What's the counterfactual? How many of these people would have died this year anyway?

[Guineapigbridge]

As an economist I am finding the statistics on covid-19 frustrating. 227,300 people have died with Covid-19 as of this morning. According to the statistics from New York that are reported on the Worldometer site, 75 percent of those who died will have had pre-existing conditions including Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, and GI/Liver Disease. A further 14 percent of them were over 75 years old when they died, even though they didn't have pre-existing conditions. That makes it 89 percent of people who are at quite high risk of death in a given year anyway, right? So has anyone run the numbers on how many would've died anyway? Without a counterfactual a pure count of deaths is meaningless from a policy perspective.

There is the counterfactual of what deaths would have occurred in the absence of covid, which I guess is what you were thinking of OP. But there are other counterfactual scenarios too....like deaths if we had locked down much earlier, or taken other measures, or how many would have died so far if we'd taken no measures at all.

Some people, not you OP, have sometimes forgotten that the death rate we have now is with mitigation and lockdown. Early mismanagement I think but not leaving the virus unchecked.

Interesting thread and I've been wondering myself. Some bizarrely aggressive responses. The difference in NZ Road deaths is startling I hope deaths through not seeking care don't go up.

Op, literally you won’t know until the end of the year. The government, in fact many governments, have stated there is an over lap in terms of people who would have sadly died anyway this year. Although there is a spike now, clearly, you need to see the year on year data to understand exactly how many extra deaths there actually have been.

There has been a load of deaths that would have happened this year, that are all happening at once now, instead of smoothed throughout the year.

No one knows rhe scale of the overlap, and it won’t be known for some considerable time. It will only be visible when we see the year on year figures.

Instead of Nightingales hospitals we should have built Care homes.
The problem is that there is no where for people to go from hospitals. If they stuck them all in specially built Care homes with separation, until CV clear, and special well protected staff many of the deaths might not have happend. These Care homes could have taken elderly who had Covid but not ill enough for hospital , the people who needed careworkers to help them in daily life, who are a real problem as they put careworkers at great risk.

I started a thread on this yesterday. It's stupidly confusing for this country, because 'hospital deaths' (i.e. official figures) count the whole of the UK. The ONS only release England and Wales in one file, then you have to poke around to find Scotland separately, and the same with Northern Ireland. Now they've added care homes again it's muddying the waters as it's difficult for a lay person to easily find the information.

From my thread:

between 21st March and 17th April, there have been around 27,000 more deaths than the five year average. Five year average was 41,452 - this year was 68,395.

Officially by 17th April we only had 14,576, but this was only from hospitals. Still twice as many actually died though (excess deaths) and not far off double 'who would have died anyway'.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3894830-Please-stop-giving-us-bogus-figures

Also it’s worth noting that some of those issues can be incredibly vague. I have asthma, but it’s diagnosis can be a bit random. I am more healthy than anyone else in my family, if it was suggested that it be more understandable that I die because of it id be a bit . Also, my asthma to all intents and purposes disappeared after I left a large city with very big pollution problems - it probably wouldn’t have been diagnosed had it not been for that. So there are probably lots of people who might have had asthma, had they lived in a polluted place, but just don’t know, or lots of people that DO have breathing issues, but only because they live in Paris/London/wherever. How can we count them and their likelihood to be affected by c19? Prob only by death rate.

Sorry, not very clear - I’m still classed as having moderate asthma, but haven’t had so much as a wheeze in 18 months since moving to very unpolluted place.

Well, now they've added care homes at least the numbers are more coherent I suppose.

OP- if you're interested in the statistics and science, then the "graphs" thread is great. It's very informative and refreshingly free of conspiracy theorists, googlers and "we're not going to be like Italy shuddup shuddup shuddup" posters.

Bluntness, the FT produced charts thus week showing the latest year on year excess deaths per country. Not sure if they have been posted on this thread, but they are on the graphs thread.

There are some good (I think) stats at Cebm.net
Mostly UK but some worldwide and also lots of discussion of evidence. Look in the Covid-19 evidence section.

That makes it 89 percent of people who are at quite high risk of death in a given year anyway, right?

Wrong. Many of those conditions and be well managed, and many of those with them can expect a near normal lifespan. They are not a group of disposable, moribund people

And aside the utter absence of human fellow feeling - unless those people had received a terminal diagnosis (which some of those with cancer will have done, maybe some others if there is distinct sign of bodily failure) then they would be looking at surviving the next 5 years. Do it would be a major error from the stats POV to lump them into one year

The thing that seems frightfully misleading to me is that every death is recorded as COVID, if COVID is present.

So, terminal cancer, < 3 months to live, has coronavirus and passes away.
It could be the cancer, but it'll be recorded as COVID anyway.

How many have died due to other conditions, but have had coronavirus put down as the cause of death?

(So many COVIDs..)

This podcast is quite good at looking at the stats and what is important

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/intelligence-squared/id708371900?i=1000472544136

Some points from it:

• there are excessive deaths this year in comparison to the average of the last 5 years
• excessive deaths are at about 8000 for the year
• but only about 6000 of them are Covid related, the other 2000 are unaccounted for
• a key stat which we don’t hear about which is linking into the ‘would have died anyway’ is the number of life years lost
• so covid is definitely killing in the elderly population ( as all diseases do) at a greater rate and average age is 79. It is not killing young people at any alarming rate, so number of life years lost is a good way to understand the impact of the disease

Also:

• most people who are dying of covid also have at least 3 other conditions which could also kill them

There was a bbc world service programme about this that actually covered QALYs & costs to save each life, plus one of the regular statisticians on radio 4 More or Less has covered the issues . I reckon economists will have the most interesting studies on the policy outcomes but maybe not before 2022. I'm not convinced we are doing right things to cripple economy if that continues for 18m, but it's a grim set of horrible choices. South Korea have stopped education so still a huge harm but not stopped whole economy. I want their formula.

"only 6000" excess deaths due to Covid.
Is 6000 not enough?

*excessive deaths are at about 8000 for the year

• but only about 6000 of them are Covid related, the other 2000 are unaccounted for*

Which country is that for? Aren't the ONS figures showing numbers around that per week at the moment?

OP - I think you might have got a better response if you'd said you were in NZ from the start, in England we have a lot of data on this kind. Not necessarily explanations for it yet though.

Is 6000 not enough?

Please don’t try and shame me into thinking I’m heartless. It’s very tragic.

6000 is considerably less that 22000 that is reported constantly. You do see that, right?

If CV is mainly accelerating deaths which would have happened soon anyway

But do we actually know that to be a fact @Yolo2 ? We are seeing an increase in deaths in care settings in the community where the frail and elderly don't tend to fare too well if they develop a pneumonia of any origin. Even in normal times, best supportive care and symptom control as opposed to admission to hospital is what is usually provided.
These people in the main are not being admitted to hospital for treatment, so who is in hospital ? Who is dying in hospital ? The deaths in hospital have been the main figures we have been seeing. Can you say that those dying in hospital, in normal circumstances, would have been in their last months of life ?

The word soon is very open to interpretation, soon as in days, weeks, months or years ?

Why is everyone getting so personal?

Making a point ironically is hardly getting personal.

The point being made is that it seems unlikely an economist would have such a poor grasp of the data which is readily available.

These people in the main are not being admitted to hospital for treatment, so who is in hospital?

This. It's very possible that most of the people who 'would have died soon anyway' have not been counted in the 26,000 confirmed Covid 19 deaths because the UK is not testing enough.

I'll shame anybody who thinks 6000 dead people who didn't need to die is a good result.

Oh great! I shame, you shame, let's all shame!

Now that has closed down any possibility of a conversation about death rates, excess mortality etc...

More tea, vicar?

The UK is not testing enough? Erm... no, that's more numbers... Shame!

@TheCanterburyWhales

I understand that you are angry about it. But at no point have I said that it is ok or reasonable. It’s just a fact, it has no emotion attached to it.

If you go back and read what I wrote, you’ll see that the word ‘only’ was relevant because when you see the 8000 excessive deaths you May assume they are all from covid, but they are not.

There is no ethical position stated by using the word ‘only’

The govt isn't testing enough. It isn't testing as many as it promised to almost a month ago. Which is counter productive as more testing would not only lead to more people knowing, and therefore taking extra precautions to not pass the virus on, but would also bring its % death rate X those tested positive down (possibly significantly so) The UK is currently at 13.5% mortality rate for those tested positive cf Italy with 13.3%. But Italy has tested a lot more people, so the UK's deaths are unarguably high. But death rate % (as of yesterday, updated daily) is probably not as bad as its own figures show because of lack of testing. And it has now said it will no longer release the number of tests being carried out. Presumably because it doesn't want criticism for not testing as much as was promised. It's a shame because it would help the modellers and epidemiologists make more accurate predictions which, in turn, would probably encourage the same govt to relax (or not) restrictions.

For anyone who thinks "numbers" are actually quite relevant, do come over to the graphs thread.