# Worldometer.



## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

I watch this site daily, Worldometer coronavirus.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

What I can't understand/extremely perplexing is the apparent epicentre appears to have controlled this outbreak well before the rest of the world saw/experienced the fall out. False reporting? Nth Korea rings a bell. How did they achieve this given 5 million visitors to that province when all this started? I am sure 2 or 3, perhaps 4 million went back home in that country and zilch.
What am I missing?

Cheers, Steve.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

I don't trust many of the stats on this virus.

Different places classify cases differently some require a positive test others based on clinical symptoms. For deaths some places are very strict on only classifying a hospital death who had tested positive for the virus others are counting home deaths that they cannot explain otherwise.

Some countries are doing widespread tests on request others even symptomatic people are having difficulty getting tested.


And that is on countries that want to report accurately, many countries are trying to minimize the extent of the virus in their populations. (Brazil and USA, I talking to you here)

It will make the jobs of the experts much more difficult to sort out what works and what doesn't work and how to control the spread of the virus.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

Agree but that doesn't change what my OP said. Example: Being an Aussie I watch closely what is happening in my home country as others do for their countries.
Testing regime in Oz, over 50K per million/ Population 25M
Deaths per million, 4
Cases per million, 280

The other country/place, tests. Not posted?/ Population 1.4B
Deaths per million, 3
Cases per million, 58

Something is seriously wrong with reporting, accountability and transparency.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

I heard from my brother in the UK that many deaths are being put down the covid to save time, covid deaths don't require an autopsy.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

So are these deaths tested/confirmed or laziness? I would have thought that the UK would be up front and doing the right thing.

Cheers, Steve.


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

bigpearl said:


> So are these deaths tested/confirmed or laziness? I would have thought that the UK would be up front and doing the right thing.
> 
> Cheers, Steve.


Not tested, just saving time and money.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

Sorry to hear that Gary, as another member said these type of things skew the numbers and potential remedial measures.

Cheers, Steve.


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

bigpearl said:


> Sorry to hear that Gary, as another member said these type of things skew the numbers and potential remedial measures.
> 
> Cheers, Steve.


The local news channels have started looking at the total deaths compared to the normal levels of deaths for any given time which shows a far different story so underreporting doesn't work. It will be interesting to see the total for the year and if it's much different from normal. We have had many deaths in our carehomes which on the face of it looking terrible, but are the peaks just people that would have died during the year just happened all at once.


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## hogrider (May 25, 2010)

Wife to husband......"Have I put on weight during the lockdown?"
Husband to wife......."You weren't exactly slim before the lockdown"

Husbands Cause of Death ........Covid19


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## Tukaram (Dec 18, 2014)

bigpearl said:


> Agree but that doesn't change what my OP said. Example: Being an Aussie I watch closely what is happening in my home country as others do for their countries.
> Testing regime in Oz, over 50K per million/ Population 25M
> Deaths per million, 4
> Cases per million, 280
> ...


I do not that method is not really a good measurement. If China was able to keep it in one region - then it would make more sense to compare the numbers of that region. I may be in the hundreds of millions of people, not the full 1.4 billion. If their cases were contained in a smaller area, then the number per million would be a lot higher. Might be more in line with other countries. 

Of course I do not know how well they contained it.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Gary D said:


> The local news channels have started looking at the total deaths compared to the normal levels of deaths for any given time which shows a far different story so underreporting doesn't work. It will be interesting to see the total for the year and if it's much different from normal. We have had many deaths in our carehomes which on the face of it looking terrible, but are the peaks just people that would have died during the year just happened all at once.


In the US if there are no more Covid deaths starting right now and the other causes of death remains as before, Covid will STILL be #7 this year. I suspect that even if no new cases it will hit #3 ( 170,000 deaths in a year) because there are 4 causes of death between 120,000 and 170,000 per year then big increase to cancer and heart conditions. (both 600,000 or more)

And that is not fake news.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm


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## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

Manitoba said:


> In the US if there are no more Covid deaths starting right now and the other causes of death remains as before, Covid will STILL be #7 this year. I suspect that even if no new cases it will hit #3 ( 170,000 deaths in a year) because there are 4 causes of death between 120,000 and 170,000 per year then big increase to cancer and heart conditions. (both 600,000 or more)
> 
> And that is not fake news.
> 
> https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm


And on top of that, in the U.S. Covid deaths are over counted because a covid death pays the hospital more than other deaths, and no matter what the real cause of death, if your autopsy shows covid, you are counted in covid deaths. So if you get hit by a bus and test positive for Covid, you get counted as a Covid death. Crazy, stupid and true. Especially applicable to old folks in nursing homes, who were already in the last days/weeks of their life.

This lady is from Illinois.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

There will always be issues in counting deaths in a pandemic. How do you classify someone without the virus that dies because no available medical care or who does not get treatment due to the pandemic?

How do you account for the reduced traffic fatalities due to people not traveling?

What about reduced deaths from pother causes because people practicing social distancing?

You are never going to get a 100% accurate count. Lots of deaths will be misreported, rational people will not be able to agree on a definition of what is considered a Covid death. Even with good enough definitions, accepted by all, it is often hard to put any particular death into the correct classification.

When you go international, the problems increase, it becomes much more difficult to get several nations to all agree on a set of definitions. Politics starts to play an important part in reporting the numbers, some want lower numbers for internal political reasons or national pride, some may want higher numbers to get more aid. 

To me the best indicator of how many people died as a result of the pandemic, but not necessarily because of the virus directly, is the excess death numbers. These appear to be running at 100 150% above normal in hard hit areas. That means that for every 2 people that died in normal times we are seeing a total of 4 or 5 deaths. Even that can have errors due to delays in reporting and other administrative issues in counting deaths. Determining the expected death rate will not be a single number but a range of numbers.

This is not the number that you would use to do medical decisions upon but it is the number that to me best describes the impact to society of the pandemic, including the responses to it.

However at the end of the day if the number of world wide deaths is 400,000 or 399,000 or 401,000 does the difference really matter from establishing public policy om how to control the virus? 

Should we throw up our hands and do nothing when we cannot say to an exact number how many people died from it? 

Remember all estimates come from models, all models are somewhat inaccurate but many are useful.

A road map is a model of a highway system. Do you throw out the map because you realize that when you scale up the line you have been following that it would be several kms wide and no way is the road that wide? Or do you accept that the scale of the width of the road is inaccurate but the map is a useful tool to get to where you want to go?


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Manitoba said:


> There will always be issues in counting deaths in a pandemic. How do you classify someone without the virus that dies because no available medical care or who does not get treatment due to the pandemic?
> 
> How do you account for the reduced traffic fatalities due to people not traveling?
> 
> ...


Comparing the death rate with the averages is a useful tool but for reasons you presented must under report besause you need to subtract the prevented deaths such as the large drop in road death etc. from the average, it's all a how long is a peice of string at the end of the day.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

The metric I think should be used to guide the lockdown management is the excess deaths. The lockdown will in addition to saving lives from less traffic deaths will cause deaths by not letting people easily get to medical treatment or for other issues not related to covid, domestic violence could increase in the lockdowns etc.

You really cannot use the excess death number to come up with medical responses to the virus, it is too crude a measure for that. 

All too often in making decisions on matters of public policy, the decision does not come down to saving everyone's lives or saving the lives of identifiable individuals but comes down to making the decision that will save the most lives overall (for a reasonable cost of course). 

Often these decisions have to be made in the absence of accurate information let alone full information. There will always be issues of having accurate measures and counts, but to go back to my road map analogy, you have to plan your trip based on the best map you have, You may know or believe that it is inaccurate or outdated but it is better than just driving off in a random direction, hoping that you arrive at your destination.

After it is all over you cannot blame anyone who acted in good faith for a death that some other measure would have prevented. You cannot put blame on any official for a death that occurs due to domestic violence brought on by the close quarters in the lock down if the overall measures were responsible for fewer overall deaths. You can never identify someone who would have died by the virus but who never got sick because of the lockdown.

You can look at the results from a lessons learned perspective. To stay with the domestic violence example, you could next time plan into the lock down some safeguards to prevent or reduce domestic violence, say making safe houses or providing some sort of pressure relief for the tensions that will build up. ( And I do believe that there will be additional lockdowns when the second wave or even the third wave starts up.)

But as is often the case in making public policy, you have to decide that a few deaths from domestic violence is preferable to many more due to the virus.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

Perhaps we should not look at the deaths overall but the confirmed cases,,,,,,,,,,, where there are no back handers claiming a C-19 death, as said I watch this site for the world events and not one or two countries that maybe taking advantage of a nasty situation. Money and opportunity aside the world is heading now into bigger problems than we had 2 or 3 months ago, the infection rate is escalating and obviously the death rate will follow. 

Today (not that it is a race) the world hit a new record for infections, over 180,000 new cases, previously under 150,000. A higher death toll will follow. While some countries have secured some measure of control it appears others either through arrogance, naivety or simple (indestructible) stupidity are facing an ever escalating problem that is going to further the economic hurt of all countries.

Opening borders to reinfection? Too soon, only my lowly opinion but the numbers don't look good, for my own country I know they will suffer the economic pains and keep the borders closed. The economic fallout will be worse than C-19.

Cheers, Steve.


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

Confirmed cases relies on testing and since every country is testing at a different rate and requires different criteria to be tested the confirmed case count will not be easy to compare across countries.


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Manitoba said:


> Confirmed cases relies on testing and since every country is testing at a different rate and requires different criteria to be tested the confirmed case count will not be easy to compare across countries.


And the easiest way to keep the cases to a few tens of tbousands is to do very little testing.


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## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

If you haven't seen it, CDC now has a fairly nice excess deaths chart where you can also see the numbers at the state level.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

The point is that regardless of how, when and why different countries test for C-19 for perhaps their own agendas (like some that report some few cases and no deaths for months), whatever, the numbers are rising, not declining, yes of course there is more testing now but that is giving a clearer picture of this event.

Cheers, Steve.


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## DonAndAbby (Jan 7, 2013)

bigpearl said:


> The point is that regardless of how, when and why different countries test for C-19 for perhaps their own agendas (like some that report some few cases and no deaths for months), whatever, the numbers are rising, not declining, yes of course there is more testing now but that is giving a clearer picture of this event.
> 
> Cheers, Steve.


On Worldmeter, I don't understand why they don't total the tests for the world and have the test/million pop. And add a few graphs on testing.


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