The number of people dying is not the same as in any other year

Key point:<p>&gt; The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 6 November 2020 was 14.3% higher than the five-year average.<p>But it is good to know that the measures to control COVID-19 are also suppressing flu and pneumonia (though not enough to make up for COVID-19 mortality).

what these numbers and the media and your average joe terrified of dying seem to miss is something thats qualitative, not quantitative: quality of life. length of life could be enhanced for many, safe and securely shackled to a bed in a quasi-coma with a feeding tube down your throat. such a person may very well ask to die. it pains me to see ederly and terminally ill people saying goodbye to loved ones on zoom connections. to me, that is a crime against humanity, in the name of safety and security. there are others. we are in a difficult place, to be sure, but <i>how we live matters</i>. but nobody talks about this very basic concept without fear of being labelled a &quot;covidiot&quot;.

They keep referencing 5 year average instead of what the maximum deaths were in any of the past 5 years. There were some flu death years that were pretty bad but never got any attention so wonder if that is why they don&#x27;t mention how it compares to one of the maximums.

This really depends on how far back you look. I was looking at the data for Sweden the other day. If you look at the last 20 years in terms of overall mortality, 2020 is right around the middle: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;TLennhamn&#x2F;status&#x2F;1295269941109764096" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;TLennhamn&#x2F;status&#x2F;1295269941109764...</a><p>It&#x27;s certainly more than last year, or the year before that, but it&#x27;s not an outlier for the last two decades.

The part I found interesting was the number of death from flu and pneumonia:<p>5 year average: 28,140 deaths<p>2020 so far: 18,325 deaths (does not include November and December!)<p>COVID 2020: 53,675 deaths<p>So while it does seem to be killing some people who would&#x27;ve died from the flu&#x2F;pneumonia anyway, it&#x27;s still nearly double the 5 year average which would make it one hell of a bad flu strain.

And don&#x27;t forget the long-term health impacts for those that survive. This will have implications for years to come.

The interesting question, to me, is whether we will see a visible spike in all-cause mortality for, let&#x27;s say, 2020-2025.<p>COVID-19 is particularly hard on the elderly, which is by no means an inevitable fact about epidemics. Every person who dies of this disease would have lived longer, which makes their death a tragedy: but how much longer?<p>Cards on the table: my suspicion is that we won&#x27;t. I could be wrong, particularly if recovering from the disease shortens lifespans for an appreciable number of patients. We&#x27;ll know when we know.

Maddening that they don&#x27;t manage to present clear data points - deliberately, or because they don&#x27;t know any better?<p>Like what is the point of comparing flu deaths between January and August with Covif219 deaths in the same time period? Perhaps those two diseases have different seasons? (Maybe not, but they way they present it, it is impossible to know). Perhaps all the flu deaths happen in December and all the Corona deaths in March? (Just an example). Also for example Sweden had exceptionally few deaths last years, leaving exceptionally many people &quot;ripe to die&quot; this year (what Marginal Revolution calls the &quot;Dry Cinder Effect&quot;).<p>Also comparing to averages can also be very misleading. It is in fact to be expected that any given year deviates from the average. It would be very odd if every year was exactly on the average.<p>Then in the middle of comparing death rates of previous years, they seem to jump to absolute counting of Covid19 deaths again (&quot;The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show&quot;). When the whole point of looking a death rates of previous years is to establish how many excess deaths were really attributable to Covid19.

Might be true, and likely is for England, but not for Wales. The data presented on this website doesn&#x27;t show the flu death curves for 2017 - 2020, only the spike of this year. And you cannot compare a spike with a 5 year average. You either compare the absolute numbers or the curves.<p>Here are some proper curves where you can see the UK (England) problem: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.euromomo.eu&#x2F;graphs-and-maps&#x2F;#z-scores-by-country" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.euromomo.eu&#x2F;graphs-and-maps&#x2F;#z-scores-by-country</a><p>And compare to other countries with a similar failing nursing system, to the ones with a proper one.

This year has brought major lifestyle changes to a lot of people. Can you tell how much this affects mortality?

Hopefully they can redo this article with more countries stats, I would love to know USA, China, India, etc

CDC&#x27;s numbers as of today, scroll down to the &quot;Weekly number of deaths (from all causes)&quot; section<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;nchs&#x2F;nvss&#x2F;vsrr&#x2F;covid19&#x2F;excess_deaths.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;nchs&#x2F;nvss&#x2F;vsrr&#x2F;covid19&#x2F;excess_deaths.htm</a>

The worst thing is: healthcare in my country is so focused on some bogus COVID &quot;pandemic&quot; that it starts to neglect other branches of medicine. Yes, there will be more deaths this year than average, but those people won&#x27;t die from coronavirus, they will die from untreated cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc.