[edoo]

The serological surveys are showing 50-100x infection rates of those tested. If tested healthy persons are dying at 0.5% that gets you to 0.01%-0.005% death rate in healthy persons. That number is lower than the all cause death rates of 25-34 year olds...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db355-h.pdf

[hyperpape]

I see. You're correct that while the overall death rates in NYC are vastly higher than any season flu, it's mathematically possible that those are all deaths of unhealthy people.

It's a creative interpretation of the facts.

One important note: it's impossible that NYC is overestimating cases by 100x. Close to 2% of NYC has confirmed cases.

[edoo]

New York is at 1.3 percent positive with new cases flatlining. That fits very squarely with what you'd expect to see based on the surveys. Healthy people aren't dying by any significant number based on New York's own published data. The only other one I've seen is MA that has 97.5% deaths with comorbidity. This is a huge overreaction.

[arcticbull]

99.2% of the folks who died in Italy averaged 80.5 and had an average of 3 underlying conditions, so that data lines up.

[vanniv]

The other thing to keep in mind with death counts, especially in NY and NJ, is that all deaths of likely-infected people are being counted as COVID deaths regardless of cause of death.

This has included a couple lf suicides of folks who had respiratory illness prior to death, and one person who got in an auto accident and died of head trauma -- but he had tested COVID-positive.

Yes, most people right now who get a respiratory illness and then die probably did have COVID -- and it is possible that some folks are dying of COVID and being uncounted to offset some of the overcounting -- but with death numbers counted so loosely, it is hard to know the real story, and impossible to do simple maths using rates from one place at one time to compute rates at other times or other places.

I tend to think that NYC must be approaching saturation, and that the true new-case numbers must be falling there, but it's impossible to answer with certainty using only the numbers we have here on the internets.

[DanBC]

> is that all deaths of likely-infected people are being counted as COVID deaths regardless of cause of death.

No, this isn't what's happening.

Doctors who are sure to the best of their knowledge and experience that the deceased had covid-19 will put covid-19 on the death certificate, and they will also say if they think it contributed to death.

That's not the same as "anyone who dies with covid-19 is being described as killed by covid-19".

[arcticbull]

I actually followed up with you on this one recently. This is in fact what's happening, and it varies by country/region/city to what extent.

In some countries they absolutely do count anyone who dies while in the possession of COVID as a COVID death, for instance Italy. " Italy’s death rate might also be higher because of how fatalities are recorded. In Italy, all those who die in hospitals with Coronavirus are included in the death counts."

“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three.” [1]

In New York they're counting speculative COVID deaths of anyone with respiratory illness even if they've never tested positive [2].

"A subtler issue is what to do when the patient has other serious medical conditions. If the person suffered from chronic lung disease, then became infected with the virus and died of pneumonia, the immediate or primary cause would be pneumonia as a result of COVID-19. The lung disease would be listed as a contributing condition, said Sally S. Aiken, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners." [3]

The CDC has guidance on this but it's fair to say its interpretation will vary from place to place. "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" -- that's pretty broad. [4]

Sorry, Dan, this is looking like it's not the Ebola infection you're making it out to be.

[1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/15/coronavirus-new-york-city-st...

[3] https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-covi...

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-I...

[DanBC]

You write this long post, but then finish with the CDC guidance which agree with what I said -- that doctors have to use be able to say to the best of their knowledge and experience that the deceased had covid-19 and that it caused death, or that it contributed to death.

The problem here is that you don't know what "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" means.

[DanBC]

Try to find some 5 year / 10 year averages to see how excess mortality because of covid-19 compares.

Here's one for the UK: https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1252518098047041536

[arcticbull]

It's not clear that 100% of excess mortality is COVID, or how that actually relates to its IFR. More data needed.

[DanBC]

Sure, all that excess mortality is likely to be an increase in cake-related death caused by quarantined shut-ins eating themselves to death.