513c-fce9-42bc-bfe6-90aa4730357a https://www.wthr.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/state-r...). However, injuries are far more likely to be life threatening if health care resources are scarce, as they have become in Indiana. This is precisely the challenge presented by a pandemic. That's precisely why the lethality of the pandemic virus is largely irrelevant. The threat from a pandemic is the overwhelming of health care resources. So it's kind of splitting hairs to worry about whether the cause of death is COVID-19 or not. Either way, it's the pandemic. There's a literally historic shift in the death rate among the young that correlates very well with the the availability of care... and we have the people working in the hospitals saying that this is the underlying problem. Maybe young people have had a 40% increase in deaths from injury, from suicides, from overdoses, or from tipping over vending machines. The specific COD isn't the problem.
  - diordiderot 5y ago
    My little brother died this year. He was electrocuted and his heart stopped immediately. You can keep someones brain alive with cpr for around thirty minutes but they didn't have any available first responders (they have defibs) because of covid calls. They showed up an hour later. Does he count as a covid death.
- deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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- bparsons 5y ago
  The biggest portion of this growth is almost certainly being driven by opioid poisoning. This was growing quickly pre-pandemic, but has skyrocketed in the last two years.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - mike00632 5y ago
    "almost certainly"... So without evidence you conclude that young people are dying at a higher rate NOT because of the deadly global pandemic. QED.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  If you say so, we also have estimate the threat of the disease by excess death.
kayodelycaon 5y ago
I looked up the information in a previous thread. For the United States, using the most conservative Covid numbers, they outweighs these by at least a factor of 5. Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29706964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29706964
- freyr 5y ago
  Do you have a link or source? Overdose and suicide are two of the leading causes of death among young people. If Covid deaths were 5X higher, we’d see a much much larger overall increase than 40%. Edit: Your numbers are for the total population, not young people. The death rates and leading causes of death are drastically different between young people and the general population.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - timeinput 5y ago
    Do you have a link or source to support your hypothesis? It should be trivial to provide it.
    - freyr 5y ago
      OP says deaths among people 20-40 are up 45%, and inferred that this is due to Covid. That’s the hypothesis being made here. And it contradicts what’s in the parent article, namely that many of these deaths are from causes other than Covid: “The CDC weekly death counts, which reflect the information on death certificates and so have a lag of up to eight weeks or longer, show that for the week ending Nov. 6, there were far fewer deaths from COVID-19 in Indiana compared to a year ago – 195 verses 336 – but more deaths from other causes – 1,350 versus 1,319.” I’m suggesting that other leading causes of death among people in this age range could possibly be up this year, and contributing to this uptick, perhaps by a significant amount. For example, in SF, the number of people in this age range dying of overdoses far outnumbers the people in this age range dying of Covid. Nationally, we are setting record numbers of overdoses, driven mostly by fentanyl. ”In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in November that more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, May 2020 to April 2021, with about three-quarters of those deaths involving opioids — a national record.” [0] [0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-2021-insys-kapoor-sackler-purdue-record-deaths/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-202... [1] https://vtdigger.org/2022/01/02/opioid-overdose-deaths-poised-to-break-vermont-record-set-in-2020/ https://vtdigger.org/2022/01/02/opioid-overdose-deaths-poise... [2] https://www.wfmj.com/story/45563074/mercer-county-sees-recordbreaking-number-of-overdose-deaths-in-2021 https://www.wfmj.com/story/45563074/mercer-county-sees-recor...
honkdaddy 5y ago
Scott Alexander actually wrote about COVID related suicides and why they haven't risen nearly as much as one might have expected. https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/why-didnt-suicides-rise-during-covid/ https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/why-didnt-suicides-rise...
causi 5y ago
How many drug overdoses and suicides are directly related to covid and its impact on society, and by extension our failure to stop it before it became unstoppable?

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

If you look at expected years of life lost - and the average person is ~30 - you could multiply the numbers by ~47. ~47 x 5,000 = 235k years of life (extra). In the US in 2020 the average age of death from Covid was ~77 [1]. People ~77 are expected to life ~10.2 years [2]. In 2020, there were ~350k Covid deaths [3]. But (very crudely) 3.5M years of life lost. This small group of 11,000 people (3%) made up 7% of years of life lost. By 2021, the average age of Covid death was ~67 - so the average person was losing ~17 years of life [1]. This is because that extra ~5,000 deaths has so much weight. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wvpublic.org/health-science/2021-10-26/gov-justice-warns-average-age-of-coronavirus-deaths-is-decreasing%3f_amp=true https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wvpublic.org/health-science... [2] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html [3] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm

dh5 5y ago
I'm not sure that calculation makes sense. If someone has already lived to 77 he probably has a much higher chance of living to 78 than the average person. And if someone has lived past 78 does that mean he's lost negative years of life?
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Thanks - added a reference to an actuary table.
- dlp211 5y ago
  Yep, 78 is life expectancy at birth. Your life expectancy goes up every day you are alive.
  - shalmanese 5y ago
    Well... every day bar one.
strulovich 5y ago
This calculation is wrong. While the average 77 years old person will live 10.2 years, it’s not founded and unlikely the people dying from Covid at that age are distributed uniformly. Most likely a 77 yo dying of Covid is in worse health and have more co morbidities than the average 77 yo. This calculation is interesting and a good way to look at things, but it requires more nuance that is likely to reduce those numbers.

keneda7 5y ago

From the article this discussion is about "Most of the claims for deaths being filed are not classified as COVID-19 deaths, Davison said." I am confused why you are completely ignoring this statement and trying to claim the exact opposite.

shinazueli 5y ago
Excess deaths by 45% would seem to indicate that the cause of death is simply incorrect. (Or it’s one of myriad tangentially related deaths: procedures not done, doctors not seen, hospital beds not available, on top of COVID related stressors exacerbating drug use and mental health problems.)

robomartin 5y ago

> July, 2019: 11,000 dead > July, 2020: 16,000 dead > But it's still a 45% increase, so that age group was the worst affected, in terms of the increase in death. You can't draw that conclusion at all with, effectively, one data point while assuming the other is a baseline. You need to develop a proper statistical profile, determine the mean, variance/standard deviation, standard error and then try to understand the numbers to make inferences.

disambiguation 5y ago

> July, 2019: 11,000 dead > July, 2020: 16,000 dead Where are you getting those numbers? 2019 - ages 25 - 44: - represent ~320 deaths per 100k. [0] - represent 85M pop. [1] => That's ~272k deaths per year in that age band. You can check my math. [0] (page 3) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db395-H.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db395-H.pdf [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the... Further, this chart shows covid deaths as a proportion of all cause mortality. [2] For ages under 50, covid accounts for 1-5% of all deaths. For ages over 50, covid accounts for 10-15% of all deaths. [2] (caveat, this is a snapshot of Feb 17 2021 data) https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/ https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/public-health/covid-... In no age band do we see a 45% increase in deaths due to covid.