Tag: COVID

Preliminary results for 2021 All-Cause U.S. Mortality: 21% More Deaths than 2019, 2% More Deaths than 2020

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/preliminary-results-for-2021-all?s=w

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As you can see from the annotation on the graph, so far there have been 2% more deaths reported in 2021 compared to 2020. You can see that there had been a spike of deaths at the beginning of 2021, then a quiet spring/early summer. I did not extend my graph into 2022, but the heightened mortality of later/summer fall into winter has continued into winter at the beginning of 2022.

For the record, the 1% increase in deaths from 2018 to 2019 was pretty common before, driven by regular growth of the aging population of the U.S.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 3 April 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Alcohol-Related Deaths During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2790491

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The number of deaths involving alcohol increased between 2019 and 2020 (from 78 927 to 99 017 [relative change, 25.5%]), as did the age-adjusted rate (from 27.3 to 34.4 per 100 000 [relative change, 25.9%]) (Table). Comparatively, deaths from all causes had smaller relative increases in number (from 2 823 460 to 3 353 547 [18.8%]) and rate (from 938.3 to 1094.3 per 100 000 [16.6%]). Alcohol-related deaths accounted for 2.8% of all deaths in 2019 and 3.0% in 2020.

The Figure presents the number of alcohol-related deaths in 2019 and 2020 by month, with provisional data included for the first 6 months of 2021.

Rates increased for all age groups, with the largest increases occurring for people aged 35 to 44 years (from 22.9 to 32.0 per 100 000 [39.7%]) and 25 to 34 years (from 11.8 to 16.1 per 100 000 [37.0%]). Increases in rates were similar for females (from 13.7 to 17.5 per 100 000 [27.3%]) and males (from 42.1 to 52.6 per 100 000 [25.1%]) (Table).

The number of deaths with an underlying cause of alcohol-associated liver diseases increased from 24 106 to 29 504 (22.4%) and the number of deaths with an underlying cause of alcohol-related mental and behavioral disorders increased from 11 261 to 15 211 (35.1%). Opioid overdose deaths involving alcohol as a contributing cause increased from 8503 to 11 969 (40.8%). Deaths in which alcohol contributed to overdoses specifically on synthetic opioids other than methadone (eg, fentanyl) increased from 6302 to 10 032 (59.2%).

Author(s): Aaron M. White, PhD1; I-Jen P. Castle, PhD1; Patricia A. Powell, PhD1; et al

Publication Date: 18 Mar 2022

Publication Site: JAMA Network

More Americans 65 and Under Died from Alcohol-Related Causes Than Covid-19 in 2020, Study Finds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/more-americans-65-and-under-died-from-alcohol-related-causes-than-covid-19-in-2020-study-finds/

Excerpt:

Alcohol-related deaths increased 25 percent from 2019 to 2020, with alcohol-related deaths among adults younger than 65 outnumbering deaths from Covid-19 in the same age group in 2020, a new study found.

Alcohol-related deaths, including from liver disease and accidents, increased to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the year prior, according to the study performed by researchers with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

While 74,408 Americans ages 16 to 64 died of alcohol-related causes, 74,075 individuals under 65 died of Covid-19, the study found. The rate of increase for alcohol-related deaths in 2020 (25 percent) was greater than the rate of increase of deaths from all causes (16.6 percent).

The study shows just another unintended consequence of Covid-19 lockdowns and mitigation measures.

Author(s): Brittany Bernstein

Publication Date: 22 March 2022

Publication Site: National Review

Rise in Non-Covid-19 Deaths Hits Life Insurers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/rise-in-non-covid-19-deaths-hits-life-insurers-11645576252

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In earnings calls for the past two quarters, Globe Life Inc.,Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Primerica Inc. andReinsurance Group of America Inc. were among insurers noting higher non-Covid-19 deaths, compared with pre-pandemic baselines.

“The losses we are seeing continue to be elevated over 2019 levels due at least in part, we believe, to the pandemic and the existence of either delayed or unavailable healthcare,” Globe Life finance chief Frank Svoboda told analysts and investors earlier this month.

Among the non-coronavirus-specific claims are deaths from heart and circulatory issues and neurological disorders, he said. “We anticipate that they’ll start to be less impactful over the course of 2022 but we do anticipate that we’ll still at least see some elevated levels throughout the year,” he said.

Primerica executives similarly cautioned in their fourth-quarter call about outsize numbers of non-Covid-19 deaths in 2022. “Some of these will be the result of delayed medical care or the increased incidence of societal-related issues, such as the increased prevalence of substance abuse,” Chief Financial Officer Alison Rand said in an email interview.

From early stages of the pandemic, many medical professionals have raised concerns about Americans’ untreated health problems, as Covid-19 put stress on the nation’s healthcare system.

Author(s): Leslie Scism

Publication Date: 23 Feb 2022

Publication Site: WSJ

Geography of Mortality: State Ranking by Increase in Total Mortality and COVID Mortality, 2020-2021, Provisional

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/geography-of-mortality-state-ranking

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With this tile grid map, we can see that the two-year mortality experience has been horrible, even on an age-adjusted basis. I will be using age-adjusted death rates [using the standard 2000-reference-age-adjustment] for all the comparisons. The methodology is at the end of the post.

I warn against taking any meaning from North Carolina, as it has a data-reporting problem. Hawaii, however, really does have a low increase in mortality, and I believe it is credible that the mortality increase of the northeast is also low. I am not sure how credibly to take the increase in mortality of Wyoming, given its relatively small population.

However, we can see some patterns. In general, one has a “hot spot”, and then the increase falls off as you retreat from that peak. The large pattern is the high increase along the southern border — Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi — and then the next layer above is less bad, and so forth. There is the Wyoming peak, falls off around there. There is the midwest cluster – Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio. And then New York/New Jersey.

As well we know, the excess mortality is driven primarily by COVID, which I will get to in the next major section, but let me share some ranking tables.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 23 Feb 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Underdispersion in the reported Covid-19 case and death numbers may suggest data manipulations

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.11.22270841v1

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.11.22270841

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Abstract:

We suggest a statistical test for underdispersion in the reported Covid-19 case and death numbers, compared to the variance expected under the Poisson distribution. Screening all countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) dataset for evidence of underdispersion yields 21 country with statistically significant underdispersion. Most of the countries in this list are known, based on the excess mortality data, to strongly undercount Covid deaths. We argue that Poisson underdispersion provides a simple and useful test to detect reporting anomalies and highlight unreliable data.

Author(s): Dmitry Kobak

Publication Date: 13 Feb 2022

Publication Site: medRXiV

Are some countries faking their covid-19 death counts?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/02/25/are-some-countries-faking-their-covid-19-death-counts

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Irregular statistical variation has proven a powerful forensic tool for detecting possible fraud in academic research, accounting statements and election tallies. Now similar techniques are helping to find a new subgenre of faked numbers: covid-19 death tolls.

That is the conclusion of a new study to be published in Significance, a statistics magazine, by the researcher Dmitry Kobak. Mr Kobak has a penchant for such studies—he previously demonstrated fraud in Russian elections based on anomalous tallies from polling stations. His latest study examines how reported death tolls vary over time. He finds that this variance is suspiciously low in a clutch of countries—almost exclusively those without a functioning democracy or a free press.

Mr Kobak uses a test based on the “Poisson distribution”. This is named after a French statistician who first noticed that when modelling certain kinds of counts, such as the number of people who enter a railway station in an hour, the distribution takes on a specific shape with one mathematically pleasing property: the mean of the distribution is equal to its variance.

This idea can be useful in modelling the number of covid deaths, but requires one extension. Unlike a typical Poisson process, the number of people who die of covid can be correlated from one day to the next—superspreader events, for example, lead to spikes in deaths. As a result, the distribution of deaths should be what statisticians call “overdispersed”—the variance should be greater than the mean. Jonas Schöley, a demographer not involved with Mr Kobak’s research, says he has never in his career encountered death tallies that would fail this test.

….

The Russian numbers offer an example of abnormal neatness. In August 2021 daily death tallies went no lower than 746 and no higher than 799. Russia’s invariant numbers continued into the first week of September, ranging from 792 to 799. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that such a low-variation week would occur by chance once every 2,747 years.

Publication Date: 25 Feb 2022

Publication Site: The Economist

Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker?utm_campaign=a.coronavirus-special-edition&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=20220219&utm_content=ed-picks-article-link-6&etear=nl_special_6&utm_campaign=a.coronavirus-special-edition&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2/19/2022&utm_id=1055648

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As covid-19 has spread around the world, people have become grimly familiar with the death tolls that their governments publish each day. Unfortunately, the total number of fatalities caused by the pandemic may be even higher, for several reasons. First, the official statistics in many countries exclude victims who did not test positive for coronavirus before dying—which can be a substantial majority in places with little capacity for testing. Second, hospitals and civil registries may not process death certificates for several days, or even weeks, which creates lags in the data. And third, the pandemic has made it harder for doctors to treat other conditions and discouraged people from going to hospital, which may have indirectly caused an increase in fatalities from diseases other than covid-19.

Publication Date: Accessed 21 Feb 2022

Publication Site: The Economist

Dialysis Provider Expects COVID-19 Mortality to Stay High

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/02/11/dialysis-provider-expects-covid-19-mortality-to-stay-high/

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A company that provides care for people with serious kidney disease is assuming that COVID-19 mortality will be higher this quarter than it was in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Executives from DaVita, a Denver-based kidney dialysis provider, talked about their pandemic mortality outlook Thursday, on a conference call the company held to go over earnings for the latest quarter with securities analysts.

DaVita’s patient population is much older and sicker than any commercial life or health insurer’s enrollees, but the company’s experience could give insurers a preview of what might happen to the mortality level for their highest-risk insureds.

….

“While it’s too early to accurately forecast incremental mortality in 2022, given a significant uptick in infections in January, we expect COVID-driven mortality in the first quarter to be at or above what we experienced in Q4,” Joel Ackerman, DaVita’s chief financial officer, said on the earnings call.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 11 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

American Academy of Actuaries: Some Estimates of Pandemic-Related Life Expectancy Changes Can Be Misleading

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-academy-of-actuaries-some-estimates-of-pandemic-related-life-expectancy-changes-can-be-misleading-301481737.html

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The American Academy of Actuaries has released a new public policy paper and issue brief cautioning that clarification may be needed regarding estimated life expectancy showing significant decreases in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Reports of considerable decreases in life expectancy driven by COVID-19 may certainly garner attention, but they can potentially be misleading when based on a technical measure that assumes heightened pandemic mortality will persist indefinitely,” said Academy Senior Pension Fellow Linda K. Stone. “Service to the public is core to the American Academy of Actuaries’ mission, and we would be remiss not to share the actuarial profession’s expertise to help the public interpret such reports.”

The Academy’s new Essential Elements paper, Clarifying Misunderstanding of Life Expectancy and COVID-19, which is based on a December 2021 issue brief developed by the Academy’s Pension Committee, Interpreting Pandemic-Related Decreases in Life Expectancy, cites the potential of confusion arising from recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates of significant life expectancy decreases primarily due to COVID-19. The CDC used a measurement known as “period life expectancy” to estimate life expectancy changes in 2020, publishing in July 2021 a preliminary estimate of a 1.5-year year-over-year decrease, and in December 2021 a final estimate of a 1.8-year decrease. However, the CDC’s methodology and the estimated decreases assume that the heightened mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2020 year will persist indefinitely—an unlikely scenario.

Author(s): American Academy of Actuaries

Publication Date: 14 Feb 2022

Publication Site: PRNEWSWIRE

Clarifying Misunderstanding of Life Expectancy and COVID-19

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.actuary.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/EELifeExpectancy.pdf

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Basically, there are two life expectancy measures—
period life expectancy and cohort life expectancy.
Period life expectancy generally is based on the
assumption that current rates of death continue
indefinitely. Cohort life expectancy is more heavily
influenced by long-term expectations. Period life
expectancies can vary dramatically from one year to the
next when there is a short-term increase in mortality.

….

Period life expectancy can be a
useful metric for year-over-year
comparisons in normal times but
tends to exaggerate the effect of
nonrecurring events. Cohort life
expectancy is likely what most people
envision when thinking about the
concept of life expectancy because
cohort life expectancy is an estimate
of the actual number of years
that a typical individual might be
expected to live based on reasonable
expectations for future conditions.
For this reason, cohort life expectancy
is the measure used by the Actuaries
Longevity Illustrator that can help
individuals estimate how long they
might live.

Publication Date: Feb 2022

Publication Site: American Academy of Actuaries

COVID-19 cases rise every day in Denmark, but the country is confident it can live without restrictions for now

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-13/denmark-has-taken-living-with-covid-to-a-whole-new-level/100812736

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At the beginning of February, the Danish government decided COVID-19 was no longer a “socially critical disease” and it scrapped all restrictions.

Danes aren’t even legally required to quarantine.

Denmark was among the first countries in the world to implement a lockdown, in March 2020, amid the rapid spread of COVID-19.

It also invested heavily in genomic sequencing to track new variants like the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron, which is now dominant in Denmark and even more transmissible than the original strain.

And when the Omicron variant began spreading rapidly last year, Denmark reimposed restrictions on workplaces, hospitality and schools in December.

But Tyra Grove Krause, the chief epidemiologist at Denmark’s State Serum Institute, said it also sparked a major rethink in the country’s approach to COVID-19.

Author(s): Nick Dole

Publication Date: 12 Feb 2022

Publication Site: ABC News Australia