Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
Comparing different approaches to Covid-19 containment | 56 comments (56 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
French death rate (none / 1)
Using the French national statistical service's tally of deaths,, comparing to the announced number of hospital deaths of people who tested positive for COVID, it looks like that number represents about half the death rate, at 10th April. The official number which includes rest home deaths looks like it's about 25% short of the real number which we will know eventually.

The first graph gets the peak in the daily toll in roughly the right place compared to government figures.

Bearing in mind that the difference in daily mortality is mostly about seasonal influenza at this time of the year, and that this year's flu is fairly mild, we can compare to 2019 and be within a few hundred when estimating the excess deaths from COVID. The most recent data cover about 90% of the population (the communes that file death reports electronically, rather than through the post).
Annual deaths so far by year :

10 April 2020 : 79665
10 April 2019 : 64210
10 April 2018 : 70997

So, inflating by 10% (though that may be excessive, since the communes mailing it in will be smaller rural ones, with low death rates), 16 or 17 thousand extra deaths at that date,  compared to 8598 hospital COVID deaths, or a government number of 13197 total COVID deaths to 10th April.

So the official French numbers look like less of an undercount than I expected.


It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Thu Apr 23rd, 2020 at 01:34:39 PM EST
Re: French death rate (none / 0)
Also bearing in mind that some of those who died of Covid-19 would have died of other/natural causes in any case and would, in other years, have been part of the "normal" 64-70k deaths up to 10 April. Do all death certs in France give a doctor's opinion on cause of death, and would deaths caused by respiratory failure be presumed covid related in the absence of a positive test?

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2020 at 02:01:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: French death rate (none / 1)
The standard "Certificat de décès" form must be filled in by a MD; it does always include a section "causes du décès", be it "mort naturelle" or a specific diagnosed illness. The doctor may order an autopsy, but I'm not sure if she may order a post-mortem C-19 test. In any case, testing the patients (or deceased people) with COVID-like symptoms has become routine, in hospitals obviously, but also in nursing homes.
by Bernard (bernard) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2020 at 08:00:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: French death rate (none / 1)
Another complicating factor is that the social distancing techniques used to limit coronavirus also limit other diseases, so their rates may be lower than usual this year.
by asdf on Sun Apr 26th, 2020 at 12:46:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: French death rate (none / 1)
That's not what US presses have been reporting the last couple of weeks. Indeed, reporters' eagerness to quote random MD speculations of NEW! syndromes and deferred chronic illness complications increases by each day added to LOCKDOWN.

Yeasterday, for example, USAToday headlined a mysterious SURGE of strokes among (5) NYC patients < 40 y.o. a couple of academic promptly attributed novel properties to coronavirus, activated by intercourse with hemoglobin with effect of instant polycythemia. Further studies proposed.

by Cat on Thu Apr 30th, 2020 at 11:42:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: French death rate (none / 1)
More graphs here on Franceinfo:

Article in French, but the graphs are easily readable. They show a 3-year comparison of daily deaths for March and early April, bearing in mind that the 2018 seasonal flu epidemic had been particularly severe in February-March of 2018.

Plenty of other graphs: for instance, the Southwestern regions have been largely spared by the pandemics and one can still see the effects of the Evangelical gathering in Mulhouse (Haut Rhin, Alsace), back in February, which helped spreading the virus all over the country.

by Bernard (bernard) on Thu Apr 23rd, 2020 at 08:09:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: French death rate (4.00 / 2)
The UK has finally started adding the number of COVID-19 deaths in care homes to their daily reporting. As a result, the number of deaths to date (26,097) jumped ahead of the same figure for France (24,087) who had started reporting the two figures since early April.

The Economist came up with a report tracking "excess deaths across countries". Their conclusion:
Official covid-19 death tolls still under-count the true number of fatalities

They also compared the excess mortality with the reported COVID-19 deaths by each country's authorities.

But how accurate, or not, is each country's official numbers? Their estimates:

In Italy, "the official numbers captured 48% of the true estimated excess."

In Spain, "the official numbers captured 67% of the estimated excess."

In France, "the official numbers captured 86% of the estimated excess."

In Britain, "the official numbers captured 71% of the estimated excess."

In the Netherlands, "the official numbers captured 48% of the estimated excess."

In Sweden, "the official numbers captured 90% of the estimated excess."

In Belgium, "the official numbers captured 93% of the estimated excess."

In Austria, "the official numbers captured 57% of the estimated excess."

by Bernard (bernard) on Wed Apr 29th, 2020 at 08:49:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: French death rate (none / 1)
Excellent report with clarity in graphs. 😊

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide
by Oui (Oui) on Thu Apr 30th, 2020 at 06:39:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Comparing different approaches to Covid-19 containment | 56 comments (56 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Display: