Closed mpaolo closed 3 years ago
When Michelozzi et al. write that "COVID-19 deaths accounted for half of total excess mortality in both areas" (https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-09335-8), they mean officially reported COVID-19 deaths. So this is consistent with undercount.
I understand the concern, but so far I haven't seen ANY actual numerical data from ANYWHERE which would suggest non-trivial contribution of non-COVID deaths (deaths without COVID infection) to the excess mortality.
In my local copy I adjusted the caption according to code / preprint. Use/adjust as you see fit in case.
Caution though to define the blu ratio as undercount in general, although there are some glaring cases: e.g. for Italy it's documented (also in your ref. Beaney,2020) that ca. 1/3 excess deaths are non-covid19 due to missed cares either for fear of contagion, lockdown measures, overburden of care facilities:
And e.g. for USA For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned of the covid19 counts while for the rest it's a matter of choosing the most (often more politically than medically) convenient label https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities with a number of collateral damages like increase in drug abuse https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776212 and psycho issues e.g. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352.short