Hm. On doing exactly as you suggest, I feel confused; it looks to me like the 25-44 cohort has really substantially more deaths than in recent years: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hcipg7yiuiai8m2/Screen Shot 2022-01-16 at 2.12.44 PM.png?dl=0 I don’t know what your threshold for “significance” is, but 103 / 104 weeks spent above the preceding 208 weeks definitely meets my bar.
The infection fatality rate might be an even better way to quantify the risk of death. The IFR for covid in the 15-64 age groups before September 2020 was 0.75% at the higher end of the range. Older age groups had IFRs ranging from 2.5% to 28%. The IFR of the flu doesn’t usually go over 0.1%, although this is an average and the accuracy of the stat itself is questionable (from other sources I’ve seen).
Although it might not be entirely insignificant, it seems a lot less significant than it would appear. Eyeballing it, there seems to be about 100k excess deaths in the 25-44 age group (usually, it’s about 300k total deaths for 104 weeks) out of a total of 950k excess deaths. That’s a 25% increase of excess deaths compared to the baseline, but nowhere the near 40 to over 60% peaks that an uncritical reading of OWID’s chart would suggest. Also, the 25-44 group is about 26% of the US population, yet has suffered only 10% of the deaths, whereas the 45+ groups (harder to eyeball just the 45-64 group) are 41% of the pop and have suffered from 90% of the deaths. And since covid mortality increases the older one gets, a person in their late 20s would likely have less chance of dying than a person in their early 40s.
This is perhaps clearer in terms of risk of death due to covid by age group (compared to 18-29 year olds):
Florin’s right that the 15-64 age group doesn’t pain a clean picture of the actual numbers since it combines very different excess death rates, but even the 25-44 group experienced a serious increase. Rather than Katja being “wrong,” they are very much right.
”For the next 2 years, you will have a 25% higher risk of death than usual” is not a high absolute risk of death, but that shift from baseline is not just “not entirely insignificant” either.
I think we mostly agree, although I still think using the OWID chart is wrong or at least very misleading.
While the 25% is okay in aggregate, there does seem to be a 60% peak in mortality in 2021 at week 35 for the 25-44 group. So, I was wrong about that. However, the 45-64 group has only a 37% peak in mortality in 2021 at week 36, and using the raw data, I calculated (just averaged and didn’t do any fancy weighting) that there was only a 18% increase in excess death overall.
But that’s not the end of the story.
2020-2021, 25-44: 757,645 (single year average) 2015-2019, 25-44: 542,284 (single year average) Difference: 215,361 (2x what eyeballing the chart suggests, but whatever), 28% increase in excess deaths
2020-2021, 45-64: 2,632,764 (single year average) 2015-2019, 45-64: 2,162,344 (single year average) Difference: 470,420, 18% increase in excess deaths
Each age group makes up about 26% of the US population, but the 45-64 group has more than double the risk of death, even though it has a lower increase (relative to pre-2020 years) in excess deaths. So, the focus on the relative (what the OWID chart is about) rather than the absolute increase in death is misleading.
The IFR data (mentioned in another comment) also seems to suggest this.
I think that assumption is inaccurate, and is becoming more inaccurate over time. Lockdown is also hard on people and contributes to the excess deaths.
One possible component e.g. drug overdose deaths, with an increase of 31% from 2019 to 2020 (it will be interesting to see, how the numbers for 2021 are). CDC
CDC data seems to suggest that 269,014 excess deaths (select “Total number above average by cause”) aren’t due to covid out of a total of 952,707 total excess deaths (select “Number of Excess Deaths”). That means 72% (most) might be covid-caused.
It looks like those deaths are “with covid” not necessarily “due to covid”. I think that was a reasonable approximation at first, but it makes it a bad tool for tracking when covid becomes less dangerous and more widespread.
However the fact that excess deaths are spiking with covid prevalence is pretty suggestive.
Hm. On doing exactly as you suggest, I feel confused; it looks to me like the 25-44 cohort has really substantially more deaths than in recent years: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hcipg7yiuiai8m2/Screen Shot 2022-01-16 at 2.12.44 PM.png?dl=0 I don’t know what your threshold for “significance” is, but 103 / 104 weeks spent above the preceding 208 weeks definitely meets my bar.
Am I missing something here?
The infection fatality rate might be an even better way to quantify the risk of death. The IFR for covid in the 15-64 age groups before September 2020 was 0.75% at the higher end of the range. Older age groups had IFRs ranging from 2.5% to 28%. The IFR of the flu doesn’t usually go over 0.1%, although this is an average and the accuracy of the stat itself is questionable (from other sources I’ve seen).
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10654-020-00698-1
Although it might not be entirely insignificant, it seems a lot less significant than it would appear. Eyeballing it, there seems to be about 100k excess deaths in the 25-44 age group (usually, it’s about 300k total deaths for 104 weeks) out of a total of 950k excess deaths. That’s a 25% increase of excess deaths compared to the baseline, but nowhere the near 40 to over 60% peaks that an uncritical reading of OWID’s chart would suggest. Also, the 25-44 group is about 26% of the US population, yet has suffered only 10% of the deaths, whereas the 45+ groups (harder to eyeball just the 45-64 group) are 41% of the pop and have suffered from 90% of the deaths. And since covid mortality increases the older one gets, a person in their late 20s would likely have less chance of dying than a person in their early 40s.
This is perhaps clearer in terms of risk of death due to covid by age group (compared to 18-29 year olds):
30-39: 4x
40-49: 10x
50-64: 25x
65-74: 65x
75-84: 150x
85+: 370x
Florin’s right that the 15-64 age group doesn’t pain a clean picture of the actual numbers since it combines very different excess death rates, but even the 25-44 group experienced a serious increase. Rather than Katja being “wrong,” they are very much right.
”For the next 2 years, you will have a 25% higher risk of death than usual” is not a high absolute risk of death, but that shift from baseline is not just “not entirely insignificant” either.
I think we mostly agree, although I still think using the OWID chart is wrong or at least very misleading.
While the 25% is okay in aggregate, there does seem to be a 60% peak in mortality in 2021 at week 35 for the 25-44 group. So, I was wrong about that. However, the 45-64 group has only a 37% peak in mortality in 2021 at week 36, and using the raw data, I calculated (just averaged and didn’t do any fancy weighting) that there was only a 18% increase in excess death overall.
But that’s not the end of the story.
2020-2021, 25-44: 757,645 (single year average)
2015-2019, 25-44: 542,284 (single year average)
Difference: 215,361 (2x what eyeballing the chart suggests, but whatever), 28% increase in excess deaths
2020-2021, 45-64: 2,632,764 (single year average)
2015-2019, 45-64: 2,162,344 (single year average)
Difference: 470,420, 18% increase in excess deaths
Each age group makes up about 26% of the US population, but the 45-64 group has more than double the risk of death, even though it has a lower increase (relative to pre-2020 years) in excess deaths. So, the focus on the relative (what the OWID chart is about) rather than the absolute increase in death is misleading.
The IFR data (mentioned in another comment) also seems to suggest this.
Aren’t those excess deaths just the direct covid deaths, from the unlucky few younger people who got covid and died from it?
Excess deaths are deaths from all causes. But it’s usually assumed that they’re mostly covid deaths.
I think that assumption is inaccurate, and is becoming more inaccurate over time. Lockdown is also hard on people and contributes to the excess deaths.
One possible component e.g. drug overdose deaths, with an increase of 31% from 2019 to 2020 (it will be interesting to see, how the numbers for 2021 are). CDC
CDC data seems to suggest that 269,014 excess deaths (select “Total number above average by cause”) aren’t due to covid out of a total of 952,707 total excess deaths (select “Number of Excess Deaths”). That means 72% (most) might be covid-caused.
It looks like those deaths are “with covid” not necessarily “due to covid”. I think that was a reasonable approximation at first, but it makes it a bad tool for tracking when covid becomes less dangerous and more widespread.
However the fact that excess deaths are spiking with covid prevalence is pretty suggestive.