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This chart isn’t absolute death: it’s the ratio of two causes of death. You’re not seeing countries go into negative excess in 2021 and 2022 — you’re seeing no

This chart isn’t absolute death: it’s the ratio of two causes of death. You’re not seeing countries go into negative excess in 2021 and 2022 — you’re seeing non-COVID excess surge. I was expecting during the omicron wave that we had more than two COVID deaths compared to non-COVID excess deaths — and that more broadly, we’d see more COVID than other excess death What we see instead is that during the height of omicron, 33% of the excess death was non-COVID — and that for most of 2021 and 2022, 66% of the excess death was non-COVID. What has been killing as many people as a global pandemic? — and if there’s so many non-COVID excess deaths, did our policies help?

marcosdumay 4y ago
When that ratio turns negative, it literally means that there has been negative excess deaths when compared to the average. You can claim that the average is abnormally high, but that's quite a wild claim. Negative excess deaths through the pandemics were pretty common and very well explained. Anyway, such concepts like "non-COVID excess" doesn't even start to make sense. Either you are determining the death causes, or you are doing statistical analysis over unknown causes.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  No — it doesn’t. When that chart turns negative, it means that the ratio of COVID deaths to non-COVID excess is less than one, ie there is more non-COVID excess death than COVID deaths. When there is no non-COVID excess, but still COVID deaths, the chart shoots up; when there’s none of either, it clamps to the black line. This is a log-scale chart of their ratio; that solid black line represents a ratio of 1, ie, equal amounts. The chart going below the black line represents positive excess death in a ratio that favors non-COVID excess deaths. Edit: I’ve added a log chart of excess deaths, with the black line at zero, ie, the expected amount. https://zmichaelgehlke.com/images/shaded-excess-mortality.png https://zmichaelgehlke.com/images/shaded-excess-mortality.pn... > concepts like "non-COVID excess" doesn't even start to make sense Sure they do: excess deaths which exceed the number of registered COVID deaths in the same period. We can detect that by looking at all cause mortality and subtracting identified COVID mortality.

marcosdumay 4y ago

When that ratio turns negative, it literally means that there has been negative excess deaths when compared to the average. You can claim that the average is abnormally high, but that's quite a wild claim. Negative excess deaths through the pandemics were pretty common and very well explained. Anyway, such concepts like "non-COVID excess" doesn't even start to make sense. Either you are determining the death causes, or you are doing statistical analysis over unknown causes.

zmgsabst 4y ago
No — it doesn’t. When that chart turns negative, it means that the ratio of COVID deaths to non-COVID excess is less than one, ie there is more non-COVID excess death than COVID deaths. When there is no non-COVID excess, but still COVID deaths, the chart shoots up; when there’s none of either, it clamps to the black line. This is a log-scale chart of their ratio; that solid black line represents a ratio of 1, ie, equal amounts. The chart going below the black line represents positive excess death in a ratio that favors non-COVID excess deaths. Edit: I’ve added a log chart of excess deaths, with the black line at zero, ie, the expected amount. https://zmichaelgehlke.com/images/shaded-excess-mortality.png https://zmichaelgehlke.com/images/shaded-excess-mortality.pn... > concepts like "non-COVID excess" doesn't even start to make sense Sure they do: excess deaths which exceed the number of registered COVID deaths in the same period. We can detect that by looking at all cause mortality and subtracting identified COVID mortality.