The pandemic’s true death toll
economist.com
economist.com
The pandemic hit. All non-essential medical procedures were put on hold until further noticed. Hospitals were either too full or getting ready to become too full. Her scans got delayed.
This delayed finding the cancer, delayed chemo, delayed everything. She made it only a few days into 2021. If they had caught it just a little bit earlier, well, who knows what might have been.
She never caught covid-19. But I view her as a casualty of the pandemic.
And this is why excess deaths is a more important measure than how many corpses you can find virus particles in.
"Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths per year. If the pattern of smoking all over the globe doesn't change, more than 8 million people a year will die from diseases related to tobacco use by 2030.Mar. 23, 2020"
"Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with at least 2.8 million people dying each year as a result of being overweight or obese. Once associated with high-income countries, obesity is now also prevalent in low- and middle-income countries.Jun. 9, 2021"
There were always people at the office that showed up with a fever, clearly exposing everyone on the bus and at the office, but for a large number of people, this is just one that we would have pushed through.
If you get covid with moderate symptoms, you (hopefully) stay home. People with severe symptoms go to the hospital or die. You don’t need to worry about those people being super spreaders. It’s the people that push through or feel mild symptoms and carry on without thought that are giving it to others, and those in turn may accidentally give it to the most vulnerable in their bubble.
And I hope when you or I get it, that it does feel just like a cold - or is even asymptomatic. But I know that for some percentage of the world it is not, and it will kill them.
This is probably too simple, but: Transmission = infectiousness x interactions. In your example, People with weak immune systems, who are more infectious, are less likely to have interactions.
That's the point, though: COVID lockdowns happened even though much of the public said the benefits of locking down weren't worth the costs.
Was it at least half of the public, though? Just because cars are a less contentious subject doesn't mean that public opinion doesn't ultimately dictate how they are regulated.
Car culture should not be a foregone conclusion, though -- you are right about that. Many European nations -- the Netherlands being the typical example -- have done a pretty good job of fostering a bike culture in their cities. But us Americans sure love our cars, and so it's ultimately a political question, not a moral one.
* Smoking: Is being phased out in much of the developed world, with various restrictions, taxes, etc
* Obesity: Widely recognized as a problem, with attempts such as sugar taxes, etc. Solutions are less widely agreed upon, but the fact that is a problem is not in question.
* Driving: Again, road toll is a known issue which we try to reduce. Driving itself should likely be reduced but the bigger motivation is climate related.
The intent isn't to normalize anything. The intent is to show that COVID is unique among things that cause large amounts of death in that for some reason, people are all too willing to sacrifice all of their freedom and privacy over it.
> * Driving: Again, road toll is a known issue which we try to reduce.
Yes, we try to reduce it. But not by saying "driving is illegal now because it kills people."
The number of deaths even is lower than it could've been because countries implemented all sorts of draconian measures until vaccinations rolled out, so y'all appear to be simultaneously arguing that there should be more covid deaths cus freedom and/or we should make larger sacrifices to economic activity for lesser causes.
Either way, it strikes me as a weak argument.
The word "indirectly" is the key there. A lot of the excess deaths were because of the measures against COVID, such as cancer cases that went undiagnosed while they were treatable because people had to cancel their checkups, or methanol poisoning because everyone was suddenly manufacturing their own hand sanitizer, often unsafely.
One can weave a quite different narrative from those points (one that supports policies like Australia's or China's, for example)
Such a claim simply beggars belief. Please cite some figures that back up your assertions.
My insurance halved this year because there was 60% less accidents in my country. During first few lockdowns there were almost no cars out on the road.
Alcohol consumption increased during 2020.
https://www.rand.org/news/press/2020/09/29.html
Less traffic meant that drivers could go faster.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
Also, no one was digging mass graves in Central Park. But they were utilizing existing mass graves at a much accelerated rate on Hart Island, which has been used as a public cemetery for over 150 years, burying unclaimed people and those whose loved ones can’t afford private burials.
From an excerpt last summer:
> There are usually about 25 burials on the island each week ... that number has climbed to nearly 25 each day. ... Bodies are ordinarily held at the city’s morgues anywhere from 30 to 60 days ... But to make room for the influx of deceased individuals during the pandemic, the city’s medical examiner’s office announced a new policy of holding unclaimed bodies for only up to 15 days before they are transferred to the island.
I know it probably doesn't matter if for the specific poster this is in response to, but for anyone else reading this, more reading: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/will-we-e...
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-phe-accused-exaggerati...
The economist study is global, and is counting excess deaths during the pandemic, whether directly due to covid or not. In addition to the deaths we've counted from covid, there may be uncounted covid deaths, as well as deaths that happened because the hospitals were full, or people were avoiding going to the hospital, or because we've got an increase in drug & alcohol use during lockdowns.
The first wing to have been changed into a Covid wing in Colmar (First French hotspot for covid, pre-lockdown) was the addictology (don't know if its an english word) service, since it had with a lot of beds, small ventilators and IVs. My cousin's wife told me that most of her "regular" patients disappeared, whether they were in remission or not, and either students/young workers did not had alcohol poisoning anymore, or they stopped calling the hospital.
On the other hand, while they were a lot of death, some functioning addicts (again, is this understandable for English people?) stopped consuming during of lockdown. So i guess a mixed bag.