[nickcarraway]

That’s an average number. Do we have the range? That would be more relevant?

[ClearCase_guy]

Low fatality rates for 2020 are, at this point, a mystery.

I believe a very large number of deaths each year are caused by medical malpractice. Currently, most people are staying away from their doctors. Resulting in fewer deaths.

[LegendHasIt]

Well, you require people to stay in their houses, of course death rates are going to drop....

Until they go crazy from ‘cabin fever’ and start killing each other... Or start starving to death because they can’t get food.

[impimp]

Death rates are low right now and the CV deaths are overstated...but there is a disclaimer I found that numbers less than 8 weeks old might get revised up slightly. So the impact on overall death rates of CV can’t officially be nailed down for a month or two.

[Antoninus]

Something is fishy here. The article cites the ability to compare the mortality rates of the first 14 weeks of 2019 with the first 14 weeks of 2020. The linked spreadsheet doesn’t provide that information. What gives?

[lepton]

How can this be? Some have suggested that the fact that most of us are staying home has reduced the number of traffic fatalities, on-the-job accidents, and perhaps other causes of death. --------

Shame he only explored a few options, and not really cumulatively.

That said, I pointed out as the lockdown began that this was a plausible result - for there to end up being a net lower number of deaths, as has happened to US soldiers in war since the end of WWII. This is mostly due to young men not living in towns where teenagers and young men drive and drink and do openly dumb stuff.

Another of the list should be medical care, which when surgeries and other high risk treatments take place result in a lot of deaths. Slowing their pace for a while would be expected to cause a slowing of deaths in the very short term - which is what we are talking about.

[TECTopcat]

Deaths from all causes, (latest data was from 4/17 is 582,565), and that is 92% expected.

There are some notable shifts as deaths from pneumonia is actually decreasing while Covid pneumonia deaths are increasing.

Some of that may be to hospitals merging the codes for deaths toward Covid as they get more funding for that. Doc told me that where they had a different code for death by pneumonia they were told to “blur” that into the Covid code-that is how NY “found” over 2,000 new deaths in one day.

Covid gets you $s, flu and pneumonia does not.

[Cronos]

Yes. Everyone back to work, to restaurants, bars and malls.

[TigersEye]

Might have to wait a while to calculate that. We’ll have to see how many people who would have seen doctors about cancers, heart problems, diabetes and other serious conditions but didn’t because hospitals and clinics are turning away anyone who isn’t on death’s doorstep right now die later due to lack of timely care and diagnosis.

When (if) hospitals and clinics get back to normal they will have quite a backlog of patients to see.

[jmacusa]

The hospital ER I work in NJ has been seeing less and less of this in the last two weeks.

[genghis]

Historians will look at this like the witch trials of Europe

[trebb]

Maybe a fun mental exercise but useless other than for amusement purposes.

[simpson96]

bookmark

[daniel1212]

How can this be? Some have suggested that the fact that most of us are staying home has reduced the number of traffic fatalities, on-the-job accidents, and perhaps other causes of death. But there are only around 3,000 traffic fatalities per month, and the other causes that have been suggested are far smaller. Collectively, reductions in those causes of death would account for only a portion of the reduced fatality numbers, even if COVID-19 had not killed anyone at all.

Without actual comparative numbers I cannot answer the question, but as concerns other causes of death:

• About 7,196 Americans die evAbout 7,196 Americans die every day in the US from a wide range of causes, both natural and unnatural. (https://www.weisspaarz.com/leading-causes-death-by-state/)

• More than 2600 Americans die every day of cardiovascular disease. ("Hidden," Jones & Bartlett Publishers)

• Doctors blamed heart disease for 647,457 deaths in 2017 — more than four times the number of deaths caused by the next most common cause, chronic lower respiratory diseases. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/60/)

• 274 people die every day from blood clots, according to the National Blood Clot Alliance. (https://health.usnews.com/conditions/articles/what-are-the-warning-signs-of-a-blood-clot)

• In 2017, 83,564 people died from complications related to diabetes. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/55/) It is frequently stated in scientific and lay literature that obesity causes about 300 000 deaths per year in the United States...it may difficult to develop accurate and precise estimates. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448478/) Obese people account for 37 percent of the United States’ population, but obesity-related diseases and health problems account for 61 percent of healthcare costs in the United States every year (“The Economics of Overweight and Obesity,” 2007).

• 500 people with diabetes die prematurely every week. (https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about_us/news/premature-deaths-diabetes) Diabetes can cause heart disease, kidney failure, and blindness, and costs the US health care system and employers $237 billion every year. (https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/costs/index.htm)

• Up to 80,000 Americans Died of Flu in 2018... 90 percent of those deaths were in people over age 65 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/health/flu-deaths-vaccine.html) A four-week stretch saw the flu kill older Americans at a rate of 169 people a day, or seven people per hour. (https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2018/older-flu-deaths-rising.html)

• CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010. (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html)

• Accidental poisoning accounted for 64,795 deaths in 2017. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/54/)

• In 2017, 6,118 people died from inflammation of the colon and small intestine caused by infection with the Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, bacteria, which is often resistant to antibiotics.

• 47. In 2017, 6,118 people died from inflammation of the colon and small intestine caused by infection with the Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, bacteria, which is often resistant to antibiotics. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/)

• 1,500 die every day from cancer ... Cancer remains the second-leading cause of death in the U.S., behind heart disease. (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/report-1500-die-every-day-from-cancer/),

• 91 people on average die every day from opioid overdoses (https://247wallst.com/special-report/2017/08/21/how-drug-overdose-is-a-leading-cause-of-death-among-young-people/2/)

• Breast cancer claimed 42,510 lives in 2017. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/49/)

• More than 38,000 people die every year in crashes on U.S. roadways. The U.S. traffic fatality rate is 12.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. (https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/)

• About 90 people die each day in the US from crashes (https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/motor-vehicle-safety/index.html) According to CDC statistics, there were 40,231 deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents in 2017. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/47/)

• (Doctors blamed sepsis in the blood — also known as septicemia — for 40,922 deaths in 2017. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/48/)

• HIV was listed as the cause of death for 5,698 Americans in 2017 (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/14/)

• Doctors blamed Parkinson's disease for 31,963 deaths in 2017. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/43/)

• Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010 (https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm)

• Doctors blamed alcohol-related liver diseases for 22,246 deaths in 2017. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/38/)

• According to CDC statistics, 23,854 people died of suicide by gunshot in 2017. (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/40/)

• Each day, ten Americans die from asthma, and in 2017, 3,564 people died from it. (https://www.aafa.org/asthma-facts/)

• In 2017, statistics show that 486 people died after accidentally being shot with a gun [#59 out of a list of 61 by CBS, but which lists it as the first page] (https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-index-top-50-ways-americans-die/2/