is there any way to track increases in *non*-covid-19 related deaths due to hospitals being swamped?

[unblock]

and doctors postponing in-person office visits, and deferring other procedures and so on?

presumably it's only "non-essential" things that are being deferred, but in practice, things get detected in office visits and follow-up lab tests and so on, and this sort of thing normally saves lives.

plus some people will err on the side of not going to the hospital when they should for fear of contracting covid-19 there. is it indigestion or a heart attack?

obviously a full accounting of such things would take years of study to sort out in retrospect. just wondering if there's any early indications along the way...?

[DenverJared]

1. A very important point

How many will die because non-corona emergencies have no beds and staff left to treat?

[jberryhill]

2. MMWR

[unblock]

3. this will get me the gross numbers for other causes of death, but

will it get me specifically what's due to hospitals being swamped or healthcare otherwise delayed or denied due to the logistic problems caused by covid-19?

or are you suggesting that i just attribute any percentage increase over some pre-pandemic period as being due to such problems?

[jberryhill]

4. Patterns of death are pretty stable

The reason we attribute 3000 deaths to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is a statistical calculation of excess mortality.

MMWR is likely to do an analysis anyway. In addition to the usual compilations, they’ll publish analyses of topical trends or anomalies.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_displacement

[unblock]

5. cool thanks!

[jberryhill]

6. You have to look backwards too

Because you can have a short term increase of mortality among persons whose prospects weren’t very good, but a reduction in those causes later on, if it was merely accelerating the deaths of people who would have died soon anyway.

[jberryhill]

7. Also

Mortality from some causes is going to decrease.

Traffic deaths, for example, will go down.

Suicides will probably go up.

[Lithos]

8. Also,

Forgoing non-essential medical procedures will save lives. But at home accidents due to family squabbles, or DIY people who are not so handy may increase.

L-

[jberryhill]

9. Yep. It's a mixed bag

I would expect some increase overall, since ICU care is going to be generally unavailable in a lot of places starting very soon.

[Liberty Belle]

11. Some elderly may die alone at home because no one is checking up on them.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Maybe, maybe not.

Before this, some 7500 people died every single day in this country from all of the many things people die from.

Which means that so far the total deaths have not yet reached the typical one day deaths.

Something else to think about. Every year, more than 450,000 people die from tobacco. If each and every one of those deaths were reported with the same breathlessness we're currently reporting Corona Virus deaths, well just imagine. Or if each and every gun death were reported in this way.

I don't want to seem to be ignoring the genuine number of deaths here, but the reporting is possibly out of proportion to what's actually happening.

[hlthe2b]

12. States have access to decades of hospital-speciific mortality data by day, week, month, year...

Down the road, an analysis of excess deaths beyond the statistical "expected" by hospitals experiencing COVID-19-specific shortages of resources, including staff will undoubtedly be done.