Where can I find stats on how many people are dying OF Covid, not WITH it?

[CaptainHaddock]

I know this is an issue that has provoked much discussion over the course of the pandemic but I can't find a thread that address the issue specifically.

As we know, the government's daily death toll is based on the number of people who've died who tested positive for Covid-19 within 28 days, which also means of course that in the majority of cases Covid was not the main cause of death. What I want to know is how many people have died solely of Covid-19, ie those who had no underlying health conditions. I can find that out on a daily basis by checking the website of the average newspaper, but I want to see the longer term trend and it would be fiddly and time consuming to check each day individually.

Yesterday for example, in England's hospitals there were no Covid-19 deaths at all; 91 people died in hospitals in England, but patients were aged between 44 and 95, and all had known underlying health conditions.

I believe if the "how many people have died of Covid-19" figure was widely available people would be a lot less fearful and a lot more rational.

 

[yorkie]

You won't be able to find that information; in any case the answer will generally be around zero, given that people will almost certainly have some other condition (it may not yet be known).

For example, last month someone I know was hospitalised with a rhinovirus (along with a few coronaviruses, there are dozens of rhinoviruses which are collectively referred to as the common "cold") but it highlighted the fact that she had an underlying health condition that was not previously known. There is a myth that people don't get seriously ill with colds, but that's not universally true.

Meanwhile, all those I know who did test positive for Sars-Cov-2 had mild, or no, symptoms (which is not unexpected) and were able to continue working.

 

[Domh245]

The "weekly" file on this page gives a breakdown for hospitals. 1,468 of the 31,427 (4.6%) had no pre-existing condition whatsoever

There's also this page which analyses all excess mortality by condition, but I don't know if you can extract a number of "no pre-existing conditions" from it

edit to add: FWIW though, dying "with it" isn't the same as having pre-existing conditions

 

[kristiang85]

This data was released from Italy in early October: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1110906/comorbidities-in-covid-19-deceased-patients-in-italy/

Only 3.9% of covid deaths in Italy had no comorbidities, whilst 61.% had at least 3 or more underlying conditions.

You would assume the data will be fairly similar here.

The only caveat is that I'm not sure what defines a pre existing condition - is it something that would contribute to death, or could it be anything on a medical record that is irrelevant.

 

[yorkie]

The "weekly" file on this page gives a breakdown for hospitals. 1,468 of the 31,427 (4.6%) had no pre-existing condition whatsoever

Do we know the age profile of that 4.6%, ie. could they be counting people who die through old age? I also would question if they can be absolutely certain they had no condition whatsoever. I recall some cases early on which were claimed to be with no other conditions, where it was subsequently found there was a pre-existing condition.

 

[Domh245]

Do we know the age profile of that 4.6%, ie. could they be counting people who die through old age?

Of those with no pre-existing conditions

0-19: 4 (19%)
20-39: 35 (16%)
40-59: 276 (12%)
60-79: 606 (5%)
80+: 547 (3%)

%age is of all deaths in that age range, eg for 0-19 there were 21 deaths total in hospitals, so 4 of them having no pre-existing is 19%

 

[big_rig]

Do we know the age profile of that 4.6%, ie. could they be counting people who die through old age? I also would question if they can be absolutely certain they had no condition whatsoever. I recall some cases early on which were claimed to be with no other conditions, where it was subsequently found there was a pre-existing condition.

I don’t have the link I’m afraid but I have read that there is a total of ~30 people under 40 with no known pre-existing conditions (but they may have well have had them) who have died in hospital from covid in England.

98.5-99% of all deaths are aged over 45 as we know as well, so 30 out of 1,400 odd is probably a bit high really.

 

[yorkie]

Yes it's pretty clear to me that there are likely to be other conditions that have gone undiagnosed.

We are talking really small numbers anyway when you consider that several million people have been exposed to the virus in the UK (estimated to be at least 3.4m in England alone based on antibodies alone)

Study suggests 3.4m people in England have had Covid-19 | ITV News

The research was conducted with more than 100,000 volunteers using a finger prick test at home. | ITV National News

www.itv.com

Some 3.4 million people in England have been infected with [Sars-Cov-2] a figure far higher than previous estimates, a study suggests.

The results come from the world’s largest home testing programme to find antibodies for the coronavirus, a study involving more than 100,000 volunteers and carried out by Imperial College London.

Conducted with the use of a simple finger-prick home test said to be easy and accurate enough for mass surveillance studies, the programme suggested 6% of England’s population had already been infected with Covid-19 by July 13.

So 3.4 million just looking at antibodies, ignoring T-cell immunity; you are looking at multiple millions more exposed to the virus.

The true infection death rate must be absolutely tiny, when you consider the numbers involved.

The more people who are exposed to it, the more people with undiagnosed pre-existing conditions will be picked up.

Also, if you consider someone becoming ill with another condition, but being "with" Sars-Cov-2, the more people who are infected with the virus, even if it is not affecting them, the more people will die with Sars-Cov-2, no matter how good treatments for Sars-Cov-2 are and this will apply even if people are asymptomatic.

The term death "with Covid" is itself misleading, as people who have no Covid19 symptoms, but merely test positive for the Sars-Cov-2 virus, and die of something else, are still counted.

The other week, one of our cleaners told me the sad story of a lady she knew, in her 80s, who had a fall. She was not discovered for 24 hours and was very weak. Sadly she did not survive. She tested positive for Sars-Cov-2 but did not die from it. However she did count in the stats as "died with Covid". People need to bear this in mind when looking at the figures.

 

[Domh245]

The other week, one of our cleaners told me the sad story of a lady she knew, in her 80s, who had a fall. She was not discovered for 24 hours and was very weak. Sadly she did not survive. She tested positive for Sars-Cov-2 but did not die from it. However she did count in the stats as "died with Covid". People need to bear this in mind when looking at the figures.

Presumably she counted for the daily announced stats but won't have been included in the ONS statistics, unless whoever produced her death certificate felt that COVID was a factor in her death. I wouldn't have thought they would though

 

[yorkie]

Presumably she counted for the daily announced stats but won't have been included in the ONS statistics, unless whoever produced her death certificate felt that COVID was a factor in her death. I wouldn't have thought they would though

I'm not sure on that level of detail.

What's the gap between the daily announced stats and ONS statistics?

If someone experiences two factors, both of which would be survivable without the other, and one of the was Covid-19, presumably that would count in all statistics, despite not meeting @CaptainHaddock 's criteria?

 

[big_rig]

There is a fascinating tool from the University of Oxford where you can plug in risk factors (age, weight, pre-existing conditions, care home or privately housed etc) and it gives you a chance of death from covid (my reading it was strictly from - the weighting is applied on your ‘base’ health).

I put in my details and those of a hypothetical 90 year old with a bad heart, cancer and dementia in a care home. My chance of death was roughly 1 in 200,000, theirs was...1 in 14.

QCovid™ risk calculator

qcovid.org

QCovid® is an evidence-based model that uses a range of factors such as age, sex, ethnicity and existing medical conditions to predict risk of death or hospitalisation from COVID-19.

 

[yorkie]

I have just done that too, mine was also very low. We are at far more risk from other things in life and we must not let scaremongers make us believe otherwise.

However I think my chances will be even lower than the tool estimates as it does not take into account factors such as living a healthy lifestyle (I am currently doing about 4 hours a week of intensive exercise, in addition to non-intensive exercise such as walking and cycling) and I very rarely get ill with viruses despite obviously being exposed to viruses on a regular basis.

 

[Domh245]

I'm not sure on that level of detail.

What's the gap between the daily announced stats and ONS statistics?

Quickly spot checking back as far as mid September, the ONS numbers are coming out marginally higher (15, 6, 16 higher for weeks 39-41 respectively), which is perhaps not surprising as the 28 day cutoff means that somebody who is on a ventilator for 4 weeks before passing gets excluded, and there's probably more of those than there are the 'incidental' covid deaths like the sad example you gave

 

[Freightmaster]

We are talking really small numbers anyway when you consider that several million people have been exposed to the virus in the UK (estimated to be at least 3.4m in England alone based on antibodies alone)

Study suggests 3.4m people in England have had Covid-19 | ITV News

The research was conducted with more than 100,000 volunteers using a finger prick test at home. | ITV National News

www.itv.com

So 3.4 million just looking at antibodies, ignoring T-cell immunity; you are looking at multiple millions more exposed to the virus.

The true infection death rate must be absolutely tiny, when you consider the numbers involved.

Quite. Look at this chart showing differing estimates of current immunity between SAGE and 'reality':

(chart taken from https://lockdownsceptics.org/what-sage-got-wrong/ )


The pie chart on the right is only a broad estimate for the county as a whole to prove a point,
and obviously will look different for places such as Manchester, but the general idea is that
'immunity' comes in several different forms and is therefore hard to reliably quantity...









MARK

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Very useful that calculator - I am pretty low.

Absolute risk (a)	Absolute risk with no risk factors (b)	Relative risk (a/b)
COVID associated death	0.0176%	1 in 5682	0.0254%	1 in 3937	0.6929
COVID associated hospital admission	0.082%	1 in 1220	0.1067%	1 in 937	0.7685

 

[richw]

I found the figure the other day. It was around 1500. I can’t remember the exact figure.
I also found The average age of those (Approx) 1500 was 83.
On the balance of probability those (approx) 1500 probably had an undiagnosed condition. As there is no post-mortems etc at present there wouldn’t be any investigation into the death.

 

[Busaholic]

I'm not all sure that trying to prove that only a (comparatively) small number of people might have died 100% certainly from Covid 19 means anything of any consequence to the world at large. 'Something' medically related has to appear on a death certificate, even in cases of victims of violence or self-harm. One of my grandfathers died six months shy of his 100th birthday in the general hospital to which he'd been transferred from his own home the day before with a slight cold, this being the fourth night in his entire life spent in a hospital bed, the other nights relating to recovery from hernia and prostate ops, and on his death certificate was the word 'pneumonia'. The latter was induced by his insistence that the window in the single room in which he'd been placed be left open all night: he was a Yorkshireman who detested 'fuss' (I've inherited this trait!) and he hated the idea of getting a telegram from the Queen. In reality, he died of 'old age' when he indicated he'd just had enough of life, thank you. Saying 'only' 3.9% or whatever figure plucked from the air is the true figure of Covid deaths will not persuade anyone other than straightforward Covid deniers that the disease doesn't need to be taken seriously, which is NOT to say that we have to act like headless chickens in letting every aspect of life we've grown used to be decimated or destroyed in order to try to counteract the virus.

 

[trainophile]

When they say, as they just did on my local news programme, that "nearly one person in every 125 tested has proved positive", isn't that a bit meaningless as presumably they only got tested because they had symptoms, or thought they had?

 

[deltic]

The ONS weekly death figures report the number who have Covid-19 on their death certificate as cause of death (it may be one of a number of factors listed.) In the first few months of the pandemic they published a comparison between the government announced figure and death registration figure - the latter was generally higher

 

[richw]

When they say, as they just did on my local news programme, that "nearly one person in every 125 tested has proved positive", isn't that a bit meaningless as presumably they only got tested because they had symptoms, or thought they had?

Can’t get a test unless symptoms or told to have one by track and trace

 

[Horizon22]

This isn't an issue for just Covid either though - many "causes" of death are actually a combination of various issues.

 

[Bikeman78]

I'm not all sure that trying to prove that only a (comparatively) small number of people might have died 100% certainly from Covid 19 means anything of any consequence to the world at large. 'Something' medically related has to appear on a death certificate, even in cases of victims of violence or self-harm. One of my grandfathers died six months shy of his 100th birthday in the general hospital to which he'd been transferred from his own home the day before with a slight cold, this being the fourth night in his entire life spent in a hospital bed, the other nights relating to recovery from hernia and prostate ops, and on his death certificate was the word 'pneumonia'.

When my granny passed away in her late 90s, by all accounts she laid down on her bed, closed her eyes and stopped breathing shortly after. I don't know what they put on her death certificate but that sounds like the best way to go.

 

[DB]

This isn't an issue for just Covid either though - many "causes" of death are actually a combination of various issues.

Normally it doesn't matter that much though, whereas with this it does because it's fuelling the hysteria.