This just reported: 900,000 dead: Covid deaths are surging in low-vaccination states

[Samsung4321]

Here's a fun statement from flyover country.

Regional heath system...people in the hospital with covid. 83.. of these.,43 not vaxxed and 40 vaxxed. ... numbers is hard.

About the same as the population. How many were in hospital due only to COVID-19?

 

[ivinsfan]

About the same as the population. How many were in hospital due only to COVID-19?

That's the question isn't it?

 

[Samsung4321]

'estimated overdose deaths from opioids increased to 75,673 in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, up from 56,064 the year before'
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm

Change = 18,609. Age composition not stated.

'. Number of deaths: 3,383,729'
'. Death rate: 1,027.0 deaths per 100,000 population'
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

Have not calculated but my guess is that, in a population of 330M, even an extra 75,673 infant deaths (0.025% / 23 per 100,000) would not 'move the needle' on longevity to the extent of 2 y. An extra 18,609 is even less likely to have that effect.

My next (simplified) guess is:

300M people average life expectancy 77, what life expectancy change if 75,673 infants die?

300,000,000 initial people * 77 years = 25,410,000,000 people years.

75,673 die age 0, remainder die at 77:
300,000,000 - 75,673 = 329,924,327 people remaining.
= 329,924,327 people remaining * 77 years
= 25,404,173,179 people remaining years.

= 25,404,173,179 people remaining years / 300,000,000 initial people
= 76.98 years / initial person.

Change:
= 77.0 - 76.98
= 0.02 years / initial person.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

It here is the number representing the difference between the actual deaths and the statistically expected deaths.

And notice that nowhere in my post did I refer to such a number.

 

[NW-Bound]

^^^ I implied it in my post.

I should have written "It is called excess mortality" to keep everyone happy.

 

[Montecfo]

I am quoting you, but I am not disagreeing. I am posting to say that I find looking at deaths from ALL causes enlightening. That is, the following graph does not rely on any determination of cause of death, it jus show ALL deaths, and compares them to averages from years past. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that something was afoot for the past two years:

True. But are you assuming all excess deaths were from COVID?

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

True. But are you assuming all excess deaths were from COVID?

I did not make nor state that assumption. However, I believe that a large fraction of them are from COVID. Do you have a different thesis?

 

[F.I.R.E User]

How come almost everyone doesn’t wear a mask in the gym?

 

[Montecfo]

I did not make nor state that assumption. However, I believe that a large fraction of them are from COVID. Do you have a different thesis?

I did not know there was any debate that deaths had increased compared to trend so I was not sure the point you were making.

 

[Scuba]

A quick glance at that article and the included data table made me suspicious of their theme (well, that and it's NBC). When "journalists" cherry-pick the top X of anything look out. One could just as easily look at the top 20 death rates, where 12 of the 20 worst cases are over 60 % vaxxed. Hmm, that doesn't support their theme.



The provided table showing all states is very nice, most click-bait articles like this don't provide the backup so kudos to NBC. Plotting the data they provided demonstrates an extremely weak trend line between vax% and deaths/100K. Not exactly proving "surging" in low vax states.



And, the extremes tend to distort these kind of analyses. On one end, I lived in TN for a long time and the general population there has serious comorbidities. At the other end, HI is not "continental" and is just a different animal than the rest of the states (no offence Koolau!). So doing the common statistical approach of dropping the extremes (2 highest and 2 lowest leaving >90% of the data) we see that the weak correlation between vax and deaths totally evaporates.



Lastly, just for yucks - drop the three highest and lowest and we demonstrate that increased vax=increased death for average Americans - OOPS



The point isn't that vax is good or bad, rather that "journalists" cherry-pick data to write stories that support their preferred narrative, theme, meme (whatever you want to call it).

Very interesting. When I was working, our company’s financial advisor always liked to say “figures can lie and liars can figure,” meaning statistics/numbers can be easily manipulated to prove opposing points. Your graphs are an excellent demonstration of how getting behind the numbers and looking at them in a different way can prove a totally different point.

 

[Gumby]

That's the question isn't it?

To be fair, that's not the only question. I'd want to know the percentage of people in the catchment area who were vaccinated. At the extreme, if everyone were vaccinated and some were in the hospital with Covid, then everyone in the hospital with Covid would be vaccinated. And vice versa.

If vaccination had no protective effect (i.e. - did not keep you from being hospitalized for Covid), then one would expect any random sample of patients in the hospital to have the same percentage of vaccinated people as the percentage of vaccinated people in the catchment area for that facility. So, in the case you reported, are only 48% (40/83) of the people in that area vaccinated? If the percentage of vaccinated in the area is higher than that, then we may draw the conclusion that the vaccination has prevented some hospitalization.

Let's assume that there are 100,000 people in the area and that 72% are vaccinated, which means that there are 72,000 vaccinated and 28,000 unvaccinated people. So if there are 40 vaccinated people in the hospital, then the admission rate of the vaccinated is 40/72,000 or 55 per 100k. If there are 43 unvaccinated people in the hospital, the admission rate of the unvaccinated is 43/28,000 or 153 per 100k. So the risk of admission for the unvaccinated is ~2.8 times the risk of admission for the vaccinated. Obviously, I don't know this information from your area, but you could do a similar calculation with the actual numbers.

Every Thursday, the State of Connecticut gathers and reports relative risk information. As of two days ago, the relative risk of hospitalization in this area for the the unvaccinated was 7 times higher, and the risk of death was 15 times higher. See pages 8-9 in the following report https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Coronavirus/CTDPHCOVID19summary02032022.pdf

 

[ivinsfan]

Well my comment was based on the fact that peak number for inpatient care at this regional health center was 141 (late december) and the % of vaxxed inpatients then was around 25%.. so in this area as the total number has dropped the % of vaxxed inpatients has virtually doubled.



Gumby's interesting numbers don't address the comment I answered that was, how many admitted with Covid and how many admitted for Covid?


Is my area an anomaly... I don't know...

 

[Gumby]

Well my comment was based on the fact that peak number for inpatient care at this regional health center was 141 (late december) and the % of vaxxed inpatients then was around 25%.. so in this area as the total number has dropped the % of vaxxed inpatients has virtually doubled.



Gumby's interesting numbers don't address the comment I answered that was, how many admitted with Covid and how many admitted for Covid?


Is my area an anomaly... I don't know...

It wouldn't be the first time I didn't quite get the point people were making.

 

[Turbo29]

How come almost everyone doesn’t wear a mask in the gym?

That's a great question. I don't and neither does ~75% of the other patrons who are there at the same time. I go at the slowest time of day (not to avoid covid but to avoid waiting for equipment) so it may be totally different at the busy times.

 

[NW-Bound]

Every Thursday, the State of Connecticut gathers and reports relative risk information. As of two days ago, the relative risk of hospitalization in this area for the the unvaccinated was 7 times higher, and the risk of death was 15 times higher. See pages 8-9 in the following report https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Coronavirus/CTDPHCOVID19summary02032022.pdf

Covid vaccination does not totally eliminate risk, but a 7x reduction in risk is significant and very beneficial.

For comparison, a smoker has about 7x the risk of developing lung cancer compared to that of a nonsmoker. This means some unlucky nonsmokers still get lung cancer.

Moreover, only about 1/10 of smokers eventually get lung cancer. This means most of the smokers do not get lung cancer.

And it is commonly accepted that smoking is hazardous to health.

 

[Winemaker]

IIRC, isn't there also some question about the Infant mortality rate in the US due to the US counts all deaths, full term and prenatal, as opposed to just full term?

 

[523HRR]

Did they ever fix the whole death-from-COVID vs death-with-COVID thing?

 

[Major Tom]

Covid vaccination does not totally eliminate risk, but a 7x reduction in risk is significant and very beneficial.

For comparison, a smoker has about 7x the risk of developing lung cancer compared to that of a nonsmoker. This means some unlucky nonsmokers still get lung cancer.

Moreover, only about 1/10 of smokers eventually get lung cancer. This means most of the smokers do not get lung cancer.

And it is commonly accepted that smoking is hazardous to health.

This does a lot to explain why people in both camps (concerning vaccination), as well as the undecided, are able to justify their position with statistics. For me, the decision to vaccinate and boost was clear, based on all the available information I could find. While I don't agree, I can understand those who didn't share my position.

Heck, I had a knee replacement last year. There was a very small chance I could have died on the operating table, but it was a risk well worth taking. Thinking about it, getting out of bed this morning, after a very late night, felt risky. However, the urgent need to pee made the risk assessment a fairly easy one to make

 

[youbet]

I wouldn’t generalize based on geography. We live in South Florida, not an area that has embraced public measures, and mask wearing is pretty good in retail locations such as supermarkets.

I’ll take that up one level. This is a subject where it’s best not to generalize at all. Or push your speculations based on your casual, anecdotal observations. There is plenty of actual data available.

And having said that, here’s my own anecdotal observation regarding south Fla. Went to the Walmart in LaBelle Thursday and DW and I were each given 3 free KN95 masks at the door. All employees were masked. Most customers were masked.

Here at the campground, no one wears masks but I only see other folks outdoors and widely separated where going maskless is said to be relatively safe by the CDC.

We don’t really feel any more threatened than back home in Chicago. All of which means nothing of course. I could look up the statistics I guess but nothing I find is going to change our plans at this point, so likely won’t bother.

 

[Alan]

Did they ever fix the whole death-from-COVID vs death-with-COVID thing?

The UK through the ONS publishes both the figures of those who died within 90 days of a Covid positive result and those where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate. The latter figure is much higher but they also publish the excess deaths and that figure is much closer to those who died within 90 days of a positive Covid test.

Current figures are:

158k deaths within 90 days of a positive death
178k deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate
148k excess deaths over the same period.

 

[youbet]

to keep everyone happy.

Well NW, you know that’s not gonna happen!

 

[NW-Bound]

This does a lot to explain why people in both camps (concerning vaccination), as well as the undecided, are able to justify their position with statistics. For me, the decision to vaccinate and boost was clear, based on all the available information I could find. While I don't agree, I can understand those who didn't share my position.

Heck, I had a knee replacement last year. There was a very small chance I could have died on the operating table, but it was a risk well worth taking. Thinking about it, getting out of bed this morning, after a very late night, felt risky. However, the urgent need to pee made the risk assessment a fairly easy one to make

Of course, more than just lung cancer, smoking causes other cancers and other illnesses in the respiratory and circulatory systems.

And it took many years before smoking got banned in most public places and allowed in restricted areas if at all, due to secondhand smoke.

Covid also has other long-term effects that are still being identified and studied.

 

[ERD50]

I am quoting you, but I am not disagreeing. I am posting to say that I find looking at deaths from ALL causes enlightening. That is, the following graph does not rely on any determination of cause of death, it just show ALL deaths, and compares them to averages from years past. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that something was afoot for the past two years:

[See the quoted post for the attachment, those don't seem to carry forward with a quote.]

IMO, that's the best overall statistic (and not w/o its problems as well). I just feel there is too big a problem with the way COVID related numbers are being generated. And while I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I can see where some of this does feed the conspiracy theorists (and they may not be entirely wrong).

Exhibit A:

The UK through the ONS publishes both the figures of those who died within 90 days of a Covid positive result and those where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate. The latter figure is much higher but they also publish the excess deaths and that figure is much closer to those who died within 90 days of a positive Covid test.

Current figures are:

158k deaths within 90 days of a positive death
178k deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate
148k excess deaths over the same period.

As an example, I tested positive for COVID a few weeks back (a mild case fortunately, and I am double vaxxed, waiting on my booster since I've gained some immunity from this). So if I died in a car accident yesterday (writing this post from the hereafter- Hi y'all!), my death would be labeled as "within 90 days of a positive".

Hospital admissions are also a bit wacky, you could go in for a twisted ankle, test positive for COVID, and get labelled as such. But being asymptomatic, you never would have gone to the hospital otherwise (as would be the case with a normal, mild flu).

So the "within 90 days of a positive test" is close to the "excess deaths", but that still is questionable. Now, I don't know, but I've heard that suicide rates are up due to depression from isolation, and there may be other health related issues (but you'd think less travel would mean fewer deaths from those causes).

I can't come to any conclusion, but I pretty much do not trust many of the numbers, and especially the media spin on it. It's just more complicated than this.

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

Direct deaths caused by Covid may be difficult to enumerate due to comorbidities. If a cancer patient under chemotherapy died while displaying Covid symptoms, is the death caused by Covid or cancer?

On the other hand, the excess death shows an overall picture and captures all the side effects and collateral deaths. If a stroke patient could not be saved because the hospital was too crowded or if ambulances were in short supply, his death would bump up the excess death count. If Covid causes more deaths along with comorbidities, the excess death count will go up.

What I wonder is that if Covid causes early death of the weak and already sick people, will the future death rate decline because this part of the population has been reduced?

Does anybody have the statistics of the nursing home population to see if it has declined?

 

[Samsung4321]

NSW: Hospitalisation and ICU admission – relative risk for vaccinated versus unvaccinated people (.pdf)

Unvaccinated against fully vaccinated people:

Risk of ICU admission: 37 - 70 times
Risk of hospitalisation: 18 - 47 times