[cies]

This is what I've been looking at a lot lately. I dont trust any data related to PCR-tests, as those tests are not one but many tests. The number of cycles used, and the number of chains looked for is different from PCR to PCR making their results useless for me as an interested outsider who wants to do some calculations.

Hence I turn to excess all cause mortality as my main figure. I personally know 2 people that had their lives shortened by the measures instead of the virus itself, so I take that into account.

The main problem I have with the US data (z-scores) is that they dont include 2018 which had a serious flu going around killing a lot.

The Euromomo data does show that 2018 flu spike of mortality. And that puts things in perspective.

[consp]

Keep in mind the following: the flue spike was without any decent form of measures. We can do a lot to reduce those.

Also note that while your anacdotal evidence is sad, it does not take into account that without those measures they might have been as badly off as well due to even more sick people being around at the same time. People easily blame measures but forget that the alternative might be even worse.

[cies]

> the flue spike was without any decent form of measures

I agree flu vaccines are worthless. :)

> People easily blame measures but forget that the alternative might be even worse.

Totally agree! But I'm just saying that the spike also contain collateral deaths (for lack of a better word). And yes it's totally anecdotal that I know two of those, and not know even one person who was even hospitalized from C19.

[tialaramex]

The effectiveness of seasonal Influenza vaccination depends on two things. First we have to guess which Influenza strains to vaccinate against, if we guess the wrong strains then it doesn't much matter that you're immune because you got a different strain anyway. Second the virus drifts even if we guess perfectly and it might evade the vaccine.

When you get the jab, both these things are still hard or impossible to know, so as long as the side effects of vaccination remain very mild for almost everybody it's worth a shot (pun intended). Some years it works very well indeed.

It's worth distinguishing between deaths due to measures imposed to manage the pandemic (which we could have hypothetically avoided by just allowing the pandemic to run its course, presumably killing millions more people) and those due to direct consequences of the pandemic which you can't avoid except by hypothesising "What if magically this virus didn't exist?". For example hospitals get overrun with patients and withdraw all but emergency care, resulting in excess deaths, but you can't wish that away. Or people are too scared of the virus to seek help so they die unnecessarily, again nowhere (except maybe China at the extreme?) told people "You must not leave your home to escape a violent partner" or "Don't call an ambulance if you have a heart attack, you might get infected" so those deaths aren't a result of a policy decision they're a consequence of the pandemic itself.

[ceejayoz]

There's a third thing: Not enough people take it.

[jinjin2]

> I personally know 2 people that had their lives shortened by the measures instead of the virus itself

If you look at the global rates of excess deaths:

https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386... (look under “Death rates”)

It looks like the countries that had early and hard shutdowns (like Denmark and S. Korea), had almost zero excess deaths. Which at least to me seems to indicate that the shutdowns themselves have very low impact.

[rimliu]

We (Lithuania) had a very early and strict shutdow last year and fared wery well during the first wave. We are going into the fifth month of the very strict shutdown during the second wave and we have tons of excess deaths.

[OnACoffeeBreak]

I don't think we have the data to answer the question posed by the grandparent comment. Lifespans have likely been reduced by response to the pandemic. Those whose lifespans have been reduced are still alive and are not showing up in death statistics today.

For example, my grandmother-in-law was selfsufficient before the pandemic. During the pandemic she pretty much stayed in her apartment which resulted in significant loss of mobility. We're not sure whether she'll regain her selfsufficiency, which will probably result in her dying sooner rather than later.

[JimTheMan]

That's very sad to here about your grandmother in law. I too definitely felt an impact of lockdown, it's not zero impact at all.

However looking at other places in the world (not Australia) that had ineffective measures, it's like comparing certain death for a large swathe of the population vs reduced quality of life that many, but not all will recover from.

[cycomanic]

Well the interesting thing is that the Euromono data shows a similar trend as the US data, especially if including the 2018 data. The 15-44 year olds while essentially not affected by the 2018 flu did see a spike for covid. I think it would be interesting if the group could be further split up into 15-24 and 25-44 year olds, like the US data.

Regarding the 2018 flu spike, putting things into perspective. I would say yes it does, because it shows how significantly bigger the spike for covid was/is.

[cies]

> significantly bigger

In some cases. See the Euromomo z-index data per country. Some are unaffected by the flu and C19.

Where flu kills tops 0.1% of a population, C19 seems to kill 0.8% at most.