Have we been wrong about covid-19 all this time? John Hopkins study on deaths...

[KaraBulut]

...The economist certainly does not know more about the virus than the doctors and scientists that's been working on this problem. But how do we explain away the numbers she presented in her comparison of the number of deaths?

I could produce an observational study that indicates that the number of deer on roadsides has decreased simply by driving less. I could then post my "study" on Facebook and thousands of people would be convinced that the population of deer was decreasing because I reported that I saw fewer deer, never mentioning that I drove less and therefore, encountered fewer deer.

This is the problem with what was in this person's paper. It starts with a false statement that there are no excess deaths in 2020 in the US. That is not a correct statement. The CDC has clearly stated that there is an excess number of deaths in the US in 2020. The excess death statistic is one of the reasons we suspect that the number of COVID-19 related deaths in the US has been underreported.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused nearly 300,000 more deaths than expected in a typical year [WaPo]
Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19 [CDC]

The study contains other factual errors, such as the trope that COVID-19 deaths are reported only as COVID-19 deaths. People don't die of COVID-19; they die of pneumonia, they die of strokes, they die of sepsis or they die of heart attacks and the underlying cause ( i.e. a "comorbidity") that resulted in the condition that ultimately killed the patient was a COVID-19 infection. This is the same issue with HIV deaths back in the 1980s- the patients were dying of pneumocystis pneumonia which was an opportunistic infection caused by their HIV immunodeficiency.

What this study did was take data that stratified mortality statistics in percentages versus raw numbers. They then extrapolated that the percentages did not indicate an excess number of deaths. The fault in this percentage method is that it conceals the 300,000 excess deaths in 2020.

The other problem is that by only considering the primary cause of deaths and not looking at the comorbidities, one would think that heart attacks, pneumonia and strokes were causing most of the excess deaths; it's only when you look at the morbidities that you find the diagnosis codes that indicate that the patient had COVID-19.

 

[Dominus]

I could produce an observational study that indicates that the number of deer on roadsides has decreased simply by driving less. I could then post my "study" on Facebook and thousands of people would be convinced that the population of deer was decreasing because I reported that I saw fewer deer, never mentioning that I drove less and therefore, encountered fewer deer.

This is the problem with what was in this person's paper. It starts with a false statement that there are no excess deaths in 2020 in the US. That is not a correct statement. The CDC has clearly stated that there is an excess number of deaths in the US in 2020. The excess death statistic is one of the reasons we suspect that the number of COVID-19 related deaths in the US has been underreported.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused nearly 300,000 more deaths than expected in a typical year [WaPo]
Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19 [CDC]

The study contains other factual errors, such as the trope that COVID-19 deaths are reported only as COVID-19 deaths. People don't die of COVID-19; they die of pneumonia, they die of strokes, they die of sepsis or they die of heart attacks and the underlying cause ( i.e. a "comorbidity") that resulted in the condition that ultimately killed the patient was a COVID-19 infection. This is the same issue with HIV deaths back in the 1980s- the patients were dying of pneumocystis pneumonia which was an opportunistic infection caused by their HIV immunodeficiency.

What this study did was take data that stratified mortality statistics in percentages versus raw numbers. They then extrapolated that the percentages did not indicate an excess number of deaths. The fault in this percentage method is that it conceals the 300,000 excess deaths in 2020.

The other problem is that by only considering the primary cause of deaths and not looking at the comorbidities, one would think that heart attacks, pneumonia and strokes were causing most of the excess deaths; it's only when you look at the morbidities that you find the diagnosis codes that indicate that the patient had COVID-19.

Great post. Thanks!

 

[frankfrank]

How do we know it was factual in the first place?

The post after this, with the quotes, will explain my thought. I was quote-limited again, because I keep having my queue clogged up by other posts I quoted, but didn't remember they were there. My thought was that I heard a couple months ago that there are more deaths than usual...

Say Trump points o the sky and say the sky is blue and Biden points to the sky and say the sky is bright pink. Even though I hate Trump's guts, I'm not going to let my hate of him blind me from the fact that Trump is right that the sky is blue and Biden is wrong on this one.

Rather weak argument! None of this has anything to do with the topic, and couldn't be more irrelevant.

There is also a question of whether there is any deleterious effect from marijuana smoking

A doctoral thesis or hundreds, could be written on the subject.

I don't know about pot, but I've heard more than once that CIGARETTE smokers actually tend to have a lower chance of severe effects, and the virus is usually milder for them.

No doubt hundreds of theses are ALREADY being started by scholars. Also no doubt this will be going on for years, if not decades. I am sure that thousands of these research projects were written on the 1918 pandemic.

 

[frankfrank]

This is the problem with what was in this person's paper. It starts with a false statement that there are no excess deaths in 2020 in the US. That is not a correct statement. The CDC has clearly stated that there is an excess number of deaths in the US in 2020. The excess death statistic is one of the reasons we suspect that the number of COVID-19 related deaths in the US has been underreported.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused nearly 300,000 more deaths than expected in a typical year [WaPo]

HIV...patients were dying of pneumocystis pneumonia which was an opportunistic infection caused by their HIV immunodeficiency.

Thank you...you...SOMEBODY...for posting this. I KNEW that I had heard three or four times a few weeks ago that there were excessive numbers of deaths compared to usual, and the anomaly was actually considerably higher than deaths attributed to COVID-19.

However, you said that people don't die from COVID-19...probably not accurate, because some of the deaths, and I'm specifically thinking of the people who have blood clots that form in the lungs (or elsewhere) and who die, actually do die from the virus. I think those cases often didn't include any co-morbidities.

HIV, though...that is true. NOBODY died "from" AIDS. AIDS was there, weakening the immune system, letting cancers, infections, usually-benign illnesses, etc. ravage their bodies, and they died from those infections. However, it could also be argued that people "died from AIDS" because it weakened the immune system enough to guarantee that something opportunistic would kill them.

Either of these viruses, it's probably appropriate to consider them the cause of death.

 

[KaraBulut]

...However, you said that people don't die from COVID-19...probably not accurate, because some of the deaths, and I'm specifically thinking of the people who have blood clots that form in the lungs (or elsewhere) and who die, actually do die from the virus. I think those cases often didn't include any co-morbidities.

This is getting way into the minutiae but when a coder enters the diagnoses for reporting, they are not entering text diagnoses. They enter codes from a standard list called ICD-10 codes. WHO maintains the ICD-10 code list which means that it is a standardized list used worldwide.

What is reported is a ranked list of these codes. The cause of death is the first code on the list (the "primary diagnosis") and following that there are "due to, or as a consequence of" contributing set of codes. On some reporting, there's a secondary set of codes for "other significant conditions".

There's a "disposition code" that is also reported to the government by a hospital that indicates whether the patient was dead or alive at discharge.

When the disposition code is "deceased", then the primary diagnosis is the "immediate cause of death".

To use your example of blood clots in a COVID-19 patients who died, this is what might appear on the report sent to the State:

Primary diagnosis: I26.99 (Other pulmonary embolism without acute cor pulmonale)

Secondary diagnoses:

• D65 (Disseminated intravascular coagulation [defibrination syndrome])
• J96.01 (Acute respiratory failure with hypoxia)
• N17.8 (Other acute kidney failure)
• U07.1 (COVID-19, virus identified)

Disposition code: D20 (deceased, patient expired)

So, if you were only seeing the Primary Diagnosis (I26.99) then you would only know that the patient died of a blood clot to their lungs. It's only when you look down the list of secondary diagnosis that you would see the U07.1 code that indicated that the patient had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

 

[Dominus]

^ I just thought of a perfect analogy for your explanation. Most people who got shot don't actually die directly from the gunshot. They died from bleeding out, organ failure, physical trauma, and any of the other secondary affects caused by a gunshot wound.

In much the same way, covid is flaring up all the other health issues that under normal circumstances would only be a nuisance.

So, when you got shot and bleeds out until you die, is the cause of death internal bleeding or gunshot wound?

 

[KaraBulut]

^ I just thought of a perfect analogy for your explanation. Most people who got shot don't actually die directly from the gunshot. They died from bleeding out, organ failure, physical trauma, and any of the other secondary affects caused by a gunshot wound.

In much the same way, covid is flaring up all the other health issues that under normal circumstances would only be a nuisance.

So, when you got shot and bleeds out until you die, is the cause of death internal bleeding or gunshot wound?

That's a good example.

In this case, the primary diagnosis/cause of death would be R57.1 (Hypovolemic shock).

In the list of secondary codes, there might be one of three codes that explain what happened:

• W32 (Accidental handgun discharge and malfunction)
• X72 (Intentional self-harm by handgun discharge)
• X93 (Assault by handgun discharge (firearm only))

Dependent upon which secondary code was used, we would know whether it was an accident, a murder or a suicide.

 

[rareboy]

That's a good example.

In this case, the primary diagnosis/cause of death would be R57.1 (Hypovolemic shock).

In the list of secondary codes, there might be one of three codes that explain what happened:

• W32 (Accidental handgun discharge and malfunction)
• X72 (Intentional self-harm by handgun discharge)
• X93 (Assault by handgun discharge (firearm only))

Dependent upon which secondary code was used, we would know whether it was an accident, a murder or a suicide.

This understanding is critical.

I was explaining the situation to someone a few months ago who was trying to convince me that COVID wasn't the cause of death and pointed out to him that my own mother was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer and 13 weeks later she died.

She died because of pneumonia because of a gradual and inexorable collapse of her body, including, at the end her cardio-respiratory system. So could we say she didn't die of cancer?

 

[KaraBulut]

...She died because of pneumonia because of a gradual and inexorable collapse of her body, including, at the end her cardio-respiratory system. So could we say she didn't die of cancer?

Her cause of death was pneumonia or respiratory failure. Under secondary diagnoses or contributing diagnosis, ovarian cancer would be listed.

Probably to explain it in a way that a lay person would understand, is to say that "she developed pneumonia after weeks of battling ovarian cancer."

 

[Kulindahr]

Oh Jesus Christ, I'm ignoring this article because the university it came from pulled it off the net and said it was misinformation. How explicit do you need them to be? Are you accusing Johns Hopkins of something nefarious?

You don't know anything she said was accurate. How do I know you're not her? How do I know there is no Santa Claus? How? Posing irrelevant hypotheticals at me does you no good.

I'm certainly going to take the decision of Johns Hopkins, over the rumormongering of an anonymous avatar on a gay porn website.

Johns Hopkins has left up the video of the seminar where she presented the data, which indicates that they believe the data to be sound.

Apparently you share the attribute of not following the whole story.

 

[Kulindahr]

I could produce an observational study that indicates that the number of deer on roadsides has decreased simply by driving less. I could then post my "study" on Facebook and thousands of people would be convinced that the population of deer was decreasing because I reported that I saw fewer deer, never mentioning that I drove less and therefore, encountered fewer deer.

This is the problem with what was in this person's paper. It starts with a false statement that there are no excess deaths in 2020 in the US. That is not a correct statement. The CDC has clearly stated that there is an excess number of deaths in the US in 2020. The excess death statistic is one of the reasons we suspect that the number of COVID-19 related deaths in the US has been underreported.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused nearly 300,000 more deaths than expected in a typical year [WaPo]
Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19 [CDC]

The study contains other factual errors, such as the trope that COVID-19 deaths are reported only as COVID-19 deaths. People don't die of COVID-19; they die of pneumonia, they die of strokes, they die of sepsis or they die of heart attacks and the underlying cause ( i.e. a "comorbidity") that resulted in the condition that ultimately killed the patient was a COVID-19 infection. This is the same issue with HIV deaths back in the 1980s- the patients were dying of pneumocystis pneumonia which was an opportunistic infection caused by their HIV immunodeficiency.

What this study did was take data that stratified mortality statistics in percentages versus raw numbers. They then extrapolated that the percentages did not indicate an excess number of deaths. The fault in this percentage method is that it conceals the 300,000 excess deaths in 2020.

The other problem is that by only considering the primary cause of deaths and not looking at the comorbidities, one would think that heart attacks, pneumonia and strokes were causing most of the excess deaths; it's only when you look at the morbidities that you find the diagnosis codes that indicate that the patient had COVID-19.

Some actual analysis -- and well done, too.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

I knew that. But there was no explanation for why the article was pulled. As stated in the link you cited. How do we know the article was not pulled for reasons other than the facts presented?

Oh brother.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

^ I just thought of a perfect analogy for your explanation. Most people who got shot don't actually die directly from the gunshot. They died from bleeding out, organ failure, physical trauma, and any of the other secondary affects caused by a gunshot wound.

In much the same way, covid is flaring up all the other health issues that under normal circumstances would only be a nuisance.

So, when you got shot and bleeds out until you die, is the cause of death internal bleeding or gunshot wound?

How likely would it have been for that person to bleed to death if they hadn't been shot?

 

[KaraBulut]

Johns Hopkins has left up the video of the seminar where she presented the data, which indicates that they believe the data to be sound.

Apparently you share the attribute of not following the whole story.

It was pulled - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/johns-hopkins-covid-deaths/

The Snopes article was coincidentally written the same day as my post about the problems I saw with the paper. Snopes adds more reasons and more examples about why it is inaccurate and flawed which is what led to its being pulled by the university.

The problem with the article is two-fold

1. The data used is accurate but incomplete. Briand concluded that there has not been an increase in deaths overall. The conclusion was inaccurate based upon the fact that there has been an increase in overall deaths. Nor does it make sense to say that a 65 year old person died of COVID-19 instead of dying a "natural" death of heart disease at 70 and then say, "Well, they were old and they were going to die of something, so the net is that overall deaths didn't increase". A premature death from an infectious disease is something to be concerned about.
2. The inductive reasoning crowd on the far-right believes that COVID-19 is a hoax and they are constantly in search of evidence to support their misguided thinking. Because the Briand paper was incomplete and came to an inaccurate conclusion (a conclusion that Briand continues to try do defend), it was just more fuel for a fire that the QAnon crowd was always looking for more fuel to stoke.