4 ms·

Why Are So Many Americans Dying Early?

33 points by RickJWagner 3y ago

api 3y ago
We know what people die of almost all the time. What does the data say? Nothing here but a link to an undigested Dropbox spreadsheet full of raw data. Very shallow junk article with no analysis.
mngdtt 3y ago
Because of global warming, evidently.
bad_alloc 3y ago
> With the worst of COVID behind us, annual deaths for all causes should be back to pre-pandemic levels — or even lower because of the loss of so many sick and infirm Americans. Since we now know that Covid can lead to long-term suppression of the immune system and that a significant part of infected people have other lingering issues, this is obviously false.
- Amezarak 3y ago
  If Covid immunosuppression is the problem, then why are young people (per the article) a disproportionate share of the excess deaths? > Unlike in the pandemic’s early phase, these deaths are not primarily among the old. For people 65 and over, deaths in the second quarter of 2023 were 6 percent below the pre-pandemic norm, according to a new report from the Society of Actuaries. Mortality was 26 percent higher among insured 35-to-44-year-olds, and 19 percent higher for 25-to-34-year-olds, continuing a death spike that peaked in the third quarter of 2021 at a staggering 101 percent and 79 percent above normal, respectively. Indeed, that suggests they are correct - unless you have a better explanation of why older people are doing better than pre-pandemic.
  - shfjdk 3y ago
    Because old folk’s immune systems are already differentiated/less effective
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      That doesn't mean they can't become less effective from Covid. The article mentions that deaths among the elderly are below pre-pandemic levels, which suggests that any such immune weakening is not the reason for excess deaths.
      - shfjdk 3y ago
        Proportionally. If you used up your naive T-Cells on your way to 60/70s there aren’t many left to lose. Whereas if you dumped them all on a few Covid infections in your 20s and 30s you’d see a proportional uptick in younger deaths alongside the life expectancy drops that we’re also seeing. As for the below pandemic death rate, folks can’t die twice and the aged were dry tinder for SARs
        Amezarak 3y ago
        IS there some reason to believe you wouldn't have the exact same problem in a pre-Covid world where people are being regularly exposed to colds, flus, RSV, and every other respiratory virus on a constant basis in their 20s and 30s? Why would losing naive T-cells to Covid adaptions be a bigger issue than losing naive T-cells to the zillions of other infections?
        AstralStorm 3y ago
        There are a few viruses with this behavior. The ones you mentioned are not. It's likely just a matter of being unlucky this time that a well spreading virus stumbled upon this way of avoiding immune system which breaks it. A bad case of Ebstein-Barr virus (a herpesvirus, causing mononucleosis) can set you down for life, for example. Certain bacteria like ones causing Lyme disease can do it too. You don't hear it talked about because they do not spread as readily.
  - joshuahedlund 3y ago
    How much higher are drug overdoses in 2023 compared to 2019?
    - Amezarak 3y ago
      The article mentions overdoses. They don't explain the difference. > To some extent, we know what is killing the young, with an actuarial analysis of government data showing mortality increases in liver, kidney and cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. Drug overdoses also soared nationwide, but not primarily in the young working class.
      - joshuahedlund 3y ago
        The article claims that but I can't tell what evidence they have for that claim. One of their linked pdfs[0] is long but as far as I can tell involves working class insured folks, and the chart on p31 shows Drug Overdoses as the largest excess category by far for the 0-44 age group.. Also page 27 says "Note that recent period deaths may continue to shift from non-COVID to COVID as COD coding becomes more complete". Edit: and the table on p43 seems to directly contradict their claim that the excess deaths are concentrated among the young "working" as opposed to non-working: Age 15-44 have almost the same percentages (18.9% vs 19.2%) for excess Q2 deaths; the insured cohort is the slightly lower one. "It's probably mostly drug overdoses and COVID" still seems like a reasonable null hypothesis to me. [0] https://www.soa.org/4ac0fd/globalassets/assets/files/resources/experience-studies/2023/group-life-covid-mort-06-23.pdf https://www.soa.org/4ac0fd/globalassets/assets/files/resourc...
  - taylodl 3y ago
    Because young people have robust immune systems and old people don’t. This makes young people have dramatically worse outcomes to anything suppressing their immune systems. Old people’s immune systems are already compromised. Hence, the results of immunosuppression will be much worse for younger adults.
liveoneggs 3y ago
Is this article blaming covid vaccines?
- Eumenes 3y ago
  does anyone regret not getting it?
  - Quick2822 3y ago
    I imagine those who died have some regrets.
    - graphe 3y ago
      Some also took the vaccine and died. Those that took the mRNA treatment and died as well as those that didn't take the experimental drug and died both regret it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- anovikov 3y ago
  If that is implied, it is verifiably false. In the EU we had higher Covid vaccine coverage, including coverage with all vaccines given in the U.S., plus one more which wasn't given in the U.S. and which is also the only one with known adverse effects - AstraZeneca's. And we don't have any excess mortality now. So it's certainly not vaccines.
  - stefantalpalaru 3y ago
    [dead]
  - base698 3y ago
    Seems still higher some countries and lower in others. I'm not familiar with the country codes, so if someone is maybe enlighten me. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Excess_mortality_-_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
Quick2822 3y ago
A little something about the author of the opinion piece. During his testimony in December 2020, Kory erroneously claimed that the antiparasitic medication ivermectin was a "wonder drug" with "miraculous effectiveness" against COVID-19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Kory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Kory
- joemazerino 3y ago
  And? Ivermectin is a notable antiviral medication that many, many Americans took to limit the COVID viral spread in their body. The media's attack on it was purely from a Pharma profit motive.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - soco 3y ago
    You are right Ivermectin is an antiviral and also right many Americans (and not only) took it. The results however, according to Google at least, seem to be at most "meh". The first results page shows only one positive correlation: in hamsters. But I'd be happy to see some more positive studies.
    - jjtheblunt 3y ago
      Here’s one from the NIH https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33278625/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33278625/
      - joshuahedlund 3y ago
        The takeaway I got from this post was you only see positive effects in countries where lots of people had stomach worms and the ivermectin was probably actually just helping with that: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-y...
      - 3y ago
infecto 3y ago
Honestly trash journalism. The is a sponsored piece by the FLCCC which is antivax group that supports things like ivermectin.
BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
We have zero cultural value of self control and are killing ourselves with overconsumption
rob74 3y ago
> In the United Kingdom, where post-pandemic excess deaths in similar demographics also persist, a government-funded independent inquiry is underway. “With each passing week of the COVID inquiry,” the BBC reported recently, “it is clear there were deep flaws in the way decisions were made and information provided during the pandemic.” The linked BBC article has a lot to say about the mistakes that were made during the pandemic (e.g. waiting too long before the first lockdown in March 2020), but nothing about post-pandemic excess deaths. Throwing around quotes taken out of context again, are we?
SpaceL10n 3y ago
I've always blamed the rugged individualism mindset common in America.
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  Some irony there... (And I guess that mindset infected the UK as well. Perhaps through 5G?)
thenerdhead 3y ago
Since when is COVID behind us? We are all living with a novel virus that is deadly in many mammals except bats. We are seeing people developing long covid with each new infection. We’re seeing vaccines cause similar syndrome for an unfortunate few where antibodies created causes autoimmune issues. The science is not perfect. Vaccines aren’t sterilizing, current treatments aren’t effective enough to prevent disease progression, and we are only approaching the 5 year mortality mark. When we develop more effective vaccines and treatments, perhaps we will see this start to settle alongside all the other challenges that continue to get worse.
graphe 3y ago
The author makes a case against lockdowns which is hurtful to our mental health and suggests that vaccines are somewhat responsible for excessive deaths in the younger population. The easier explaination is that those people were going to die of covid (vaccinated or not) didn't. They are sickened by either the virus, the vaccine or both. The robust cytokine storms that occurred in younger people might harm them more than older people.

33 points by RickJWagner 3y ago

api 3y ago

We know what people die of almost all the time. What does the data say? Nothing here but a link to an undigested Dropbox spreadsheet full of raw data. Very shallow junk article with no analysis.

mngdtt 3y ago

Because of global warming, evidently.

bad_alloc 3y ago

> With the worst of COVID behind us, annual deaths for all causes should be back to pre-pandemic levels — or even lower because of the loss of so many sick and infirm Americans. Since we now know that Covid can lead to long-term suppression of the immune system and that a significant part of infected people have other lingering issues, this is obviously false.

Amezarak 3y ago
If Covid immunosuppression is the problem, then why are young people (per the article) a disproportionate share of the excess deaths? > Unlike in the pandemic’s early phase, these deaths are not primarily among the old. For people 65 and over, deaths in the second quarter of 2023 were 6 percent below the pre-pandemic norm, according to a new report from the Society of Actuaries. Mortality was 26 percent higher among insured 35-to-44-year-olds, and 19 percent higher for 25-to-34-year-olds, continuing a death spike that peaked in the third quarter of 2021 at a staggering 101 percent and 79 percent above normal, respectively. Indeed, that suggests they are correct - unless you have a better explanation of why older people are doing better than pre-pandemic.
- shfjdk 3y ago
  Because old folk’s immune systems are already differentiated/less effective
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    That doesn't mean they can't become less effective from Covid. The article mentions that deaths among the elderly are below pre-pandemic levels, which suggests that any such immune weakening is not the reason for excess deaths.
    - shfjdk 3y ago
      Proportionally. If you used up your naive T-Cells on your way to 60/70s there aren’t many left to lose. Whereas if you dumped them all on a few Covid infections in your 20s and 30s you’d see a proportional uptick in younger deaths alongside the life expectancy drops that we’re also seeing. As for the below pandemic death rate, folks can’t die twice and the aged were dry tinder for SARs
      - Amezarak 3y ago
        IS there some reason to believe you wouldn't have the exact same problem in a pre-Covid world where people are being regularly exposed to colds, flus, RSV, and every other respiratory virus on a constant basis in their 20s and 30s? Why would losing naive T-cells to Covid adaptions be a bigger issue than losing naive T-cells to the zillions of other infections?
        AstralStorm 3y ago
        There are a few viruses with this behavior. The ones you mentioned are not. It's likely just a matter of being unlucky this time that a well spreading virus stumbled upon this way of avoiding immune system which breaks it. A bad case of Ebstein-Barr virus (a herpesvirus, causing mononucleosis) can set you down for life, for example. Certain bacteria like ones causing Lyme disease can do it too. You don't hear it talked about because they do not spread as readily.
- joshuahedlund 3y ago
  How much higher are drug overdoses in 2023 compared to 2019?
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    The article mentions overdoses. They don't explain the difference. > To some extent, we know what is killing the young, with an actuarial analysis of government data showing mortality increases in liver, kidney and cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. Drug overdoses also soared nationwide, but not primarily in the young working class.
    - joshuahedlund 3y ago
      The article claims that but I can't tell what evidence they have for that claim. One of their linked pdfs[0] is long but as far as I can tell involves working class insured folks, and the chart on p31 shows Drug Overdoses as the largest excess category by far for the 0-44 age group.. Also page 27 says "Note that recent period deaths may continue to shift from non-COVID to COVID as COD coding becomes more complete". Edit: and the table on p43 seems to directly contradict their claim that the excess deaths are concentrated among the young "working" as opposed to non-working: Age 15-44 have almost the same percentages (18.9% vs 19.2%) for excess Q2 deaths; the insured cohort is the slightly lower one. "It's probably mostly drug overdoses and COVID" still seems like a reasonable null hypothesis to me. [0] https://www.soa.org/4ac0fd/globalassets/assets/files/resources/experience-studies/2023/group-life-covid-mort-06-23.pdf https://www.soa.org/4ac0fd/globalassets/assets/files/resourc...
- taylodl 3y ago
  Because young people have robust immune systems and old people don’t. This makes young people have dramatically worse outcomes to anything suppressing their immune systems. Old people’s immune systems are already compromised. Hence, the results of immunosuppression will be much worse for younger adults.

liveoneggs 3y ago

Is this article blaming covid vaccines?

Eumenes 3y ago
does anyone regret not getting it?
- Quick2822 3y ago
  I imagine those who died have some regrets.
  - graphe 3y ago
    Some also took the vaccine and died. Those that took the mRNA treatment and died as well as those that didn't take the experimental drug and died both regret it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
anovikov 3y ago
If that is implied, it is verifiably false. In the EU we had higher Covid vaccine coverage, including coverage with all vaccines given in the U.S., plus one more which wasn't given in the U.S. and which is also the only one with known adverse effects - AstraZeneca's. And we don't have any excess mortality now. So it's certainly not vaccines.
- stefantalpalaru 3y ago
  [dead]
- base698 3y ago
  Seems still higher some countries and lower in others. I'm not familiar with the country codes, so if someone is maybe enlighten me. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Excess_mortality_-_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Quick2822 3y ago

A little something about the author of the opinion piece. During his testimony in December 2020, Kory erroneously claimed that the antiparasitic medication ivermectin was a "wonder drug" with "miraculous effectiveness" against COVID-19. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Kory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Kory

joemazerino 3y ago
And? Ivermectin is a notable antiviral medication that many, many Americans took to limit the COVID viral spread in their body. The media's attack on it was purely from a Pharma profit motive.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- soco 3y ago
  You are right Ivermectin is an antiviral and also right many Americans (and not only) took it. The results however, according to Google at least, seem to be at most "meh". The first results page shows only one positive correlation: in hamsters. But I'd be happy to see some more positive studies.
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    Here’s one from the NIH https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33278625/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33278625/
    - joshuahedlund 3y ago
      The takeaway I got from this post was you only see positive effects in countries where lots of people had stomach worms and the ivermectin was probably actually just helping with that: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-y...
    - 3y ago

infecto 3y ago

Honestly trash journalism. The is a sponsored piece by the FLCCC which is antivax group that supports things like ivermectin.

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago

We have zero cultural value of self control and are killing ourselves with overconsumption

rob74 3y ago

> In the United Kingdom, where post-pandemic excess deaths in similar demographics also persist, a government-funded independent inquiry is underway. “With each passing week of the COVID inquiry,” the BBC reported recently, “it is clear there were deep flaws in the way decisions were made and information provided during the pandemic.” The linked BBC article has a lot to say about the mistakes that were made during the pandemic (e.g. waiting too long before the first lockdown in March 2020), but nothing about post-pandemic excess deaths. Throwing around quotes taken out of context again, are we?

SpaceL10n 3y ago

I've always blamed the rugged individualism mindset common in America.

readthenotes1 3y ago
Some irony there... (And I guess that mindset infected the UK as well. Perhaps through 5G?)

thenerdhead 3y ago

Since when is COVID behind us? We are all living with a novel virus that is deadly in many mammals except bats. We are seeing people developing long covid with each new infection. We’re seeing vaccines cause similar syndrome for an unfortunate few where antibodies created causes autoimmune issues. The science is not perfect. Vaccines aren’t sterilizing, current treatments aren’t effective enough to prevent disease progression, and we are only approaching the 5 year mortality mark. When we develop more effective vaccines and treatments, perhaps we will see this start to settle alongside all the other challenges that continue to get worse.

graphe 3y ago

The author makes a case against lockdowns which is hurtful to our mental health and suggests that vaccines are somewhat responsible for excessive deaths in the younger population. The easier explaination is that those people were going to die of covid (vaccinated or not) didn't. They are sickened by either the virus, the vaccine or both. The robust cytokine storms that occurred in younger people might harm them more than older people.