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.

I just don’t understand why it’s reported like this - no other diseases are.

That's a misunderstanding, then, because Lots of health outcomes are reported in a time-limited way. Drug to prevent death following heart attack? -- look at 28 or 30 day mortality to standardise evaluation of effectiveness. New programme to treat stroke? Look at recovery improvement 30 days later. Etc. 28 day mortality is a good 'live daily snapshot' of total mortality. And useful when dealing with anonymised individual patient records that don't include cause of death statement (which is how the data come to a researcher like me).

NHS counts lots of things in lots of different ways. Public health outcomes get counted in lots of ways, as anyone who has wrestled with service KPIs will be familiar with.

@LeSquigh

I feel the concern too OP. My colleagues mother works in healthcare and a few weeks ago they had a lady in who had had a stroke and had been in hospital for a while before she eventually died. She had a COVID test when she came in and it was negative. Because she hasn’t had a negative test in the days before she died her death was put down as COVID on the death certificate. She had never had a positive test but because she hasn’t had a negative one recently it was attributed to that. This is so so wrong and who knows how many cases like this there are. It’s certainly not the first I have heard of.

As you say: This is so so wrong on so many levels!!!

[quote Madhairday]@Snowrabbit I apologise for my snippiness. I'm at the end of it a bit and really struggling with any covid minimising, and the way your thread is titled very much feeds into that narrative, plus the way you hadn't seemed to grasp the deaths of covid thing at the start. But I'm not meaning to be argumentative. Just weary.

You might find this helpful out today, certainly interesting, with many countries excess deaths higher than their covid deaths. (So perhaps what you're saying?)

www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

@juliastone that article from the Economist maps Spain's excess deaths as around 70,000 - this is the problem isn't it, sources that contradict one another (or have I read something wrong somewhere?)[/quote]
@Madhairday thanks for that link, very helpful video. I've been so confused about the excess deaths and conflicting numbers depending on the source so it was good to get a clear explanation.

sorry wrong person