5 ms·

In the UK at least a death where the person had tested +ve for covid within a certain (quite long) time period was recorded as a covid death. So you catch covi

by Neil44 4y ago

In the UK at least a death where the person had tested +ve for covid within a certain (quite long) time period was recorded as a covid death. So you catch covid, recover, then get hit by a bus. Covid death. Meanwhile some countries report next to no deaths, also clearly not correct. The reported data is clearly close to worthless and yet it suits too many people's purposes to use it.

exDM69 4y ago
This is uniform across Europe, it's 30 days from a positive test to have comparable numbers. That isn't very reliable any more as testing is reduced and not comparable from country to country (it was more reliable in 2020). The "got hit by bus after positive test" group is so small it's negligible. E.g. in my country, there have been more covid deaths in two weeks than traffic accidents during the whole year. Because of the variation in testing practices, excess deaths is the only reliable statistic we have now.
SapporoChris 4y ago
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1062236/Guidance_for_Doctors_completing_medical_certificates_Mar_22.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... "You are asked to start with the immediate, direct cause of death on line Ia, then to go back through the sequence of events or conditions that led to death on subsequent lines, until you reach the one that started the fatal sequence." Seems unlikely that someone getting hit by a bus would be listed as a Covid death. I would be interested in your source.
- Neil44 4y ago
  "death in a person with a laboratory-confirmed positive COVID-19 test and died within (equal to or less than) 28 days of the first positive specimen date will now be reported" https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/public-health-england-death-data-revised/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/public-health-england-death-da...
  - _djo_ 4y ago
    Contextually this is clearly about people who died of disease, rather than accidents. It actually represented a tightening of the earlier definition, therefore resulting in the number of deaths defined as being from COVID-19 being reduced by around 5000.
    - Neil44 4y ago
      I was shocked reading further down, “ 1) A death in a person with a laboratory-confirmed positive COVID-19 and either: died within 60 days of the first specimen date or died more than 60 days after the first specimen date, only if COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate” Implying that in the first instance, covid does not need to appear anywhere on the death certificate and it will still be counted.
      - SapporoChris 4y ago
        Not sure how much this matters, but Public Health England was disbanded March 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_England
      - _djo_ 4y ago
        No. This isn’t the definition used in the official COVID death statistics published by the ONS. That’s based on a stricter definition, requiring that COVID-19 appear as a cause of death on the death certificate. The definition listed here is used only by the Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England) to provide a useful point in time metric for the severity of the pandemic across a range of data sources. The benefit is that the data may be available faster than the official ONS stat, allowing for earlier interventions. With information like this it’s always important to dig deeper into the context of who, what, when, and why, rather than taking it at face value. Especially when in this case both the HSA and ONS quite openly and transparently explain both their criteria and reasoning. All else being equal it seems a decent proxy. If you died of an illness within 60 days after testing positive for COVID, it’s almost certainly a contributing factor if not the main cause.

by Neil44 4y ago

exDM69 4y ago

This is uniform across Europe, it's 30 days from a positive test to have comparable numbers. That isn't very reliable any more as testing is reduced and not comparable from country to country (it was more reliable in 2020). The "got hit by bus after positive test" group is so small it's negligible. E.g. in my country, there have been more covid deaths in two weeks than traffic accidents during the whole year. Because of the variation in testing practices, excess deaths is the only reliable statistic we have now.

SapporoChris 4y ago

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1062236/Guidance_for_Doctors_completing_medical_certificates_Mar_22.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... "You are asked to start with the immediate, direct cause of death on line Ia, then to go back through the sequence of events or conditions that led to death on subsequent lines, until you reach the one that started the fatal sequence." Seems unlikely that someone getting hit by a bus would be listed as a Covid death. I would be interested in your source.

Neil44 4y ago
"death in a person with a laboratory-confirmed positive COVID-19 test and died within (equal to or less than) 28 days of the first positive specimen date will now be reported" https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/public-health-england-death-data-revised/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/public-health-england-death-da...
- _djo_ 4y ago
  Contextually this is clearly about people who died of disease, rather than accidents. It actually represented a tightening of the earlier definition, therefore resulting in the number of deaths defined as being from COVID-19 being reduced by around 5000.
  - Neil44 4y ago
    I was shocked reading further down, “ 1) A death in a person with a laboratory-confirmed positive COVID-19 and either: died within 60 days of the first specimen date or died more than 60 days after the first specimen date, only if COVID-19 is mentioned on the death certificate” Implying that in the first instance, covid does not need to appear anywhere on the death certificate and it will still be counted.
    - SapporoChris 4y ago
      Not sure how much this matters, but Public Health England was disbanded March 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_England
    - _djo_ 4y ago
      No. This isn’t the definition used in the official COVID death statistics published by the ONS. That’s based on a stricter definition, requiring that COVID-19 appear as a cause of death on the death certificate. The definition listed here is used only by the Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England) to provide a useful point in time metric for the severity of the pandemic across a range of data sources. The benefit is that the data may be available faster than the official ONS stat, allowing for earlier interventions. With information like this it’s always important to dig deeper into the context of who, what, when, and why, rather than taking it at face value. Especially when in this case both the HSA and ONS quite openly and transparently explain both their criteria and reasoning. All else being equal it seems a decent proxy. If you died of an illness within 60 days after testing positive for COVID, it’s almost certainly a contributing factor if not the main cause.