
Latest EURO MOMO data shows excess all-cause mortality in some countries - _-___________-_
http://euromomo.eu
======
jose_zap
One interesting thing that I can see there is that the current excess for many
countries seem to be no worse so far from a larger excess in the early weeks
of 2017.

Another very surprising thing is to see no excess mortality in Sweden, a
country criticized for a laxer strategy against COVID-19.

I was not expecting to see that.

~~~
rovolo
Sweden is on the same track as Switzerland, but about a week behind. They will
probably show up on the map in either 1 or 2 weeks.

[http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-
visualization/](http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/)

~~~
lukasm
and deaths are up to 5 weeks behind cases.

~~~
rovolo
My 'week behind' is from comparing per-capita cumulative deaths.

The number of confirmed cases doesn't track as well between countries,
probably due to different testing strategies. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden all
have similar per-capita cases, but Denmark has half the death rate as Sweden
and Norway has half the death rate of Denmark.

------
Leary
So Germany, which is right next door to the Netherlands/France/Italy, is
experiencing no excess mortality. What did they do right and how can we have
some of that.

~~~
101404
We were mostly lucky to have about four times as many ventilators as France or
Italy.

The numbers I read in two different sources: Germany has about 20,000
ventilator places, while France, Italy, Spain, and UK have about 5,000 each.

So in Germany, we didn't hit the "no more ventilators" situation and people
didn't die.

 _Edit:_ Here a recent article confirming it: "Germany still has 10,000 free
ICU beds" (in German: [https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/coronavirus-in-
deutschla...](https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/coronavirus-in-
deutschland-10-000-intensivbetten-laut-spahn-noch-frei/25729386.html))

 _Edit 2:_ Pretty sick, considering that in Italy and France thousands are
dying because there are no ICU beds, and here in Germany they are just empty
and unused.

~~~
1996
Luck favors the prepared mind, so could it be just an indicator of something
deeper?

Maybe Germany has 4x as much ventilators as France, but also k times as much
of many other things that matter?

I wonder if countries like France will realize they have to improve and become
more like Germany instead of doubling down on their downwards spiral.

~~~
101404
> Luck favors the prepared mind,

Then the US should be much better off, because they have about ten times more
ventilators than Germany has. But only four times the population.

But, the US was unlucky to have 50% of cases in only one city. So they ran out
of ventilators in that one place, while having a surplus elsewhere.

They reacted quickly and correctly by sending hospital ships (much quicker
than trying to put ICU beds on trucks).

Of course, compared to the EU, the US is still handling the situation way
better.

~~~
adrianN
Unfortunately the hospital ships are equipped to deal with wartime problems,
i.e. trauma victims. They don't help too much in a pandemic.

~~~
101404
They are not there to treat COVID-19, but to lower the "day to day load" of
hospitals, so the hospitals have more capacity for COVID-19 patients. At least
that's what they said on PBS Newshour.

~~~
ceejayoz
That changed about a week ago.

[https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/04/06/coronavirus-
update-u...](https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/04/06/coronavirus-update-usns-
comfort-hospital-ship-will-now-accept-covid-19-patients/)

------
dominiclooser
Is there anything in this data indicating that there is something going on
more severe than the flu? I don't see anything.

~~~
ceejayoz
"It's not worse than the flu _when_ we lockdown the entire global economy" is
not a comforting fact, even if true.

~~~
dominiclooser
We don't know how it would have been without lockdown. We just see this data
and it looks totally normal.

~~~
ceejayoz
> We don't know how it would have been without lockdown.

Sure we do. It's not hard to see the curves flattening once mitigation efforts
go into place, and slow-to-react countries having a harder time of it.
[https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-
visualization/](https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/)

It also stands to reason that a respiratory virus would be affected by a
country going on lockdown, given the mechanism.

------
KaiserPro
Being selfish and looking at the numbers for the UK.

One thing that is striking is the peaks in age. The total figures look like
the peak has yet to arrive, but thats because the mortality in the 65+ range
is climbing (Given that 13% and rising have cases, this isn't suprising)

but the 18-65 looks like it has peaked. This shows a similar pattern to spain,
if a bit earlier on the slope.

However this is just a shallow observation.

~~~
rjsw
Maybe the over 65s in the UK can't isolate themselves as easily as younger age
groups. Knowing percentages of older people in nursing homes for different
countries could be useful.

~~~
christkv
It’s gotten into the old folks homes just as in Spain.

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vogre
It's good to see how healthy people in Luxembourg became with all this
pandemic!

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s9w
This isn't exactly a good rebuttal to "it's just the flu". But it's still
important datapoint in itself.

~~~
rootusrootus
It's really just another data point. Using absolute numbers of deaths, it is
hard to differentiate between an epidemic where R0 is moderate (say, 2.5) and
the IFR is fairly high, or another where the R0 is higher (e.g. 6) and the IFR
is lower. Both get you a lot of hospital load and an increased number of
deaths.

Some interesting studies coming out now supporting the iceberg theory.
Depending on your perspective, that could be good news.

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SiempreViernes
Thanks, but we already know there is a pandemic going on causing excess
mortality. In fact depending on where we are in the world we are at the tail
end of a solid 3 week block where this pandemic and its effect on the local
society was the _only_ thing being reported on.

Or in other words: these excess mortality numbers _include_ Covid-19 deaths,
it's not the sexy excess mortality that excludes the pandemic some media have
reported on.

~~~
thebruce87m
We didn’t know that it’s causing excess mortality, at least not from any data
I’ve seen. It’s all been COVID related deaths which is pretty meaningless in
its own.

This is the important data that shows how bad it really is - albeit not
normalised for the reduction in other deaths such as car crashes etc.

~~~
SiempreViernes
So have you read the stories about how hospitals rent cooling containers and
some cities use ice rinks to get additional storage capacity for dead bodies
and go "I wonder if there is any excess deaths going on"?

~~~
DanBC
Have you read this thread where there are people still saying "covid-19 isn't
that bad, it's about the same as a rough flu year"?

Data helps persuade those people that this is worse than most flu years in
recent history.

~~~
antpls
But would a 10% worse flu worth a global recession due to global lockdown ?

