Coronavirus Becomes Leading Cause of Death in U.S.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Source: Newsweek

COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, is now the deadliest disease in the United States, killing more people per day than cancer or heart disease.

According to a graph published Tuesday by Dr. Maria Danilychev, who practices in San Diego, COVID-19 is the cause of 1,970 deaths in the U.S. per day. Just last week, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, averaging around 748 deaths per day, but as the virus has continued to spread, the increase in daily deaths have followed. In comparison to COVID-19 fatalities, 1,774 deaths are attributed to heart disease and 1,641 to cancer.

The graph uses data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the daily average causes of death and compares them to COVID-19 statistics from Worldometers.info.

The statistics presented in the graph comes as the novel coronavirus has continued to spread throughout the U.S. and the world. According to a tracker provided by Johns Hopkins University, there are over 432,000 cases in the U.S. and over 1.4 million cases globally.



Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/coronavirus-becomes-leading-cause-of-death-in-us/ar-BB12o7aQ?li=BBnb7Kz

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Some hoax, some flu, some "panic", hunh? It's the Trump Catastrophe. . . . nt

[jimfields33]

26. I think he did it on purpose

The top six states with most deaths are democratic states. Only Louisiana is close on the republican side. I know this is not supposed to be red/blue but trump made it that way. Sorry but true. Also African Americans are most affected. Tragic as hell!!!!

[Botany]

2. 0:04 / 0:52 Donald Trump: You gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Question to ask tRump cultists: Are you sick of winning or just sick?

[burrowowl]

4. Good question!

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Yes, the trumpepidemic is raging stronger it seems and it's affecting all of the rump idiots ...

especially. The rate of growth is getting faster and faster in the rural areas, who I think unfortunately haven't been paying attention to the medical experts (stay at home) enough. A shame since it has been blaring on the media outlets everywhere (except faux 'fake' news).

[Botany]

9. For the 3 minutes that I could stand of it I watched in horror last night of that Laura I. person ..

... she was urging the President to "open things back up" because saving people's lives is not
as important as the economy. The cure is worse than disease some ignorant was saying on her
show. Watch and follow fox news and die.

[SpankMe]

6. Don't get excited

My analysis would be that COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death because other causes of death have dropped precipitously since the stay-at-home orders and business closures started.

With everyone staying at home, violent crime and homicide are down, traffic fatalities are down, fatal injuries are down (because no one's DOING anything since they're cooped up at home), suicides are down.

I could be wrong. But I'm sure there's more to the story of this rearrangement of mortality trends.

[Igel]

7. It may still be true that compared with average deaths for each cause

COVID still wins.

But then again, was the #1 cause of death on 9/11.

[yaesu]

8. well, not really, they are using statistics taken may months ago, long before the stay at home order

[LisaL]

10. So you are suggesting that because people are staying at home, they are no longer

dying from heart disease (previously leading cause of death) and cancer? All righty then.

[Ms. Toad]

12. The "more to the story" has nothing to do with other causes dropping

it has to do with the false narrative embedded in the extremely misleading apples to oranges comparison in the chart.

See this post. https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142467178#post11

[jimfields33]

27. Chicago had 21 shooting the other day. How does that happen in a everyone stays home

scenario?

[Ms. Toad]

11. This is EXTREMELY misleading -

This paragraph captures the FALSE narrative the chart (intentionally or otherwise) conveys

According to a graph published Tuesday by Dr. Maria Danilychev, who practices in San Diego, COVID-19 is the cause of 1,970 deaths in the U.S. per day. Just last week, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, averaging around 748 deaths per day, but as the virus has continued to spread, the increase in daily deaths have followed. In comparison to COVID-19 fatalities, 1,774 deaths are attributed to heart disease and 1,641 to cancer.

The chart referred to plots the COVID 19 deaths on a specific day, against the average deaths for each other cause.

The AVERAGE COVID 19 deaths are currently between 350 and 400. NOT 1970.

In case the problem is not clear - what average means is that from from the beginning of the measuring period, the total number of deaths is equivalent to the average number of peopld dying every single day during the period. In other words, as if 1774 people died from heart disease every single day since the deaths from COVID 19 first started. In contrast, the COVID 19 deaths started at zero, and increased over time, so to compare to the average heart disease deaths, you have to add every single COVID 19 death up, and divide by the number of days since people started dying of COVID 19. When you do that you find that (depending on what you use as the starting day) the average is between 350 and 400.

This is bad, to be sure, but it is not averaging around 1970 per day, as the graph (and this article) imply.

[LisaL]

13. Average daily deaths from heart disease and cancer presumably stay nearly constant over the year.

Whereas daily deaths from covid has to where covid is currently the leading cause of death.
As of now, covid is a leading cause of death.

[Ms. Toad]

14. On a handful of days it caused more deaths than the other illnesses.

That doesn't make it a leading cause of death.

Does a single bad plane crash transform flying from one of the safest forms fo transformation into a leading cause of death becuase it kills more people than strokes, for example? No I know would seriously make that argument.

And even if you want to define it atypically, you need to be crystal clear that you are comparing apples to oranges. People are struggling to wrap their minds around the pandemic math. It isirresponsible to portray data in a way anyone who thinks about it for 2 seconds could predict would be misinterpreted by most who see it.

Even Newsweek looked at the chart and repeated what it believed the chart was showing (average daily deaths from COVID 19) without bothering to check the math. When the chart first appeared, I started to respond to an inquiry about it - I knew there was something off about the numbers - but a quick glance at the chart and its labels didn't tell me what was wrong about it. I actually had to go back to the data and calculate it myself before it became clear to me what was "off" in the chart - and the pandemic numbers have always been intuitive to me.

I have seen at least three threads, now, in which people accepted - without question - that what was being displayed was an average daily death rate from COVID 19.

[unblock]

15. it's showing deaths per day

i gather it's the actual death toll on a given day for dates in the past, after which it because a projection of death on each given future date.

there's no one "rate" because the data and model have a more complicated curve that fits better than a straight line. that said, it's not exactly wrong to say the "daily rate" on any given date is exactly that day's death toll. it just that yesterday's rate was lower and tomorrow's date will be higher because it's not a flat curve.


the plane crash analogy doesn't quite work because we're having plane crashes every day. each day's deaths are not isolated events.

i think your main point is that "rate" suggests a straight line forever, but the actual curve isn't like that. but the graph shows the actual curve, which shows a lot of deaths for a while, but then very few deaths eventually.

"average daily deaths" then depends on how many days you want to average the whole thing over.

[Ms. Toad]

17. You're completely missing my point.

The chart compares a point in time measurement to an average measurement.

If they included actual deaths on the days in question - against actual deaths from COVID 19 on the days in question the visualization would not be misleading.

If they included average COVID 19 deaths against average deaths from other causes the visualization would not be misleading

It is only when you compare absolute deaths on a specific day with average deaths from other causes - especially wihtout being clear about what you are doing that it is misleading.

It is misleading to the point that Newsweek believed (without checking against actual data) that it was comparing the average daily COVID deaths to other averages. It published an article referencing the average daily COVID deaths

It is misleading to the point that several peopel on DU believe the same thing.

I'm not being nit-picky - this is actually misleading, and I am responding to the fact that the misinterpretation is being repeated in more than one location (without properly identifying where the information came from). A year from now, or a decade form now, someone will find the Newsweek article and report that the average number of deaths from COVID 19 on 4/8 was 1970. This kind of sloppy and misleding representation, repeated by other generally reputable sources makes sourcing the truth very hard. There's all sorts of crazy information out there about infection rate of influenza, or the number of deaths from the 1918 influenza, etc. that appears to have its origins in just this kind of misleading representation that was latched onto by someone who reported it as if it was the truth, then by someone else, and so on.

[unblock]

18. Ok, a fine distinction.

"Average daily deaths" doesn't say over what time period. If it's just the one day, then it's accurate to say that the average daily death rate on that day was equal to the actual death toll on that day.

Average over some longer period of time doesn't make much sense because it's not a steady number.

Are you worried that a decade from now someone will look back at the point in time death rate of 1970 on 4/8 and think that hey, back then, people thought covid-19 would kill roughly 1970 people every day on average forever, because they used the word "average" instead or either "actual" or "point-in-time average"?

[Ms. Toad]

19. Not unless the others are averages for that one day.

And they are not - otherwise they would be changing in length every day just as the COVID deaths do.

And yes - that is precisely what I am concerned about. I encountered challenges in finding accurate information about the 2009 influenza becuase I would find what I thought was a reliable number. I would attempt to confirm it by comparison to numbers from other sources, and I would come up with two very distinct number ranges. When I attempted to track back to the original data, it was often no longer available.

Here, a national magazine has now reported the COVID 19 deaths represented in the chart as the average daily number of deaths - not even clearly identifying the chart it came from. I recognized it, but in a decade no one will. Whoever is attempting to confirm the information by tracing it to the sources will be unable to do so. And, people less careful about accuracy than I am, will report it on DU as gospel truth to prove a point. (Not that I'm specifically concerned about it showing up on DU - but stuff like this is why it is so challenging to track viral rumors or misinformation to the ground. We're sloppy when they start - and the sloppiness gets multiplied everytime it passes through the next layer of publication)

[unblock]

24. I see no problem in comparing actual covid19 deaths to averages of other causes

I don't think it would be helpful at all to compare it to actual daily deaths from other causes because the whole point is to compare actual covid19 deaths to typical death rates from other causes.

I think the chart is clear and unambiguous. The "average" concept is only confusing if you bring to it a time frame that isn't suggested by the article.

[Ms. Toad]

25. It is NOT clear without a label that distinguishes the COVID 19 bar from the others.

And I didn't bring in the concept of the averages. (1) the author of the visualization did, and because of the standard convention that every bar on a bar graph represents the same thing, (2) Newsweek expressly discussed it as representing the COVID average daily death rates.

So it is obviously NOT clear and unambiguous because a number of people have misunderstood - and misrepresented it - based on its failure to follow standard conventions.

[mr_lebowski]

16. It almost certainly does make it the leading cause of death ... ON THAT DAY ...

Unless the standard deviations are very high for the other averages that are close to it (#2 and #3 are the only ones I'd say are even remotely close to close enough) it's statistically certain that 'on particular recent days of data capture, COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in the USA'.

I get the argument that it could me misleading to some ... but some people out there misinterpret almost everything.

I think it's pretty clear what it indicates, myself.

[Ms. Toad]

22. But that's not how it is being reported.

It's being reported as a leading cause of death (without reference to "on that day&quot . I've seen at least three articles that cite it that way.

[Chemisse]

20. It's pretty clear what it is showing.

Currently it is the leading cause of death. Yesterday. Probably today. Perhaps for the rest of the month.

Yes it's comparing single days to averages, but the other types of deaths do not wildly oscillate each day, so it's a fair comparison. The whole point of the graph is to gain a perspective of the scope of the disease at this moment in time. I would much prefer to accept the small error than not to have a chart like this at all.

Don't worry; It will be equally captivating when the numbers sink down to the bottom of the chart again.

[Ms. Toad]

21. So why did Newsweek get it wrong?

Why did everyone in the original two threads whose beliefs were clear get it wrong? (Not everyone made it clear whether they thought it was a point in time or an average - but those whose beliefs I could tell got it wrong.)

So no, it's not pretty clear what it is showing.

[Chemisse]

23. Here is a very cool day-by-day visualization that shows the change since March 1

https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1712761/?fbclid=IwAR3kyAm4zAQ-12XcOgZMoxaC_dw1f6vdzzjcbwufxJNcOqq3fvOIfCmU_zo

[rpannier]

28. Kenneth Dopeland... I mean Copeland's casting away Satan did not work

Maybe God doesn't like or take orders from a hack and charlatan after-all