
Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported - enraged_camel
https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c
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jjtheblunt
I wonder what will be the accepted count months from now.

I say that from the media-frustrated view of an American within America, who
regularly reads German and Scandinavian news online (and UK too) just for
external perspective.

I reflexively think two two things: (1) title sensationalism possible, and (2)
or it could be far lower than reported, but that's not sensational, and only
time will tell.

~~~
ska
This isn't about models, this is about actual reported deaths.

Systemic undercounts can happen easily in a situation like this; for example
if you are only reporting as Covid-19 deaths people who a) died in a hospital
and b) had a positive test. This will undercount if you are not testing
broadly enough (or the test isn't accurate) or people are dying outside the
hospital in unusually high rates due to the virus. NYC is a good example of
where it's pretty clear this was happening (and they have adjusted their
counts upward).

Fatalities is one area with overcounts are quite unlikely, but could be
happening in some places I suppose, and will have to be accounted for if it
can be demonstrated.

~~~
AmericanChopper
Overcounts are just as likely. Well incorrectly attributed deaths at least.

Somebody who tests positive, and then dies in a car accident meets your above
criteria. For something less contrived, so does somebody who tests positive,
and then subsequently dies of an unrelated heart disease.

If you wanted to fix attribution, you’d need a coroner’s investigation into
each death, which certainly isn’t happening. Even testing every death that you
want to count isn’t feasible, because of test shortages and the potential for
false negatives. A real world example of that is in New York, where a revision
in their attribution methodology had their numbers jump up massively in one
day [0]. What changed was they decided to add all deaths where Covid was a
suspected cause to the count.

Whether these shortcomings in methodology would lead to an overall overcount
is probably unlikely. But methodology differences from one place to the next
does make it difficult to compare statistics. With some factors applying
downward pressure to the stats, and other factors applying upward pressure.

One thing I’m going to be interested in looking up when this is all over is
2020s influenza deaths. I have a strong suspicion that 2020 is going to have
record low flu deaths, with many of them being incorrectly attributed to
Covid-19.

[0]: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/new-york-
cit...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/15/new-york-city-
coronavirus-death-toll-jumps-revised-count)

~~~
Isinlor
If you look at deaths from Sweden and Belgium the excess mortality matches
very well the deaths they attribute to COVID-19[0]. Both Sweden and Belgium
count COVID-19 deaths in community outside hospitals. It would seem they over-
count by some 5%. The example of these two countries suggests that the excess
mortality can be basically fully attributed to COVID-19 [1].

[0]:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-
missing-deaths.html)

[1]: [https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps](https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-
and-maps)

~~~
ska
Right, the increase in excess mortality is almost certainly covid-19 related,
and the potential for overcount is relatively small (and will probably be
accounted for reasonably). By comparison not counting these will result in a
large undercount, a much more significant effect.

~~~
AmericanChopper
You’re saying almost certainly, but you’re demonstrably making a lot of
assumptions. For instance studies of the effect recessions have on mortality
rates vary wildly, from having a positive effect (like the Great Depression),
to having a hugely negative effect (Brazil 2012-2016). There’s other obvious
confounding factors in this approach too. What is the impact on mortality rate
in moving primary care to Tele-conferencing? The pandemic had prioritized
Covid care, and stretched medical resources. What impact has that had on the
mortality rate of non-Covid conditions? The answers to those questions are not
obvious, and have not been rigorously studied. Even if you could answer them,
that approach would imply redefining the Covid-19 death toll from being
“deaths caused by Covid-19” to “deaths which may not have otherwise happened,
during that particular period, if not for Covid-19”.

~~~
ska
On the time scale we are liking at so far, almost none of those terms
contribute .

I agree that over time it gets muddier , but right now in places like NYC it’s
pretty clear .

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nraynaud
What is weird is that those figure were always reported in a lot of countries,
including 24 countries of Europe with
[https://www.euromomo.eu/](https://www.euromomo.eu/) .

I live in France where the statistics service does an accelerated counting
since the beginning of the pandemic to publish a partial count of the death
certificates faster than usual. It is published every week with the number of
people diagnosed, and deaths in hospitals, etc.

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mrfusion
I feel like I’m getting panic fatigue at this point.

~~~
gremlinsinc
I've been obsessed w/ r/coronavirus and panicking for weeks, I'm starting to
feel disassociated from it, like I know it's real but part of me thinks "don't
worry, won't happen to me".

Part of that is that I'm in rural utah and we have 40 cases in a huge 3-4
county area w/ 100k+ people. It's not like I'm in NY where I can hear the
sirens all day. I'm also getting tired of frozen food and home-cooked dinners.
We do order delivery or drive-thru 1-2 times per week, but I'm always paranoid
when I do but I feel I'm getting more 'comfortable' and less paranoid, which
could bite me in the ass as I'm higher risk (obesity, 40, sleep apnea).

probably part of it is also the longer days make it go so much slower, and
even my introverted self wants to get out of the house and do something
besides this all day everyday for the next year.

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qeternity
And it’s very likely that the infected count is an order or two magnitudes
higher.

~~~
DagAgren
This is not at all "very likely".

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mschuetz
What I'd be interested in are some graphs that compare deaths of January,
February, March and April for 2018, 2019 and 2020. To see the expected trend
from 2018/19 and the reality of 2020.

~~~
jhwang5
They have the charts in the article

~~~
tjr225
Still, I wish you could see specific years vs this year. For instance there
were fewer deaths in Michigan in March of 2020 than in 2019, but I'm sure that
would be different if you averaged it over the course of four years.

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neonate
[https://archive.md/Qlutx](https://archive.md/Qlutx)

