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They subtract COVID deaths from excess deaths to get the baseline, forgetting that COVID deaths were counted somewhat liberally, and some percentage of non-COVI

They subtract COVID deaths from excess deaths to get the baseline, forgetting that COVID deaths were counted somewhat liberally, and some percentage of non-COVID deaths were counted as COVID deaths if someone was infected close to their time of death. This can be seen in the following chart: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2021-12-31..latest&facet=none&Metric=Confirmed+deaths&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&country=~GBR https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... (You need to change the "Metric" dropdown) If you compare excess deaths in 2022 to COVID deaths in the same period: Peaks in COVID deaths don't produce peaks in excess deaths. So saying that excess deaths are higher now than they were in the past is likely due to the underestimation of con-COVID excess deaths during COVID, and not a real effect.

armada651 4y ago
> They subtract COVID deaths from excess deaths to get the baseline, forgetting that COVID deaths were counted somewhat liberally, and some percentage of non-COVID deaths were counted as COVID deaths if someone was infected close to their time of death. If COVID deaths were counted liberaly and even after subtracting those inflated numbers you still have excess deaths, then that only further underlines their point that these excess deaths are not COVID-related. Just because you think the criteria for counting COVID deaths were wrong doesn't make every conclusion based on those numbers incorrect.
- WithinReason 4y ago
  No, they say that current non-COVID excess deaths are higher than non-COVID excess deaths were during COVID. They underestimate non-COVID excess deaths during COVID because of the subtraction, which makes current excess deaths higher than average. In reality, they underestimated the average that they compare to. Hope it's clear now.
  - armada651 4y ago
    I see what you mean, yes it does make it difficult to prove a trend between periods with high rates of COVID infection and low rates of COVID infection. But proving such a trend is problematic regardless of what the criteria for a COVID excess death is. Simply because during a period of high COVID infection a lot of people are dying from COVID before they have the chance to die from other causes.
    - WithinReason 4y ago
      Yes, that's another confounding factor.
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    However, Covid preys heavily on the already sick. We should see a *reduction* in deaths because Covid killed off a lot of people that didn't have a lot of time left. We don't even have an accurate baseline to compare to at this point.

armada651 4y ago

> They subtract COVID deaths from excess deaths to get the baseline, forgetting that COVID deaths were counted somewhat liberally, and some percentage of non-COVID deaths were counted as COVID deaths if someone was infected close to their time of death. If COVID deaths were counted liberaly and even after subtracting those inflated numbers you still have excess deaths, then that only further underlines their point that these excess deaths are not COVID-related. Just because you think the criteria for counting COVID deaths were wrong doesn't make every conclusion based on those numbers incorrect.

WithinReason 4y ago
No, they say that current non-COVID excess deaths are higher than non-COVID excess deaths were during COVID. They underestimate non-COVID excess deaths during COVID because of the subtraction, which makes current excess deaths higher than average. In reality, they underestimated the average that they compare to. Hope it's clear now.
- armada651 4y ago
  I see what you mean, yes it does make it difficult to prove a trend between periods with high rates of COVID infection and low rates of COVID infection. But proving such a trend is problematic regardless of what the criteria for a COVID excess death is. Simply because during a period of high COVID infection a lot of people are dying from COVID before they have the chance to die from other causes.
  - WithinReason 4y ago
    Yes, that's another confounding factor.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  However, Covid preys heavily on the already sick. We should see a *reduction* in deaths because Covid killed off a lot of people that didn't have a lot of time left. We don't even have an accurate baseline to compare to at this point.