Death Rates - Are these “extra deaths”?

[tegucigalpa13]

Annual death rates in the UK ranged from around 550000 to 615000 in the period 2011 to 2018

www.statista.com/statistics/281478/death-rate-united-kingdom-uk/

This works out at around 1500 -1600 deaths per day ( although I realise these are not evenly distributed )

Is it possible to determine what proportion of the covid 19 deaths are “extra deaths” ie how many of the people who have died/will die would have been expected to die within the next few months without this virus?

There's a lot of people dying in nursing homes that maybe unaccounted for in the Covid-19 stats:

"According to Tuesday’s data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), all deaths in England and Wales in the week ending April 10 were 75% more than normal rate"

The article later reports:

"The ONS data also showed that the vast majority of all excess deaths were people aged over 75 years old. This age bracket accounted for 70 per cent of the total, the same proportion as those with Covid-19 on their death certificates."

There is no way of knowing if they died from Covid-19 without testing. But that's a lot of extra deaths. There is a pandemic and the bellcurve won't account for them all.

Quoted text came from:

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html
So far there is a massive uptick in excess deaths in many countries, very much including the UK, even accounting for the reduction in things like road traffic accidents. The excess deaths in most cases exceed the reported covid deaths.

New York has a crazy amount of excess deaths, poor people.

I have a family member who works as a grave digger .
The volume of work in the past 3 weeks has been unbelievable.
One cemetery local to me usually has 2-3 graves dug in a week ... currently doing 3-4 a day .. one day they had to open 6 graves .
That’s real facts to me and not statistical data to analyse .
When you bear in mind that a lot you of people elect for cremation these days .thrre will be more than this.. a lot of deaths in a short time. Sad .
This is in a town - not a city .

I personally know 7 people who have died ... oldest 67 ... former stoke victim- but we wouldn’t have expected not to be here for 2 more years ..of course one couldn’t know that for sure .

Next oldest 54 .. he and the other 6 had no known health conditions.

I should say these are not all in the town I referred to but 5 throughout iScotland, 2 in England .. so not one infection cluster either .
For me this is very real ... the village next to that town also has 2 nursing homes .
15 died in 1and 12 died in the other ..

Stay safe all

You will never know the exact number of death just from covid and even if you are given a figure it won't be accurate.

People are having covid put on the death certificate if they died of other things in some cases, or if it's not clear if it is covid or not, they are putting is as covid. Medical professionals have expressed concern about this, some at the risk of losing their jobs.

Plus, the test does NOT test just for covid, it tests for corona virus, or, rather, genetic material from corona virus,

Practically everyone on the planet will have some genetic material from corona as most people have had it as some point.

There has clearly been a massive and unprecedented spike in excess deaths over the past few weeks (see ONS data). As for whether how many of these people “would have died anyway”, we need to define this as clearly all of us will die anyway at some point!

The natural meaning is that people who “would have died anyway” would very likely have passed away in a matter of weeks or months. If this is the case, Covid has merely accelerated this and we should see an associated unprecedented dip in mortality later in the year (assuming Covid death rates do drop off that is, which is a big assumption).

We need to bear in mind that 25 million people are eligible for the flu jab each year. Removing children and NHS staff from this list gives around 14 million. These are those who are elderly and/or have underlying conditions. That’s a huge number, and clearly they are not all going to be dead anyway in a matter of months!

The FT has done an interesting article on this comparing a selection of countries and cities. Those hoping to say "look, all these vulnerable people would have just died anyway" will be disappointed:
amp.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c?__twitter_impression=true

I think the general public are unaware of the brittle health many of our elderly endure. An effective free at point of access health service, despite its bad press, has maintained the life of many of the people who are currently succumbing to Covid-19 way beyond the life expectancy they would have under other types of health service. Also we are not incentivised to practice preventative health care because however we live our lives “the NHS will fix it” which was not the initial aim when the NHS was set up. The one area of the NHS where patients pay for care is dentistry and the improvement in dental health over the last 35 years is phenomenal particularly in the cohort who pay for treatment.
I know that most mnetters will react to this statement by proclaiming how well they look after their health and rarely have to see their GP or use the NHS but working in the NHS is a real eye opener and it is not the case for a large percentage of the general public.
Chronic brittle health is difficult to spot, I see plenty of patients who on the surface appear to enjoy brilliant health but when you become aware of their health history I’m astonished they have made it through the door.
My uncle had quadruple bypass at 50 and has had stents placed and further heart attacks over the last 25 yrs. He has hereditary coronary heart disease, his father, my grandfather died at 65 of the same condition. Unfortunately my grandfather was diagnosed and died before bypass surgery became available so could not benefit from another 10+ years surgery and modern drugs would have given him.
If this virus had appeared 40 years ago we may not have seen the alarming number of deaths we are seeing because the vulnerable and shielded groups would not have existed.

Plus, the test does NOT test just for covid, it tests for corona virus, or, rather, genetic material from corona virus

Do you have a source for this as it is a huge claim... As common colds are Coronavirus we you seem to be saying that the stats are full of people with colds! If tests were so indistinct, we’d surely never have known about COVID-19 in the first place! Sounds like another conspiracy theory to me that falls apart after just a little scrutiny.

No they're not all extra deaths.

The typical UK deaths per day on any given DAY is 1400. That's not including Scotland and Ireland.

If someones day has come, they've had end stage cancer, or a heart attack and are rushed to hospital and at some point tested for CV and positive, they're in the death toll.

Oh, don't forget- the 'daily' death toll isn't daily. A huge amount of deaths are from weeks ago.

No they are not extra deaths.

Anyone interested in the stats should head over to these threads:

'Daily numbers, graphs, analysis'

People are tracking & graphing daily death figures, ONS stats (showing excess deaths) and lots more besides.

• Plus, the test does NOT test just for covid, it tests for corona virus, or, rather, genetic material from corona virus,

Practically everyone on the planet will have some genetic material from corona as most people have had it as some point.*

No- It tests for Covid-19. Unless in the UK you have a seriously substandard testing system compared to the rest of the world? And if that’s the case then why aren’t 100% of your tests positive?

Whoops sorry, bold fail.

@oralengineer yup. Harsh but true.

The scientific community are citing this exact point for why poorer countries are faring so well. Some people are positively frothing at the mouth 'how come X country has such a LOW death rate and we're so HIGH' ...

1. They've got bigger shit to deal with on a day to day basis. It's a real first world problem that we have the energy to care and spend so much on this.

2. Your point. Despite the 'killer virus' tag it's probably not going to kill you statistically. The countries affected are chocca full of people who have had extended life, for better or worse, but you can't fix age.

Countries that have less deaths also have vastly reduced life expectancy.

Swings and roundabouts.

@SouthsideOwl - can you say which parts of the death stats you think the Financial Times made up in that article I linked please? You seem to be better informed than they are as you can so confidently say these are not extra deaths.

@MRex

'The total of 122,000 amounts to a 50 per cent rise in overall mortality relative to the historical average for the locations studied'

So assuming (and that's a big assume) that the historical average is the same for all countries, the article says that 81350 would have been expected to die in that one month timeframe across 14 countries.

That is 38,150 excess deaths which would not be 'expected' based on a 5 year average across 14 countries.

Your turn to make the numbers work.

Right, so you found the excess deaths. You said "No they are not extra deaths.", so that wasn't correct. We have extra deaths despite lockdown. Look at cities with high numbers of cases; 300% more deaths in New York, how can you think those are ALL people who would have died in a month or two? The numbers are far in excess when you add multiple following months together, while the next infections aren't all people getting a mild dose because now all the weak are dead. Your theory doesn't add up, literally.

@MRex no I said 'No they're not ALL extra deaths'

Can't believe I did maths at 930 for that

Also @MRex no one, me included, is saying this is not a dangerous infection for some of the population.

It's been proven to affect areas with a large older population, or dense city living /commuting areas or those who come in to contact with high viral load. That's science. That's sad. Do we need to find a way to alleviate it? Yes. Does it mean every single death can only be attributed to one specific factor? No. Did some people die from exclusively CV? Absolutely.

It's not fair, and in some cases it's the roll of the dice - but that doesn't make every death from CV an extra death however much you hope it is.

I didn't say I hope it is, you're being rather silly. You are quoting the beginning of a post which you then summed up that they aren't extra deaths, please read your own post in full. I corrected you because it's important for people to understand that covid is genuinely a risk to life, so social distancing remains important. People are getting impatient to move on, this is hard for most people, that makes it more important than ever to remain factual.

Remember that these spikes in deaths are even with lockdown to flatten the curve

Without lockdown, the UK would have had exponential infection growth and far higher deaths

PM Johnson explaining why lockdown must continue (the lesser of evils):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/apr/27/uk-coronavirus-live-news-boris-johnson-back-at-work-amid-talk-of-easing-lockdown?page=with:block-5ea6944a8f08e05690dc52d1#block-5ea6944a8f08e05690dc52d1

"and yet we must also recognise the risk of a second spike
the risk of losing control of that virus
and letting the reproduction rate go back over one

because that would mean not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster
and we would be forced once again to slam on the brakes across the whole country
and the whole economy
and reimpose restrictions in such a way as to do more and lasting damage

and so I know it is tough
and I want to get this economy moving as fast as I can
but I refuse to throw away all the effort and the sacrifice of the British people
and to risk a second major outbreak and huge loss of life and the overwhelming of the NHS

and I ask you to contain your impatience because I believe we are coming now to the end of the first phase of this conflict"

@MRex Well I can't edit it can I?

If someone only read the final line and not the rest of the text, then I could understand the confusion of my evil intentions but I tend to go into conversations with people with the assumption they have an IQ higher than a slice of bread and have some reading comprehension.

I have never said that social distancing or being vigilant around the subject isn't important?

Yes it is important to remain factual, so it's important to ensure that both sides are being talked about.
Do you intend to live inside forever? To never hug your older relatives again? I don't. But I'm following the rules rn. Model citizen. Doesn't mean I can't learn about the facts without parroting slogans from memes on facebook.

As for this 'it's important for people to understand that covid is genuinely a risk to life'

Don't make me laugh. There isn't a person alive in the first world that 'doesn't understand' - the level to which they care is a different story.