3 ms·

"would have to be pretty massive to exceed the increased mortality of Covid given its prevalence." Well, no, not really? COVID is not actually very deadly in t

"would have to be pretty massive to exceed the increased mortality of Covid given its prevalence." Well, no, not really? COVID is not actually very deadly in the grand scheme of things. In the UK the first wave caused death rates to increase to the same levels they were at in 2008, which was an unremarkable year. Later waves didn't even do that. Winter 2021 had no excess mortality I think. This is one of the problems the vaccines face, COVID just isn't that deadly. That's why the vaccine trials were unable to demonstrate any impact on mortality. Actually, in the Pfizer trial more vaccinated died than unvaccinated because they didn't recruit enough of the very very elderly for mortality to show up. The vaccines were declared a success purely on the basis of reduced PCR positives. It's really an issue because now the vaccinated test positive at much greater rates than the unvaccinated do. Effectiveness fell from strongly positive to strongly negative.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
I think "COVID is not that deadly" is literally true, in the sense that it is not likely to kill you in any age group, but is understating the net harm. For instance: https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID_excess_mort_withcauses_05042022/WeeklyExcessDeaths?:embed=y&:toolbar=n&:tabs=n&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID_excess_mort_withcause... Really a lot of people have died who would not have otherwise died. Arguably some of that is "pulling deaths forward" and we might see improvements to all cause mortality over the next few years but overall COVID has had a pretty big impact on mortality. In the US for instance life expectancy has fallen from 78.9 to 76.6 over the course of the pandemic.
- native_samples 4y ago
  That's for the USA. The USA seems to have suffered much more than many other countries, for reasons that real epidemiologists would be keen to investigate but the ones we're stuck with are remarkably incurious about. It's not to do with their own measures (Sweden has had lower than average mortality impact from COVID), so is more likely related to lifestyles, racial makeups, or something else that isn't understood.
  - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
    Definitely. I am just using it as a yardstick for the sake of orders of magnitude. According to this article https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-... US excess deaths over the course of the pandemic are 347 per 100k people compared to the UK's 221 which is a lot more(!) to be sure but I think the point still stands.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago

I think "COVID is not that deadly" is literally true, in the sense that it is not likely to kill you in any age group, but is understating the net harm. For instance: https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID_excess_mort_withcauses_05042022/WeeklyExcessDeaths?:embed=y&:toolbar=n&:tabs=n&:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID_excess_mort_withcause... Really a lot of people have died who would not have otherwise died. Arguably some of that is "pulling deaths forward" and we might see improvements to all cause mortality over the next few years but overall COVID has had a pretty big impact on mortality. In the US for instance life expectancy has fallen from 78.9 to 76.6 over the course of the pandemic.

native_samples 4y ago
That's for the USA. The USA seems to have suffered much more than many other countries, for reasons that real epidemiologists would be keen to investigate but the ones we're stuck with are remarkably incurious about. It's not to do with their own measures (Sweden has had lower than average mortality impact from COVID), so is more likely related to lifestyles, racial makeups, or something else that isn't understood.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  Definitely. I am just using it as a yardstick for the sake of orders of magnitude. According to this article https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-... US excess deaths over the course of the pandemic are 347 per 100k people compared to the UK's 221 which is a lot more(!) to be sure but I think the point still stands.