Guest essay by Indur M. Goklany
Don’t look just at deaths from coronavirus, look at cumulative deaths from comorbidities. Since most people dying from coronavirus also exhibit comorbidities,[1] and it is unclear how deaths are assigned to the former rather than one of the co-morbidities and whether there is a uniform accepted methodology from one doctor to another (or one hospital to another or one country to another) in the assignments, it is not clear how much credence can be given to coronavirus death estimates at this time.
This also means that we shouldn’t attempt cross-country and cross-jurisdictional comparisons because they could mislead. It is best to look at (and compare) aggregate excess deaths from all co-morbidities rather than just one or another co-morbidity. I would suggest looking at excess deaths against an average over the last 5-10 years for both all-cause deaths and deaths from all coronavirus-plus- comorbidities to get an idea about how devastating coronavirus has been versus an average year.
To compare deaths between jurisdictions, don’t look at absolute deaths, look at death rates, based on population sizes. It makes no sense to compare absolute numbers of deaths in Italy, UK, San Marino, and Sweden against those in the U.S.
Each area is different. From where I sit — in Northern Virginia — New York is another country. And from upstate New York, New York City is also another country. Risk factors such as population density, use of mass transit, presence of people who have recently travelled elsewhere, norms regarding appropriate social distance, household size, age composition of households, and all the other coronavirus risk factors are likely to be different in each area. One should, therefore, expect each location would have its own curve that would have to be flattened. Some areas may literally be “ahead of the curve” since these areas have had some advance warning before the virus was brought into their communities and may not need to take drastic measures to flatten the curve. Aggregating data across urban and rural areas does not make much sense.
I wouldn’t be surprised if at the end of the current period with most populated areas currently shut in by individual choice or government decree, once all the data are in, excess deaths for all causes are not negative relative to the 5- or 10-year average, since physical distancing should also reduce transmission of the flu (influenza and pneumonia kill about 50,000+ Americans annually)[2]. At least, I would hope that would be the case, so we can look back and see that some good came of our flattening our economy. At least one can hope.
[1]https://www.hopkinsguides.com/hopkins/view/Johns_Hopkins_ABX_Guide/540747/all/Coronavirus_COVID_19__SARS_CoV_2_
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_09-508.pdf
That reminds me, someone should do the same type of analysis for concentration camps in nazi germany.
audit the death certificates!
deniers never change no matter what data they are looking at
Ah, so climate(cv19) denial IS the same as holocaust denial according to you and your ilk. Thanks for clearing that up. Anyone using such a repugnant and emotive term for those that oppose a (supposed) ‘concensus’ should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves – it reflects badly on them (YOU), not those that they (you) so accuse. ‘Denier’ is an ugly word used by ugly people. Well done.
Steven
Your denierism is clear and evident in your constant praise of China’s way of doing things. They have screwed the whole world, they have proven once again that governments with unlimited power can achieve great things, unfortunately the things they achieve are almost always evil. For someone who has proclaimed them self a libertarian you have no idea whats that means.
Mosh, you just get jerkier (a euphemism, read between the lines) with every post.
What are you accusing people of denying, exactly, other than denying you’re right about everything. Spoiler alert — you’re not.
If it is true that you are in the Koreas than I hope you stay permanently. They sure could use a smart fellow like yourself.
New York Tomes: death undercount.
“Hospital officials, public health experts and medical examiners say that official tallies of Americans said to have died in the pandemic do not capture the overall number of virus-related deaths, leaving the public with a limited understanding of the outbreak’s true toll.”
“Doctors now believe that some deaths in February and early March were likely misidentified as influenza or only described as pneumonia.”
And Sweeden: from Sweeden ational News, TT.
Every day, the health authorities in Sweden present figures on the number of coronary patients who have died, but emphasize that these are preliminary figures. Now there are revised figures from the authorities which show that there have been many more deaths per day. This is evident from an investigation by the news agency TT of the figures.
And China: ???
And Ecuador: ??? from links from commieBob
And India: ???
And Italy: The Wall Street Journal.
“Italy’s Coronavirus Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported”
And most of the developing countries.
I think we have much to learn how this virus is damaging people and how it kills.
The first issue is the data — Not every country counts Covid-19 deaths the same. The CDC guidelines for the USA are very liberal about attributing death to Covid-19. This makes the death toll appear to be higher.
So we need uniformity in reporting to make sense of the data. Otherwise we have to “adjust” raw numbers to account for different counting methods.
Anyone have pre- vs. post-hospitalization rates of COVD-19 infection? The spread of new infections to critical patients in ICUs must be substantial.
Gowns, gloves, face masks and shields are not being changed in between patient visits in ICUs (apparent from videos). And masks are even being used for multiple shifts and multiple days, stored in paper bags between uses.
Average time of admission to death is pretty long – weeks in some cases – and if the patient’s positive status is not clearly given as COVD-19 or flu at time of admission they could well be developing the killing infection after admission. The high rates of death while under ventillation are understandable, but the guidelines seem to make it far easier to fill in the Principal Cause of Death as “COVD Epidemic”. Which sure looks better than “Oops”.
https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2020/01/22/coronavirus-count-in-beijing#virus_total_count
The blog is called “The Beijinger”. It’s in English, written by and for ex-pat. English speakers working in Beijing. There are thousands of them. It’s well documented and sources are given.
China is getting things under control. You should believe it. It suggests a lot about how soon we can get back to work in U.S.
Some experts claim that deaths due to the Corona virus are being under reported because many who die at home or in nursing homes are not included in the death total. Others say deaths due to the virus are being over reported because deaths due primarily to other causes are being reported as Corona deaths. At this point, we don’t really know what the real numbers are. What we do know is that of those worldwide who have symptoms serious enough to seek medical help and be tested, about 1 in 5 die and about 4 in 5 recover. In the USA, it is more like 1 in 3 who die, and 2 in 3 who recover. Those numbers will certainly change as treatments improve and more people with mild symptoms get tested. But, right now, the number of deaths from known cases is extremely high.
Louis Hunt
April 6, 2020 at 2:09 pm
To actually address the problem of symptoms severity and fatality, you have to take in account the real condition from where all this chain reaction of global madness sprung out.
Where and when doctors for the first time met COVID-19.
Suddenly at “The point of no return”, the line between severity and fatality.
At that point, at that line, at least 95 out of 100 do not make it back, regardless of what doctors may try or do… very severe and fatal at that line, hopeless.
Very shocking, very panicking, very mind crushing, horrific, especially for/to docs who suffer from god complexity or LGBT mentality… or any other kind of flimsy week mind set.
War against COVID-19?!!
What a big fat ironic joke.
The entire modern global medical 21fst century system collapsed immediately to panic and shock, for not saying horror, and charged for the hills and bushes like a headless chicken,
from/at the very first moment it suddenly met COVID-19…
That war is already lost…
and the rest is and will be only history.
cheers
I highly recommend this video.
Professor Knut Wittkowski, for twenty years head of The Rockefeller University’s Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design, says that social distancing and lockdown is the absolutely worst way to deal with an airborne respiratory virus.
Further, he offers data to show that China and South Korea had already reached their peak number of cases when they instituted their containment measures. In other words, nature had already achieved or nearly achieved herd immunity.
https://youtu.be/lGC5sGdz4kg