Why is the global ratio of deaths to cases going up?

[gauss]

I think this was referenced elsewhere, but overall deaths in Michigan were down substantially in March - 5929 versus the average over the last few years of 8542.

http://https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/04/11/michigan-death-down-in-march-despite-coronavirus/5120360002/

+1

I don't think Michigan was a fluke either. I have heard references that it occurred in other cities and countries too. Typically crime rate and auto fatalities were big drivers of this.

It will be very interesting to see where the April numbers come in at.

 

[Face The Facts]

Percentage of deaths / Infected is likely to increase over time as more people die who have it. Not everyone infected dies within 7 or 14 days.

Also, as testing slows, I would expect the death rate to increase.

Another possible reason is more accurate data or less accurate data.
Either could be causing an increase in death %.

In the end, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Need to consider the data sources and variance in rules in reporting.

 

[Winemaker]

I believe having a death from corona, or covid-19, opens some federal funding in your direction.

 

[Tiger8693]

Was watching the news and they said that NY death increased 4200 today... it was reported that they started to count people who they think died of the virus who were not tested as positive...


SOOO, lets add deaths to the number but not overall people who have the virus... kinda skews the ratio....


Another (but cannot find the article) was that one hospital tested all the maternity patients and that IIRC 29 tested positive for the virus but showed no symptoms... they normally would not have been tested but were for some reason..


Bottom line, we are woefully short of the actual data on the virus and have no idea how deadly it really is....

Think about it. If at the end of the complete trashing of the US economy, it turned out that we had fewer deaths than a typical flu year, who might be held accountable for the economic destruction?

 

[ejman]

Percentage of deaths / Infected is likely to increase over time as more people die who have it. Not everyone infected dies within 7 or 14 days.

Also, as testing slows, I would expect the death rate to increase.

Another possible reason is more accurate data or less accurate data.
Either could be causing an increase in death %.

In the end, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Need to consider the data sources and variance in rules in reporting.

OP here. I was under the impression that testing is actually increasing over time, not slowing down, at least in the Western countries which are the main contributors to the total number with the US alone contributing over 30% of total cases. That's why if that's true, I've been puzzled by the continuing increased ratio which bumped up again today to 6.5%

 

[Dtail]

Think about it. If at the end of the complete trashing of the US economy, it turned out that we had fewer deaths than a typical flu year, who might be held accountable for the economic destruction?

Not an apples to apples comparison.
If all these restrictions were applied to flu season as an example, the death rate would be much lower.

 

[Tiger8693]

Not an apples to apples comparison.
If all these restrictions were applied to flu season as an example, the death rate would be much lower.

Agreed. And it has (apparently?) been determined the loss of life in that case is acceptable. That's the premise of my statement.

 

[Dtail]

Agreed. And it has (apparently?) been determined the loss of life in that case is acceptable. That's the premise of my statement.

Yeah that is the elephant in the room in terms of how many lives lost are truly acceptable vs. the economy.

 

[ejman]

It seems that this question of why the death/cases ratio is going up has also puzzled some other presenters and again no simple answers. Section starts at about 8:40

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Maybe it is spreading to more countries with higher rates of pre-existing conditions. The AHA says nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have heart disease.

 

[braumeister]

The AHA says nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have heart disease.

Well, they would, wouldn't they? Sounds grossly inflated to me.

 

[pjigar]

The death rate is as accurate as the data goes into the the calculations. Both the numerator and denominator in this rate are fungible. Garbage in = garbage out.

Numerator: Death counting is very subjective based on country, state, county, etc.

Denominator: How do you count infected people? There are lot of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases which never get tested. The tests are still rationed and only people with symptoms get tested. So denominator in the death ratio is a bigger garbage if you put these two facts together.

Death rate is around 1% for the countries (Germany, S. Korea) which had heavy testing AND are transparent.

It's hard to trust any numbers since there is no global standard on testing protocol and death counting protocol.

 

[Spock]

Back when the disease was not as wide spread, the reason for increased deaths vs. # of cases was that it took awhile to die from it. The math for calculating one of the death rate stats involved needing to compare # of deaths against the # of cases on the day that the dead person was infected (or something like that).

Reports at that time was that patients could be on ventilators for a couple of weeks... so if you add 2ish weeks after exposure before having symptoms, a week-ish between symptoms and going on a ventilator, and then 2+ weeks on the vent before dying, you have a source of death #'s that lags the infection rate by 5ish weeks.

Then the above is contrasted with reports of people going from walking to dead in 3-5 days.

Now with the goal-seeking statistics with an apparent eagerness to blame deaths on corvid19, all stats are out the window.

 

[Nemo2]

It was so much easier in the Viking era - "Well, Sven had his head chopped off, Lars lost an arm and was stabbed through the heart......."

It seems to me that too many people are looking to immediately compartmentalize the, as yet, unclassifiable.

 

[Rianne]

Reports at that time was that patients could be on ventilators for a couple of weeks... so if you add 2ish weeks after exposure before having symptoms, a week-ish between symptoms and going on a ventilator, and then 2+ weeks on the vent before dying, you have a source of death #'s that lags the infection rate by 5ish weeks.

That makes me confident in our tracking system. I expect to be alive a weekish while on a ventilator. Once I hear ventilator I think "Se La Vie."

 

[EastWest Gal]

Yeah that is the elephant in the room in terms of how many lives lost are truly acceptable vs. the economy.

The other problem with COVID is the length and severity of the illness, and residual damage. If you die in a car crash, it’s you, your car, and whatever/whoever else that was involved. If you are on a ventilator for 2 weeks then die, you may have infected 2-6 other people during that time, including a couple of the nurses who took care of you. One nurse is off work for 3 weeks due to illness. Suppose then other one goes on a vent, has a heart attack and damaged lungs kidneys requiring dialysis, but recovers, with residual damage. They are not able to work anymore. They have chronic lung damage, kidney damage, hear damage. Their kid drops out of college to take care of the parent, and also because there is no longer money for college. Your prolonged illness drained the system much more than a car accident, also caused that nurse’s prolonged illness which will drain them and their family for the rest of their lives.

If you just take a tiny sliver of time, one month, and only look at one thing, death rate, you miss the big picture.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Well, they would, wouldn't they? Sounds grossly inflated to me.

Most of that is high blood pressure, but high blood pressure is being reported as one of the main contributing factors for COVID19. From Marketwatch:

"A new report estimates that nearly half of all U.S. adults have some form of heart or blood vessel disease, a medical milestone that’s mostly due to recent guidelines that expanded how many people have high blood pressure. The American Heart Association said Thursday that more than 121 million adults had cardiovascular disease in 2016. Taking out those with only high blood pressure leaves 24 million, or 9 percent of adults, who have other forms of disease such as heart failure or clogged arteries."

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/r...ts-have-some-form-of-heart-disease-2019-01-31

 

[Bongleur]

Death is not the only economic metric. How many have permanent or years-long medical conditions due to the disease? Loss of fertility (lots of ACE-2 receptors in the testes) ? Loss of taste/smell?
Some other sequelae which only manifests 6 months from recovery?

What if it mutates into something much worse? -- I hope people at Ft Detrick are working very hard on quantifying that scenario. Maybe they did & its being kept secret.