100k deaths (for any reason within 28 days of a positive Covid test)

[Snowrabbit]

Lots of talk about why the UK has the highest death rate and has now reached an appalling 100k Covid deaths. Except it's not 100k Covid deaths - it's 100k deaths FOR ANY REASON within 28 days of a positive Covid death. Doesn't make the deaths less / more tragic but it's worth thinking about international comparisons. How many countries are putting down, for example, a cancer death, where the patient incidentally had a positive Covid test several weeks before, as a Covid death. I bet not many. No way counties are reporting in even remotely the same ways. The way we are counting means death which aren't even remotely related to Covid are down as Covid deaths and therefore the focus on the 100k is irrelevant. The true answer will lie more in excess deaths - is this information available for different countries in English somewhere? I think constantly going on about 100,000 deaths isn't helpful. This isn't an effort in minimising but taking a realistic view on how badly the UK is really doing. I don't believe it's as bad comparatively . Not for nationalistic reasons - just because the data makes no sense until all deaths are compiled using the same methods.

Madhairday That's not true. Have you see the figures for presentation with heart/stroke/ cancer? Never mind suicides. That obviously contributes to deaths. . I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Covid undoubtedly causes lots of extra deaths. But Covid deaths are often taking the same people who would have died from other respiratory illnesses (have you seen the huge fall in death rates from many common causes?) Some deaths of the very vulnerable are hastened (thousands of deaths from care home residents - who have very low life expectancy on average) The true whole picture won't be known for some time. I'm not minimising Covid. It's obviously real and it's obviously causing lots of deaths. But the death figures from Covid are not the full picture as to how one country is doing against another. Other countries are not counting deaths like us and excess deaths (& a detailed breakdown of these) over the next few years will tell us a lot more about whether the UK really has done much worse than others.

I have 4 friends who have a grandparent or parent who went into hospital seriously ill with something else, not expected to survive, tested positive with covid while in hospital, died, and the cause of death on death certificate was covid.

@Lumene

Do you seriously think if the way deaths were counted made us look worse for some reason that Boris wouldn’t be shouting this from the rooftops?

Winning point

I believe deaths from other causes (inc suicide, RTAs) are down. It could actually be argued that lockdowns are saving lives not just from covid but other illnesses & accidents too. The FT’s statistician did a great explainer on the numbers.

twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1354158351907778567?s=21

Covid has killed more than 100,000 people & lockdowns have prevented that number being much higher. I hate lockdown, esp for impact on children, they are result of total failure of public health policy but given the wrecking ball of this virus they end up being the only proven method to prevent mass death & illness

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/december2020

If you go to point 4, you will see how deaths of most leading causes are down on the 5 year average. Look at other months - all very similar. Read the blurb and you will see the ONS talking about significant drops in leading causes of deaths for lots of categories. Why would that be?

It's all about shock headlines, ramping up fear. I agree with op .
We need to rein in the fear mongering and stop listening to the propaganda tbh

@Annabellerina

I have 4 friends who have a grandparent or parent who went into hospital seriously ill with something else, not expected to survive, tested positive with covid while in hospital, died, and the cause of death on death certificate was covid.

This is common, being cited on death certificate but primary cause death another condition. Died with covid not of. Puts a different slant on things

Yes the actual deaths involving COVID more like 115,000.

What is the figure for Covid as a contributory factor on death certificate?

Saw ONS say approx 10% had CoVid as a contributory factor on death certificate. Other 90% underlying cause.

Dementia deaths at the start of the pandemic were exceptionally high. It us thought that some of these deaths may have. Been COVID but couldn't be classified as such as testing wasn't available.

@Annabellerina

I have 4 friends who have a grandparent or parent who went into hospital seriously ill with something else, not expected to survive, tested positive with covid while in hospital, died, and the cause of death on death certificate was covid.

Friend of my mum had terminal brain cancer... admitted to hospital for end of life care but caught Covid whilst there. Died as expected but was counted as a Covid death. Also seen several people on local FB groups lose people to suicide that tested positive for Covid.. also counted in the death count. Some even argue with them that Covid caused them to have suicidal thoughts. quite a fucking reach I think.

Dementia excess deaths

Further to:

What is the figure for Covid as a contributory factor on death certificate?

As said readONS say approx 10% had CoVid as a contributory factor on death certificate. Other 90% underlying cause. In document below.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/qualityofmortalitydataduringthecoronaviruspandemicenglandandwales/2020#certification-and-coding-issues

Also seen several people on local FB groups lose people to suicide that tested positive for Covid also counted in the death count.

Would be in the 28 days of a positive Covid death metric, but not in death certificate metric, which is actually a higher figure.

Would be in the 28 days of a positive Covid death metric, but not in death certificate metric, which is actually a higher figure.

From gov website showing death certificate metric figure is actually a higher figure than within 28 days of a positive Covid death metric

@Guylan

Also seen several people on local FB groups lose people to suicide that tested positive for Covid also counted in the death count.

Would be in the 28 days of a positive Covid death metric, but not in death certificate metric, which is actually a higher figure.

This.

And does it actually matter if the UK is doing better or worse than other countries. It's doing terribly. And vaccination is turning that around.

@Madhairday

No. It's around 80,000 excess deaths on 5 year average. And that was until December, many thousands more since.

And ONS figures count those with covid as cause on death certificate, and they count around 103,000 last time I looked.

So we can be compared on those if not on the 28 day ones. Interesting that they're almost the same, really...

Far too sensible a post for the Borisbots who've been sent out on a publicity sweep since last night.

The deaths are too high regardless of whether they are recorded exactly or not. A family friend had cancer (yes, terminal but would have survived for a good few more years) unfortunately, he caught covid and died last month. To me, covid was the cause of death. Yes, he had cancer but covid shortened the time left. Do they write cancer or covid? I would argue covid.

OP - I agree that excess deaths are the best measure and the U.K. is unfortunately doing badly here too. Some may be non-covid, but most are covid. The excess deaths have peaks which correspond with covid peaks. Deaths from other causes - e.g. cancer, heart attacks, strikes would not be expected to peak in exactly the same weeks. Some may be due to hospitals being overrun, and arguably these also have covid as a contributing factor.

Interesting discussion.I always wonder too about the ‘deaths from any reason’ thing.

My great aunt died last week from bowel cancer. She’d not been in good health for years (also had a heart attack a few years ago). The pandemic delayed her treatment for months and by they time she eventually went into hospital for her bowel op it was too late. There was nothing else they could do for her. Whilst in hospital, just before she died she tested positive for Covid (but had no symptoms). So we’re presuming her death will count as a Covid death as it was within 28 days of a positive test. Seems totally wrong to me.

I’m very sceptical about everything. I don’t trust our government on most things. There’s a huge amount of fearmongering happening right now.

I’m not a ‘denier’ but a cynic. There are a lot of excess deaths on some winters anyway. Just as an example in the winter of 2017-18, there were over 50,000 excess deaths just over the 3 winter months! I remember that harsh winter and the beast from the east....
That wasn’t being plastered all over the news.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final

@crazyontheweekend have you not read all the other posts informing you of the ONS' count of covid deaths, and how it's even higher than the 28 days one - and how those involve death certificates (90% of which main cause, 10% contributory.) If you're truly sceptical then you will read those sources and make up your mind on that rather than some dodgy anecdata about how people believe doctors have, for some completely inexplicable reason, put covid on death certs when it blatantly wasn't. (I mean just why? Why would they? It's crazy, illogical thinking to think they'd lose their license for doing something that would be completely against their professional judgment. Ask any doctor.)

You've also misunderstood the winter excess deaths from 2018 and used it as a stick to beat lockdown. Please watch this video from the FT, it's really very good and does explain the difference between winter excess deaths and excess deaths. I learned a whole lot through it so I'd really recommend it.

www.ft.com/video/0cd6f9f9-664e-40f9-bad4-dde59d7c746c

@Snowrabbit

Madhairday That's not true. Have you see the figures for presentation with heart/stroke/ cancer? Never mind suicides. That obviously contributes to deaths. . I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Covid undoubtedly causes lots of extra deaths. But Covid deaths are often taking the same people who would have died from other respiratory illnesses (have you seen the huge fall in death rates from many common causes?) Some deaths of the very vulnerable are hastened (thousands of deaths from care home residents - who have very low life expectancy on average) The true whole picture won't be known for some time. I'm not minimising Covid. It's obviously real and it's obviously causing lots of deaths. But the death figures from Covid are not the full picture as to how one country is doing against another. Other countries are not counting deaths like us and excess deaths (& a detailed breakdown of these) over the next few years will tell us a lot more about whether the UK really has done much worse than others.

If you're going to state that sources like ONS are not true, you're going to have to provide some robust proof of your position. Covid deaths have been counted in excess deaths - this chart shows those up until the beginning of December (sadly tens of thousands more since), and shows the proportion of deaths that had covid on a death certificate.

Ever heard of Occam's Razor?

As for other deaths being down, it's pretty obvious really. Flu is less in circulation due to covid measures; it's far less transmissible and so many have had the flu jab (plus it's not a novel virus.) RTAs down because more people are at home. Elderly and frail people shielding all year leads to less pneumonia, falls outside etc.

And yes, many of them would have died to other causes, but that wouldn't explain the huge spike in excess deaths...

Suicides are not up significantly at all, according to latest figures from the BMJ (in fact were down through the spring and summer, due to many finding stresses relieving due to lockdown - we need to balance.) Sadly they might well be up once all are counted through autopsy etc, it takes time.

I'm not minimising lockdown effects but I do like cold hard statistics. And you are not providing us with any to back up your position - and however much you deny it, what you are doing is minimising covid.

The facts are out there.

@Madhairday me too

@Lougle

But a death from dementia could well be hastened by Covid. It's interlinked. The person may not have been imminently terminal, but due to Covid they died. Or the dementia made it impossible for them to comply with the treatment regime. It really isn't a fudge to record in this way.

Slightly connected to that covid in the elderly can present very differently to younger people. Confusion and delerium as a main symptom is not uncommon. There’s a good likelihood that a number of the excess deaths due to Alzheimer’s/dementia in the first wave may have been undiagnosed covid since we weren’t testing.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay absolutely. ONS said that could be a partial explanation for the rise in dementia deatgsxat the start of the pandemic.