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They weren’t a particular outlier, which is notable considering how old their population is. And compatible with New York which through the kitchen sink at Cov

They weren’t a particular outlier, which is notable considering how old their population is. And compatible with New York which through the kitchen sink at Covid. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...

orblivion 3y ago
I dunno, 404 where the worst was 455 doesn't seem great either. I'd be curious what the "age-adjusted death rates" look like (whatever the unit of such a metric might be?)
- gnicholas 3y ago
  I don't have the age-adjusted death rates, but FL is 5th in the nation in terms of median age (42.2). This is over a decade older than the youngest state (UT: 31.1). [1] 1: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-age-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-age-...
  - kelnos 3y ago
    Oh that's surprising, I expected the median age to be much higher for FL. It sounds like FL's population, while older than most, isn't really that old in absolute terms?
    - lmm 3y ago
      You have to add a whole lot of old people to move the median much. I suspect the mean would tell another story.
    - slaw 3y ago
      What really matters is not median age, but how many people are over 65.
      - gnicholas 3y ago
        Why did this get downvoted? If you're just looking at death rate, it's absolutely true. Over 3/4 of all COVID deaths in the US were aged 65+. [1] Lots of other people got COVID, and some of them became seriously ill or died (mostly over 50). But the supermajority of Americans who died were over 65. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
        slaw 3y ago
        There are many covid believers on HN. It is hard to argue with someone who makes decision based on faith not facts.
        terminatornet 3y ago
        heres some facts for you: life expectancy dropped worldwide starting in 2020. to what do you attribute that if not covid? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy
        slaw 3y ago
        It is the most probably because of covid, what else could it be?
fwungy 3y ago
If your argument is proven with statistics you're on weak ground. - my statistics professor What did she mean? That if the impact of a treatment is so difficult to discern that you're looking at some statistic to judge it the treatment probably is not effective. The fact that Sweden doesn't stand out as a horror show relative to everyone else is indicative, as well as places with strict enforcement of lockdown rules. Nobody stands out
- benjaminwootton 3y ago
  I agree. Even though I disagree with the restrictions and coercion and don’t think any of it really worked, even I would expect to see a significant difference between say a Sweden or Florida in a California. Instead, we are arguing about minutiae.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- DocSavage 3y ago
  Sweden does stand out compared to their Nordic neighbors. They had ~1200 more deaths per million than Norway & Finland in the first year of pandemic. We're so inured to COVID death once we hit a million that some multiple of 9/11 doesn't stand out, eh? https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-covid https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-covid https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-cumulative https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-cumulative https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7797349/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7797349/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01097-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01097-5
  - fwungy 3y ago
    See here's one of my problems with the pro-hard response side: they often seem to be a solution seeking a problem. If you only look at the first year of the `sweden-vs-nordic-covid` link it looks pretty bad for Sweden, but if you extend it out, Finland and Norway traded early reduced mortality for later increased mortality. This suggests Covid is highly transmissible, and restrictive policies just shift mortality out a little bit, not reduce it. Sure it's great to save lives, but at what cost to society? You need to balance mental health, the needs of children for social and educational development, and the economy. You can't stop the world because people who are old or very sick are dying, that's nature, we're all subject to the same rules. You always need to balance the societal harm potential against the benefit, and with Covid our leaders seem to have forgotten that in many places.
tzs 3y ago
Timing matters. Take a look at this, which is cumulative deaths per capita from the start of the pandemic in the US to now for New York, Florida, California, and Washington [1]. New York got hit early and hard, having a large number of deaths in the first 2-3 months before anyone knew how to deal with COVID. After that New York did better than average. Florida got through the first 2-3 months fine, with about the same low number of deaths that California and Washington had. Handled well they could have stayed like that, but instead they started having a higher than average death rate and closing the gap with New York in total deaths. Florida's highest death rates were during the delta wave, which was after vaccines were widely available. The vaccine was very effective at preventing death from delta, which is why California and Washington had slight upturns in the death rate at that time as opposed to the steep rise in Florida. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Washington&show=highlight-only&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Florida%2CCalifornia%2CNew%20York#states-normalized http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...

orblivion 3y ago

I dunno, 404 where the worst was 455 doesn't seem great either. I'd be curious what the "age-adjusted death rates" look like (whatever the unit of such a metric might be?)

gnicholas 3y ago
I don't have the age-adjusted death rates, but FL is 5th in the nation in terms of median age (42.2). This is over a decade older than the youngest state (UT: 31.1). [1] 1: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-age-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-age-...
- kelnos 3y ago
  Oh that's surprising, I expected the median age to be much higher for FL. It sounds like FL's population, while older than most, isn't really that old in absolute terms?
  - lmm 3y ago
    You have to add a whole lot of old people to move the median much. I suspect the mean would tell another story.
  - slaw 3y ago
    What really matters is not median age, but how many people are over 65.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      Why did this get downvoted? If you're just looking at death rate, it's absolutely true. Over 3/4 of all COVID deaths in the US were aged 65+. [1] Lots of other people got COVID, and some of them became seriously ill or died (mostly over 50). But the supermajority of Americans who died were over 65. 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
      - slaw 3y ago
        There are many covid believers on HN. It is hard to argue with someone who makes decision based on faith not facts.
        terminatornet 3y ago
        heres some facts for you: life expectancy dropped worldwide starting in 2020. to what do you attribute that if not covid? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy
        slaw 3y ago
        It is the most probably because of covid, what else could it be?

fwungy 3y ago

If your argument is proven with statistics you're on weak ground. - my statistics professor What did she mean? That if the impact of a treatment is so difficult to discern that you're looking at some statistic to judge it the treatment probably is not effective. The fact that Sweden doesn't stand out as a horror show relative to everyone else is indicative, as well as places with strict enforcement of lockdown rules. Nobody stands out

benjaminwootton 3y ago
I agree. Even though I disagree with the restrictions and coercion and don’t think any of it really worked, even I would expect to see a significant difference between say a Sweden or Florida in a California. Instead, we are arguing about minutiae.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
DocSavage 3y ago
Sweden does stand out compared to their Nordic neighbors. They had ~1200 more deaths per million than Norway & Finland in the first year of pandemic. We're so inured to COVID death once we hit a million that some multiple of 9/11 doesn't stand out, eh? https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-covid https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-covid https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-cumulative https://tinyurl.com/sweden-vs-nordic-cumulative https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7797349/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7797349/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01097-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01097-5
- fwungy 3y ago
  See here's one of my problems with the pro-hard response side: they often seem to be a solution seeking a problem. If you only look at the first year of the `sweden-vs-nordic-covid` link it looks pretty bad for Sweden, but if you extend it out, Finland and Norway traded early reduced mortality for later increased mortality. This suggests Covid is highly transmissible, and restrictive policies just shift mortality out a little bit, not reduce it. Sure it's great to save lives, but at what cost to society? You need to balance mental health, the needs of children for social and educational development, and the economy. You can't stop the world because people who are old or very sick are dying, that's nature, we're all subject to the same rules. You always need to balance the societal harm potential against the benefit, and with Covid our leaders seem to have forgotten that in many places.

tzs 3y ago

Timing matters. Take a look at this, which is cumulative deaths per capita from the start of the pandemic in the US to now for New York, Florida, California, and Washington [1]. New York got hit early and hard, having a large number of deaths in the first 2-3 months before anyone knew how to deal with COVID. After that New York did better than average. Florida got through the first 2-3 months fine, with about the same low number of deaths that California and Washington had. Handled well they could have stayed like that, but instead they started having a higher than average death rate and closing the gap with New York in total deaths. Florida's highest death rates were during the delta wave, which was after vaccines were widely available. The vaccine was very effective at preventing death from delta, which is why California and Washington had slight upturns in the death rate at that time as opposed to the steep rise in Florida. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Washington&show=highlight-only&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Florida%2CCalifornia%2CNew%20York#states-normalized http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...