
The leading cause of death in the US on Apr 6 was Covid-19 - 9nGQluzmnq3M
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1830480/
======
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Disclaimer: COVID-19 data is the number of ACTUAL US deaths since March
15th, 2020 as reported on Worldometer against the backdrop of the EXTRAPOLATED
DAILY number of deaths for top 15 causes of death in the US based on the
latest (2018) data from the CDC. This chart is not meant to represent
statistical analysis of any kind, it is meant for visual purposes only to help
raise public awareness of the exponentially increasing COVID-19 deaths in the
US

This is a really awful chart. The number of deaths from Covid-19 is animated
as they increase day-by-day, but the numbers of deaths from all other causes
remain constant. These numbers (the blue bars) are stated to be the
"EXTRAPOLATED DAILY numbers of deaths from the top 15 causes of death in the
US" (other than Covid-19), but if they are "DAILY" numbers, why aren't they
changing _daily_?

The last sentence in the disclaimer is at least honest about it: this graph
has no real information content. I for one find this graph to only serve the
purpose of sensationalising a situation that is already dramatic enough
without the need of animations and special effects. Really. The only thing
missing is epic music in the background. Something from Carmina Burana,
perhaps.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
The "extrapolated daily" seems to be a weird way of saying "on average". And I
think it's reasonable enough to do, because I don't think this data exists at
daily granularity, and even if it did the daily variation would not be
particularly meaningful.

The chart's really only making a single point, which is that yesterday, more
people in the US (probably) died of COVID than anything else. And the figures
are likely to get worse before they get better.

------
Murkin
Since the other causes of death remain static in this chart, its hard to tell
if Covid-19 are new cases or "take away from other causes" (and by what
percentage).

Would be interesting to see daily chart of Covid-19 deaths as % of total
deaths and daily total deaths.

PS. Extra points - number of deaths due to lockdowns (suicides, unaccessible
healthcare, etc)

~~~
iso1631
Indeed, this is the key question, what are the number of excess deaths
compared with this time last year. Are mortality statistics available to that
sort of granularity and speed (e.g. "number of deaths registered last week")
for any country or region in the world?

If you die of heart failure and happen to be covid infected (which is likely
given how widespread it is) do you go down as a covid death rather than a
heart failure?

~~~
iso1631
> Are mortality statistics available to that sort of granularity and speed

To answer my own question, yes

[https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-
mo...](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mortality-
surveillance-2019-to-2020)

I love gov.uk

Week 9 commences March 2nd (I'm assuming the weeks are the same as ISO weeks)

    
    
      Week | Total dead(E+W) | Covid (UK) | Excess mortality
      8  Feb24-Mar1 | 10,841 | 0    | ...
      9  Mar 2-8    | 10,816 | 3    | no
      10 Mar 9-15   | 10,895 | 32   | no
      11 Mar 16-22  | 11,019 | 300  | no
      12 Mar 23-29  | 10,645 | 1073 | no
      13 Mar30-Apr5 | n/a    | 3965 | yes -- England overall and 65+. not in Wales/Scotland/NI. Specific England regions - London, South East, E+W Midlands, North West
    
    

Note the graph showing the recent increase:
[https://i.imgur.com/McBopJql.png](https://i.imgur.com/McBopJql.png)

The next weekly report is out tomorrow, which should have the total death
figures for week 13.

It looks like in week 12 though, 10% of deaths in the UK were put down to
COVID, but the total increase on the year before wasn't that high.

Next week will be englightening

Covid death figures from wikipedia.

GovUK also have this, hospital admissions. Look at the massive fall over the
last few weeks.

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877600/EDSSSBulletin2020wk13.pdf.pdf)

~~~
thu2111
Ah great find. I was looking for UK hospital admissions data.

That's pretty shocking. Pneumonia and respiratory has hardly moved (where is
the wave???) yet there's a huge fall in emergency cardiac patients. That's
worrying. It implies people having heart attacks are choosing not to go to
hospital fast enough, even though they could.

~~~
iso1631
I'm assuming that half those attendances aren't because of heart attacks, but
are to do with routine follow up appointments?

~~~
thu2111
Isn't this data for emergency admissions only?

~~~
iso1631
True, "Emergency departments"

[https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/369/bmj.m1406.full.pdf](https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/369/bmj.m1406.full.pdf)

People are ignoring stroke symptoms and failing to ring 999 because they fear
being a burden on the NHS in England duringthe covid-19 pandemic, the national
clinical director for stroke has warned. Deb Lowe, consultant stroke physician
at Wirral University Teaching Hospital, said that doctors across the country
were seeing “quite striking reductions” in the number of people coming into
hospital with symptoms of stroke. She said, “It appears that people aren’t
seeking emergency help or going to hospital when they suspect a stroke,
possibly due to fear of the virus or not wanting to be a burden on the NHS.”

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
From the disclaimer: _COVID-19 data is the number of ACTUAL US deaths since
March 15th, 2020 as reported on Worldometer against the backdrop of the
EXTRAPOLATED DAILY number of deaths for top 15 causes of death in the US based
on the latest (2018) data from the CDC._

~~~
iso1631
And crucially ignores the reduction in deaths from heart failure, road
traffic, etc. at this time

~~~
Lewton
Heart failure sure

but road traffic related deaths? Really? COVID-19 is not causing a decrease in
road traffic deaths, the reaction to COVID-19 is. So, why would that data ever
be relevant when talking about the disease?

~~~
iso1631
Because that also needs to be factored in when trying to determine causes

If total deaths doesn't change, but road traffic deaths are down by 500, that
means non-road-traffic deaths are up 500

You need a complete picture to draw conclusions

------
tomohawk
Take a look at
[https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus)

This chart in particular:

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-deaths-
covid-19?cou...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-deaths-
covid-19?country=USA+OWID_WRL)

It's showing a doubling of daily confirmed deaths since last week. This is a
lagging statistic, of course, but it's one of the more firm ones.

The total confirmed deaths can be seen here:

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-deaths-
covid-19?cou...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-deaths-
covid-19?country=OWID_WRL+USA)

To put this into perspective, we're about halfway to the 23,000 flu deaths in
the US for the entire flu season this year. At the current rate, though, we'll
be past that by next week.

For more perspective, the 1957 Asian Flu killed about 70,000 people in the US
(1 - 2 million worldwide), and our population at that time was 177 million
(about half of today).

According to this chart:

[https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-daily-
dea...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-confirmed-daily-deaths-
epidemiological-trajectory)

we may be just at the start of bending the curve.

We're a much larger country than some of the others shown in our group (add
Italy, France, UK, Spain, and Germany, and we still have more people).

EDIT:

According to: [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-
resources/1957-1958-pandemi...](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-
resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html)

The number of deaths for the 1957 Asian Flu in the US was 116,000, at a time
when we had half the population of today.

------
nimbius
the link to the data for the CDC does not seem to match the graph...perhaps im
reading this wrong?

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm)

if we're mapping based on the 2018 numbers the CDC provide then 49925 per
month or ~12k per week is the cancer rate...

Diabetes is around 1700, not 200.

~~~
bob_bob_bob
The chart is showing deaths per day

------
75dvtwin
CDC guidelines appear to ask medical professional, to over-report COVID as a
cause of death, if there is reasonable suspicion, but not a definite
diagnosis.

I am not sure if this right/wrong, and how different it is from guidelines
relating, to say, flu as a cause of death.

> "... In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it
> is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a
> reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a
> death certificate as “probable” or “presumed.” In these instances,
> certifiers should use their best clinical judgement in determining if a
> COVID–19 infection was likely. However, please note that testing for
> COVID–19 should be conducted whenever possible. ..." [1]

As an hypothetical example, if a deceased was in a contact with covid-positive
person, but the deceased was not tested for Covid, should the cause of death
be noted as 'presumed covid-19'?

[1]
[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pd](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/vsrg/vsrg03-508.pd)

------
testplzignore
It would be interesting to see the same chart but limited to just deaths that
occur in hospitals.

------
kozikow
A version that removes "one week average" as the latest value:
[https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1852838](https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1852838)

------
coldcode
At least the Covid-19 deaths have a limit, whereas many of the others will
remain constant for a much longer time. The sadness of this disease is for
many countries it did not need to be so bad. I wonder if we as a country (US)
will learn anything from this.

~~~
andruby
What is the limit for Covid-19 deaths? We don't know yet if we'll get a
working vaccine or if immunity from antibodies lasts long enough. What we have
at the moment are educated guesses. If Covid-19 becomes endemic, it could be a
death cause that is always present like influenza.

This might be a bit morbid, but every death cause has a limit, the whole
population..

------
Turing_Machine
> This chart is not meant to represent statistical analysis of any kind

Okay.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Longer comment: "I'm admitting that my chart is totally meaningless, but it
sure does look scary!"

------
mmmmmyumyum
How do you know that this was the cause of death when all we know is that
these people were tested positive on Covid19 before they died? Not denying
that Covid19 is a thing and measures are necessary but I think this question
is valid when reading such headlines.

~~~
s9w
A positive test is not even necessary to report them as Covid-19 deaths in the
US.

> Should “COVID-19” be reported on the death certificate only with a confirmed
> test?

> COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where
> the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.

[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-I...](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-
ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf)

~~~
DanBC
> A positive test is not even necessary to report them as Covid-19 deaths in
> the US.

But this applies to other forms of death. We count flu deaths in the same way,
so the data is equally skewed.

> > > COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents
> where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to
> death.

People can only put it on the death certificate if they can make that
assumption to the best of their knowledge or belief. It's not doctors
guessing.

~~~
_-___________-_
> We count flu deaths in the same way, so the data is equally skewed.

We actually don't, because flu is not routinely tested for the way that
COVID-19 currently is among suspected cases.

~~~
pas
I think the comment claims that both flu and corona deaths are assigned almost
solely based on symptoms and medical history (eg. if someone comes in with a
fever, develops a pneumonia and dies then they look at signs to tell apart the
diseases - did the patient have runny nose and joint aches? yes? then flu. no?
but had shortness of breath? corona.)

------
caffed
Wow, the rapid increase is definitely alarming.

Side note: gun violence would average number 3 or 4, if not for the tireless
lobbying from the NRA to block health impact research.
[https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/](https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/)

~~~
virmundi
What we’ve learned from this Corona scare is the best way to protect people is
to incarcerate them in their own homes. Take guns and hard instruments from
people. Isolate everyone into their own cell would reduce the murder rate to
zero. All communication would go through the Internet. No chance for physical
abuse any more. No more transmission of disease since we’ve shutdown direct
human interactions. It would be the perfectly safe world. Of course agency
gets thrown out the window.

