Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[alfred russel]

The only measure that's trustworthy today is excess deaths.

Great point. Suicides are up. Violent crime is up. Lots of medical treatments for life threatening diseases like cancer were deferred. People have been scared into not going to the hospital even with conditions like chest pain. Lets count it all as covid.

[The Brain]

I'm just reporting the latest analysis of the present data. If facts is a problem for you Tamas, well, your loss I guess.

I believe time and better data and better analysis tools will improve the picture and change our view, but at present we can only use what we know now. Tomorrow we'll know even better. That's how science works and if the result of that does not fit your pre-conceived notions, well, your loss.

The only measure that's trustworthy today is excess deaths. Sweden's numbers are terrible in that regard.

I believe that even in a few decades, the same measure will be used to determine the outcome of the different approaches.

It's ok to say your country fucked up you know. Nothing will happen to you.

My impression is that Sweden is one of the countries with the smallest discrepancy between official Covid-19 deaths and excess mortality.

Ok? I'm not taking about discrepancy but excess deaths themselves.

Surely if the official Covid-19 deaths match the number of excess deaths, and the number of excess deaths is terrible, then also the official number of Covid-19 deaths is terrible. Why did you bring up excess deaths as separate to the official Covid-19 numbers for Sweden and imply that the Covid-19 numbers are untrustworthy?

[Razgovory]

"Covid cause his heart to fail resulting in his death"

"So, he died of heart failure not Covid?"

"That's not what I said"

"All I'm hearing is that he died from heart failure, not Covid.  We're going to run with that."

[Zanza]

Sweden's excess mortality figures as reported e.g. by The Economist are not good, but there are plenty of Western countries with worse numbers. I guess within its peer group of other Nordic countries, Sweden did not do well. Also central Europe did better. But compared to some Western European countries e.g. Netherlands or France, their numbers are in the same ballpark.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries

[celedhring]

The Spanish second wave numbers are really puzzling.



Obviously testing is much more widespread now compared to the first wave, so the massive reduction in mortality (red bars) is partly explained by that. Also the fact that the average age of people diagnosed with the illness has dropped below 40 years. But it's still a shocking graph. Nationwide hospital occupancy by Covid patients is also at a low 6%.

[Sheilbh]

That is extraordinary. I suppose some of it will also be lag - but seeing the mid-point is June it feels like that shouldn't be too much of an impact. I wonder if healthcare systems are holding up better because they're testing more so catching it early, treatment may have only improved a little but it feels like if they can monitor it they spot it early they can monitor it more and maybe get people in hospital when necessary, not when they're really struggling?

But I do find it amazing (and really sad) how lethal this disease is for the elderly compared to everyone else. I think the UK figures on, say 30-39 year olds, is that the IFR is 0.8% so if that's the groups that are being infected, I suppose we'll see a low rate of deaths. But that IFR climbs to about 5% for 70-79 year olds and around 9% for the over 80s. It's so extreme.

[Tamas]

Could it be that the vulnerable groups are keeping to preventive measures like social distancing much better so they don't get as much infected as during the first wave? Encouraging none the less.

[Tamas]

Also could it be that a large proportion of those who were really prone of dying from this have already lost their lives to it?

[Sheilbh]

Also could it be that a large proportion of those who were really prone of dying from this have already lost their lives to it?

Yeah - I mean I sort of wonder if a large proportion of those who were prone to dying fullstop lost their lives to this. Like I wonder if it went after the really vulnerable in that age group because I find it really weird that several countries with bad outbreaks - the UK, Italy, France, Netherlands, I think Spain too - now have had a couple of months of more of deaths running quite a lot below average.

Crime was down and accidents were down, but I think a lot of things should have got back to normal by now and I wonder how much of that is because this disease really devastated the physically weakest earlier in the year.

[The Brain]

But I do find it amazing (and really sad) how lethal this disease is for the elderly compared to everyone else.

Really? I think it's one of the best things about this disease. I much prefer old people to die instead of young people, and I know many people who feel the same (certainly the old people I've talked to).

[Syt]

The Spanish second wave numbers are really puzzling.



Obviously testing is much more widespread now compared to the first wave, so the massive reduction in mortality (red bars) is partly explained by that. Also the fact that the average age of people diagnosed with the illness has dropped below 40 years. But it's still a shocking graph. Nationwide hospital occupancy by Covid patients is also at a low 6%.

Numbers for Austria aren't as extreme, but Vienna numbers are beyond the original peak numbers, but hospitalizations and deaths are way, way lower than in March/April (not that they were bad to begin with ...).

[The Brain]

Also could it be that a large proportion of those who were really prone of dying from this have already lost their lives to it?

Yeah - I mean I sort of wonder if a large proportion of those who were prone to dying fullstop lost their lives to this. Like I wonder if it went after the really vulnerable in that age group because I find it really weird that several countries with bad outbreaks - the UK, Italy, France, Netherlands, I think Spain too - now have had a couple of months of more of deaths running quite a lot below average.

Crime was down and accidents were down, but I think a lot of things should have got back to normal by now and I wonder how much of that is because this disease really devastated the physically weakest earlier in the year.

At least in Sweden my impression certainly is that many who died of Covid-19 would have died in 2020 even without Covid-19.

[Sheilbh]

Really? I think it's one of the best things about this disease. I much prefer old people to die instead of young people, and I know many people who feel the same (certainly the old people I've talked to).

Yeah I get what you mean. I suppose I just think they're among the most vulnerable and weakest, and so the people we have the highest responsibility to look after (and we failed in this country).

[katmai]

But I do find it amazing (and really sad) how lethal this disease is for the elderly compared to everyone else.

Really? I think it's one of the best things about this disease. I much prefer old people to die instead of young people, and I know many people who feel the same (certainly the old people I've talked to).

Why do you hate the olds?

[The Brain]

But I do find it amazing (and really sad) how lethal this disease is for the elderly compared to everyone else.

Really? I think it's one of the best things about this disease. I much prefer old people to die instead of young people, and I know many people who feel the same (certainly the old people I've talked to).

Why do you hate the olds?

They're wrinkly and sag a lot.