Countries with high death rates still (June 2022)

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Bird on a Fire
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Countries with high death rates still (June 2022)

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:21 pm

Unfashionable as it is to care.

Portugal with the most new cases of Covid-19
According to the statistical website Our World in Data, the daily average of new cases rose from 2,290 per million inhabitants last week to 2,580 this Monday, followed by Spain with 449, Greece with 351, Germany (338) and Italy (334).

Considering countries and territories with more than one million inhabitants, Taiwan has the highest average of new daily cases (3,420), followed by Portugal, Singapore (1,460), Australia (1,440), New Zealand (1,360) and Panama (727) .

With regard to new daily deaths attributed to Covid-19, Portugal maintains the highest in the European Union (3.19), practically unchanged since last week, when it was at 3.17, followed by Finland with 2.99, Spain with 2.15, Ireland with 1.72 and Greece with 1.56.
What's going on here?

Obviously some countries will be doing monitoring better than others.

And seeing most of the PIIGS out in force makes me suspect an ageing population is behind part of the per-capita trend.

Nevertheless, even looking at cumulative recorded deaths it doesn't seem sufficient to say that the less cautious countries already killed all their vulnerable.

It's not a competition or owt, but over here I still have to wear a mask on the bus to work, and it's been sunny enough to sit outside for months, so I guess I'm 100% arguing from incredulity when I wonder why more % portuguese are dying than Brits.
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Re: Countries with high death rates still (June 2022)

Post by lpm » Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:42 pm

Simple. Brits let it rip and died months ago.
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IvanV
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Re: Countries with high death rates still (June 2022)

Post by IvanV » Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:42 pm
Simple. Brits let it rip and died months ago.
When you look at cumulative excess deaths to date, then UK is very similar to Spain and Portugal. So the same proportion of additional people are already dead in each case. Other countries caught up with Britain because of Britain being advanced with its vaccination program.

So that doesn't wash as an explanation for Portugal vs UK or indeed Portugal vs much of the rest of western Europe.

And whilst Portugal/Italy/Greece do have relatively old populations, Germany has the oldest population in Europe, by a surprising large margin. Maybe age is the driver, or part of the driver, but it's not obvious. A lot of central Europe are not very different in age, even if NW Europe (Germany aside) is a bit younger than Spain and Portugal.


ETA: Though in fact the UK's instantaneous excess mortality rate (fortnight lag in data) is even higher than Portugal.

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Re: Countries with high death rates still (June 2022)

Post by lpm » Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:58 pm

IvanV wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:42 pm
Simple. Brits let it rip and died months ago.
When you look at cumulative excess deaths to date, then UK is very similar to Spain and Portugal. So the same proportion of additional people are already dead in each case. Other countries caught up with Britain because of Britain being advanced with its vaccination program.
Eaxctly. The cumulative death rate ends up similar, but Britain has it earlier.

UK got such as massive lead in deaths in March 2020 very few of the weaker players like Portugal have been able to catch up. They might be going faster now, but it's only slowly eating into the UK's lead.

The precise details depend on exact vaccination rate for >80s. But by now it's impossible for slower starters like Germany and France to catch up with the early sprinters of UK and Italy.
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Re: Countries with high death rates still (June 2022)

Post by shpalman » Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:59 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:58 pm
IvanV wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:42 pm
Simple. Brits let it rip and died months ago.
When you look at cumulative excess deaths to date, then UK is very similar to Spain and Portugal. So the same proportion of additional people are already dead in each case. Other countries caught up with Britain because of Britain being advanced with its vaccination program.
Eaxctly. The cumulative death rate ends up similar, but Britain has it earlier.

UK got such as massive lead in deaths in March 2020 very few of the weaker players like Portugal have been able to catch up.
Well, the UK did help Portugal out with that.
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Re: Countries with high death rates still (June 2022)

Post by IvanV » Thu Jun 02, 2022 11:44 am

lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:58 pm
IvanV wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 2:42 pm
Simple. Brits let it rip and died months ago.
When you look at cumulative excess deaths to date, then UK is very similar to Spain and Portugal. So the same proportion of additional people are already dead in each case. Other countries caught up with Britain because of Britain being advanced with its vaccination program.
Eaxctly. The cumulative death rate ends up similar, but Britain has it earlier.

UK got such as massive lead in deaths in March 2020 very few of the weaker players like Portugal have been able to catch up. They might be going faster now, but it's only slowly eating into the UK's lead.
The cumulative excess death rate being similar means that they did in fact catch up. That's what cumulative (over the pandemic) excess death rate means.

In fact, as I posted recently on another thread (see quote below), the current excess mortality, (current as opposed to cumulative, what is happening now, as opposed to the sum over the pandemic) in Britain is very high at 24% and higher than Portugal at 21%. We seem to be unaware that a lot of people are dying just now in Britain. Probably because we are no longer measuring and reporting Covid with any attempt at full coverage or reliability. So the statistic the media used to focus on is now unavailable/unreliable. So the only way you can know what might be really going on is the short term excess mortality, and that is looking dreadful, a fact which seems to have gone largely unremarked. Though there is a fortnight lag in that data and other indications are that it is improving rapidly.
IvanV wrote:
Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:11 pm
The other source of data, arguably the best source of data, is excess death rates. Those are much harder to hide. UK not doing very well on that measure just now (fortnight lag in data).

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