Excess Deaths in US-2022

Before I get on with it, a bit of a rant.

We should all know the difference between Absolute and Relative Risk.   While an increase in Relative Risk might be quite large,  the Absolute Risk increase might be quite small. We saw that in the Vaccine trails which reported relative VE of >90% but the absolute VE was less than 2%.

The same is true with Excess Death.  At a population level, your odds are dying each year are about 1%. If the Relative increase in mortality is 15% , meaning Excess Deaths are running at 15%, the absolute increase in your chances of dying are 0.15% , and your risk of  dying this year is 1.15%.

Worrisome, but not very noticeable within small populations

We heard working age people who happen to have life insurance had a 36% increase in death in the 3rd quarter of 2021,  which apparently was anonymously confirmed for August 2022, and some bozo interviewing Ed Dowd screeched that this was 2,600 extra deaths per day if applied at the population level.  This is BS because working age adults who have a job and have life insurance die at very low rates. The vast majority of deaths are in elderly and those who are too sick to work (and many without life insurance)

For example

Chance of Dying by Age this year

20 year old 0.1079%

30 year old 0.1795%

40 year old 0.2580%

60 year old 1.1452%

80 year old 5.6237%

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

So using 40 yo as the median, a relative 36% increased risk of death means an absolute increase of 0.093%. So basically 1/400 40 year olds are expected to die in a normal year and an additional 1/1000 40 year olds will die if that 36% applies equally to all ages within the working age group (doubtful)

This does not mean we should ignore Excess Deaths. They are important.

I do wish more sub stackers would focus on US Excess Deaths. CDC provisionals Death Data is quite useful and clear relating to overall Excess Deaths although there is a bit of a time lag before the deaths in a given month are completely counted

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

                          2022 DEATHS

          COVID.   %.   Total ED.   NC-ED

Sep.   10,767    112.  26,479    15,712

Aug.   13,842.   114.   31,624.    17,782

July.    13,233.  115.  33,898.    20,665

June.   9,441.   112.   26,597.    17,156

May.    7,591.    110.   23,147.    15,556

April.    6,233.   105.  11,716.      5,483

Mar.   15,577.    106.  15,183.      -394

Feb.    50,154.   123.  54,212.     4,058

Jan.     83,876.  137.   99,867    15,991

Non-Covid Excess Deaths (NC-ED). 112,009

Covid. Deaths                                       210,714

Total Excess Deaths (Total ED)          322,723

Most Alarming to me is the May-September Non-Covid Excess Deaths. Unfortunately I don’t have the tools to do an age breakdown.

It could be they are just not counting COVID deaths to make the Vaccine and Paxlovid look good.  Or it might well be the vaccine behind the excess.

Of course, nobody and that includes Republicans,  are calling for an investigation into Non-Covid Excess Deaths.

Non-Covid Excess Deaths are likely understated because CDC baseline for Expected Deaths is the 2017-2019 Average. Expected Deaths should be lower in 2022 due to over 1.2 million Excess Deaths in 2020-2021