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Comment by aphroz | Hacker News Reader

Honest question: Did we see any anormal mortality in any country caused by the covid-19? Countrywide there seems to be less death than usual on the period January-March in Europe.

Edit: And here goes my karma. I will need to do some PR to catch up with this :)

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Yes, when you look at Italy or Spain the overall mortality is way higher than normal.

https://www.lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2020/03/26/coronavir...

It's important to look at the numbers by region and not the total numbers. And if you consider the overall mortality you have to take in mind that other incidents where people usually die went down (e.g. traffic accidents. But all these countries have now strict lockdown measures in place.

I'm sure that the death toll im Brazil will skyrocket.

Europe's seen abnormally high mortality rates starting at the end of March. Someone sent me this graph, although unfortunately I didn't keep track of the source:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nq9Tcrho5QQ/XpjnH7DgeRI/A...

We need to compare year to year, mortality is higher in January - March any year.

It still exceeds average seasonal mortality rates, see https://www.euromomo.eu

But, is it significant compared to 2016 ?

Why are you glossing over the fact that the numbers were DESPITE having done a global lockdown? If we didn’t do a lockdown, it’d be way higher.

How are we sure about this? We cannot anymore but are we sure that the lockdown will lower the global mortality? Why are we not acting rationally anymore? Are we sure that fear did not take over and now we just do as everybody because nobody ever got fired for choosing the lockdown?

In the Netherlands (for March) mortality for all age cohorts is up, average of about 10%. Lower cohorts mortality is down but not enough to offset the others. Causality is by definition impossible to ascertain at this aggregate level, but no reasonable person would come with another explanation.

As others say or imply, you'd want to get data for a seasonal curve and then use it to adjust.

These graphs are in the document prepared daily (on the last page):

https://www.rivm.nl/documenten/epidemiologische-situatie-cov...

You can see that there are approximately 1500 more deaths per week and there is no peak visible.

Yes, the numbers I am quoting are as compared to other years, adjusted for macro changes in population makeup, etc. The gold standard for reporting on this.

... where are you getting that? See https://www.euromomo.eu/

About the only country significantly under normal is Ireland, which has a youngish population and a fairly effective lockdown.

On this chart you can see that this peak is normal for the period, even lower than 2016.

You’re reading it wrong. We’re on week 16. Week 16 is normally close to the low point, not spiking.

The good news is that it seems to be starting to fall in most countries.

Yes, but this is my point, what if the peak just shifted this year. All the people that might have died because of the flu are now dying from COVID-19. People looking back at the data in 100 years won't probably notice that there was an epidemic.

If nothing else, the virus is more effective at spreading than common influenzas so people who would have never gotten the flu, are getting Covid and dying from it.

I mean, if you just google "covid death tolls" you'll see 34,386 deaths in USA alone that we know of. Considering a lot of COVID patients don't even get diagnosed the real number is likely higher. Isn't that enough?

How many of these would have died anyway, I am asking about the difference in numbers, not a feeling.

I think this Economist visualization tracking excess mortality should give you the answers you're looking for: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking...

I'm interested in this too.

The CDC claims[1] influenza caused 61,000 and 34,157 in 2017-18 and 2018-19 respectively, in the USA.

My guess is, without social / travel restrictions COVID-19 could potentially kill a lot more?

I don't envy politicians right now. Proposing politicians act based on how many would have died anyway must be a bit uncomfortable for them.

Mess situation.

1. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

We are. comparable death rates in the UK are higher.

The numbers may be similar, if not slightly higher than normal, because the deaths we'd normally have are being offset by reduced activity and increase COVID-19 deaths. So looking at totals without that context doesn't help much.

It's the same in the US. Article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/16/coronaviru...

Yes, but what about comorbidity, when people die from cancer but had Covid-19, how do you define what killed them?

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