Tag: excess mortality

The 5 Highest-Population States’ Current COVID-19 Mortality Picture

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/02/07/the-5-highest-population-states-current-covid-19-mortality-picture/

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Excerpt:

Life insurers had hoped that vaccination campaigns, social distancing efforts and the effects of past COVID-19 infections on people’s immune systems would start to reduce the impact of the pandemic on people with commercial life insurance and other commercial insurance products.

While the fall 2021 surge was underway, information about deaths and life insurance claims emerged slowly. Some life insurers suggested that the fall surge seemed to be spiking hard but ending quickly.

Now, Unum Group, Lincoln Financial, MetLife and other life insurers are saying that the fall surge did cause big increases in the ratio of death benefits to life insurance premiums. At Unum, for example, the ratio increased to 98.3% in the latest quarter, from 71.7% in the fourth quarter of 2019, before the pandemic began.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 7 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Preliminary Semiannual Estimates

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/preliminary-estimates/

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Excerpt:

Deaths up 16% as mileage starts to rebound in first six months of 2021

The National Safety Council (NSC) estimate of total motor-vehicle deaths for the first six months of 2021 is 21,450, up 16% from 18,480 in 2020 and up 17% from 18,384 in 2019. Mileage in the first six months of 2021 rebounded 13% from COVID lows in 2020 but still lags 2019 mileage by nearly 6%. The estimated mileage death rate in 2021 is 1.43 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, up 3% from 1.39 in 2020 and up 24% from 1.15 in 2019.

A medically consulted injury is an injury serious enough that a medical professional was consulted. Based on the current medically consulted injury-to-death ratio of 114:1, and rounded to the nearest thousand, the estimated number of nonfatal medically consulted injuries resulting from crashes during in the first six months of 2021 was 2,445,000.

The estimated cost of motor-vehicle deaths, injuries, and property damage in the first half of 2021 was $241.9 billion.

Publication Date: accessed 8 Feb 2022

Publication Site: National Safety Council

Understanding the Covid Odds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.city-journal.org/understanding-the-covid-odds

Excerpt:

Those odds can be gauged from a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, published by the Centers for Disease Control. They tracked more than 1 million vaccinated adults in America over most of last year, including the period when the Delta variant was surging, and classified victims of Covid according to risk factors such as being over 65, being immunosuppressed, or suffering from diabetes or chronic diseases of the heart, kidney, lungs, liver or brain.

The researchers report that none of the healthy people under 65 had a severe case of Covid that required treatment in an intensive-care unit. Not a single one of these nearly 700,000 people died, and the risk was miniscule for most older people, too. Among vaccinated people over 65 without an underlying medical condition, only one person died. In all, there were 36 deaths, mostly among a small minority of older people with a multitude of comorbidities: the 3 percent of the sample that had at least four risk factors. Among everyone else, a group that included elderly people with one or two chronic conditions, there were just eight deaths among more than 1.2 million people, so their risk of dying was about 1 in 150,000.

Those are roughly the same odds that in the course of a year you will die in a fire, or that you’ll perish by falling down stairs. Going anywhere near automobiles is a bigger risk: you’re three times more likely during a given year to be killed while riding in a car, and also three times more likely to be a pedestrian casualty. The 150,000-to-1 odds of a Covid death are even longer than the odds over your lifetime of dying in an earthquake or being killed by lightning.

Author(s): John Tierney

Publication Date: 6 Feb 2022

Publication Site: City Journal

Soaring US road deaths reflect the same lawlessness as murder surge does

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://nypost.com/2022/02/06/soaring-road-deaths-reflect-lawlessness-in-the-us/

Excerpt:

Yet even as roads have grown more crowded, this trend has continued: 2020’s total 38,680 traffic deaths were 7.2% above 2019’s.

For the first nine months of 2021, road mileage driven wasn’t even 2% below 2019 levels. The 2020 reason for higher traffic deaths disappeared. People could no longer drive at 100 miles per hour because there was no one else around.

Yet traffic deaths were nearly 18% higher than two years before. The 12% increase between the first nine months of 2020 and 2021 was the highest hike in that period in recorded history, say federal regulators. 

When 2021’s full numbers are in, they’ll likely exceed 42,400 traffic deaths — the worst total in 16 years. Traffic deaths are supposed to fall every year, as road design and cars grow safer (although bigger cars are bad for pedestrians).

…..

This isn’t a universal phenomenon: Road deaths are down in France and Britain from 2019.

Author(s): Nicole Gelinas

Publication Date: 6 Feb 2022

Publication Site: NY Post

Mortality Nuggets: Videos on Suicide Rate Trends, Society of Actuaries Report, and Fixing Their Graph

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-nuggets-videos-on-suicide

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Excerpt:

  • I highlighted a few of the cause-of-death trends. In particular, COVID (which, obviously, is biased more towards the old), and external causes of death: homicide, suicide, and accidents (which includes drug overdoses and motor vehicle accidents).
  • There are basically too many things going on in this graph, so there aren’t a lot of good choices for either me or the SOA. What I did was to pick four of the data series to highlight with data labels, as noted above (and I also slapped one data label on dementia for the oldest age group, just because). I am in the middle of a series going through how that external causes of death changed in 2020 — in particular, accidents and homicides went up, and really affected mortality for adults under age 45, plus male teens.
  • Yeah, check out heart disease and cancer (bottom of the graph). Ain’t old age great?

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 6 Feb 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm

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Excerpt:

This data visualization presents provisional counts for drug overdose deaths based on a current flow of mortality data in the National Vital Statistics System. Counts for the most recent final annual data are provided for comparison. National provisional counts include deaths occurring within the 50 states and the District of Columbia as of the date specified and may not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period. Provisional counts are often incomplete and causes of death may be pending investigation (see Technical notes) resulting in an underestimate relative to final counts. To address this, methods were developed to adjust provisional counts for reporting delays by generating a set of predicted provisional counts (see Technical notes).

Author(s): Ahmad FB, Rossen LM, Sutton P

Publication Date: accessed 5 Feb 2022

Publication Site: CDC

U.S. Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/01/science/covid-deaths-united-states.html

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Excerpt:

“We’ve finally started getting to a stage where most of the population has been exposed either to a vaccine or the virus multiple times by now,” said Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Referring to American and European death rates, he continued, “I think we’re now likely to start seeing things be more synchronized going forward.”

Still, the United States faces certain steep disadvantages, ones that experts worry could cause problems during future Covid waves, and even the next pandemic. Many Americans have health problems like obesity and diabetes that increase the risk of severe Covid.

Author(s): Benjamin Mueller and Eleanor Lutz

Publication Date: 1 Feb 2022

Publication Site: NYT

Illinois data: Deaths of people 18 to 49 soar in 2020-21; most of excess not COVID-related

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/illinois-data-deaths-of-people-18-to-49-soar-in-2020-21-most-of-excess/article_091b8228-807c-11ec-b235-239935b60883.html#new_tab

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Nearly 27% more people ages 18 to 49 in Illinois have died in each of the past two years than in each of the three years prior. COVID-related deaths in that age group account for just a minority of the excess deaths.

Data the Illinois Department of Public Health provided The Center Square show 29% more fatalities in 2021 and 24% more in 2020 when compared to the average for the three years prior for those ages 18 to 49. Combined for 2020 and 2021, the total number of deaths among that demographic is 21,511.

…..

COVID-related deaths in the past two years totals about 1,700 for that age group. Subtracting the 1,700 COVID deaths from the excess death total of 4,467 leaves 2,767 excess deaths for 2020 and 2021 that are not categorized by IDPH, meaning the causes of death for the excess 2,767 are not described.

…..

While COVID-19 is listed as the third leading cause of death in Illinois for all ages in 2020, the leading cause of deaths IDPH lists for those 18 to 44 is accidents, assaults, suicides and heart disease. COVID-19 is not listed as a leading cause of death at all for ages 18 to 24. COVID-19 does show up at No. 6 for those 25 to 44, or 370 out of a total of 6,439.

Author(s): Greg Bishop

Publication Date: 28 Jan 2022

Publication Site: The Center Square

U.S. Population Mortality Observations – Updated with 2020 Experience

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.soa.org/resources/research-reports/2022/us-population-mortality/

pdf: https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/files/resources/research-report/2022/population-mortality-observation.pdf

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The overall age-adjusted mortality rate (both sexes) from all causes of death recorded the historically highest increase of published records dating back to 1900 of 16.8% in 2020, following a 1.2% decrease in 2019. The increase eclipsed the size of recent years’ annual volatility and exceeded the 11.7% increase in
1918 that occurred during the Spanish influenza pandemic. When COVID deaths are removed, all other
CODs’ (Cause of Death) combined mortality increased by 4.9%, which was last exceeded by a 5.6% increase in 1936.

All other CODs featured in this report had increased 2020 mortality. In many instances, the single year
mortality increases were the largest for the span of this report. Heart disease and Alzheimer’s/Dementia
had 4.7% and 7.8% increases, respectively. Other physiological CODs with lower death rates had double-digit increases. Diabetes, liver and hypertension had increases of 14.9%, 16.0% and 13.3%, respectively.
The external CODs of assaults and opioid overdoses had extreme increases at ages 15-24 of 35.9% and
61.2%, respectively.

Author(s):

Jerome Holman, FSA, MAAA, RJH Integrated Solutions, LLC
Cynthia S. MacDonald, FSA, MAAA, Society of Actuaries Research Institute

Publication Date: Jan 2022

Publication Site: SOA

Mortality Nuggets: Videos on 2020 Death Rates by Cause of Death, Querying WONDER, and Actuarial News

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-nuggets-videos-on-2020

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Excerpt:

Actuarial News is a website Stu created for me to use as a place to collect all the articles, websites, data sources, etc. that I like to use for my research and writing. I tend to develop ideas over long periods, and I prefer my selections over trying to use regular search.

As noted in the video, I used to use the old Actuarial Outpost (RIP) as a repository for my articles on public pensions and finance, but now I use Actuarial.News.

By the way, for any readers seeking actuarial discussion as once was provided by the old Outpost, check out goActuary. I have a thread on spreadsheet screwups and one on non-pandemic mortality, for instance.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 25 Jan 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

A LITERATURE REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS
OF THE EFFECTS OF LOCKDOWNS ON
COVID-19 MORTALITY

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

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Abstract:

This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical
evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality. Lockdowns are
defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI).
NPIs are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that
limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel. This study
employed a systematic search and screening procedure in which 18,590 studies are identified
that could potentially address the belief posed. After three levels of screening, 34 studies
ultimately qualified. Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis.
They were separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-placeorder (SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. An analysis of each of these three groups support
the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More
specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only
reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing
COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence
of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.
While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects,
they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In
consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy
instrument.

Author(s): Jonas Herby, Lars Jonung, and Steve H. Hanke

Publication Date: January 2022

Publication Site: Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics

Top Causes of Death by Age Group, 2020: Death Rates

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/top-causes-of-death-by-age-group-0bf?justPublished=true

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Excerpt:

I present the rates in percentages, as opposed to the more traditional number (which is per 100,000 people per year), because I do not want people to get this confused with the raw counts of people who died. Yes, that does mean there are a lot of small numbers. For children, I even had to extend some out to 4 decimal places to get a significant figure.

In adulthood, natural causes of death tend to increase in rate with increasing age. More below.

External causes (accidents, homicides, and suicide) will have the similar rates over broad ages but drop dramatically in ranking with increasing age — as the natural causes become more likely to occur.

COVID has a similar pattern in mortality as heart disease — indeed, the heart disease death rate is approximately twice that of the COVID death rate for the entire age range from 15 to 85+ on the table.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 22 Jan 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack