Covid deaths deiberatley over counted - a national scandal

[mikeyB]

Even in normal times, reasons for death on a death certificate are often (almost always??) best guesses rather than "fact". Unless you do a post-mortem on everyone, this is inevitable.

That post is an insult to medical practitioners. Best guess? Final diagnosis more like. And a post mortem doesn’t necessarily give you the reason for death. I had every confidence in death certificates I issued. Whenever I had doubts I discussed the death with the coroner. That’s compulsory.

Of course, if you can show me any evidence for your statement, I’ll be happy to discuss it.

 

[silentsquirrel]

That post is an insult to medical practitioners. Best guess? Final diagnosis more like. And a post mortem doesn’t necessarily give you the reason for death. I had every confidence in death certificates I issued. Whenever I had doubts I discussed the death with the coroner. That’s compulsory.

Of course, if you can show me any evidence for your statement, I’ll be happy to discuss it.

Not intended as an insult at all, apologies you read it that way.
Agree re p-m.

 

[Amity Island]

Like Sweden tried to do? That didn't work well.

What would have worked better is robust test/trace/isolate from the beginning.

Eddy, I don't think Sweden had a strategy for only isolating those that needed to be isolated?

 

[Amity Island]

Amity, you have got to take the judgement of somebody and I would prefer to take that of a Doctor than a Journalist any day when it comes to assigning cause of death. There are no conspiracies, just hard-working professionals doing the best they can in areas where, as Eddy says, things are a bit fuzzy. You win a few, loose a few and you need to look at means and spread to get a working view of the data.

Eddy, your link goes to a CSF file. Do you have a link that goes to the pic?

DocB,

I couldn't agree more, you do have to rely on a doctors moral judgement. However, I think some Doctors have been directed to enter a covid19 death even when no covid symptoms or tests have been done. I know there's an interview (attached below) in America with a Doctor who was very concerned about the way doctors are all currently being advised. What do you make of this? I'm not a doctor and don't know how they normally operate so can't comment.

 

[Amity Island]

I've also seen it suggested that lack of obesity and T2D maybe some explanation for the low reported fatality rates in Africa. Obesity & T2D rates are growing quickly but still way below Western levels.

Similar scenario in India, their population is nearing 1.5 billion people, but have had "just" 6091 covid deaths.

covif deaths india - Bing

Intelligent search from Bing makes it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for and rewards you.

www.bing.com

 

[Amity Island]

Even in normal times, reasons for death on a death certificate are often (almost always??) best guesses rather than "fact". Unless you do a post-mortem on everyone, this is inevitable.

I understand what you mean by "best guess", not literally a complete guess plucked out of thin air by the milkman off the street, but by a qualified doctor based on a patients records, symptoms and the doctors experience during the patients treatment.

 

[Eddy Edson]

I'm not sure about SA in particular but African nations at face value have been doing extremely well. No doubt there's a bunch of reasons for this, including maybe being later to the party, having fewer imported index cases, not testing as much so number understated; etc.

But there are also good indications that experience with ebola has taught many of them how to deal with epidemics - standard TTI, strong govt response and leadership, community buy-in; no flu-modellers to ignore. Dealing effectively with this thing is really a matter of old & tested tehniques, maybe with a little bit of help from tech around the edges.

Should say also that the FT data for South Africa only goes back to 2019 - the "excess deaths" are only vs last year. So not very meaningful and in a real analysis I suppose the confidence intervals would be pretty wide. Another reminder that the FT people are good at pretty, over-simplified data visualisation pics, not really very good at data analysis.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I'm not sure about SA in particular but African nations at face value have been doing extremely well. No doubt there's a bunch of reasons for this, including maybe being later to the party, having fewer imported index cases, not testing as much so number understated; etc.

Age profile is probably a big one. Though (listening to David Miliband) they're still wondering a bit about where (or when) the expected COVID deaths are.

 

[mikeyB]

I should imagine that the Africans David Milliband is worried about have survived more infections than they’ve had hot dinners, so they have top notch immune systems. Make it through childhood, you’re probably immune to everything.