All causes death numbers

With probably tiresome frequency, I have been harping on the low quality of our Covid-19 data and the importance of all causes death measures to make sure that we aren't simply playing a game of renaming. If we usually have 100 deaths in a week with five of them being from pneumonia and now we have 100 deaths but 1 from pneumonia, one from flu and three from Covid-19, then we have a definitional problem not a mortality problem. There is little value in suspending the economy if the all causes death rate does not budge. (Not strictly true but that is a different argument of a different issue).

If, on the other hand, the number of deaths jumps to 110, five of which remain from pneumonia but 10 of which are from Covid-19, then we have an excess death rate attributable to Covid-19. We can still have an argument whether the suspension of the economy, owing to all the other short and long term unanticipated negative consequences, is worthwhile, but at least we have a quantification. We are fighting, and paying a price, for saving ten lives.

The epidemic forecasting models have been highly variable in their forecasts in terms of shape of the curve and in terms of forecasted number of deaths. And by highly variable, I mean markedly wrong.

We are also beginning to get a line of sight on some of the measurement shenanigans going on where a city or state inflates its Covid-19 deaths by counting anyone who died with respiratory distress regardless of whether they actually had Covid-19.

And the opposite is also occurring. In some places deaths are being undercounted when they do not occur in hospitals or other such central locations or where a covid death is only recorded when there is a positive covid test but where there is alos very limited testing.

Whether under-reporting exceeds over-reporting or vice versa is not known.

Hence the importance of all causes death data. If Covid-19 is real (causing extra deaths, not just displacing deaths by cause) and is a net additive to deaths, then the all causes death numbers should be going up, regardless of how we define the causes.

I am confident we will see that at some point. I am also pretty confident that the absolute numbers of deaths claimed to be Covid-19 will be dramatically less than the number claimed. We are already seeing evidence for that in many places.

But all causes death data has been missing from any of the mainstream media reporting I have read and I haven't seen anyone else go out and find the data.

Until now. From April: U.S. Death Rate From All Causes (Including COVID-19) At Multi-Year LOW by Evan. A financial markets analysts of all things, but using publicly available CDC data.

The U.S. crude death rate (mortality from all causes) still remains near multi-year lows despite COVID-19. The CDC tracks deaths attributed to the flu, pneumonia, and all causes on this website.

You can download the data as verify for yourself: Just go to this CDC website and click the green ‘downloads’ button. They have complete data for total U.S. deaths up until week 14 (week ending April 5th, 2020).

On April 5th, the U.S. saw 1,344 COVID-19 deaths, as the number of cases in the U.S. accelerated. The overall number of deaths in the U.S., or the crude death rate did not show a correlated rise.

At the very least, this data shows we need to analyze COVID-19 deaths in the context of the broader U.S. mortality rate from all causes. It appears normal deaths are being attributed to COVID-19 if the patient is COVID-19+, even if another underlying chronic cause is responsible.

For The Week Ending April 5, 2020

– There were 49,292 deaths (all causes) in the week ending April 5th, 2020 – see how this number compares to the weekly number since 2013 in the graph below.

– 14.92 deaths per 100,000 people in the week ending April 5th, 2020 – see how this number compares to the weekly number since 2013 in the graph below.

It is still too early in the pandemic cycle, but this data suggests so far that Covid-19 is not statistically noticeable in the number of deaths.

Numbers by May 15th are likely to tell a different story. But I think there is a real possibility that the net Covid-19 impact on all causes deaths might be much more marginal than we have prepared to believe.

I acknowledge that all causes death isn't the whole story, hence my caveat above. Pandemics which have mortality rates among the young are far more existentially threatening to a social system than pandemics which threaten the old and infirm. That cruel reality drives a range of different decisions.