What Counts as a Coronavirus Death? | The Sketchy Cases in the Total [merged threads]

[TBoneTX 47,506]

2 hours ago, Steeleballz said:

If someone comes in with Covid-19 and dies of a heart attack, it still has to be reported as Covid-19  (with additional etiology).

This, then, would seem to lead to variance in the actual chief cause of death, if repeated over time.  In addition, media sorts would certainly trend toward seizing on the "sexy" factor, this currently the Covid-19.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

Just now, TBoneTX said:

This, then, would seem to lead to variance in the actual chief cause of death, if repeated over time.  In addition, media sorts would certainly trend toward seizing on the "sexy" factor, this currently the Covid-19.

 

    Technically, you don't know the chief cause of death. I mean there are thousands of people out there whose cardiovascular systems are ticking time bombs, but they might live for years.

 

   Currently Covid-19 is reportable because of the pandemic. It may end up more like flu in the future. Right now they are trying to track the numbers and location so it is all reported that way. By reported, I mean to the CDC. I'm not sure if the death certificate has to say Covid-19 or not.

[TBoneTX 47,506]

Thanks for the clarification, but this still would lead to inaccuracies, it seems to me -- inflated numbers of "presumed" Covid-19 deaths seized upon by the media, who would not understand or probably care about the true chief cause of death.

[Steeleballz 7,550]

1 minute ago, TBoneTX said:

Thanks for the clarification, but this still would lead to inaccuracies, it seems to me -- inflated numbers of "presumed" Covid-19 deaths seized upon by the media, who would not understand or probably care about the true chief cause of death.

 

   It probably will to an extent. I don't think they are pretending that they have the data correct with any degree of accuracy or precision. Remember at one point they were looking at a 3-4% death rate. It is way down from that now, and probably will be much lower in the end. That doesn't make it any less of a problem in the short run, but it does give a better outlook for the future if this sticks around as a seasonal illness.

[Inita 44]

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ 

[Dashinka 25,856]

4 hours ago, Steeleballz said:

 

   It probably will to an extent. I don't think they are pretending that they have the data correct with any degree of accuracy or precision. Remember at one point they were looking at a 3-4% death rate. It is way down from that now, and probably will be much lower in the end. That doesn't make it any less of a problem in the short run, but it does give a better outlook for the future if this sticks around as a seasonal illness.

I am not sure who you mean by they,but if you are referring to the media then I think they are in fact trying to portray the data is correct.

[TBoneTX 47,506]

More, with rationale, about what we've been discussing.

Quote

Are COVID-19 Deaths Being Overreported?

by Julie Kelly - April 6, 2020

 

[...] there is little information available as to what qualifies as a coronavirus fatality for official counts.  And there is good reason to approach such tallies with skepticism since reporting from states like New York is suspiciously vague. [...]

 

Continues here: https://www.amgreatness.com/2020/04/06/are-covid-19-deaths-being-overreported/

 

 

 

[Dashinka 25,856]

Yes.

 

 

[TBoneTX 47,506]

Similar topics have been merged.

Edited April 7, 2020 by TBoneTX

[Dashinka 25,856]

Coronavirus Case Counts Are Meaningless*
 

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I’m constantly going on about how the number of COVID-19 cases is not a very useful indicator of anything — unless you also know something about how tests are being conducted.

If you’re a regular reader of FiveThirtyEight, you’re probably used to looking at data in sports — where basically everything that happens on a basketball court or a baseball diamond is recorded — or in electoral politics, when polls (in theory, anyway) survey a random sample of the population. COVID-19 statistics, especially the number of reported cases, are not at all like that. The data, at best, is highly incomplete, and often the tip of the iceberg for much larger problems. And data on tests and the number of reported cases is highly nonrandom. In many parts of the world today, health authorities are still trying to triage the situation with a limited number of tests available. Their goal in testing is often to allocate scarce medical care to the patients who most need it — rather than to create a comprehensive dataset for epidemiologists and statisticians to study.

But if you’re not accounting for testing patterns, it can throw your conclusions entirely out of whack. You don’t just run the risk of being a little bit wrong: Your analysis could be off by an order of magnitude. Or even worse, you might be led in the opposite direction of what is actually happening. A country where the case count is increasing because it’s doing more testing, for instance, might actually be getting its epidemic under control. Alternatively, in a country where the reported number of new cases is declining, the situation could actually be getting worse, either because its system is too overwhelmed to do adequate testing or because it’s ramping down on testing for PR reasons.
 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-case-counts-are-meaningless/

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

36 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Coronavirus Case Counts Are Meaningless*
 

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I’m constantly going on about how the number of COVID-19 cases is not a very useful indicator of anything — unless you also know something about how tests are being conducted.

If you’re a regular reader of FiveThirtyEight, you’re probably used to looking at data in sports — where basically everything that happens on a basketball court or a baseball diamond is recorded — or in electoral politics, when polls (in theory, anyway) survey a random sample of the population. COVID-19 statistics, especially the number of reported cases, are not at all like that. The data, at best, is highly incomplete, and often the tip of the iceberg for much larger problems. And data on tests and the number of reported cases is highly nonrandom. In many parts of the world today, health authorities are still trying to triage the situation with a limited number of tests available. Their goal in testing is often to allocate scarce medical care to the patients who most need it — rather than to create a comprehensive dataset for epidemiologists and statisticians to study.

But if you’re not accounting for testing patterns, it can throw your conclusions entirely out of whack. You don’t just run the risk of being a little bit wrong: Your analysis could be off by an order of magnitude. Or even worse, you might be led in the opposite direction of what is actually happening. A country where the case count is increasing because it’s doing more testing, for instance, might actually be getting its epidemic under control. Alternatively, in a country where the reported number of new cases is declining, the situation could actually be getting worse, either because its system is too overwhelmed to do adequate testing or because it’s ramping down on testing for PR reasons.
 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-case-counts-are-meaningless/

538 disowned for not towing the orange man bad line.