Of course not. Are you unaware that “deaths are wrongly assigned to COVID-19” is the current right wing internet “COVID is a hoax” talking point?
That doesn’t mean there are no deaths wrongly assigned, or that all those espousing the idea are right wing, but it’s not absurd to imagine that at some point at least some of that particular crowd of nutso right wing individuals will move on to a different extreme interpretation of cause of death statistics.
But hey, I can sympathize with wanting “nutcase right wing” to be explicit and not implicit in such statements and will try to include it next time.
The answer is yes and no. It’s a serious question of considerable relevance.
For example, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina caused a number of deaths right away in Puerto Rico. But there was further damage from losing electricity, transportation, medicines, supplies and hospital capacity. The total number of indirect deaths due to the hurricane was (if memory serves) around 4600, much higher than the initially reported numbers.
Coronavirus seems to cause damage by making the immune system in some patients hyperactive. But they may die from pneumonia, superinfection, cardiac complications, blood clots or other causes. Coronavirus may or may not have been diagnosed, particularly early in the outbreak or given the variation in presenting symptoms and various testing errors. So it is reasonable to retrospectively compare deaths with expected deaths. This has been done in Italy and the number of deaths in some areas far exceeds both the number of expected deaths and the number of deaths attributed to coronavirus. This has been interpreted as MORE people dying of coronavirus than reported, since some governments may have interest in minimizing these numbers.
The same retrospective process will be applied everywhere in time. Although highly suggestive and useful, it is not the same thing as definitive proof. “Deaths wrongfully attributed to Covid-19” is an issue since testing errors occur, and might be a bigger ssue if deaths were much lower than expected deaths, but while possible is perhaps propagated by problematic people and politicians.
At this point in time I don’t especially give two shits about what the current talking points are by those of “my tribe” or those of the “other tribe”. In these threads at least (to my mind at least) the issue should not be what political tribe is espousing what, but what actually SHOULD be part of an intelligent analysis. Dismissing any part of that analysis because it is distorted and abused ignorantly by one or the other tribe is petty shit.
There will be some real number of deaths resultant of the stay at home orders, even if they are going to be hard to parse out. That statement is not a Right wing talking point and should not just be dismissed exclusively because some Right wing nut jobs go off crazy.
First, most health authorities have an interest in expected deaths. So do less likely organizations, like governments, insurance companies, hospital planning committees, disaster teams, environmental groups and funeral homes.
Second, many places compile this information. The fact many places have not been reported in the media does not proclude this. I have seen an article on this for various Italian cities and towns.
Third, it may be too early to collect some data. Data often follows a lag period since it may be collected periodically (monthly, by season, annually). It may change if retesting is done or vary (for example, data about admission, length of hospitalization, length of ICU stay, disposition) because someone sick in hospital for a long time may die but still be alive.
This is something that will surely be looked at. But probably months down the road for most places. It may vary how much of this will be released or available to the public in some areas.
I don’t think we can necessarily conclude that implies virus underreporting. COVID-19 infection causes death and destruction. However, global lockdown also causes death and destruction.
"The coronavirus outbreak has worsened the hunger crisis in the world’s poorest corners and up to 12,000 people could die each day from hunger linked to the social and economic effects of the pandemic, the humanitarian group Oxfam warned Thursday.
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““The knock-on impacts of COVID-19 are far more widespread than the virus itself, pushing millions of the world’s poorest people deeper into hunger and poverty,” said the group’s chief executive, Danny Sriskandarajah. “It is vital governments contain the spread of this deadly disease, but they must also prevent it killing as many — if not more — people from hunger.”
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Oxfam cited the World Food Program in estimating that the number of people experiencing crisis-level hunger will rise to 270 million before the end of this year, a jump from 149 million in 2019.”
Does this mean the lockdowns are/were wrong? No. We won’t know the final answer for decades probably (if ever). However, there is a cost side of the cost/benefit equation. I expect there will be plenty of excess deaths during this pandemic. Is a death by starvation caused by the disruption of the food supply “caused” by the coronavirus? I don’t know.
It takes years to properly work out actual excess deaths caused. They need to look at both several years of pre outbreak data and post outbreak data as well.
It took nearly 10 years to calculate the 2009 Swine Flu deaths.
This is likely to require a much more nuanced evaluation and probably will need access to medical records.
The population is not equal, not in health, or age or income or profession and all these will have some bearing.
Diabetics will have a certain risk but also a generally increase risk of death through complications of their condition which also multiply by age. Add to this that a diabetic that has recovered from Covid will be likely to be more susceptible to increase mortality from post infection effects which could be some years in the future.
You could repeat for pretty much any aspect pf the human condition and it will likely be the subject of research papers - and having a nationalised health system that can provide anonymised data is going to be especially useful.
When the hurricane hit Puerto Rico, it killed many people directly. Many more died indirectly - over time - due to the longer term effects of being without food, clean water, electricity, medical supplies or medical attention of other conditions.
Covid is not different. It is true if there is a big increase, one would have to examine in detail the reasons. This takes time and resources and will not be happening immediately. The assumption that a fair chunk of the difference is directly or indirectly related to Covid is very reasonable. That is why The Economist made the chart.
I’d say COVID-19 is very different. I think the difference is that the correct policy when dealing with a hurricane is pretty straightforward and clear. Ship in medicine, supplies, construction equipment, etc. and rebuild. There’s not much uncertainty involved with what the appropriate response is. Not so with this virus. There is a huge amount of uncertainty involved. Though, it seems no matter what policy is chosen, people will die. All we can do is try to make a plan with imperfect information. Only in retrospect years from now will we be able to evaluate what we got right and what we got wrong.
Fair enough. A virus is only like a storm in the sense of having direct and indirect sequelae. Puerto Rico is not a great example because there is a sense what needed to be done was not done quickly, efficiently or fully.
Certainly a new virus has far more uncertainty. Even the best estimates of experts differed widely from each other (although this is not that unusual). We probably still don’t know a lot of the factors affecting things. Population density, social habits, people and generations per household, local health, local medical services, degree of travel, public health policies, compliance with local policy and availability of PPE are some factors. Clearly SARS did not teach what it needed.