What is the death toll from Covid-19?
If you search for the relevant data, you will find that the definition and statistics of “death from Covid-19” vary from agency to agency. So, which statistical method is the best? How many of these new crown deceased died directly from the new crown?
Master of Neuroscience from Hokkaido University, Senior Medical Consultant of a Shengnuo Family, Weibo Popular Science University V Zhuang Shili and explain this.
Johnson: What is a “COVID-19 death”?
It would be more accurate to use COVID-19, because in fact, at the beginning of the outbreak two years ago, we knew that the disease caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is not just the lungs Therefore, there was also a name called “2019 coronavirus disease” at that time, but it was not widely used later.
Here, however, we’re still using the term “COVID-19 (COVID-19)” in consideration of your reading habits.
First, the first question is, How do you define a coronal death?
At present, there are several different ways to define new crown deaths. On the official website of the UK ONS (Office for National Statistics), two are mentioned:
-PHE (Public Health England) defines a COVID-19 death as death within 28 days of the first laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection.
– The definition of ONS is that, in addition to a positive test, the cause of death needs to be judged by a doctor to be caused by the new crown.
The WHO definition is death from a clinically relevant disease in suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19, unless there is a clear alternative cause of death not related to COVID-19 (such as trauma).
Actually, no method is perfect, In general, PHE statistics will be higher than ONS statistics because PHE statistics do not take into account the cause of death , if there is a car accident within 28 days of infection, it is also included in the number of new crown deaths. Of course, this statistical method may also underreport, because some infected people died directly due to the new crown after 28 days,
The statistical curves for ONS and PHE have always been separate, and there are other statistical methods. Like the picture below is the statistics of new crown deaths in England and Wales, the left is “involving new crown deaths”, the right is “due to new crown deaths”, the difference is that the former refers to the new crown on the death certificate, but Does not consider whether the new crown is the direct cause of death.
This also reminds me of Hong Kong’s first child fatality, a 4-year-old boy who vomited and fainted at home, was rushed to emergency care, and later died. When the hospital took a test sample, it was found to be positive for the new crown.
So did this boy count as a death from Covid-19? According to the above statement, it can also be “involving” instead of “due to”, because his direct cause of death should be suffocation caused by vomit.
But what causes vomiting? At present, it is believed that the new coronavirus infection may cause acute viral encephalitis in children. If this is finally confirmed, then I think it should be reasonable to list others as deaths caused by the new crown.
Besides children, another group that has received attention is the elderly, who are known to have many more chronic diseases than younger people. So if an 80-year-old man with advanced tumors and poor health is tested positive for the new coronavirus during hospitalization, and eventually dies of multiple organ failure, is he considered to have died from the new crown?
So you can see that the statistics of new crown deaths are not as simple as everyone thinks. So we will see differences in the number of deaths in different statistical calibers.
Then the second question comes, If we exclude those deaths that are obviously not caused by the new crown (such as a car accident after a positive infection, suicide), How many of the new crown deaths were directly killed by the new crown?
In a study published last week in Lancet Regional Health Europe at the RWTH-Aachen University Hospital in Germany, researchers explored this question through autopsy.
Pathology is the gold standard for diagnosis, and autopsy is the ultimate way to find out the cause of death.
This is the first report from the German Corona Autopsy Registry and the largest study of corona autopsies to date. An analysis of 1,129 autopsy cases (male-to-female ratio of 1.8:1) brings our understanding of Covid-19 deaths a step further.
Most deaths occurred within two weeks from first onset of COVID-19 symptoms (or positive COVID-19 test) to death (median 2 weeks, interquartile range 2-6 weeks), but more than one-third The time of the cases is between 2 and 5 weeks, and more than one tenth is more than 5 weeks, as shown in the figure below.
Key findings from this study include the following:
-Coronavirus deaths in men peak in the 65-69 and 80-84 age groups, while women peak in the >85 age group.
–COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death in 86% of autopsy cases; and in 14% of autopsy cases, COVID-19 was a concomitant disease.
– The most common direct cause of death was diffuse alveolar injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome (DAD/ARDS), followed by multiple organ failure.
The study also showed that there was no difference in the direct cause of death from COVID-19 between men and women, with more attribution to DAD/ARDS in the first 2 weeks, and more attributable to multiple organs between 2 and 5 weeks exhaustion.
Therefore, autopsy data in Germany as of October 2021 show that the majority of deaths from Covid-19 were directly caused by Covid-19, and a small number were indirectly caused strong> (Most of the direct causes of death are ischemic heart disease, myocardial infarction, etc.), but the new crown infection may promote death.
The above is some analysis of the death of the new crown, I hope everyone has a more accurate understanding of this disease. As we have repeatedly emphasized, the new coronavirus (including Omicron) is not a large flu, and its threat to the unvaccinated population (especially the elderly) is still very large.
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Producer: gyouza