Friday, May 1, 2020

These death figures are correct, but deaths from Covid-19 are still rising

I did say the Danny Dorling article was a bit old.



Claim

There were fewer deaths recorded in the first 15 weeks of 2020 than in the first 15 weeks of 2018.

Conclusion

Correct, although the number of deaths in recent weeks far exceeds the number at the same point in any recent year.

Fullfacts.org

These death figures are correct, but deaths from Covid-19 are still rising

20 comments:

Peter Pan said...

There have been 19.7 million deaths so far this year.
46.5 million births
And 27 million net population growth.

Coronavirus deaths are swamped by these numbers.

Kaivey said...

They are saying on twitter that people aren't going to hospital and are dying of other diseases.

lastgreek said...

"Coronavirus deaths are swamped by these numbers."

Comforting news to the families of those who have died from this terrible, contagious virus.

Two points:

1. Most of the deaths were preventable if governments had taken quicker actions. No excuses because they had both the warnings and time.

2. In your comment above, PP, it's clear as a bright, Aegean sunny day that you're comparing apples with oranges.

lastgreek said...

If you don't mind, K, I will add a couple of tweets from Chris Hayes's twitter account that I follow:

Chris Hayes@chrislhayes

There is a total absence of collective mourning for those we've lost. It's indecent. It's offensive. It's a disgrace.

Trevor Bedford@trvrb

I know all the discussion is about a possible "2nd wave", but I've found this odd given that we haven't finished the first one. I would think quite possible that, nationally, we're in for a scenario of a long plateau. 1/10

PS: Chris Hayes's free podcast show "All In with Chris Hayes" is highly recommended. Check out last week's highly informative podcast "The Last Great Pandemic" about the influenza pandemic of 1918 ("1917" for the hardcore, MAGA deplorables). He interviews the author of the book of the same name as the show's title John M Barry. Worth the 45 min. listen :)

Peter Pan said...

Hey greek,

1. Incompetence without accountability only breeds more incompetence.
1b. There are many more deaths that are preventable that don't make the news cycle.

2. Personal tragedies and public policy are apples and oranges. They're not meant to be conflated, yet that is what people are doing. The public has lost all sense of proportion.

Kaivey
They are saying on twitter that people aren't going to hospital and are dying of other diseases.

Welcome to the USA.

Matt Franko said...

75K per year due to fentanyl overdoses for probably the last 6 years or more...

Matt Franko said...

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/alcohol/by-country/

Nebris said...

Maybe we should look at why we have a social and economic system that is so fragile that the Life and Death need to stay inside for a few months can totally destroy it.

S400 said...

“75K per year due to fentanyl overdoses for probably the last 6 years or more...“

Trump calling it the Belgian drug due to its origin?

Matt Franko said...

It comes from Chyina via Mexico...

Matt Franko said...

“Maybe we should look at why we have a social and economic system that is so fragile that the Life and Death need to stay inside for a few months can totally destroy it.“

No plan B....

Nebris said...

Capitalism says no Plan B is necessary or even possible.

Matt Franko said...

“Capitalism says”= figurative language (anthropomorphism)

Try it without the figurative language...

Matt Franko said...

You say here “Maybe we should look at why we have a social and economic system that is so fragile that the Life and Death need to stay inside for a few months can totally destroy it.“

Which is good ...this is a good statement.. its a good technical question... NO figurative language here ...

Then I say in response "no plan B" which is not figurative... there has been shown to be no adequate contingency plan for virus pandemic...

then YOU bring in the figurative language with "capitalism says!" ????

Why do you people always do this????

Do you hit some sort of limit?

Peter Pan said...

Plan B infers that there was a Plan A.

S400 said...

“It comes from Chyina via Mexico...“

Fentanyl was developed in Belgium in the 1960s.
So Trump should be calling it the Belgian.

Greg said...

When Fentanyl came to the US in late 60s it was Johnson and Johnson that owned it. Fentanyl is the most widely used and safest analgesic there is. We use it by the gallon in anesthesia depts. It is now created by lots of labs because the patent expired years ago and the chemical composition is well known. It’s pretty easy to make apparently. I think it’s safe to say that morbidity and mortality statistics would be much worse today if we were no longer allowed to use Fentanyl .

Calling it a Chinese or Mexican or Belgian drug is...... beyond ignorant.

Matt Franko said...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/09/04/757089868/fentanyl-as-a-dark-web-profit-center-from-chinese-labs-to-u-s-streets

We should be looking at wasting all of those m-fers ...it should at least be on the table...

Nebris said...

All this 'figurative language' nonsense denies that Capitalism does in fact have endless numbers of voices [Media, CEO's, owned politicians etc] that say exactly what was stated above: "no Plan B is necessary or even possible."

S400 said...

“. beyond ignorant.“

It’s today’s foreign policy.