Governmental response to Covid-19, Sweden, etc

(Ron) #104

Good read. Thanks for posting that!

#105

It was a good read. Thanks @petert

(Jane) #106

Yes

(Jane) #107

I never said that, but I am not as sentimental as you are about people who have lived long, full lives and are at the end of their life in a nursing home.

The statistics would be more worrisome if half the deaths were young people instead of very sick nursing home patients.

(Doug) #108

It really varies. Norway and South Africa, for example, are below the normal expected number of deaths. Economic slowdowns tend to reduce overall mortality, and the Covid-19 deaths in those two countries have not been enough to make up the difference.

Toward the other end of things are Spain, the U.K., Belgium, Ecuador, etc. Those four, from March-April or March-May, were well over the normal mortality, +60%, +63%, +63%, and +84%. New York City, from mid-March to mid-May, was +254%.

One can question the underpinnings, which in our case is a vast amount of debt, but there’s precious little that any of us can do about that, as individuals, almost without exception. The effect on the economy is mostly not a matter of policy, i.e. the global markets and people’s behavior changed a lot even without any gov’t decrees. The study below found that ~1/4 of the rise in unemployment was the direct effect of stay-at-home orders.

We calculate that the direct effect of stay-at-home orders is accountable for 4 million unemployment insurance claims between 14 March and 4 April, which accounts for approximately a quarter of the overall rise in unemployment claims in that period. The direct effect of stay-at-home orders on unemployment is therefore small relative to the aggregate increase in unemployment insurance claims, suggesting that a large majority of the increase in unemployment may have occurred in the absence of such orders.

(Jane) #109

Where do these numbers come from? I looked up the UK and they had 616,000 deaths in 2018 or 51,000 per month. They have 37,000 deaths in the past 3 months from COVID, or 12,300 per month average. How is that a 63% in overall mortality?

(Doug) #110

The U.K. has a big gap - take out the reported Covid-19 deaths and there’s still a lot above the expected amount.

For the U.K. it was over 8 weeks - March 14 through May 8. The Office of National Statistics for England and Wales, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, and the National Records of Scotland.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales - there’s England + Wales.

I added the weeks up again, and for England and Wales it’s an extra 49,467 deaths in those 8 weeks. There’s another week of data there now, with another 4,385 deaths beyond what’s average.

UKdeaths1
UKdeaths1.png895×616 52 KB

The two biggest weeks were in April for England & Wales, 113% and 110% above average. For those 8 weeks as a whole it was +60%. Since there’s now another week of data presented - for the past 8 weeks of reported deaths, England and Wales are 66% above average.

(Jane) #111

Thanks, @OldDoug

(Peter) #112

An excellent infographic

(Ideom) #113

@petert :sunglasses: That’s pretty comprehensive. Well done.

#114

Sobering stuff.

(Jane) #115

Cool graphic!

Would be interesting to see the top 10 causes of deaths added to the graphic since it tops out at 345,000 for COVID. Heart disease (8 million), stroke (6 million), lung cancer (1.6 million), COPD (3.7 million), diabetes (1.6 million), traffic accidents (1.3 million), etc

(Peter) #116

Whataboutism at its finest.

(Jane) #117

57 million people died worldwide in 2015 and none from COVID. If we top out at 1 million this year from COVID (could be higher) it will account for 1.8% of all deaths.

(Jane) #118

Or putting things in perspective at its finest :grinning:

(Jane) #119

It was a cool graphic but they cherry-picked causes of death for effect… like Keys did with his 7-country study for example.

(Peter) #120

Yes, but the point is that this thread is about COVID-19, which may not be obvious from the title or the contents, I guess. Most of your posts are Trump-like misdirections or dismissals (it’s only old people waiting to die anyway, look over here people are dying anyway!) and so on.

(Jane) #121

I don’t watch TV except gor football And an occasional show (so don’t watch the news) and definitely don’t follow (nor care) about politics except at the local level where my vote means something. I really cared less if Trump or Hillary won the last election and don’t give a fig who wins this one.

I only post what I believe about this virus and I know I am in the minority. Only time will tell once it burns itself out or fades out of the news.

And yes, this is a COVID thread which is why the graphic would be interesting to see how COVID deaths stacked up against the top 10 worldwide killers with the same scale

#122

It’s only supposed to illustrate how quickly covid is overtaking some common causes of death which it did very well.

(Jane) #123

It did at that.