2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2879263 5-Mar-2022 01:48

sen8or:

Has there been general health suffering, absolutely, have people who are vulnerable caught it and subsequently dies, undoubtedly and to that end, its difficult to speculate on scenarios that were different than the ones that actually happened. There may be statisticians or modelling experts who could extrapolate data to try and predict, but that is a bit like predicting the weather, sure there is some science behind it, but there are just too many variables for certainty.

There is a very easy way to see if Covid has lead to more deaths. You look at the data of typical number of deaths per year before the pandemic and during the pandemic.

Here are the numbers for the US.

You can see the numbers of CDC.gov

As you can see there is significant increase in deaths in the US during the pandemic.

BTW: Here in New Zealand we have been very lucky in that we have been shielded from the pandemic for most of it. So not easy to read out anything here. From memory we might have actually had less deaths than usual during some of the lockdown period.

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neb

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#2879264 5-Mar-2022 01:53

jarledb:
There is a very easy way to see if Covid has lead to more deaths. You look at the data of typical number of deaths per year before the pandemic and during the pandemic.

Excess deaths is the gold standard. It doesn't matter who gets tested or not, or whether someone died because the ICU was full of Covid patients so their stroke couldn't be dealt with, that shows you how many people were killed, directly or indirectly.

Downside is that it takes 1-2 years after the event begins to start getting reliable statistics, and if there were multiple overlapping events like a major war coinciding with a major disease outbreak you need to do extra work to separate out the causes.

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#2879268 5-Mar-2022 07:08

Benoire:

Jase2985:

yes but do they do into our covid death tally?

Most likely as that is how the rest of the worlds are doing, they all apply the WHO guidance so it can be compared without issues.

EDIT: Otherwise it would be hard to compare across jurisdictions to build the picture at a global pandemic level country by country if they all had differing ways of reporting.

All I want to know is, has anyone, vaccinated or unvaccinated ever died of Omicron in NZ.

I have no idea because the numbers lie.

morrisk

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#2879270 5-Mar-2022 07:20

Completing a cause of death certificate is not a simple task and the question "has anyone, vaccinated or unvaccinated ever died of Omicron in NZ" will not have a simple answer.

If you look at what is required to be recorded on a NZ death certificate you can see why - requirements found here

https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/regulation-health-and-disability-system/burial-and-cremation-act-1964/completing-death-documents/medical-certificate-cause-death/completing-medical-certificate-cause-death-form#part2

Batman

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#2879271 5-Mar-2022 07:35

Singapore can do it

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#2879282 5-Mar-2022 08:05

It's not simple.

For example.

Someone with covid has a heart attack. Did he have the heart attack because his body was under extra stress from a covid infection, or was he going to have it anyway? He is admitted to hospital but dies. Would he have survived if it hadn't been for the extra stress his body was under because of the covid infection? Quite possibly, so very reasonable to record it as a 'death with covid'.

Ditto with other common causes of people ending up in hospital for example:

Stroke

Cholecystitis/Appendicitis/Diverticulitis/Pancreatitits

Heart Failure

Renal Failure

Complications of cancer. Just because someone has cancer, even advanced cancer, doesn't mean they wouldn't have survived an acute event/de-compensation - for example a major bleed if there had not been a concurrent covid infection. Just because you have terminal cancer, dying 6 months earlier than you would have otherwise because of covid still 'matters' for you and your family.

etc etc.

There are few causes of death that would not be influenced by a concurrent major infection like covid.

Trying to assign the majority of deaths to a either "due to covid" or "not not due to covid" is overly simplistic, and most likely not accurate.

PolicyGuy

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#2879287 5-Mar-2022 08:27

jarledb:

There is a very easy way to see if Covid has lead to more deaths. You look at the data of typical number of deaths per year before the pandemic and during the pandemic.

(snip)

BTW: Here in New Zealand we have been very lucky in that we have been shielded from the pandemic for most of it. So not easy to read out anything here. From memory we might have actually had less deaths than usual during some of the lockdown period

neb: Excess deaths is the gold standard. It doesn't matter who gets tested or not, or whether someone died because the ICU was full of Covid patients so their stroke couldn't be dealt with, that shows you how many people were killed, directly or indirectly. Downside is that it takes 1-2 years after the event begins to start getting reliable statistics, and if there were multiple overlapping events like a major war coinciding with a major disease outbreak you need to do extra work to separate out the causes.

There has been a recent study in NZ published on this topic:

Mortality declines in Aotearoa NZ during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic

"In this blog we review the impact of Aotearoa NZ’s Covid-19 response strategies on mortality patterns during the first 2 years of the pandemic. We find that NZ experienced an increase in life expectancy, decreased winter mortality, and net decline in (excess) mortality. These impacts are far more positive than experienced by all other high-income countries during this pandemic period. This picture supports the cautious elimination and suppression strategies used for the first 2 years of the pandemic ..."

https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/pubhealthexpert/mortality-declines-in-aotearoa-nz-during-the-first-two-years-of-the-covid-19-pandemic/

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#2879305 5-Mar-2022 09:08

andrew75:

It's not simple.

For example.

Someone with covid has a heart attack. Did he have the heart attack because his body was under extra stress from a covid infection, or was he going to have it anyway? He is admitted to hospital but dies. Would he have survived if it hadn't been for the extra stress his body was under because of the covid infection? Quite possibly, so very reasonable to record it as a 'death with covid'.

Ditto with other common causes of people ending up in hospital for example:

Stroke

Cholecystitis/Appendicitis/Diverticulitis/Pancreatitits

Heart Failure

Renal Failure

Complications of cancer. Just because someone has cancer, even advanced cancer, doesn't mean they wouldn't have survived an acute event/de-compensation - for example a major bleed if there had not been a concurrent covid infection. Just because you have terminal cancer, dying 6 months earlier than you would have otherwise because of covid still 'matters' for you and your family.

etc etc.

There are few causes of death that would not be influenced by a concurrent major infection like covid.

Trying to assign the majority of deaths to a either "due to covid" or "not not due to covid" is overly simplistic, and most likely not accurate.

his wife dies and he is heart broken and he has a heart attack. did he die of a heart attack or die of wife dying?

if he has cancer and is weak and falls and breaks his neck did he die of a broken neck or die of cancer?

if he has alcoholism because his dad beat him and is drunk and crashes his car and bleeds to death from torn aorta did he die of a torn aorta, car crash, alcoholism, or beaten by dad?

GV27

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#2879323 5-Mar-2022 10:47

sudo:

Regardless if there is lots of it going around, the vulnerable should have the option of avoiding it, at least during the wave.

It sounds like thanks to our lackadastical approach with this one, we may be a lot closer to the peak than we thought.

I can see that being useful but also bringing a lot of pressure to just 'go back to normal' sooner, so it may actually end up being worse for medium term risk.

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#2879329 5-Mar-2022 11:00

Can't quite work out this peak thing they keep coming up with

When the majority are Auckland/northland, are they only looking as far as there?

CDHB is still only 7000. That's a drop in the bucket for our populus. Would suggest it's not at wildfire levels yet and a long way to go.

https://www.cdhb.health.nz/wp-content/uploads/3e3d8da4-canterbury-tla-covid-cases-04032022.jpg

Geektastic

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#2879331 5-Mar-2022 11:04

Oblivian: Can't quite work out this peak thing they keep coming up with

When the majority are Auckland/northland, are they only looking as far as there?

CDHB is still only 7000. That's a drop in the bucket for our populus. Would suggest it's not at wildfire levels yet and a long way to go.

https://www.cdhb.health.nz/wp-content/uploads/3e3d8da4-canterbury-tla-covid-cases-04032022.jpg

Also it's only the peak of THIS variant. The way they frame it, it's as if the entire Covid thing will disappear as soon as this wave passes.

Dulouz

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#2879339 5-Mar-2022 11:46

The heart attack thing is starting to look a bit concerning - https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-omicron-outbreak-cardiologist-warns-of-tidal-wave-of-heart-disease-linked-to-long-covid/ZYMK3ZEV2J62UAI2VQ4DTHYIOY/

DISCLAIMER: I don't like heart attacks.

Amanon

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#2879340 5-Mar-2022 11:47

Lots of idiots talking about Warne apparently getting a booster without realising he was ventilated when he caught Covid.

Not inconceivable he could have picked up something more long-term in the process.

Dulouz

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#2879389 5-Mar-2022 11:57

GV27:

Lots of idiots talking about Warne apparently getting a booster without realising he was ventilated when he caught Covid.

Not inconceivable he could have picked up something more long-term in the process.

Warne wasn't really 'ventilated'. He called it a 'special ventilator' what ever that means https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/coronavirus/shane-warne-reveals-he-used-ventilator-during-bout-of-covid-as-australia-reaches-major-vaccination-milestone-ng-b882016611z

Amanon

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#2879394 5-Mar-2022 12:05

Dulouz:

Warne wasn't really 'ventilated'. He called it a 'special ventilator' what ever that means https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/coronavirus/shane-warne-reveals-he-used-ventilator-during-bout-of-covid-as-australia-reaches-major-vaccination-milestone-ng-b882016611z

Yep, lots of people refer to CPAP and BiPAP machines also as ventilators, so the term "ventilator" doesn't have anywhere near enough specificity when used casually.

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