tom tulpe

UK Office for National Statistics data for the week ending April 10, 2020 is out. Massive spike in # of deaths recorded, compared to 5-year-average. Official Covid-19 death toll appears to be grossly understated:

GUWonder

You tell me, but financially they are taking a beating.

In Stockholm, Sweden, they have been struggling with virus cases. And this is even as sampling indicates to some that c 11% of people there have antibodies for this virus.

Dan1113

Things are busy in Stockholm, but they are managing.

For the record - I can read Swedish so have been following the local news there.

Commenting on that research, it is being reported that they actually estimate 600,000 have had it in the Stockholm area -- a very significant percentage of the population.

Dan1113

GUWonder

Managing includes having struggled. I do more than just read and watch Swedish news; I have been in most of these Stockholm hospitals. And Stockholm hospitals have struggled with patients from this virus more than just about anywhere else in Sweden. The death count here in Sweden from this virus has now exceeded 1700 dead, and it has Sweden being worse hit (per capita) by deaths from this virus than all but c 8 non-micro-states. Sweden has been hit substantially harder by deaths from this virus than the US.

Here in Sweden, they can’t even manage to get funerals done for all the dead people killed around Stockholm from this virus and even otherwise. I know people with relatives here in Sweden who are waiting. They are “managing” with dead people.

Dan1113

I don't doubt it is difficult. But the trend is improving despite a lockdown.

FlyBitcoin

How does a simple line plot show that deaths are understated?
The spike happened because this is new, contagious, and people do not know how to protect themselves from viral load very well yet, and we are learning the best supportive ways to treat it. it can't spike if it doesn't exist yet. Nor can you compare it to an "all cause" death rate from a non-pandemic year.

chipmaster

How is understated, you look at the total deaths for this year against the average and compare to the stated COVID19 deaths. The delta would be the assumed attributed to COVID19 this year either directly or indirectly because people with some other condition don't get treated or were COVID19 positive/died but weren't attributed to it.

Take the NYT article today ;https://www..com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html





PS Sweden does continue to look very interesting. If they really get to Herd Immunity in the next three months that will be very very interesting.

tom tulpe

The plot line ends with the week ending April 10. It was published today (April 21). That's how long it takes for the ONS to compile the data from the local authority offices, where all the death certificates are issued. The spike in all deaths as well in the Covid-19 deaths for that week is substantially higher than what was reported at the time as Covid-19 related deaths. In other words: the daily statistics from the UK authorities are, at best, a subset of the real data.

GUWonder

Sweden had listed less than 30 deaths total from this virus even a couple of days after March 21st. Today, Sweden has had a listed total of over 1765 dead from this virus. On a per capita basis, Sweden’s death count with this virus appears to be substantially worse than the US death count from this virus.

tdiddy23

Yes on a per capita basis Sweden is doing poorly right now relative to others, they would have expected that. Many would take the view that once this virus escaped China without containment tragically a death warrant for hundreds of thousands/millions has essentially been written it is just a matter of when it will happen, I suspect Sweden thinks Norway/Denmark/Finland will have similar death tolls as them in a year.

Some of these people would have died this year regardless statistically (it is still tragic the number dying) , so it will be worthwhile to look back at these mortally charts and see what they look like a year from now, but i doubt NYTimes will run that story. Those less fatalistic are hopeful that by buying time with lockdowns improvement in care and treatment will save some of these lives, but at an economic cost. Its interesting that NYTimes talks about deaths from overwhelmed healthcare (ie southern Europe in particular) yet doesn't talk about deaths/poor outcomes from an underwhelmed healthcare system, ie people staying home with heart attacks and strokes because they have been reading in their newspapers how deadly the virus is.

FlyBitcoin

Deaths lag cases for weeks, so if hospital inpatient census and ICU acuity is up, then the deaths will continue to close that gap but not everyone who dies from this does so in a couple of days.

Scroll up to the article I posted regarding the 50% drop in ER visits for chest pain, stroke symptoms, appendicitis even. Like the hospital in South Carolina where last year would have zero COVID-19 inpatients and zero complicated appendicitis inpatients, now has 5 of EACH.
No way mortality for anything else has gone down, (except possibly for motor vehicle accidents) because these visits just miraculously disappeared while cardiologists and neurosurgeons are sitting on their hands waiting.
These common causes of death are getting "1918 level" care if they just stay at home.

Not sure how all the smaller communities in Sweden will get to herd immunity anytime soon, so time to start looking region by region once one area gets above 50% antibody positive and all with high enough titres to be immune. If they have a jam packed subway and busses, if they are not very good at washing their hands, or they still shake hands and greet everyone with a kiss on each cheek, then they are well on their way to it.

GadgetFreak

They are running the story now. And they are comparing deaths above the statistical average, which would capture all causes and deaths attributed to coronavirus.

GUWonder

Let’s not pretend that Sweden’s economy is unharmed by this virus situation in the country. Restaurants and other local businesses in Sweden serving a domestic market have been hit hard by this situation.

The measure I will use to see how the other Scandinavian countries have done relative to Sweden (when it comes to economic costs of different government approaches) will be by way of tracking the housing prices in USD-terms in Denmark and Norway and Sweden.

Kevin AA

Right, but the point is that the drastic drop in hospital visits from people who should go for something like chest pain results in a heart attack death today that otherwise wouldn't have happened until next year or 5 years from now. Statistically speaking, it's like intentionally infecting people with COVID-19. Fear kills. So does poverty.