The True Coronavirus Toll in the U.S. Has Already Surpassed 200,000!

[edhopper]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html

Across the United States, at least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March, according to a New York Times analysis of estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus.

Something we all thought was true, but now an analytical confirmation.

[FBaggins]

1. Not a great title for the data

That isn't uncommon. Editors often pick titles to grab attention that aren't necessarily supported by the article itself... so it's hard to tell whether it's the author or editor who made the mistake.

What the data supports is that there have been ~200k "excess deaths" during the period. It's natural to assume that they must be COVID deaths, but it's still an assumption, not an "analytical confirmation". Some things to consider:

There are lots of people dying over the last ~5 months who would not have died otherwise because they contracted the virus
There are also some people who would have died over the last few months anyway... but had the virus too
There are definitely some people who would not have died during the period and who did not contract the disease... but died of other causes (e.g., lack of medical care at the hospital because of COVID restrictions).
There are probably even some people who would have died during the period but who didn't die because COVID precautions also protected them from catching something else.

Rather than assuming that there are 30k COVID deaths that have somehow been hidden... I'd prefer to assume that saving hundreds of thousands of additional lives by locking down the economy had some negative side effects.

[edhopper]

3. It still comes down to

there are 200,000 more deaths than have happened over that same time period over the last number of years. The death rate is pretty stable. Occam's Razor should lead us to the one thing different this year is the main cause. I would think the small percent of this that is because of the lockdown are cancelled by less deaths because of the lock down. (less driving miles, etc...)

[struggle4progress]

6. +

[FBaggins]

9. Occam's Razor does not justify oversimplifying complex problems

There isn't just "one thing" that's different this year.

That "one thing" has caused massive changes is many other things that also have potential impacts on life expectancy.

I would think the small percent of this that is because of the lockdown are cancelled by less deaths because of the lock down.

That's not an unreasonable starting assumption... but that doesn't mean that it's correct. I, too, assume that if we're still in the same place in January... there will be far fewer flu deaths than a normal year because masks and social distancing should work really well against the flu too. But that's just an assumption.

[Initech]

2. And Trump will keep screwing with the data until he gets what he wants.

[Hortensis]

4. I'm sure of it. "Excess deaths" is how they come up with the

algorhythms for estimating flu epidemic deaths. It was a big surprise to me to learn that death rates from the flu alone are far lower than the epidemic totals. Flu kills only a fraction of the "excess deaths."

[FBaggins]

8. "Flu kills only a fraction of the excess deaths"

That's because flu kills a proportion of the NON excess deaths every year.

[struggle4progress]

5. 200K cases plausibly linked to the epidemic and its various effects

It will include uncounted covid-19 cases, people whose immediate cause of death was something else but with covid-19 infection contributing, people unable or afraid to get other urgent medical care due to epidemic stresses on the medical system, people dying of drug overdoses or suicide from epidemic-related depression related to the epidemic (from economic problems, for example) &c&c

[edhopper]

7. As far as the lock down being a causal factor

if so we would not see the excess deaths rising in the South after the lock down was eased.
It's clearly COVID.