The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has just released a tranche of new data about the coronavirus.
Far and away the most interesting statement is this one:
For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.
Now, per the same document, we’ve had 161,392 deaths WITH coronavirus up to August 22nd, meaning that the virus was detected either while they were alive or at autopsy.
But only 6% of those people actually died of the coronavirus alone … meaning that we’ve had about 9,680 people who died of Coronavirus-19.
And that is a nationwide death rate of 0.003% … and a before and after difference of 17 times. (see note- AW)
As for the rest of the fatalities, on average they had two or three “co-morbidities”, other diseases that might or might not have killed them.
Note from Anthony: Willis provided the base article, I made some enhancements to the title, the body, and made a bar chart. And to clear up some confusion about the initial title number (177% which was wrong, my bad), it is now 161392/9860 = 16.67 or ~17 times.
CDC has done an excellent job of hiding mortality figures. There are hundreds of cv data tables, but most of them do not really allow good statistical analysis. Willis hit on a table which can be used for some limited data analysis, that is, “Provisional Deaths due to Coronavirus through Aug, 2020” The reason why this table is so good, is NOT the table mortality data for cv. Rather, it also lists the total weekly deaths for several months. Total Deaths from all causes cannot be fudged. Now, logic tells you, that if the Total Weekly Deaths are near average (which is the case now at the end of August), then no matter how much the cv figures are puffed up, cv is now not that much of a threat, because the total Mortality data is average – just like any recent year. Still, the data are frustrating in some ways – what is needed is the Total weekly Deaths for 3 or 4 years – then a much clearer picture of accurate data figures for cv could be obtained…
As an add on to the above comments – the CDC data for Weekly Mortality for all causes, for 2020,was graphed using Excel.
It shows average weekly deaths for all causes to be around 59,000, (which is normal), and then rising to about 80,000 during the week of 4/11/20. This peak, although it includes all causes, can be inferred to be due to covid. Since that time, weekly mortality figures have dropped until they are now at or below the 59,000 average – the tailing down is clearly shown on the graph.
This behavior is typical of all flu viruses – they have peaks in the cold of winter, and then drop in the heat of summer.
A better forecast for what will happen with covid in the future, could be made if the weekly mortality data for all causes, be assessed over a 3 or 4 year period, but that data is difficult to find. In the meantime, can we assume covid will behave like a normal flu? And slowly tail off, and gradually disappear as normal? We have to wait for several months more data…(if it will appear on the CDC data charts). But if covid behaves as a normal flu, we should be preparing to return to school and work, immediately.
Has anyone seen a comparison of a “normal” years’ death rate vs this year? If COVID is so bad, there should be dramatically more deaths this year than average since you have all the normal reasons plus COVID.
We have that in Europe:
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
/Jan
thanks for the link. It does show excess .
Even more so if you look by country and not the average of all participating countries. Cause Germany was very low in deaths but has a way higher population than other countries where you saw a peak like Belgium. So statistically Germany “flattens the curve” there for the average.
It’s even more impressive if you look at countries that never in the record had even a slight increase through the flu but a high peak now. For those countries SARS-CoV-2 is definitively way worse than the flu.
This is the report of the CDC:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm?fbclid=IwAR3-wrg3tTKK5-9tOHPGAHWFVO3DfslkJ0KsDEPQpWmPbKtp6EsoVV2Qs1Q
Almost all the way down is table three: it “shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).”
In almost the last row, there is “Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning and other adverse events”. Do I understand this correctly? People fell of a high ladder, got in a bad car accident, or got bitten by a venimous snake, and ended up dead, …. but because they were positive for the corona virus, the cause of death was reported as COVID?
There really needs to be fractional counting of death from Covid. Not one thing kills a person, many problems contribute.
For example a person could get Covid, go to hospital and die of heart attack. Who is to say they would not died of heart attack if they had NO Covid.
These death numbers are useless.
While I agree our ability to test accurately for covid is lacking, clearly something is killing people more frequently than normal. Regardless of what the cause of death is, the excess death rate is running high now.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm. It would easy to say some virus is a probably contributor to these deaths. Knowing most of the excess deaths were in older people, I suspect next year we will see excess deaths running below average as covid likely hasten the end of life cycle.
What’s different this time is:
* the high number of intubations
* the experimental use of toxic drugs
* the dehumanizing fear and fatalism that instills hopelessness in patients and prevents the presence of bedside advocates who can comfort, advise and check for medical errors
* a rigid medical orthodoxy that treats patients according to protocols that ignore the patho-physiologies of individual outliers
* a dysfunctional medical system that discourages and prevents outpatient treatments forcing disease progression in vulnerable patients to conditions that require inpatient emergency/critical care.
“rigid medical orthodoxy”
It isn’t medical. It’s math. Possibly worshiping of the central limit theorem, without knowing what it is about…
But it’s math for stupid. Lots of impressive statistical garbage.
I would be very careful about this. The CDC data has not changed, it is just presented in a different format now. All along it was apparent that deaths were largely among those with multiple comorbidities, especially the frail elderly. People are misinterpreting the data to say that only a few people died with CV as a significant contributor. The accurate way to fill out the typical CV death certificate would result in contributing conditions being listed. The most common would be ARDS, acute respiratory distress syndrome, on line a, the immediate cause, pneumonia on line b, the closest underlying cause, and CV on line c, the ultimate underlying cause. People who also had influenza should have that on line c and CV on line d, or vice versa. People are very frail and susceptible to death for any reason, should have part 2 filled out, and if they have them, things like dementia, congestive heart failure, end-stage renal disease, morbid obesity should be there.
So an accurately filled out death certificate will almost certainly have multiple conditions listed, but that doesn’t mean CV wasn’t a significant contributing cause. What is most important, I think, is that people understand that most people dying “of” CV, had a life expectancy of under 6 months, they were on the edge of the cliff and the slightest puff of wind was going to push them over. CV may or may not have been that puff.
The death certificates are also not a good source of consistent data, due to variability among the certifiers, and there are thousands of certifiers across the country. I looked at every death certificate in Minnesota YTD through July 16, with a focus on the CV ones. I am writing a series of posts on this at my site, http://www.healthy-skeptic.com. The variability in certifying was obvious, and some listed only CV but had circumstances, for example, place of death in the ER, that would lead you to suspect that there was a failure to list all conditions which might have contributed. But looking at death certificates has another important benefit, it shows clearly that the lockdowns are creating a lot of deaths above average for things like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and dementia.
Your site is worthy of a bookmark. Thx
Here we go again from Willis, who doesn’t seem to think volcanism has affected the climate since the Permian volcanos caused the biggest mass extinction. Now he doesn’t believe in pandemics; look at the excess deaths in all the counties which have data. Some of these are caused by people not being treated for other things, and some are caused by a virus which kicks you when you are down. But they would not occur without the virus. Take a guess which Willis will focus on.
We agree that declaring that anyone who dies with COVID-19 died of COVID-19 is invalid.
How is it any more valid to declare that anyone who has a co-morbidity did not die of COVID-19?
Having a co-morbidity is not a death sentence, many people live for decades with these co-morbidities.
How do you explain excess deaths? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Excess deaths are definitely worth investigating. I find it fascinating that there were none before the lockdown. Things that make you go Hmmm….
Comments on deaths in Arizona:
Deaths in AZ (Jan-July):
2018 35521
2019 35430
2020 42582
2020 had 7061 more deaths than 2018.
2020 had 7152 more deaths than 2019.
As of end of July, 3694 COVID-19 deaths in AZ.
That means 2020 has 3367 more deaths than 2018 and 3694 more death than 2019 that are not related to COVID-19 infection.
What caused those increased deaths?
If we consider the facts in the above article, the number of death due to COVID-19 is much lower, so the increased deaths not related to COVID-19 is even larger. Why has that not been reported?
I have been tracking AZ COVID19 statistics on a spreadsheet since March 29th using http://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php
The general death information came from pub.azdhs.gov/health-stats/mu/index.php
I was looking for information on senior death in 2020 vs prior years to see how many more deaths COVID-19 was causing compared to other years. I have not found the senior death info, but I found that death increased more than just from COVID-19 infection. FYI senior COVID-19 reported death started at 80% and for recent 14 day periods are down to the high 60s.
As mentioned in other comments above, we are probably having deaths because of impact on medical treatment that had been standard in the past. I blame those deaths more on the over response that we have had to COVID-19 than to the disease itself. That is especially true for any increase in suicides.
I am not saying that we don’t have a COVID-19 problem. The Navajo Nation was hit very hard early in the year.
We need to understand what is happening and what worked and what didn’t in addressing the problems. A more serious pandemic is probable in the future and we need to learn from this one.
Ed
Only off by a factor of 17? Well that’s close… sort of.
For a cosmologist / astrophysicist that would be a bulls-eye!
Start use more Hydroxychloroquine Fauci and save life.
Impact of HCQ on mortality among 8075 patients with COVID-19 was assessed.
Compared to supportive care only, low-dose HCQ monotherapy was independently associated with lower mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 diagnosed and treated early or later after symptom onset.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920303423
I’m actually enjoying the pandemic.
It’s been a peaceful year and the reduced intensity is welcome.
Covid19 does kill a minority by attacking the complement immune system, causing blood coagulation and lung inflammation and pneumonia.
At the most intense period of infections in the UK the total death rate in the country doubled due to the virus, so I don’t think much is gained by trying to argue for the non-existence of the virus deaths from it.
I’m not scared of the virus, I think by and large governments are taking the right decisions and policies so I don’t think there’s any need to fight over it.
Salmon
Glad to hear you are enjoying the pandemic.
Maybe next year there will be a plague of locusts or a world war that you can enjoy too.
Phil,
It is heartening that you have faith in government, and generally consider they are doing the right thing, re the virus. It is also a little puzzling. I have never considered a government strategy that destroyed society and destroyed the economy in a positive light before. You must enlighten us about this new tolerance towards lunacy.
Many of us are still operating under the misconception, that government policy, should primarily be aimed at improving society and saving lives not, destroying them.
It was a bad choice of words, “enjoying the pandemic”. I’m not at all happy about the suffering of victims with breathing difficulties (that go way beyond flu) and the deaths and bereavements. And not at all happy about the many who have lost jobs. I meant to say I was personally finding the lockdown and reduced travel quite peaceful and refreshing, since I have a job that had previous meant continuous travel.
When you look at the weekly number of deaths in the US since 2017, there is clearly an excess mortality of 5’000 to 20’000 people per week since April. Sums up to at least 150’000.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Looks like Covid-19 is causing more than 6% of the 160’000 deaths.
Given the very clear relationship between advanced age (76% of deaths are aged 65 or older and 58% are aged 75 or older) and death with multiple comorbidities (average of 2.6 per death) with Covid 1984, I think we are seeing deaths in the elderly and already ill being advanced by some months. It will likely be clear in a year if CDC provides accurate data.
As an add on to the above comments – the CDC data for Weekly Mortality for all causes, for 2020,was graphed using Excel.
It shows average weekly deaths for all causes to be around 59,000, (which is normal), and then rising to about 80,000 during the week of 4/11/20. This peak, although it includes all causes, can be inferred to be due to covid. Since that time, weekly mortality figures have dropped until they are now at or below the 59,000 average – the tailing down is clearly shown on the graph.
This behavior is typical of all flu viruses – they have peaks in the cold of winter, and then drop in the heat of summer.
A better forecast for what will happen with covid in the future, could be made if the weekly mortality data for all causes, be assessed over a 3 or 4 year period, but that data is difficult to find. In the meantime, can we assume covid will behave like a normal flu? And slowly tail off, and gradually disappear as normal? We have to wait for several months more data…(if it will appear on the CDC data charts). But if covid behaves as a normal flu, we should be preparing to return to school and work, immediately.
If covid19 is no worse than flu then why do survivors often have more permanent problems
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/19/long-covid-real-patients-suffer-debilitating-symptoms-months/
But in the first study to show a conclusive pattern, researchers at North Bristol NHS Trust found that three quarters of virus patients treated at Bristol’s Southmead Hospital were still experiencing problems three months later.
Symptoms included breathlessness, excessive fatigue and muscle aches, leaving people struggling to wash, dress and return to work.
Dr David Arnold, of North Bristol NHS Trust, said: “This research helps to describe what many coronavirus patients have been telling us – they are still breathless, tired, and not sleeping well months after admission.”
The Long Covid Support Group estimates that up to half a million Britons could be suffering from the effects.
Does anyone know if the new normal, will be a novel virus role out and overreaction every election year? Or is it likely to be just this one? Maybe it will depend on who wins?
A follow up question.
Will we all be required to wear a face mask round our necks like Nancy Pelosi does, or is just going to be required by those who have something to hide?
humorous take
From vs With
Simple as that.
Everyone dies when their heart and/or brain stop functioning (What is “death” debate.).
So is that From or With?
Prior to 2020, deaths of the elderly and infirm with a common cold would have been recorded as dying from one or a number of serious conditions. Why should 2020 be any different? This is why…….
The indictment, certainly in Britain, is that the government operated health service cleared hospitals of all elderly and infirm patients that could be moved, at 24 hours notice.
‘The hospital discharge service requirements provide actions that must be taken immediately to enhance discharge arrangements and the provision of community support.’
‘To do this we need to organise the safe and rapid discharge of those people who no longer need to be in a hospital bed. The new default will be discharge home today.’
NHS England 19 March 2020
They did this not in response to reliable data but on the advice of a notorious eccentric and hoaxer called Professor Pantsdown.
Almost anyone over the age of seven could have told them what the consequences would be: over ten thousand people died before their time.
But they did not need any seven year old to tell them because they had recent research readily available from a two minute google search:
‘Unexpectedly Higher Morbidity and Mortality of Hospitalized Elderly Patients Associated with Rhinovirus Compared with Influenza Virus Respiratory Tract Infection’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5343795/ January 2017
Please note given cause of death:
‘The 30-day (p = 0.04), the 90-day (p = 0.006) and 1-year (p = 0.004) mortality rate was significantly higher in the HRV group than the influenza virus group (Table 1 and Figure 2). One hundred and twenty-five patients (17.2%) in the HRV group succumbed by the end of the 1-year follow-up, comparing to 143 patients (11.7%) in the influenza group. Majority of the HRV patients died of pneumonia (81.6%), followed by COPD (20.8%), and malignancy (10.4%). A significant proportion of patients had more than one causes of death. There was no significant difference in the cause of death between the two groups.’
But deaths in UK hospitals and elsewhere in 2020 were recorded as covid 19 despite co-morbidities because covid 19 had been made a notifiable disease on 05 March 2020…….which could have helped the case for the national lockdown about two weeks later……?
Unfortunately for the government, on 19 March covid 19 was removed from the UK list of high consequence infectious diseases…….
Please note ages and co-morbidities of those who died:
‘Comparing patients who succumbed with those who survived in the HRV group by univariate analysis (Table 2), patients in the succumbed group were significantly older (p < 0.001) and more patients were elderly home residents (p < 0.001). Succumbed patients had a higher Charlson comorbidity index (p = 0.04) with more chronic pulmonary diseases (p = 0.008).'
So any common cold virus is more of a killer to the elderly and infirm. Consequently, any common cold virus would have had the same effect in Britain to covid 19 if suddenly introduced to nursing homes by immediate discharge from hospital of infected patients back to those nursing homes. But, prior to 2020, those deaths would not have been recorded as from a common cold virus if other serious co-morbidities were present; simple, practical common sense, the hallmark, we thought, until 2020, of all decent health institutions.
All the rest is stuff and nonsense; politics.
It may take one year, maybe three, possibly five years, but sooner or later a very large number of people are going to get extremely angry about this hopeless failure of government; any national leadership.
With the honourable exception of Anders Tegnell in Sweden. The award does not yet exist that would do justice to his stature. The whole world should have followed him.
Following up out of respect for the author and fine comments, the rather excellent series on Covid from “MedCram” Dr. Seheult (a practicing pulmonologist) covers the CODING issue better than I could … and goes on to cover more of interest (including recent developments w/ VitD, HCQ, etc). Video is here:
https://youtu.be/_TECf3xSFbU
For care and concern of everyone here, I also URGE you all to watch Update 97 from the series – a video on Vitamin D and overall health. This is an area we (BCBS stats nerds and docs) were furiously discussing back in March/April and one of those “aha” ones akin to “a baby aspirin a day, keeps the cancer away” findings. I’d add NAC and the Italian study on flu SICKNESS vs. flu INCIDENCE and how that works (study is covered about 12 min into that video).
Shout out to Dr. Seheult for his yeoman’s work in this from everyone on our team here in Ohio!
Here’s 97 – https://youtu.be/Mdc7T2UTHBI.
Here’s 69 on NAC – https://youtu.be/Dr_6w-WPr0w
Still doesn’t account for a 20% additional deaths per month incurred for All COD, 35% Additional in April alone.
All this is telling you, is that the baseline health in this country, isn’t that great, ie obesity is a comorbidity, as well as high blood pressure and depression. it isn’t something someone is dying from, it is persistent condition that complicates matters when health is further compromised.