{"id":1225,"date":"2020-05-17T19:54:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T02:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2020-05-17T19:54:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T02:54:20","slug":"counting-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1225","title":{"rendered":"Counting Deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Monty Python-Bring out your dead!\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/grbSQ6O6kbs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Monty Python Holy Grail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I have written <a href=\"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1100\">before<\/a> about the value\nof knowing the cause of death to a community. Obituaries used to be reported in\nthe newspaper, not paid personal notes as they are now. The cause of death was\nusually included in the reporter-written, editor reviewed piece. But the\nbusiness of reporting the news has changed, and now obituaries, written and\npaid for by the family, rarely include cause of death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I was referring to the \u201copioid epidemic\u201d, since the\nwave of deaths from that cause seemed to sneak up on the general public. I\nargued before that public awareness of the growing numbers might have raised an\nalarm and changed some things earlier in that \u201cepidemic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But now we are in the middle of a different epidemic, and\nthe number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 are reported daily on the news. But\nthe accuracy, the validity of these numbers is easy to question. We all know\nthe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/who-has-covid-19-what-we-know-about-tests-for-the-new-coronavirus-11585868185\">inaccuracy\nof the testing<\/a>. Are we undercounting Covid-19 deaths? Probably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a way to get around this issue of squishy test\naccuracy. It has to do with measuring \u201cexcess deaths\u201d. This is calculated by\ncomparing the average number of deaths from all causes in a region for the\nprevious three years to the current reporting period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/nvss\/vsrr\/covid19\/index.htm\">CDC updates this\ninformation<\/a> regularly, but there is a significant lag in reporting time. As\nof May 11<sup>th<\/sup>, the CDC listed 49,000 Covid-19 deaths, while most news\nreports put the US total at almost 82,000. Currently, according to the CDC, the\nUnited States has only 95% of the expected deaths for the period February 1<sup>st<\/sup>\n2020 through May 9<sup>th<\/sup>. No big deal, huh? Don\u2019t forget the lag time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if you don\u2019t have confidence in the accuracy of testing\nto give the cause of death, \u201cexcess deaths\u201d might be a better figure. Maybe it tells\nyou if you are being hit by a train, or just panicking when you hear a whistle.\nBut a long lag time before you respond to a warning whistle can be fatal. Most\nregions are right near baseline. Idaho has only 16 Covid-19 reported deaths (to\ndate) and our number of total deaths for the period February 1<sup>st<\/sup> to\nmay 11<sup>th<\/sup> is right at 93% of the previous three-year average. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Further, Idaho has very timely reporting to the CDC. On\naverage, it only takes 8 calendar days from death for Idaho to submit data to\nthe CDC. That ranks us at 10<sup>th<\/sup> nationally for how well this small\nbranch (Department of Vital Statistics) of Idaho government is doing its job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, what\u2019s the big deal, why not open up the doors of\nbusinesses or go to a baseball game? We\u2019re safe here in Idaho, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But some states are well above average for this period: New\nYork State at 123% and New York City at 224%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This sort of comparison has been <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.economist.com\/measuring-the-true-toll-of-the-pandemic-fa7e003b3ff4\">done\nfor countries<\/a> too. In almost all cases, the number of excess deaths above\nbaseline is significantly greater than the number of reported deaths from Covid-19.\nThis supports that we just don\u2019t have accurate testing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe more people are dying for other reasons in this \u201cexcess\ndeath\u201d category. I have heard it argued by folks wanting to reopen our state\nthat the excess deaths (in other states) could be attributed to people not accessing\ncare due to the shutdown. Many ongoing treatments have been suspended and\nelective procedures have been postponed. Hospitals are bemoaning this loss of\nrevenue. Health care workers are unemployed. Interesting argument, since I\nwould have thought that most such believers agreed with Raul Labrador\u2019s\nstatement: \u201cNobody dies from lack of access to healthcare\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I respect our governor\u2019s caution in response to the train\nwhistle. Some places have been hit by the train. Let\u2019s be safe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have written before about the value of knowing the cause of death to a community. Obituaries used to be reported in the newspaper, not paid personal notes as they are now. The cause of death was usually included in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1225\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1226,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225\/revisions\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}