7 ms·

> Excess deaths are not just due to COVID. Can you clarify what you mean by this? What kinds of things might excess deaths be attributable to, and to what rat

by Jedd 5y ago

> Excess deaths are not just due to COVID. Can you clarify what you mean by this? What kinds of things might excess deaths be attributable to, and to what rate / ratio would you expect?

zo1 5y ago
Not OP. But it's becoming increasingly clear (to me, at least) that data about reality has been lost. And no amount of "statistics", "modelling" and accounting for confounding variables will get that data back. This applies to masks, lockdowns, vaccine effectiveness and treatment effectiveness. Even if we do get a reasonable set of that data back via statistical means, I personally wouldn't trust it. Too many things weren't tracked, people had incentives to fudge numbers, data-integrity and duplication issues, etc. As much as I know there are lots of incredibly smart and educated people working on this, I see most of this as people running around throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, some hoping to get paid for it, others hoping to save lives. Likewise for your question. We simply don't have data or knowledge about what people did or how they behaved differently that might have caused a non-covid death to be reasonably attributed to covid. Suicide rates, anti-social behavior of children not seeing people's faces, people hiding pro-active tests, dentists visits, hiding from leaving the house and getting depression, the list is huge and specifically unconstrained.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  > Not OP. But it's becoming increasingly clear (to me, at least) that data about reality has been lost. Are you claiming that death counts are incorrect and data about deaths have been lost?
  - zo1 5y ago
    Not death-counts, but definitely data about the deaths yes. So detailed reasons for the death, specifics about the death that may be pertinent, their covid history prior to the death, how covid did or didn't affect their behavior that may have caused the death, etc. Example: Are we keeping track of all the people that skipped a routine test because of covid lockdowns? And then, is there a subsequent record of that fact linked to every covid case of death? Or are we stuck modelling the correlation/overlap of those two data points because we track those statistics across populations separately?
    - saalweachter 5y ago
      Eh, I think we have enough variation in local responses that we'll be able to tease a lot of the data out with a reasonable degree of confidence. We're living in a world full of counterfactuals, with some places mandating -- and enforcing -- mandates on various public health measures rigorously, and other places not. The pandemic also has a time dimension. To the extent that excess deaths are from deferred treatment and missed testing, we expect them to get worse over time -- people missing a cancer screening in March 2020 shouldn't have resulted in excess deaths in April 2020, in the extreme. "Real" COVID deaths meanwhile we'd expect to follow the peaks and valleys of the infections. It will be a lot of work, but that's what grad students are for.
      - Ensorceled 5y ago
        > It will be a lot of work, but that's what grad students are for. I really get the impression that a lot of these conspiracy theories are really rooted in an inability to understand how statistics work; and just how much can be legitimately derived from the data.
- oblio 5y ago
  You can complain about everything in the world, but not about masks. Masks work, we've known they work since at least 1919. When worn correctly by large groups of people in risky environments (indoors, poor airflow), they greatly reduce transmission rates. Everything else, you can say stuff about, vaccines have side effects, we don't know if and how much they reduce transmission, treatments are in flux, but masks are a simple and obvious solution with almost 0 side effects.
  - swader999 5y ago
    Masks with a decent seal work and studies with mannequins show this. But in real life, an airborne disease, massive gaps by the side of your nose, wet cloth, rules such as wear it to your restaurant table then take off to eat, it's a pathetic exercise at best.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Gee, I wonder if anyone thought of testing conditions similar to real life. Nah, nobody did, because everyone is stupid. https://www.mpg.de/17916867/coronavirus-masks-risk-protection https://www.mpg.de/17916867/coronavirus-masks-risk-protectio... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8 Even bad masks poorly worn are better than no masks, and the effect is statistically significant. Also reducing the areas in which there is unmitigated exposure is a good thing, not a bad thing.
      - brigandish 5y ago
        > Gee, I wonder if anyone thought of testing conditions similar to real life. Nah, nobody did, because everyone is stupid. No need for that, at all. From [1]: > A recent British Medical Journal review looked at six, fairly porcine, studies concerning mask-wearing and estimated an impressive 53% reduction in risk. But the single randomised controlled trial estimated the smallest effect: a reduction of about 18% (-23% to 46%) in Sars-CoV-2 infections. The “heaviest” studies, an analysis of US states and a survey of about 8,000 Chinese adults in early 2020, observed rather than experimented and its editorial highlights the risks of confounding variables influencing both wearing masks and infections and the impossibility of disentangling the effects of measures fluctuating simultaneously. Indeed, this review found an identical 53% reduction from handwashing. There is an introduction of Spiegelhalther and Masters given here[2]. It's well worth reading that BMJ article, btw. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2021/nov/28/ivermectin-mask-wearing-quality-of-evidence-matters https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2021/nov/28/ivermect... [2] https://statsandstories.net/media1/covid-by-the-numbers https://statsandstories.net/media1/covid-by-the-numbers
- Jedd 5y ago
  > We simply don't have data or knowledge about what people did or how they behaved differently that might have caused a non-covid death to be reasonably attributed to covid. Which is somewhat tangential to my question. Disregard any formal attribution to COVID 19 as a cause of death - direct or indirect. Parent was suggesting all excess deaths are not just due to COVID (directly or indirectly). Sensibly allocating excess deaths to different categories is really the question here, and I'm wondering what caveats we should be careful about. From a terribly abstract perspective, total excess deaths within a population, year on year, prior and then during a global pandemic, should give us some useful baselines.
kansface 5y ago
People are now skipping routine cancer screenings, check ups, and altogether avoiding any health care out of fear of catching covid. Its not hard to find stories of people with heart attacks not going to the hospital! Kids are missing routine vaccinations, etc. Drug overdoses are up - more deaths in SF are from ODs than Covid last time I looked. Dementia patients and those in nursing homes truly took a nose dive by completely separating them from human contact (they deteriorate rapidly with no stimulation). I imagine lots of people stopped exercising and put on loads of weight.

by Jedd 5y ago

> Excess deaths are not just due to COVID. Can you clarify what you mean by this? What kinds of things might excess deaths be attributable to, and to what rate / ratio would you expect?

zo1 5y ago

Not OP. But it's becoming increasingly clear (to me, at least) that data about reality has been lost. And no amount of "statistics", "modelling" and accounting for confounding variables will get that data back. This applies to masks, lockdowns, vaccine effectiveness and treatment effectiveness. Even if we do get a reasonable set of that data back via statistical means, I personally wouldn't trust it. Too many things weren't tracked, people had incentives to fudge numbers, data-integrity and duplication issues, etc. As much as I know there are lots of incredibly smart and educated people working on this, I see most of this as people running around throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, some hoping to get paid for it, others hoping to save lives. Likewise for your question. We simply don't have data or knowledge about what people did or how they behaved differently that might have caused a non-covid death to be reasonably attributed to covid. Suicide rates, anti-social behavior of children not seeing people's faces, people hiding pro-active tests, dentists visits, hiding from leaving the house and getting depression, the list is huge and specifically unconstrained.

Ensorceled 5y ago
> Not OP. But it's becoming increasingly clear (to me, at least) that data about reality has been lost. Are you claiming that death counts are incorrect and data about deaths have been lost?
- zo1 5y ago
  Not death-counts, but definitely data about the deaths yes. So detailed reasons for the death, specifics about the death that may be pertinent, their covid history prior to the death, how covid did or didn't affect their behavior that may have caused the death, etc. Example: Are we keeping track of all the people that skipped a routine test because of covid lockdowns? And then, is there a subsequent record of that fact linked to every covid case of death? Or are we stuck modelling the correlation/overlap of those two data points because we track those statistics across populations separately?
  - saalweachter 5y ago
    Eh, I think we have enough variation in local responses that we'll be able to tease a lot of the data out with a reasonable degree of confidence. We're living in a world full of counterfactuals, with some places mandating -- and enforcing -- mandates on various public health measures rigorously, and other places not. The pandemic also has a time dimension. To the extent that excess deaths are from deferred treatment and missed testing, we expect them to get worse over time -- people missing a cancer screening in March 2020 shouldn't have resulted in excess deaths in April 2020, in the extreme. "Real" COVID deaths meanwhile we'd expect to follow the peaks and valleys of the infections. It will be a lot of work, but that's what grad students are for.
    - Ensorceled 5y ago
      > It will be a lot of work, but that's what grad students are for. I really get the impression that a lot of these conspiracy theories are really rooted in an inability to understand how statistics work; and just how much can be legitimately derived from the data.
oblio 5y ago
You can complain about everything in the world, but not about masks. Masks work, we've known they work since at least 1919. When worn correctly by large groups of people in risky environments (indoors, poor airflow), they greatly reduce transmission rates. Everything else, you can say stuff about, vaccines have side effects, we don't know if and how much they reduce transmission, treatments are in flux, but masks are a simple and obvious solution with almost 0 side effects.
- swader999 5y ago
  Masks with a decent seal work and studies with mannequins show this. But in real life, an airborne disease, massive gaps by the side of your nose, wet cloth, rules such as wear it to your restaurant table then take off to eat, it's a pathetic exercise at best.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Gee, I wonder if anyone thought of testing conditions similar to real life. Nah, nobody did, because everyone is stupid. https://www.mpg.de/17916867/coronavirus-masks-risk-protection https://www.mpg.de/17916867/coronavirus-masks-risk-protectio... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8 Even bad masks poorly worn are better than no masks, and the effect is statistically significant. Also reducing the areas in which there is unmitigated exposure is a good thing, not a bad thing.
    - brigandish 5y ago
      > Gee, I wonder if anyone thought of testing conditions similar to real life. Nah, nobody did, because everyone is stupid. No need for that, at all. From [1]: > A recent British Medical Journal review looked at six, fairly porcine, studies concerning mask-wearing and estimated an impressive 53% reduction in risk. But the single randomised controlled trial estimated the smallest effect: a reduction of about 18% (-23% to 46%) in Sars-CoV-2 infections. The “heaviest” studies, an analysis of US states and a survey of about 8,000 Chinese adults in early 2020, observed rather than experimented and its editorial highlights the risks of confounding variables influencing both wearing masks and infections and the impossibility of disentangling the effects of measures fluctuating simultaneously. Indeed, this review found an identical 53% reduction from handwashing. There is an introduction of Spiegelhalther and Masters given here[2]. It's well worth reading that BMJ article, btw. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2021/nov/28/ivermectin-mask-wearing-quality-of-evidence-matters https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2021/nov/28/ivermect... [2] https://statsandstories.net/media1/covid-by-the-numbers https://statsandstories.net/media1/covid-by-the-numbers
Jedd 5y ago
> We simply don't have data or knowledge about what people did or how they behaved differently that might have caused a non-covid death to be reasonably attributed to covid. Which is somewhat tangential to my question. Disregard any formal attribution to COVID 19 as a cause of death - direct or indirect. Parent was suggesting all excess deaths are not just due to COVID (directly or indirectly). Sensibly allocating excess deaths to different categories is really the question here, and I'm wondering what caveats we should be careful about. From a terribly abstract perspective, total excess deaths within a population, year on year, prior and then during a global pandemic, should give us some useful baselines.

kansface 5y ago

People are now skipping routine cancer screenings, check ups, and altogether avoiding any health care out of fear of catching covid. Its not hard to find stories of people with heart attacks not going to the hospital! Kids are missing routine vaccinations, etc. Drug overdoses are up - more deaths in SF are from ODs than Covid last time I looked. Dementia patients and those in nursing homes truly took a nose dive by completely separating them from human contact (they deteriorate rapidly with no stimulation). I imagine lots of people stopped exercising and put on loads of weight.