COVID Deaths -How do other countries count ?

[Baycob]

I saw the news regarding the Covid related deaths. Firstly, it’s awful. I’m sorry to anyone who has been affected by this, I can’t begin to imagine your anguish 💐

I do have a question though. According to the Gov website the figures are based on those who have died within 28 days of testing positive for COVID.

What about other countries, are the counting the same way ? What if someone had another disease and they were more susceptible to Covid, but the stress from Covid caused the other disease to exacerbate and then the death was attributed to the original disease they had? From what it seems, in the U.K., it would still be defined as a Covid death, but what about other counties ?

There are many countries with much worse healthcare provisions than the U.K., so I just want to understand why our statistics are so bad.

The first graphic is how we do it.

Most other countries are similar to at least one of these. They might have different lags, but honestly, after a year, the different reporting thing is a red herring.

By July most countries numbers for 2020 will be finalised, including ours.

They said on the BBC news just before the briefing that covid caused the death in 9 out of 10 of death certificates that it was mentioned on, and was a contributory factor in the others.

And that our covid death toll was under reported because so many thousands died of covid in the first wave without ever having a test. (You can see that in the graphic below in the grey part of the first peak above the black line and the cross-hatched area.)

Good question
My father died of cancer in 2018, but if has still alive now and caught Covid and died, would he be recorded as dying of Covid or cancer?

@JustAnotherOldMan

Good question My father died of cancer in 2018, but if has still alive now and caught Covid and died, would he be recorded as dying of Covid or cancer?

Initially the government would record him as dying within 28 days or 60 days of a positive test if he died within 28 days or 60 days of a positive test.

Or not at all if he took more than 60 days to die after his positive test.

The doctor who filled in his death certificate would mention covid if it had killed him directly, or been a contributory factor in his death.

If he died before his time he might contribute to the number of excess deaths, but they are not attributed to individual people. They're just a number over and above what was expected.

@PrincessNutNuts

Someone else on another thread asked the same question! But I had a conversation earlier with a friend about this country ( not for any other reason other than the fact she could point me to articles in English).

Please look at the bar graph in this article which shows the number of excess deaths year on year.

notesfrompoland.com/2021/01/04/poland-recorded-more-deaths-in-2020-than-any-year-since-wwii/

They had 75,000 more deaths in 2020 than in 2019, yet are reporting 35,000 deaths according to worldometres. Population is around 40% smaller than ours.

So what did this 75,000 ( -35,000) have as a cause of death or are they in fact COVID deaths and countries like this are just undereporting ?

@Baycob

I don't know anything about Poland but it looks to me as if they got covid about the same time as the rest of Europe but without testing so - like us- they have a big chunk of excess deaths that probably are covid, but were never tested.

That's why excess deaths are often called the true measure of a pandemic. And I assume Poland has the same procedures as most European countries for analysing that in due course.

The UK's excess deaths are at about 110,000 at the moment, and the FT are doing some international excess deaths analysts next week I believe.

I wouldn't necessarily trust the numbers coming out of other countries. Russia and Brazil for instance. Both have corrupt leaders. Brazil's leader is a Covid denier and their country has suffered badly, I suspect not all deaths are going recorded.

Russia have already admitted that they have three times as many deaths as they have officially reported.

As everyone (more or less) points out on all of these threads, the excess deaths are going to be the yardstick ultimately.
So the UK at the moment looks to be more like 99,000 Covid deaths rather than 100,000. (Bbc figures last night)

Gibraltar are worth keeping an eye on.

As a small population they can be much more detailed about their small number of deaths and report everyday with a breakdown of each one.

They separate out "from COVID" and "with COVID" in every announcement

www.gibraltar.gov.gi/press-releases/government-saddened-to-confirm-4-covid-19-related-deaths-882021-6633

Sorry, typing too fast. As of Dec 12th UK excess for 2020 was approx 85,000. Figures for December hadn't been added at that stage. Presumably now they have.

I wonder this. I pay out death claims and still see relatively few with Covid on.

In a recent claim over the phone the son said that his father had died of x and y, and Covid. He said that his father was dying in hospital but caught Covid there so it is on his death certificate.

This constant question about covid deaths is a form of covid denial, or covid scepticism.

It is very similar to the type of questions asked by climate change deniers when shown statistics on temperature rises.

The key thing is - do doctors believe those deaths are covid deaths? Yes. There isn't a big conspiracy to lie to you about this. If anything, the government would prefer a smaller number.

What will be interesting (but not in a happy way) will be the countries yearly deaths (including excess) compared to their usual 5 year average.

It's only the actual number of deaths that will give us a clear comparison in the end. It'll take out any bias and differences in recording.

It’s not denial at all, it’s critical thinking and valid questioning. It would seem that a lot of people already in hospital with a critical illness who then caught covid whilst in hospital are included in the numbers despite the possibility they were already unfortunately into their last days and their death was not directly due to covid.

@inquietant

This constant question about covid deaths is a form of covid denial, or covid scepticism.

It is very similar to the type of questions asked by climate change deniers when shown statistics on temperature rises.

The key thing is - do doctors believe those deaths are covid deaths? Yes. There isn't a big conspiracy to lie to you about this. If anything, the government would prefer a smaller number.

The death figure broadcast to the nation everyday is nothing to do with what Dr's think.

Its very clear.

Its anyone who has tested positive in the last 28 days. Even if they are bored at home isolating and feeling perfectly well so decide to clean the gutters and fall off the ladder

We are over reporting and others are under reporting.

Wife "I think I have put on weight while we are home isolating, does my bum look big in this?"
Husband "your bum always looked fat in that"

Cause of death? Covid

The 28 days of a positive test is standard internationally in developed countries. In most countries, over half of deaths are in the over 80s, many of whom are in care homes and so would have reduced life expectancy for other reasons. However, covid still causes them to die earlier than they otherwise would have done, so these are all covid deaths.

@inquietant

This constant question about covid deaths is a form of covid denial, or covid scepticism.

It is very similar to the type of questions asked by climate change deniers when shown statistics on temperature rises.

The key thing is - do doctors believe those deaths are covid deaths? Yes. There isn't a big conspiracy to lie to you about this. If anything, the government would prefer a smaller number.

I'm not questioning our deaths, I'm questioning the numbers coming out of other countries.

I understand that people are desperate for a way of softening this horrible milestone, which paints our country and our ability to keep our people safe in a very unflattering light.

Yes, there might be small variations in how countries initially report deaths, but for the majority of our neighbours it all comes out in the wash. The blunt truth is that more people as a proportion on population have died here than almost anywhere else in the world. Because of COVID. Not because we’re sneaking unrelated deaths into the figures, or because other countries are hiding theirs, but because we have failed in our response, our systems were and are inadequate, and the health and well-being of people in our country (socially and physically) was poorer to start with, meaning we had an uphill fight from day one.

We should be angrier, not searching for ways to cushion it.

There were 48,000 more deaths unrelated to Covid at home. So that reduces the excess deaths for 2020 to 50,000. The same as winter 2017/2018 but this time the same again number due to lack of a health service. .

@Nousernamesleftatall

There were 48,000 more deaths unrelated to Covid at home. So that reduces the excess deaths for 2020 to 50,000. The same as winter 2017/2018 but this time the same again number due to lack of a health service. .

Ssshhhhh

Nobody wants to hear about all the excess deaths at home (which have likely gone up since that figure was published) and anyone who mentions it is accused of being a looney covid denying conspirasist.

People don't seem to grasp that you can highlight something like that while still having concern for the virus

@inquietant

This constant question about covid deaths is a form of covid denial, or covid scepticism.

It is very similar to the type of questions asked by climate change deniers when shown statistics on temperature rises.

The key thing is - do doctors believe those deaths are covid deaths? Yes. There isn't a big conspiracy to lie to you about this. If anything, the government would prefer a smaller number.

Oh bore off. It's a simple (and good!) Question in my opinion. Knowing who died PF covid would be useful, because imo it would be taken more seriously by "deniers" and the like. Because with how we are currently counting it's easy to say well actually they all died with covid and not of it.

Hiding the actual info is helping nobody.

Why would the government want to make the figures look worse than they are?

Excess deaths is a pretty reasonable measure.

It still doesn't tell the whole story, as lockdown will have changed overall causes of death eg less people are likely to have died in RTAs or from other less virulent infections due to reduction of mixing and going out