> with vs from
There’s a very tired conspiracy that people can walk into an ER with e.g., a fatal gunshot wound, get tested positive for COVID, and then we are inflating the numbers and blaming their death on the virus.
There’s a very tired conspiracy that people can walk into an ER with e.g., a fatal gunshot wound, get tested positive for COVID, and then we are inflating the numbers and blaming their death on the virus.
Despite this, I see precious few C19 dashboards that show the ratio. We’re lucky to see one that describes precisely what is counted as a hospitalization. We’ve had plenty of time to figure out how to report this, I’m stunned that there isn’t more transparency.
They probably can’t, assuming that they haven’t adopted a more complex (and, consequently, probably less reliable at what it purports to represent) diagnostic categorization than is generally used for other purposes in healthcare; the usual systems can distinguish admitting and primary diagnoses and diagnoses that are neither admitting nor primary (though I don’t know that the distinction is in what is shared for public health reasons), but it can’t distinguish between “diagnosis that are part of the reason that they were admitted to or not yet released from the hospital” and “diagnoses that aren’t part of that despite being present”.
At least, that’s my understanding based on a couple decades of contact with health IT systems and the associated data models.
My uncle (an MD) blew his gasket, "SHE DIED OF COVID", but I think really she was dying anyways. Maybe the virus pushed her over the edge, but she most certainly did NOT "die of covid". I should look up this death certificate.
The years of life lost to COVID-19 is minuscule - many deaths are simply "pulled forward" by 6 months or a year.
The deaths of teenagers and young adults who kill themselves because of the response to the pandemic are tragic [1, for example]. 60+ years of life lost vs. 0 years lost by my Aunt's friend (who was already on hospice).
[0] https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/patient-guide/leaflets/files/110215pa... says fluid buildup in abdomen is commonly caused by liver disease
[1] https://nypost.com/2020/12/08/maine-teen-commits-suicide-ami...
(minor edits)
Imagine your aunt is being transported to the hospice and there is a road traffic accident and she dies in that accident. What killed her, the RTA or her failing liver?
Imagine she gets to the hospice safely, and a negligent nurse gives her a triple dose of some medication and she dies. What killed her, the failing liver or the incompetent nurse?
People seem to misunderstand how cause of death is worked out.
> he years of life lost to COVID-19 is minuscule - many deaths are simply "pulled forward" by 6 months or a year.
We know from the first wave that covid-19 was killing people on average 11 years before they would have died otherwise.