[belval]

The part I found interesting was the number of death from flu and pneumonia:

5 year average: 28,140 deaths

2020 so far: 18,325 deaths (does not include November and December!)

COVID 2020: 53,675 deaths

So while it does seem to be killing some people who would've died from the flu/pneumonia anyway, it's still nearly double the 5 year average which would make it one hell of a bad flu strain.

[jansan]

In Germany the number of deaths from COVID-19 is below the number of people who died from influenza in 2017/2018. So far COVID-19 klilled about 13000 people, while the official numbers for influenza 2017/18 is between 20000 and 25000.

[gabereiser]

Because you guys in Germany took the virus seriously and put measures in place. The US went full YOLO.

[rurban]

Nope, that's not a good explanation. German measures we're about the same as the in Western and Southern european nations, even too late. Most others were 2 weeks earlier.

The best explanation is that Germany and similar countries just have proper healthcare for seniors, esp. the retirement homes. The protected the vulnerable better. The bad countries are all united in cost cuts in those homes and healthcare. France, Belgium, UK, Spain, NL, Italy, US, Brazil. Belgium had the highest IFR due to not enough masks for caregivers. They had to share it. Spain et al also destroyed their previously excellent systems with the recent rightwing governments.

Socialism is apparently the best cure for COVID-19. Even if Germany is extremely rightwing, they still have proper healthcare and caregiving infrastructure.

[bla3]

People in the US complain that the pandemic is mismanaged and that too many people are dying. People in Germany complain that the pandemic is taken too seriously. Grass is always greener, I suppose.

[detaro]

You'll find both kinds of people in both countries.

[weaksauce]

the reason is they instituted lockdowns and better leadership through crisis. flu is transmitted pretty much identically to covid so any mitigation that slows down covid by nature slows down the flu. coupled with a vaccine that is moderately effective you have a much lower incidence rate of the flu occurring and killing.

[fl0wenol]

Keep in mind we have no control for these numbers as a point of comparison; these are numbers which factor in efforts to quarantine and reduce contact spreading among the symptom-less.

The western world is much more cavalier when it comes to the flu and cold viruses (shopping and coming into work sick, not wearing masks on public transport, etc.)

I think the measures account for the lower flu/pneumonia deaths as a side effect.

[majkinetor]

I am 100% certain that bunch of so called covid deaths were due to other things non covid related.

[mcguire]

And a bunch of non-COVID deaths were COVID related. This is why you look at all-cause mortality---where in the US/UK at least, things look worse, not better.

[bagacrap]

Some of the excess deaths this year were due to the way we handled covid and not the disease itself. Suicides are up. Medical care is being skipped or postponed (cancers are not found as early). So no, I don't think you can look at all cause mortality and say that any excess means the lockdown should be stricter.

[wahern]

Suicides are easy to identify.

There's no reason to believe that cancers missed in the past 8 months would have appreciably immediate consequences as there's not much that can be done about late stage cancers. Plus, like suicide, cancer deaths are obvious and I haven't seen any substantial increase in those numbers.

Finally, studies from just a couple of months ago studying cardiovascular disease deaths showed that there's been a decrease in those deaths. It's hypothesized that deaths from early intervention (e.g. bypass surgery) have been avoided, and the expected increase from untreated disease is still further out. Even if deaths from untreated CVD are finally upon us (post study period), it wouldn't substantially effect mortality numbers from the previous 8-month period.

In other words, it's easy to subtract these things from all-cause mortality. But AFAIK doing so doesn't significantly change the numbers.

Furthermore, there's little reason to doubt the potential lethality of COVID-19, given the hard and indisputable CFRs and IFRs from Italy, New York, and Wuhan, all of which occurred during a very short period of time, and largely before significant mitigations were put into place. Thus, while mortality rates clearly vary across different regions, there's little reason to believe that this fact alone disputes the inherent lethality of COVID-19, but rather reflects environmental (including social) differences across regions and across time, and thus little reason to believe that mortality increases elsewhere are principally the result of anything but COVID-19.

The sun may never come up tomorrow. Aliens might land and wipe us out in the next hour. You might spontaneously quantum teleport to Alpha Centauri while reading this reply. These are all possibilities. But possibilities aren't probabilities; they're two different things. Merely suggesting that something is possible does not refute the probable likelihood of an alternative. Conflation of those is what makes FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) seem credible to the naive or wanton contrarians.

[tonyedgecombe]

Suicides are up.

The evidence for that is quite weak.

From https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352

Overall, the literature on the effect of covid-19 on suicide should be interpreted with caution. Most of the available publications are preprints, letters (neither is peer reviewed), or commentaries using news reports of deaths by suicide as the data source.

[mcguire]

"Some commentators made predictions of a large rise in suicides, which was reported in some cases with sensationalist language. But so far, thankfully, this hasn’t been borne out. While the publishing of suicide figures normally takes many months, the initial indications for 2020 suggest that there hasn’t been a rise this year."

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2259889-we-need-to-be-m...

[disgruntledphd2]

Most of those excess deaths won't show up this year.

In general, it takes longer than nine months to go from cancer screening to death.

We don't actually know that suicides are up, because the data is yearly (which is a problem we should probably solve).

All cause mortality is a rough number, but it's the only one that will eventually allow us to measure the impact of the pandemic in a few years.

[majkinetor]

You san say that for the flue and friends as well.