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Medicine News

Global Coronavirus Deaths Cross 100,000 (nytimes.com) 195

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The number of deaths linked to the coronavirus worldwide has passed 100,000 as known infections surged past 1.6 million, according to data collected by The New York Times. From a report: At least 177 countries have reported cases. The most recent was war-torn Yemen, which reported its first coronavirus case on Friday. The death toll in the United States has surpassed that of Spain, with almost 18,000 fatalities related to the virus reported by Friday afternoon. Only Italy has reported more deaths. Although some governments are considering easing restrictions, lockdowns are being extended across much of the world heading into the Easter weekend, and policing measures stepped up. Tokyo's governor parted ways with Japan's national government by requesting the closure of a range of businesses -- including nightclubs, karaoke bars, gyms and movie theaters -- during a state of emergency declared this week.
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Global Coronavirus Deaths Cross 100,000 More

Global Coronavirus Deaths Cross 100,000

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  • related deaths (Score:3, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @01:51PM (#59929380)

    How many deaths from the social distancing and businesses including health care disruption? For example I know many people's biopsies are getting postponed like 2 to 3 months .. easily giving stage III cancers (which can be cured in many cases) enough time to become stage IV (almost incurable).

    • Re:related deaths (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lordpidey ( 942444 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @01:53PM (#59929386) Homepage

      If we include those, it's only fair to also include the number of people who were saved by social distancing. Less car crashes, less smog in the city, etc...

    • Re:related deaths (Score:5, Insightful)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @01:57PM (#59929408)
      So, if you overload the healthcare system with Covid-19 patients, the biopsies will be done earlier?

    • "How many deaths... easily giving stage III cancers (which can be cured in many cases) enough time to become stage IV (almost incurable)."

      Deaths from Corona are incurable as well, all of them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

        Deaths from Corona are incurable as well, all of them.

        Death is pretty incurable, I'll give you that.

      • As far as I know, all deaths are incurable.

        Well, there's an anecdote about a case, but that was like 2 millennia ago and even there the details are sketchy, some would say that it didn't even happen.

    • Re:related deaths (Score:5, Informative)

      by shanen ( 462549 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @02:04PM (#59929450) Homepage Journal

      https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info] might help address some of the questions you are raising, especially if you use the logarithmic options for cases and deaths. For example, you can sort the countries by cases/million and see that the European countries are disproportionately high for deaths/million. This seems to be indicate the large effects of related conditions where the medical systems have essentially created large numbers of potential victims.

      Unfortunately, the baselines are hard to compare because the start times are different for each region, and even for countries within regions. The trend lines do seem to be quite steady for most countries, and you can see the collective effects when China "solved" their problem (or started hiding their deaths better). Of course you have to take all of these statistics with huge grains of salt. Every country is playing games with the numbers, except when they're being too incompetent to collect meaningful data.

    • I'm more interested in how many deaths are counted because COVID was only suspected to be involved. Few people are talking about how the CDC is advising hospitals to claim COVID as the cause of death without sufficient evidence [westernjournal.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        This is the actual wording, taken directly from your link, which I've noticed you've splashed around in several threads.

        “COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death. Certifiers should include as much detail as possible based on their knowledge of the case, medical records, laboratory testing, etc., If the decedent had other chronic conditions such as COPD or asthma that may have also contributed,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )
        Also, few people are talking about the number of undiagnosed [japantimes.co.jp] deaths [buzzfeednews.com] that happen [nymag.com] without testing.

        It's not a conspiracy to inflate numbers, it's just standard procedure to make your best effort to classify according to a case definition [cdc.gov] of the disease in question.
    • Other deaths are decreasing for instance car related have gone down so much that one insurance company, USAA is giving rebates to all insurance customers based on the hundreds of millions they have not had to pay out since March.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tsqr ( 808554 )

        Most, if not all, auto insurance carriers are doing this. Profits are limited by law to a percentage of premiums paid (at least in my state), so they really don't have much choice.

    • social distancing means fewer people are getting regular illnesses like the flu. It also means they're getting in fewer car wrecks, so much so that several car insurance companies are cutting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of refund checks. Then there's the lives saved as pollution drops off a cliff.

      My kid's a nurse, and biopsies aren't being delayed all that much. Find a new doctor/lab. Something's wrong there.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsqr ( 808554 )

        I read earlier today (sorry; I don't have a link) that this is actually a pretty bad flu season in the US.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      My niece's leukemia treatment is proceeding as normal, except that no one can accompany her into the hospital now.

  • It's very obvious from the way things were going that this was going to happen, so this is really filler news - up there with "It's the Xth anniversary of Y" and "It's X holiday today".

    The real news is when the number of infected people begin to drop worldwide, or when governments start lifting their lockdowns.

    • "The real news is when the number of infected people begin to drop worldwide,"

      You mean 'drop dead' I guess.

  • "Confirmed" deaths have topped 100,000. Actual deaths are higher. How much higher? Who knows.

    The Mystery of ‘Excess Fatality’ [nymag.com]

    Less than two weeks ago, Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera published the results of an informal study that appeared to show that, in some regions of the country, non-coronavirus deaths were rising at an alarming rate alongside confirmed COVID-19 deaths — that the total death count was up as much as sixfold from previous years. Those deaths officially attributed to the coronavirus accounted for barely a quarter of the increase.

    And Italy isn’t alone. In Spain, El País obtained a study that showed mortality rates in some regions had almost doubled, with only a fraction of the increase officially attributed to COVID-19. So what accounts for all those other deaths? Is the ultimate death toll from this pandemic going to be that much higher everywhere than is understood at the time? If we were able to allocate medical resources more effectively, could we reduce that number?

    • ""Confirmed" deaths have topped 100,000. Actual deaths are higher. How much higher? Who knows."

      Nobody. Nobody sends a squad of specialists in special gear to check if all the peepaws and meemaws in retirement homes died from Corona or the usual neglect.

      • It's funny how you act like your fellow (elderly) citizens, ancestors, parents, are none of your responsibility.

        At least admit you don't think they are worth the effort.

        It's all of zs who neglect the people that gave half their lives to raise us.

        Either they did a good job, in which case it is our obligation do the same, if we don't want to end up the same.
        Or, like in my case, they had been horrifying torturous monsters of gallopping insanity. In which case they can also fuck right off and die. But at least

        • People that take responsibility for their elders DO NOT PUT THEM IN RETIREMENT HOMES.

          Sorry pal. You arent being responsible. What you are doing is the opposite of that. While you can pretend that you are being responsible, just like the SJWs pretend that they are for justice, its a fucking lie.

  • This isn't the peak, it's still the middle. (Score:3)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @02:00PM (#59929422)

    Yes - we are hitting peak in terms of initial infections - but deaths lag behind a bit.

    More than that though - if we 'let up' in terms of containment, it's not unlikely we get a second wave from all the uninfected people exposing eachother in a chain of new infections.

    It might be a better idea to end sheltering in organized waves - so there's no possibility of overwhelming hospitals and causing more mass deaths.

    Specifically to the USA, the lack of available testing is especially troubling - doubly so when we're also the most infected in terms of raw numbers by far. The infection numbers are exactly matching the available testing at this point - meaning the real numbers here are likely much higher but unable to be tested, compared to other nations.

    The idea is that once you have sufficient testing available, AND those tested numbers on sufficiently on the downswing, you open up on a controlled manner to make sure minimal percentages are lost.

    If instead, you decide not to test people, then use that lack of testing as a reason to sent everyone to work at once - that's the worst method of acting under the scenario.

    Mass deaths of otherwise healthy people from lack of hospital availability is a much higher cost than quarterly business growth, even just economically.

    The stock market is relatively fine - let this work itself out safely if you want to be selfish about the process. The crash from rashly ignoring the public safety issues will cost you much more.

    Ryan Fenton

    • Somewhat. For the G20 nations, who had large amounts of Chinese population, we have been hit early on. As such, we will likely peak around end of April, and then start flattening out. Latin America and even African nations have Chinese, but not enough to hit them hard. Problem is, they are just getting going. And god forbid, but India is likely going to be the worst hit in about a month.

  • Love how no normalization (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @02:22PM (#59929534) Journal
    "The death toll in the United States has surpassed that of Spain, with almost 18,000 fatalities related to the virus reported by Friday afternoon"
    America remains a low number in terms of deaths / 1M population. While UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, etc. continue to have massive numbers of deaths / 1M populations, America remains below 100 with 54. [worldometers.info]

    • Re:Love how no normalization (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nugoo ( 1794744 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @02:35PM (#59929594)

      I guess I'll repost this.

      I'll admit I'm not an epidemiologist or a statistician, but as far as I can tell, deaths per capita are not relevant until the virus is endemic in the population of a country. As this disease emerges, the growth appears to be exponential, and not particularly dependent on the population size. See here [ourworldindata.org], where the number of deaths has more to do with how long the disease has been present than with the size of the country.

      Having a lower per-capita death rate could mean you've had a good response, but it could just as easily mean your large population gives you more margin for error.

      • > Having a lower per-capita death rate could mean you've had a good response, but it could just as easily mean your large population gives you more margin for error.

        Or it could mean that you have a lot more hospital capacity to take care of people who get sick.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          Having a lower per-capita death rate could mean you've had a good response, but it could just as easily mean your large population gives you more margin for error

          Or it could mean you're at a different point in time since the virus took hold in your area.

          Or it could mean that you have a lot more hospital capacity to take care of people who get sick.

          Or, it could mean you're not testing and not reporting all cases.

          Actually, having more hospital capacity is part of having a good response.

      • Or world versus ... oh wait!

        Sorry, you sound smart, until one actually thinks about it. ^^

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        Lower population density helps too. It's not a fluke that the only city in the US with population density similar to Rome or Madrid is leading with deaths.

        • You are kidding. RIght?
          NYC has 10K / km^2.
          Rome has 2K / km^ 2
          Madrid has 5K / km^2.

          NONE of those are approaching NYC.

          Oddly, for Spain, the small city of L'Hospitalet with only 250K ppl actually has the 2'nd highest density and is approaching NYC. Paris is the only large city with a density just under NYC's.

      • It has so much to do with so many things, which have been discussed ad nauseum, but keep getting used to further the argument of whoever is making the argument, as all statistics are.

        How far along the curve, how large a population, how healthy / young a population, how much you're actually testing, who you're testing, who you're reporting.

        Even Singapore has fallen this week to lockdown.

        We'll see more clearly at the end of this all, and we still may not ever really have a clear global picture. Not to say mi

      • Comparing death rates is really hard. Aside of the question whether every death is properly reported and counted, how do you compare city-states (like, say, San Marino) that have an insanely high population density with states that have a rather low average population density? That's one of the reasons why there is a pretty decisive difference between the cases in New York and Alaska (despite how Alaska should be the perfect breeding ground, considering temperature and all).

        Average age plays a huge role, as

        • Then there's other circumstances like how Italy got hit with it right at the Carnival season (that's basically like if it hit the US just before Thanksgiving).

          Nope. Had it been Carnival, then ALL OF ITALY would be suffering. Instead, right now, it is just Northern Italy (that is changing REAL fast).
          The real issue there is that Northern Itay ( and apparently Spain) has LOADS of illegal Chinese and most went back to the motherland, got sick and brought it back. With Covid being known in Jan, and ppl starting to be scared, Chinese government pushed Italian governments to air a STUPID film saying to 'Hug a Chinese'. Chinese government made it, told the Italian gove

      • not an epidemiologist or a statistician, but decades ago, I used to be a Microbiologist/Genetic Engineer that worked at CDC. I watched the ground floor of HIV while I worked on my own viruses (west nile, dengue, all of the encephalitis, a few other arthropod-borne RNA virus).
        With that said, there is NO WAY to know for certain how many/how far a disease is spread, esp. when you have one that is this contagious (R0 of 3 is large; For comparison flu is typically a little bit above 1 ) and we do not test ever
    • we're the wealthiest country on Earth by far. Our healthcare system is also the most expensive per capital by a wide margin. If anything we should have fewer deaths than these (much poorer) countries.

      • we have fewer percent deaths than other first world countries, so what's your point?

        • Only through an accounting trick.
          The correct way to count the mortality rate is to count it against the outcome, not against the total amount of the infected - active cases still can go either way. The USA has a 41% mortality/closed cases so far. There are only a couple of first world countries that do worse than that.

      • It's not that easy. Yes, considering the expenses in the medical sector, the US should be doing better. But it's simply unsound to just look at the numbers and derive a "good" or "poor" reaction state. San Marino has 1000 deaths per million. Does that mean that they have crappy medical facilites? Hell no. Their GNI is comparable to the EU, which is way above world average. But it's a city-state. High density, low population total, high average age.

        How about Namibia or Ethiopia? They have incredibly low deat

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbengt ( 874751 )
      Earlier today I downloaded some of that data on death rates per million people per day. Going by days since hitting 0.1 death per million per day, the US is only doing a little better than Italy was doing at the same point in their curve. (a couple of days slower growth than Italy)

  • Life pro tip about social media (Score:3)

    by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Friday April 10, 2020 @02:36PM (#59929600)

    It's basically "Armchair expert offers vague quantification of reality. Film @ 11."

    Anyone on this thread is not competent enough to be listened to.

    Competent people are not arguing with easily Googled sets of disparate factoids as if they've nailed the algebra of the reality.

  • If you do not want to be intubated by a gynecologist, stay at home.

  • That is Regular Flu Epidemics. A standard unit of measurement. :)

    About 0.01?

    • The problem is not the people dying. The problem is their relatives.

      The problem is that there is actually something that can tenfold your survival chances if you need it, but it's in very short supply. What do you think will happen when someone thinks that their loved one doesn't get it while someone else does?

      Ponder for a moment what country we're talking about and how many guns are in private hands there.

  • https://www.who.int/en/news-ro... [who.int]

    "Worldwide, these annual epidemics are estimated to result in about 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness, and about 290 000 to 650 000 respiratory deaths."

    • "Estimated" and "confirmed" are important distinctions here. WHO estimates that 2900,000 to 650,000 folks die annually from seasonal influenza. We see this every year. We've seen it for many years. We have pretty good knowledge about the effects of seasonal influenza.

      To date, we've seen over 100,000 deaths from "confirmed" COVID-19 cases. These are folks that were tested and found to have it before they died. There are numerous folks that have died from COVID-19 who were never tested and so they'll be

      • and do you think that ALL reported covid19 deaths are REALLY from covid19?

        - [German Infectologist Decimates COVID-19 Doomsday Cult In Open Letter To Merkel | Zero Hedge](https://www.zerohedge.com/health/german-infectologist-decimates-covid-19-doomsday-cult-open-letter-merkel)

        "According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, not even the much-cited Robert Koch Institute knows exactly how much is tested for COVID-19."

        "(...)the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it

    • Is this the same WHO that are telling people not to wear masks?

      Why yes... yes it is.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Yeah, but given the choice between:
      - A virus/disease
      - Environmental catastrophe (see the other article about the hole in the ozone layer)
      - Fake alien attacks by the NWO
      - Actual alien attacks
      - Godzilla (the aliens' pet)

      At least the first one leaves all the buildings and infrastructures intact.

      The bad news is, the next four points are just a matter of time!!1

    • In fact, with the sudden lockdown and little to do, I wouldn't be surprised if COVID-19 is ultimately responsible for more births than deaths!

  • Louisiana #4 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cusco ( 717999 ) <[brian.bixby] [at] [gmail.com]> on Friday April 10, 2020 @03:55PM (#59929924)

    Well, Louisiana finally beat California at something, they have 30% more deaths with less than 1/8 of the population and still rising. Michigan and New Jersey are still ahead, but they have twice the population too. No surprise that the city with the highest population density in North America is in first place, though.

    https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]

  • Tokyo's governor parted ways with Japan's national government by requesting the closure of a range of businesses -- including nightclubs, karaoke bars, gyms and movie theaters -- during a state of emergency declared this week.

    You mean that until this week, all of that was still open in Japan?
    Great shame upon you.

    • People were singing the praises of Japans response here just last week.

      They werent praising anything meaningful.. faux praise of a response they are still to this day uninformed about.

      I suspect that in the end, Englands original response will prove to be one of the best. Isolate the most vulnerable. Keep the economy going. Unfortunately they stopped doing that because that sort of response leads to "bad" early numbers.

  • https://www.visualcapitalist.c... [visualcapitalist.com]

    The position of COVID-19 is kept up-to-date on their graphics. Look at the bottom of the graphic for an idea of scale against other pandemics, since the "timeline" part of the graphic distorts scales.

    Remember that self-isolation and physical social distancing are our main weapons!

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