Hacker News Reader

Comment by spenrose | Hacker News Reader

This story [1] (NYT paywall) is clearer IMHO:

1. 600,000 more elderly Americans, or 1 of 100, have died during the Covid epidemic than would have died had the epidemic not occurred.

2. 200,000 more non-elderly Americans, or 1 of 1,400, have died—but that's mostly ages 15-64, so more like 1 in 1,000 adults of working age.

3. The CDC says adult death rates were up 20%. [2]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/us/covid-deaths-elderly-a...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm#secti...

View on HN

Worth noting that while there is a clear and measurable increase, the CDC makes a nonetheless significant error by assuming 2019 is the baseline when in fact we see a baseline increase every year even without other factors (both because of increasing population and because of slowing advances in medically extending lifespans).

Population growth is about 0.4% in the US, so that's probably not a big factor. In 2019, the CDC estimated that age-adjusted expected lifespan increased by 1.2% [0].

I think the population growth would indicate a lower death rate than implied by direct counting, since total pop is the denominator. However, I think the increased lifespan would work in the counter direction - Americans should live longer in 2020 than in '19 without C19.

So while the CDC made methodological mistakes, I don't think it would affect the conclusion.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2020/...

Associated Press | Jan 31, 2020 at 11:53 AM

For 1st time in 4 years, US life expectancy rises — a little

https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/health-fitn...

2. might be wrong since the age group is manipulative but you haven't corrected enough. This data is a bit harder to get though and may not be available to the US. But data from other countries suggest that a vast majority of cases is in the 60-64 bracket. Sadly many governments choose these questionable grouping and it is fairly misleading.

> 600,000 more elderly Americans, or 1 of 100, have died during the Covid epidemic than would have died had the epidemic not occurred.

The article does not say this. The substantial majority of Covid deaths occur among people close to or beyond the typical life expectancy [1]. It's hard to measure how many people would have died during this time frame due to complications other than Covid, and the NYT article you linked to did not claim that these are additional deaths beyond what "would have died had the epidemic not occurred."

1. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

The "typical life expectancy" is not a terribly useful number (unless you are considering emigration). A much more useful measure is the life expectancy at a person's current age (which will always be greater than their current age).

And I note it is quite easy to figure out how many people you would expect to die from complications other than Covid---as a first order approximation it will be the same as in 2019 (unless you happen to know of a significant change other than COVID).

> And I note it is quite easy to figure out how many people you would expect to die from complications other than Covid---as a first order approximation it will be the same as in 2019 (unless you happen to know of a significant change other than COVID).

Correct, you could record the number of deaths due to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. and subtract depressions in these death categories from Covid deaths. Subtract away reductions in non-covid deaths from the Covid death toll to account for the people that would have died absent Covid.

My point is the linked NYT article didn't do this correction and it's wrong to write that they did.

And how do those numbers compare?

Life expectancy is a population average. You don't die just because you reach that age.

There are quite a few studies showing that life years lost due to Covid are substantial even for the eldest.

True, but it's drastically more likely that someone over 65 would have died over the course of the pandemic (which is approaching several years at this point) than someone between 18-65. Years lost from elderly deaths may be "substantial" but it's an act of wilful ignorance to pretend that it isn't a lot smaller than years of life lost from a 20 year old dying.

But also, the subset of people who died from Covid is almost certainly not akin to a random sample from the broader population of the age cohort (and therefore not a subset which you could apply those life expectancy averages to).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com