Pneumonia Deaths Declining Rapidly Since January [???]
April 5th, 2020Update: Delay in Reporting the Numbers [???]
GB sent this Twitter post from @TylerMorganMe which states:
The “dip” people are talking about in pneumonia cases is caused by the lag in reporting of deaths through the CDC.
—
Pneumonia deaths down.
Covid-19 deaths up.
Hmm.
I’m not able to figure out how to plot this on the CDC’s site, but the dataset is here if you want to make your own:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2019-2020/data/NCHSData12.csv
There is a very active discussion of this on Reddit: Pneumonia Deaths have fallen off a cliff this year, I wonder what could have caused this to happen.
Via: According to Hoyt:
…the 2019-2020 season shows week by week pneumonia mortality to be low compared to the last few years, which is not what I expected. What I truly did not expect was the sharp decline over the last few weeks.
It was a hot winter. https://www.washingtonpost.com/videolocal/weather/why-is-most-of-the-us-having-an-unusually-warm-winter/2017/02/21/5e19516a-f86e-11e6-aa1e-5f735ee31334_video.html
The hottest on record for Europe. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/05/truly-extreme-winter-2019-20-in-europe-by-far-hottest-on-record
“ COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.“
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf
“Assumed.”
haha
In Italy they were apparently able not to attribute deaths to COVID-19 in 88 % of persons tested positive who died. On deaths certificate that is.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/everyone-wants-coronavirus-data-should-treat-numbers-caution/
In the UK deaths by respiratory disease averaged in the 200 per day by the end of March (about in line with the average for the past 5 years). Now there are 600 announced COVID-19 deaths per day (NHS data).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending20march2020