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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

This comparison has very little meaning. About 5k people over the age of 55 die every day, roughly 1.8 million a year. About 45k people die/year from a lack of healthcare in the US. About 38k people/year die from car accidents.

A more important metric is, "How many people died prematurely from COVID and how prematurely versus lifetime left?"

EDIT: @enraged_camel: I think you're either missing my point or I'm not communicating it as well as I could. I'm arguing that, when looked at at a higher level (all deaths), 200k is noise in the usual death rate floor.

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Per the CDC, the 200k number is an underestimate of premature deaths due to COVID:

> Total predicted number of excess deaths since 2/1/2020 across the United States: 201,917 - 262,877

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Statistically, COVID has caused roughly a quarter million more people to die than we expected to die of other causes.

That said, your point about the age of the deceased is a good one. There was something particularly tragic about the death of a young, drafted soldier. That doesn't take away from the vast numbers of parents and grandparents who have died in the United States from this pandemic, though.

How do you know the difference between Covid stats and excess deaths are from COVID and not another cause?

There are cases of people not seeking medical help because they were told non-essential visits were to be avoided.

There are also fewer e.g. auto traffic deaths due to the lockdown.

These are all secondary effects given the number of deaths that mentioned COVID in the coroner's report. (See the headline article.)

All of it is due to the pandemic, directly or indirectly, right? There were no other significant national fatality-related events in that timeline, thank goodness. You'll see that the death rate is remarkably predictable over time.

There was a significant uptick in auto deaths in may/June once lockdown was eased. Drug overdoses are up too. Homicides is another that has been up lately.

Are these indirectly related to Covid? Are all contemporary deaths Covid induced? Are any lockdown induced but not Covid directly?

I would suggest that the anomaly in death rate, because it is well-correlated in time with COVID infection rate, is primarily caused by COVID, directly or indirectly, yes.

Think also about the people who have postponed going to the doctor or dentist due to fears of infection.

>>A more important metric is, "How many people died prematurely from COVID?"

...over 200,000.

If the goal is to be critical of the United States, one needn't contort oneself or lose all perspective. In particular, we can acknowledge that the absolute number of deaths is not a very good metric, but that the better metric (number of years lost prematurely adjusted for population) is probably still worth criticizing.

So far we know covid-19 is killing people on average 10 years early.

Fair point. Would roughly half be a good estimate? That is, ~100k?

According to the CDC, 15,171 people under the age of 55 have died due to COVID.[1]

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

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