I feel like this post is still missing something important about things and that we still don’t really understand what has been and is going on.
If you look at the death rate stats from macrotrends (for the USA here but can look at others from the same link: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate) what jumps out to me is that 2018 was a higher rate of growth then either 2019 or 2020 and the latter two are basically the same.
That pattern seems to play out in most other countries.
Well, if the increase in deaths year-over-year was greater in 2018 without COVID-19 than now with the disease, why is this more a problem? Is it a case that those additional deaths (8.8/1000 in 2020 versus 8.7/1000 in 2019) tipped the medical/hospital capacity over the limit? Is it the case that the way the virus works is putting more of a strain on the medical/hospital infrastructure than the greater increase in deaths that occurred in 2018 did?
In other words,is this focus on deaths attributed to COVID the right lens to use?
Related to that question is the fact the projections (at least for the USA) is that the death rate will continue its upward trend to reach about 10.5/1000 in 2050 and those projections do not reflect any impact from the current pandemic.
Again, if COVID doesn’t really seem to be impacting death rate trends are COVID deaths the relevant statistic to focus on?
I feel like this post is still missing something important about things and that we still don’t really understand what has been and is going on.
If you look at the death rate stats from macrotrends (for the USA here but can look at others from the same link: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate) what jumps out to me is that 2018 was a higher rate of growth then either 2019 or 2020 and the latter two are basically the same.
That pattern seems to play out in most other countries.
Well, if the increase in deaths year-over-year was greater in 2018 without COVID-19 than now with the disease, why is this more a problem? Is it a case that those additional deaths (8.8/1000 in 2020 versus 8.7/1000 in 2019) tipped the medical/hospital capacity over the limit? Is it the case that the way the virus works is putting more of a strain on the medical/hospital infrastructure than the greater increase in deaths that occurred in 2018 did?
In other words,is this focus on deaths attributed to COVID the right lens to use?
Related to that question is the fact the projections (at least for the USA) is that the death rate will continue its upward trend to reach about 10.5/1000 in 2050 and those projections do not reflect any impact from the current pandemic.
Again, if COVID doesn’t really seem to be impacting death rate trends are COVID deaths the relevant statistic to focus on?