Death, death and more death: Top causes, Deadliest years, Excess, Complacency, Ageism and more
Even less cheerful than usual
Hi everyone, welcome to the eighth issue of the newsletter. Once again, I was sort of planning for a very lightly themed issue again as I work on the “Academia has shit the bed” issue, which I’m still hoping to have ready in the next week or two. And once again, a theme creeped up on me. Death, death and more death. (Reminding me of Theoden’s famous speech at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields).
Covid is not over. People are still dying, there is still a massive burden of death and disease on our societies. This is real, and there is solid evidence that it is real.
The most common way of showing these kinds of trends are through what is called excess deaths or excess mortality data.
In epidemiology, the excess deaths or excess mortality is a measure of the increase in the number deaths during a time period and/or in a certain group, as compared to the expected value or statistical trend during a reference period (typically of five years) or in a reference population. It may typically be measured in percentage points, or in number of deaths per time unit.
If you want to dig into excess death numbers more on your own, Dr. Tara Moriarty has detailed numbers for Canada and provinces here on the Covid 19 Resources Excess Mortality Tracker. Globally, the best source for individual country data is Our World in Data.
As a side note, this humble newsletter just passed 200 subscribers a few days ago. Thanks so much to all of you for joining in on this effort. It’s truly appreciated.
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Pandemic exceeds top causes of death in most countries / Pandem.ic
Globally, the pandemic has claimed more lives than the top 3 causes of death in most countries. …
In Europe, excess mortality exceeded the top 3 causes in most countries …
The comparisons emerging from this are country-specific, but relative the specific mortality patterns of each country one pattern is common: the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is nothing to be “sneezed” at. Indeed, relative to country experiences, we see that in most countries the common top causes of death were exceeded.
2022 was Canada’s deadliest year of the COVID-19 pandemic by Malcolm Fiedler / World Socialist Web Site
According to official statistics released by Health Canada, 2022 proved to be the deadliest year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada so far. Almost 20,000 Canadians died from COVID-19, representing close to a 30 percent increase in fatalities compared to 2021.
As stark as they are, these official figures represent a significant undercount of the true toll the virus has taken across the country. Data compiled by Dr. Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease expert at the University of Toronto, show that the country has recorded almost 65,000 excess deaths since the start of the pandemic. The excess death rate was almost 1.5 times higher in 2022 compared to 2020 and 2021.
Alberta has seen roughly 10,000 'excess' deaths since 2020 by Rob Easton / CBC News
The official count of COVID deaths suggests the disease is responsible for a large proportion of excess deaths. Alberta Health data shows 5,277 people died of COVID-19 between January 2020 and early November 2022. …
Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease researcher and associate professor at the University of Toronto, pegs the number of excess deaths in Alberta at 10,232.
She believes underreporting is one reason for the elevated excess death numbers in most provinces, including Alberta.
In her latest report, Moriarty estimates that Alberta is missing thousands of deaths for the Omicron period (December 2021 to November 2022) of the pandemic.
Statistics Canada has released 10 months of death data for N.S. Here's why it matters by Richard Woodbury / CBC News
Nova Scotia has lagged behind most other provinces in providing the data to Statistics Canada, but the latest excess mortality update from Statistics Canada on Thursday included a mass of new numbers for Nova Scotia.
The federal agency uses death data to track excess mortality — the actual number of deaths above what is expected.
"I think that it's really crucial for decision-makers to see these data, as well as for people to see these data," said infectious diseases researcher Tara Moriarty, who is based at the University of Toronto.
The data, which is broken down into weekly periods, shows consistent periods of positive excessive mortality for the latest time period.
COVID complacency as virus becomes third most deadly / Australian Associated Press
Over 20,000 more people died last year than would have if there was no pandemic, according to figures released by the Actuaries Institute on Thursday.
The number of people dying from Covid-19 is much higher now than at any other point during the pandemic, following the scrapping of most prevention measures at the end of 2021.
Raina MacIntyre, head of the biosecurity research program at the University of NSW's Kirby Institute, said a key issue now is the relaxed approach most people are taking towards getting booster vaccinations.
"Covid is worse than ever, and we're doing less than ever about it," Professor MacIntyre said. "So-called experts, media and government have disseminated the message since early 2022 that Covid's over, 'it's just a cold, it's nothing'.
COVID widened excess death gap between US and European countries Lisa Schnirring / CIDRAP
The United States has had substantially higher death rates than similar high-income countries in Europe in all but the oldest age groups, but the gap widened even more during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study revealed today.
Earlier studies had documented a widening mortality gap between the United States and five European countries between 2000 and 2017. The five countries include England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. A comparison of the latest excess death trends between the two regions from 2017 through 2021 appears today in PLoS One.
Excess deaths doubled in Japan in 2022 — COVID-19 may be to blame by Tomoko Otake / Japan Times
Japan had excess deaths of up to 113,000 in 2022, more than double the figure of up to 50,000 the year before, according to newly released health ministry statistics, indicating the possibility that COVID-19 directly and indirectly contributed to an increase in the country's mortality rate.
According to estimates compiled by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, the number of excess deaths — defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in a certain period and expected numbers of deaths in the same period — was between 47,330 and 113,399 in 2022, compared with 11,475 to 50,495 in 2021.
Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years / BBC News
More than 650,000 deaths were registered in the UK in 2022 - 9% more than 2019.
This represents one of the largest excess death levels outside the pandemic in 50 years.
Though far below peak pandemic levels, it has prompted questions about why more people are still dying than normal.
Data indicates pandemic effects on health and NHS pressures are among the leading explanation
Ageism and the pandemic: How Canada continues to let older adults suffer and die from COVID-19 by Dawn ME Bowdish / The Conversation
For older adults, respiratory illness is often a catalyst for other health problems, triggering a spiral that ends in premature death. Illness also causes many people to retire early because they or the people they care for are chronically ill.
Canada had the highest proportion of COVID deaths in long-term care of any country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, because we did not prioritize preventing infectious disease. Now, because of the demographic bulge of the Baby Boom, the demand for long-term care for older adults is rising, even as COVID outbreaks continue in such facilities.
It’s hard to believe that after the horror show in so many Canadian long-term care homes during early months of COVID that we have slipped back into complacency, allowing Canadians’ parents, grandparents, neighbours and friends to become infected because the rest of us won’t take simple actions.
Covid Is Still Deadlier for Patients Than Flu by / BNN Bloomberg
Covid-19 isn’t “just a flu,” with a study of hospital patients finding that the virus was still 60% deadlier than influenza last winter.
Greater immunity against the coronavirus, better treatments, and different virus variants lowered Covid’s mortality risk to about 6% among adults hospitalized in the US last winter from 17-21% in 2020, researchers at the Clinical Epidemiology Center of the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System in Missouri found. That was still much higher than the flu’s death rate of 3.7%.
My Blog has a bunch of COVID Information posts you can find here:
Around the Web: Women in Science May Suffer Lasting Career Damage from COVID-19
Around the Web: Scholarly Communications in the Age of the Coronavirus
Around the Web: COVID is airborne so enough with the bullshit hygiene theatre
Around the Web: COVID-19 is airborne and hygiene theatre is the wrong response
The COVID Information Series: The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Not Over!
The COVID Information Series: Dear Joe Biden, The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Not Over!