covid math (long post)

[weiss1967]

Today's paper had an article about Covid cases in India, and picture of some schmuck burning bodies on the banks of Ganges river. As if there are so many, they can't bury them all. Who are you trying to fool you fakaz. There are almost 2 billion people in India. Assuming the lifespan about 70 years (which will be a stretch) there are over 70,000 dead bodies every day in India, from natural causes. 3800 UNCONFIRMED deaths from covid would not overwhelm anything, would be somewhere within natural noise level, the usual up and down ticks on the graph.

Let’s check the math again. I personally know over 2000 people at my work, can put name and face together. Those are people who know my name too. None of them was ever sick with covid. I would have known. The company I work for will ensure with bulletins and memos if there was one single case. THERE WAS NONE. There were over a million cases in Canada so far. With population being under 40 million, this equates to one in about 38 people. Which means, there should have been at least 50 of my co-workers sick, and, hear this, assuming mortality rate at 5% on average, at least 2 deaths. Show me a dead body. And this is front-end customer service workers, who bounce into millions of customers a year.

Lets go a little further. Worldometer stats continually show "serious or critical" numbers being at least three, usually four times lower than the number of deaths. Does that mean 3 out of 4 are dying without being first seriously/critically sick? Cough-cough and straight into the coffin? I understand dynamics, and moving averages, but hey, I waited for over a year, and numbers were consistently wrong throughout.

Number of covid tests reached roughly the population of Canada. I know of only one who went for a test, turned negative of course. Am I living in a bubble? Does that mean there are people who went for covid test multiple times (perhaps hundred times) last year?

What am I missing. Why covid does not pass the simple math test?

[Plateauplower]

Today's paper had an article about Covid cases in India, and picture of some schmuck burning bodies on the banks of Ganges river. As if there are so many, they can't bury them all. Who are you trying to fool you fakaz. There are almost 2 billion people in India. Assuming the lifespan about 70 years (which will be a stretch) there are over 70,000 dead bodies every day in India, from natural causes. 3800 UNCONFIRMED deaths from covid would not overwhelm anything, would be somewhere within natural noise level, the usual up and down ticks on the graph.

Let’s check the math again. I personally know over 2000 people at my work, can put name and face together. Those are people who know my name too. None of them was ever sick with covid. I would have known. The company I work for will ensure with bulletins and memos if there was one single case. THERE WAS NONE. There were over a million cases in Canada so far. With population being under 40 million, this equates to one in about 38 people. Which means, there should have been at least 50 of my co-workers sick, and, hear this, assuming mortality rate at 5% on average, at least 2 deaths. Show me a dead body. And this is front-end customer service workers, who bounce into millions of customers a year.

Lets go a little further. Worldometer stats continually show "serious or critical" numbers being at least three, usually four times lower than the number of deaths. Does that mean 3 out of 4 are dying without being first seriously/critically sick? Cough-cough and straight into the coffin? I understand dynamics, and moving averages, but hey, I waited for over a year, and numbers were consistently wrong throughout.

Number of covid tests reached roughly the population of Canada. I know of only one who went for a test, turned negative of course. Am I living in a bubble? Does that mean there are people who went for covid test multiple times (perhaps hundred times) last year?

What am I missing. Why covid does not pass the simple math test?

As far as cases at your work, yes that’s an anomaly. We’ve had around 10% test positive in approximately the same sample size, which is fairly close to our regional, and state level of positive cases. We’ve had no deaths, but most of the deaths are in people who are beyond working years age. Last time I saw the average age of people who succumb to covid it was 78.6 (same as avg age of death w/out covid). CFR is nowhere near 5%, I haven’t looked lately but it’s likely 1% or less (1% would still mean 3.3 million deaths in the US if everyone were infected so it’s probably less than that) mortality rate would be lower than CFR since it would account for entire population rather than only deaths in positive cases. I look at World Meter too, but have noticed it’s often not accurate for my state numbers and deaths reported compared to the state public health website, so it’s not perfect. I’d guess reporting for serious illness or critical cases is just not conducted as “thoroughly” as deaths are reported. Many of the deaths occur in people who did not have many years left, and may have already been in a “critical” state.

[gym62richard]

I don't know, but India does appear to be in crisis,British media report that the number of reported daily infections and covid related deaths are being grossly under reported by the Indian government.

On religious grounds cremation is the common method of body disposal, burial is much rarer . Indian crematorium staff have recorded as much as a 600% rise in demand, so the general public are having to perform their own make shift cremations, in such a hot climate it's essential to dispose of corpses quickly, the consequences of not doing so could lead to a far greater health emergency.

the Indian government have so far been unable to cope with the nations covid healthcare demands and countries from around the world are reportedly shipping large amounts of bottled oxygen and associated medical equipment to a number of Indian provinces.

I don't know, many governments around the globe have taken differing approaches to deal with the pandemic certainly it would appear that during the second wave the Indian administration pretty much decided to let matters take their course, the images in the media do appear to show a grim situation in many major Indian cities, the virus now appears to be spreading into the rural population, where providing healthcare may be a far greater issue.

[startingat56]

are you seriously comparing India's caste society to your workplace?

The prime minister is designing his new house while so many die

viruses thrive in populations like India's overcrowded (can we call it?) urban areas

As Russel Peters said, the moment you get off the plane in India all you smell is sh!t

[Gabbar99]

As if there are so many, they can't bury them all. Who are you trying to fool you fakaz. There are almost 2 billion people in India.
...
What am I missing. Why covid does not pass the simple math test?

In India, they almost always cremate the dead, not bury them. There are about 1.4 billion people in India.

You flunk the simple tests immediately, no need to read further.

You did get one right:

Assuming the lifespan about 70 years (which will be a stretch)

It's 69.4 years, so your stretch was 7 months.

[Plateauplower]

In Canada more than 2/3 of deaths were people already in long-term healthcare facilities and 96% were people over the age of 60. So unless your company employs really old sick people that explains it.

There are cases of younger healthy people dying from it but that’s likely unfortunate genetic factors. Younger than 65 people who die seem to usually have multiple significant comorbidities. I wonder if there will be lower death rates for a few years since many who would die in the next few will have died a bit sooner from COVID.

[Gabbar99]

My father died of Covid. So there's that.

I'm a professor at a small private college. Two of our semi-retired faculty died of Covid. One of whom, Bob, was super active, kayaked every day and lead 250 kayak tours the year before he died. His grandkids did high school sports with my daughters and are now college athletes. Some of my most precious times with my dad were my son's sporting events. Bob's grandsons are now college athletes and his son and grandsons won't get to have that experience.

Of the 12 faculty in our department, my father died of Covid, another professor's brother, and another faculty member's mother.

All of the above were physically healthy but were in their 60s-80s so were probably going to die in the next 30 years anyway, so who cares?

Two of our younger faculty were sick with Covid, both got over it in a few days.

Several of our students got it, all recovered in a few days.

I've been tested twice. My daughters, college swimmers, got tested every other day throughout the season and have each been tested over 50 times. All negative, btw.

[supramax]

Today's paper had an article about Covid cases in India, and picture of some schmuck burning bodies on the banks of Ganges river. As if there are so many, they can't bury them all. Who are you trying to fool you fakaz...

Why so hateful? Have you had bad experiences with East Indians? Cremation is smart anywhere in the world.

[mtpockets]

750 bodies are still in freezer trucks in NYC, I'd sooner be cremated and in an urn on a nice warm shelf than chilin with a bunch of strangers and no netflix

[OldFartTom]

You're right, your post doesn't add up, on quite a few different levels.

The India situation makes sad sense though

[Paul Kreul]

You're right, your post doesn't add up, on quite a few different levels.

The India situation makes sad sense though

Posted this in R/P, but Tom you are pretty level minded & wise fella, I’d like to hear your opinion. Was arguing the validity of the Covid deaths & how many factors were involved in causing a higher overall death count last year. I think however the most obvious/simplest answer, is typical found to be the correct answer....
Death numbers SHOULD be going up at this time, with a 78 year average life expectancy and considering the world wide crash and then the huge boom in the 40's. The demographics alone would have given us higher deaths this last year ..& a couple to come..with an expectation of it rising over the next three or four years based solely on the fact that those born at the height of the post-war boom (1946-1952) are now reaching the statistical probability of death.

We would see a natural jump right now if only due to this fact of demographics. If this is fraud they timed it perfectly to obfuscate this demographic reality. An excess mortality rate assumes there is excess mortality and doesn't prove it, and again, the data is put together by the same people with vested interests in proving a Covid 19 epidemic...

[Plateauplower]

My father died of Covid. So there's that.

I'm a professor at a small private college. Two of our semi-retired faculty died of Covid. One of whom, Bob, was super active, kayaked every day and lead 250 kayak tours the year before he died. His grandkids did high school sports with my daughters and are now college athletes. Some of my most precious times with my dad were my son's sporting events. Bob's grandsons are now college athletes and his son and grandsons won't get to have that experience.

Of the 12 faculty in our department, my father died of Covid, another professor's brother, and another faculty member's mother.

All of the above were physically healthy but were in their 60s-80s so were probably going to die in the next 30 years anyway, so who cares?

Two of our younger faculty were sick with Covid, both got over it in a few days.

Several of our students got it, all recovered in a few days.

I've been tested twice. My daughters, college swimmers, got tested every other day throughout the season and have each been tested over 50 times. All negative, btw.

Sorry for your loss, SRS. We lost two people on my wife’s side. But if your post was directed to me, I tend to write without much emotion when it comes to things like this. It’s sad, but it’s a communicable disease, and they have been killing people since people existed. Age is the primary risk factor for covid. With advanced age, in an of itself, are a host of comorbidities present no matter how much someone kayaks. It’s just the way that it is. Some diseases seem to spare the elderly and primarily kill younger people, covid isn’t one of those. Most respiratory viruses are harder on elderly populations than younger. It’s believed the reason older populations were less affected by a the flu of 1918 was because of a previous outbreak of a similar strain when they were younger, so there are situations where elderly fair better. I think a life span of 90-110 is a bit optimistic for most considering the current life expectancy.

[weiss1967]

Why so hateful? Have you had bad experiences with East Indians? Cremation is smart anywhere in the world.

This is about fear mongering media, not the cremation, or India. About 4000 dead bodies being only a small fraction of natural inflow of dead bodies rate. Burning bodies being pictured by media as if there are soo many, all dead from covid.

[OldFartTom]

Very sorry to hear that Gabar


Paul K, yes it makes sense that people will die anyway. The most useful estimates are not numbers of deaths but rather estimates of excess deaths (how many more deaths that you'd expect to normal even taking in account variability). I'm familiar with UK figures but not India or US. The baby boomers are getting old, but that would be a gradual rise and wouldn't account for a step-change.

If you look at graphs of deaths week by week in UK, for any reason, over the last few years. Then plot 2020 onto the graph, there is clearly something very different happening in 2020. If you lived under a rock and didn't hear of Covid you'd look at the graph and say "what the hell happened that year?"

Can dig out graphs for this but holding back as it's a digression on this India themed thread. But to give a little info, based on 5 year average (2014-2019) 2020 in UK had 7.2% more deaths. I don't know the figures for all the UK, but just England and Wales, that's roughly 80,000 extra deaths

This is about fear mongering media, not the cremation, or India. About 4000 dead bodies being only a small fraction of natural inflow of dead bodies rate. Burning bodies being pictured by media as if there are soo many, all dead from covid.

Bad news sells. Media loves a gory or bad news story. They are also full of BS, but that doesn't mean that in this case nothing is happening

[supramax]

This is about fear mongering media, not the cremation, or India. About 4000 dead bodies being only a small fraction of natural inflow of dead bodies rate. Burning bodies being pictured by media as if there are soo many, all dead from covid.

My comment was based on the impression I got from your erroneous conclusion about burial and when you called the Dom a schmuck. It's a great privilege to be cremated in Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges.

[Gabbar99]

But if your post was directed to me...Age is the primary risk factor for covid.

It wasn't directed at you in particular. More at the attitude I inferred, perhaps incorrectly, from the OP. And I, and everyone who has been alive this past year, understand that age is the risk factor for Covid. It just drives me up the wall when people imply, and some explicitly say, that deaths don't matter because they're old or sick and are going to die anyway. Every year is precious. For Bob, the kayaker, I was just pointing out that he was an active member of the community and the family. At church he sang in the choir and was in the drama productions and on the prayer counseling team. That doesn't mean he's magically spared from the risks of being 80 years old, but his years were full and some more would have been nice. Like I said, the main thing I think about is the time with his son and grandsons. How heartbreaking would it have been if my dad hadn't been around for my son at the national championships, a highlight of the lives of all three of us.

Again, not saying you said these years are meaningless, the thread just provoked a reaction.

I have the same reaction when people say similar things about the Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak of 1993. They say "100 people died BUT they were immunocompromised". One of those was Jon, a friend of the family and the brother of my sister's husband Bryan. It was Jon's doctor who identified Crypto as the culprit in the outbreak. The BUT sorta implied that those lives don't matter because they were going to die at some point anyway. Jon was an active college student, but was cursed with having hemophilia and having AIDs. Same story for Bryan who died 1.5 years later. Maybe Jon was likely to die in the next few years, but he would have loved to have more years with his girlfriend and friends. His family would have loved to have more good times with him, maybe see him walk through college graduation. And who knows, maybe if he and Bryan had been able to hang on until the AIDs medications got better...

What I'm trying to say, and people have gotten fired for saying this, is all lives matter.

[mtpockets]

It wasn't directed at you in particular. More at the attitude I inferred, perhaps incorrectly, from the OP. And I, and everyone who has been alive this past year, understand that age is the risk factor for Covid. It just drives me up the wall when people imply, and some explicitly say, that deaths don't matter because they're old or sick and are going to die anyway. Every year is precious. For Bob, the kayaker, I was just pointing out that he was an active member of the community and the family. At church he sang in the choir and was in the drama productions and on the prayer counseling team. That doesn't mean he's magically spared from the risks of being 80 years old, but his years were full and some more would have been nice. Like I said, the main thing I think about is the time with his son and grandsons. How heartbreaking would it have been if my dad hadn't been around for my son at the national championships, a highlight of the lives of all three of us.

Again, not saying you said these years are meaningless, the thread just provoked a reaction.

I have the same reaction when people say similar things about the Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak of 1993. They say "100 people died BUT they were immunocompromised". One of those was Jon, a friend of the family and the brother of my sister's husband Bryan. It was Jon's doctor who identified Crypto as the culprit in the outbreak. The BUT sorta implied that those lives don't matter because they were going to die at some point anyway. Jon was an active college student, but was cursed with having hemophilia and having AIDs. Same story for Bryan who died 1.5 years later. Maybe Jon was likely to die in the next few years, but he would have loved to have more years with his girlfriend and friends. His family would have loved to have more good times with him, maybe see him walk through college graduation. And who knows, maybe if he and Bryan had been able to hang on until the AIDs medications got better...

What I'm trying to say, and people have gotten fired for saying this, is all lives matter.

Excellent post!

[TolerantLactose]

all lives matter.

Yes, they do. I helped implement sars-cov-2 testing in my health region and have something of a finger on the pulse of things. We know the risk factors for sars-cov-2 but we continue to use ham-handed mitigation. It's better now but in 2020, HIV screenings were down, cancer marker testing was down, cervical cancer screening was way down, organ transplantation was almost completely shut down. We can only guess what the impact of this will be.

[weiss1967]

In Canada more than 2/3 of deaths were people already in long-term healthcare facilities and 96% were people over the age of 60. So unless your company employs really old sick people that explains it.

deaths, maybe, but not number of cases. Why I don’t see one in two thousand while there should be one in 40. This is a big gap. Those 2000 are people in public transportation, serving millions of passengers a year. Selling them food, books, cleaning public toilets etc.

There is something that doesn’t add up.

Number of tests, I take it back since this is borderline plausible. Though, considering number of performing athletes per capita, each taking test every other day, I still doubt will explain the number of tests.

You see, all those things combined, with hysterical and largely inaccurate media coverage, makes me think. And we haven’t touched the subject of idea propagation, which was going on for decades prior.

[ChazWood]

It wasn't directed at you in particular. More at the attitude I inferred, perhaps incorrectly, from the OP. And I, and everyone who has been alive this past year, understand that age is the risk factor for Covid. It just drives me up the wall when people imply, and some explicitly say, that deaths don't matter because they're old or sick and are going to die anyway. Every year is precious. For Bob, the kayaker, I was just pointing out that he was an active member of the community and the family. At church he sang in the choir and was in the drama productions and on the prayer counseling team. That doesn't mean he's magically spared from the risks of being 80 years old, but his years were full and some more would have been nice. Like I said, the main thing I think about is the time with his son and grandsons. How heartbreaking would it have been if my dad hadn't been around for my son at the national championships, a highlight of the lives of all three of us.

Again, not saying you said these years are meaningless, the thread just provoked a reaction.

I have the same reaction when people say similar things about the Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak of 1993. They say "100 people died BUT they were immunocompromised". One of those was Jon, a friend of the family and the brother of my sister's husband Bryan. It was Jon's doctor who identified Crypto as the culprit in the outbreak. The BUT sorta implied that those lives don't matter because they were going to die at some point anyway. Jon was an active college student, but was cursed with having hemophilia and having AIDs. Same story for Bryan who died 1.5 years later. Maybe Jon was likely to die in the next few years, but he would have loved to have more years with his girlfriend and friends. His family would have loved to have more good times with him, maybe see him walk through college graduation. And who knows, maybe if he and Bryan had been able to hang on until the AIDs medications got better...

What I'm trying to say, and people have gotten fired for saying this, is all lives matter.

w3rd.

[Plateauplower]

It wasn't directed at you in particular. More at the attitude I inferred, perhaps incorrectly, from the OP. And I, and everyone who has been alive this past year, understand that age is the risk factor for Covid. It just drives me up the wall when people imply, and some explicitly say, that deaths don't matter because they're old or sick and are going to die anyway. Every year is precious. For Bob, the kayaker, I was just pointing out that he was an active member of the community and the family. At church he sang in the choir and was in the drama productions and on the prayer counseling team. That doesn't mean he's magically spared from the risks of being 80 years old, but his years were full and some more would have been nice. Like I said, the main thing I think about is the time with his son and grandsons. How heartbreaking would it have been if my dad hadn't been around for my son at the national championships, a highlight of the lives of all three of us.

Again, not saying you said these years are meaningless, the thread just provoked a reaction.

I have the same reaction when people say similar things about the Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak of 1993. They say "100 people died BUT they were immunocompromised". One of those was Jon, a friend of the family and the brother of my sister's husband Bryan. It was Jon's doctor who identified Crypto as the culprit in the outbreak. The BUT sorta implied that those lives don't matter because they were going to die at some point anyway. Jon was an active college student, but was cursed with having hemophilia and having AIDs. Same story for Bryan who died 1.5 years later. Maybe Jon was likely to die in the next few years, but he would have loved to have more years with his girlfriend and friends. His family would have loved to have more good times with him, maybe see him walk through college graduation. And who knows, maybe if he and Bryan had been able to hang on until the AIDs medications got better...

What I'm trying to say, and people have gotten fired for saying this, is all lives matter.

I agree 100. We are all going to die, some tomorrow some 60+ years from now in the 035. It’s unfortunate every time. I make a living trying to prevent deaths in occupational settings and I’ve seen first hand a few very disturbing and unsettling ways that it can happen. When it comes to something like a communicable disease the scary thing is the uncertainty. You can “be careful” to avoid being run over by a bus, but there’s not much you can do about submicroscopic pathogens. It’s hard to grasp, and historically disease outbreaks have similar patterns in terms of human behavior and sociological effects. The effects vary across the population, but overall it is the pattern of grieving. It’s terrible, but nature can be cruel (acceptance phase for me I guess).

[OldFartTom]

Many excellent comments from Gabbar, seems unfair I can only give a single rep

[ectoBgone]

It just drives me up the wall when people imply, and some explicitly say, that deaths don't matter because they're old or sick and are going to die anyway.

I think you need to keep in mind the context, which is typically about assessing individual risk rather than individual value and dignity of human life. Sincere sympathies for your losses. It's especially tough to read about people who were unable to visit loved ones due to quarantine protocols during their final days.

[Corbi]

This is about fear mongering media, not the cremation, or India. About 4000 dead bodies being only a small fraction of natural inflow of dead bodies rate. Burning bodies being pictured by media as if there are soo many, all dead from covid.

They burn bodies on the banks of the Ganges river 24/7/365...it never stops.

And our media did the same thing when they reported on prisoners being forces to dig graves to bury all of the so called covid victims when the fact is these prisoners dig graves all the time and was nothing new.

[Corbi]

And if you want funky math consider this, the "official" number of covid deaths here in the USA is 570,000ish in over a year. Did a lot of those have conditions that hastened their demise and would a lot of them have died anyways? We will never know but what we do know is we should down this country & economy for over a year because of it yet we don't say nor do jack $hit over the 250,000ish deaths every year due to medical mistakes. We don't close down hospitals nor do we ban those responsible unless it's gross negligence. In 2 years we lose just as many due to mistakes as we have due tp covid and we just shrug.........why?

[OldFartTom]

Corbi, if you want to play with Math, as I posted above you should look at figures for "excess deaths" as that addresses exactly your point. The idea of many of those people would have died anyway is exactly what excess death figures are accounting for

Graph
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/e...aw-death-count

Explanation
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

Secondly, if I said that Duane Johnson is so muscular he's the last person in the world who should go to a gym (or diets, supplements etc). Hopefully you'd point out that my argument was backwards because training (and diet, supplements etc) are a major factor in his look.

Similarly, people say we don't need any vaccination, social distancing, infection controls because only xyz people died anyway. But that's backwards too because you'd need to decide if the control measures were justified or not based on estimates of deaths if nothing had been done to slow the spread. Now these estimates are very difficult to be accurate as it is near impossible to be exact to guess and they're often kicked around as political footballs, but it's very very hard to imagine the excess deaths wouldn't be anything but a lot higher if nothing had been done.

[x-trainer ben]

The excess death graph, the red, is very telling. Thanks Tom.