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sebastianhohmann / covid19_total_death

estimating covid-19 mortality from official statistics on total deaths
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Belgian total mortality data #1

Open mzelst opened 4 years ago

mzelst commented 4 years ago

Hi Sebastian,

I saw that you posted the Belgian data to covid-19 deaths but indicated that there is no total deaths data available yet. However, they started posting some of that data somewhat hidden in the weekly reports here: https://epidemio.wiv-isp.be/ID/Pages/2019-nCoV_epidemiological_situation.aspx

The update of April 9 and 16 contain weekly mortality data from week 9 up to and including week 14. In earlier reports, they provide broad sketches of weekly data before that. For example, the update of April 2 contains a statement that says the number of deaths before the outbreak has been (on average) 321 per day since February 1. Perhaps all these statements combined might help you to create a counterfactual for Belgium as well.

Kind regards, Marino

sebastianhohmann commented 4 years ago

Hi Marino,

Thanks for the pointer. From what I understand, they clearly have daily death data. They just arent making it public, and even what little is published is very inconvenient to get to. I am a little concerned about mixing official information from Statbel with information from www.sciensano.be, which seems a private entity? Could you shed a little more light on this?

If I were to add it, my understanding is that we have

Is that how you see it?

mzelst commented 4 years ago

Hi Sebastian,

Sciensano is a federal scientific institution, officially appointed to track health care management quality and data. So I'm assuming their data is accurate. They also contribute to the EuroMOMO analyses.

That is how I would see the data to. Sciensano conducts their own excess mortality analyses which are also included in that same report. In the limited time I had available, I couldn't verify the exact analyses but in general they know what they are doing.

sebastianhohmann commented 4 years ago

Hi again,

Given that there are now great efforts by NYT, Economist and others that essentially do what we do with more resources behind it, we are pausing our work. Thanks for your help thus far!