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posted by martyb on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the counting-where-it-counts dept.

England to revise DOWN its Covid-19 death toll by up to 10 percent after bizarre 'counting mishap':

Public Health England [(PHE)] currently counts the deaths of all people who have tested positive for Covid-19 among the coronavirus fatality total whether their death was related to the disease or not, an error which was noted in July, prompting the suspension of the daily death toll and an "urgent review" of protocol.

In other words, as many as 4,170 fatalities could be wiped off England's current Covid-19 death toll of 41,686.

According to reports in UKmedia, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock will bring all coronavirus fatality reporting in line with Scotland and Northern Ireland public health models, wherein a death is marked as Covid-19-related only if it occurs within 28 days of a positive test.

[...]

In England, of all deaths that occurred up to 24 July (registered up 1 August), 49,017 involved #COVID19. For the same period, @DHSCgovuk reported 41,143 COVID-19 deaths https://t.co/hKH0tTRb2W

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) August 4, 2020

If the system is not updated, the total of roughly 265,000 confirmed cases in England would all eventually be counted as Covid-19 fatalities regardless of the actual cause of death.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:42AM (36 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:42AM (#1033668) Journal

    If the system is not updated, the total of roughly 265,000 confirmed cases in England would all eventually be counted as Covid-19 fatalities regardless of the actual cause of death.

    And, that is something we've been questioning all along. Mysteriously, deaths from heart disease have pretty much disappeared from the statistics, because every death is being attributed to Covid19.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-doctors-hospitals-emergency-care-heart-attack-stroke.html [nytimes.com]

    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:55AM (34 children)

      by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:55AM (#1033672) Journal

      deaths from heart disease have pretty much disappeared from the statistics

      so, either their pre-existing condition meant they died more easily from Corona, which killed them (with the other condition being a co-morbidity), orthe tests are generating false positives..

      On your first point, we still don't know how long you'll still have the infection, if you get better/'recover', but if you have it, and die as a passenger in a car accident, it shouldn't be counted as a death due to Covid19.

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:25AM (16 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:25AM (#1033678) Journal

        but if you have it, and die as a passenger in a car accident, it shouldn't be counted as a death due to Covid19.

        Agreed, 100%. But, it seems to get more complicated than that. In one location, any respiratory ailment at all that resulted in death was attributed to Covid. When asked "why?" the answer was, federal money was available for Covid treatment, but not for routine ailments. Stories abound, on Facefook and elsewhere.

        Are those stories all factual? I can't know, nor can anyone else. Anecdotes aren't data, but enough anecdotes should get people's attention.

        When you look at the statistics for your own county or state, ask yourself, "Are these numbers real?" The only thing you can be reasonably sure of, is that numbers are probably not any higher that what is published.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:34AM (10 children)

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:34AM (#1033693) Journal

          But, it seems to get more complicated than that. In one location, any respiratory ailment at all that resulted in death was attributed to Covid. When asked "why?" the answer was, federal money was available for Covid treatment, but not for routine ailments. Stories abound, on Facefook and elsewhere.

          All of which is totally irrelevant for the UK. All medical costs are paid by central government (from National Insurance contributions and other taxes), so there is no difference in who pays for each treatment. Cost has no bearing on the UK's figures. The problem which is clearly explained is that deaths from cancer, coronary disease and a multitude of other conditions entirely unrelated to COVID-19 were all simply marked as being as a result of the latter. This applied to people killed in car accidents, accidents at work and in the home, and to all of those who were expected to die from their conditions before COVID even existed.

          The UK scientific community is trying to understand why there appears to have been more deaths from COVID-19 than elsewhere in Europe. This is an important question as it might indicate a link between COVID-19 and poverty, ethnicity, treatment, the way people live in family groups, lifestyle or how the pandemic has been handled. However, if the data itself is inaccurate then any subsequent analysis will also be flawed. Correcting the figures to reflect more accurately what has happened will help to solve many questions that will be important in successfully countering the virus.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:20AM (3 children)

            by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:20AM (#1033706) Journal

            there also may be a link between MMR vaccination rates and the effects of Corona virus [sciencetimes.com]

            This may help explain some of the differences across the world. [washingtonpost.com]

            --
            "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:02PM (5 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:02PM (#1033752) Journal

            All medical costs are paid by central government (from National Insurance contributions and other taxes), so there is no difference in who pays for each treatment. Cost has no bearing on the UK's figures.

            Unless, of course, something in this does have bearing. A difference not in who pays, but in how much they pay or which account the money comes from, may indeed explain this peculiar overcounting of covid cases. Notice also that you equate revenue with cost. They are not the same thing. Medical costs need not change a bit. But revenue can change a lot depending on how one presents those costs for reimbursement.

            • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:03PM (4 children)

              by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:03PM (#1033916) Journal

              depending on how one presents those costs for reimbursement.

              You don't understand the UK system. Doctors do not get involved in billing. They provide the treatment that is required providing it is within the capabilities of the hospital. Their job is to save lives, to help those that need it, to treat those that require it. For things such as COVID, nobody even asks how much it will cost. The Government puts healthcare at a fairly high priority,

              Hospitals do not issue bills for reimbursement to the government. And the government has already borrowed and invested £billions extra to pay for the additional money that is being spent to pay for the COVID-19 pandemic. Could the healthcare system be better with more investment? Of course it could; the 2021 budget forecast can be found here [ukpublicspending.co.uk].

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:43PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:43PM (#1033940)

                Khallow not understanding . . . It's an American thing. Queer Bono?

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09 2020, @10:44PM (2 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @10:44PM (#1034056) Journal

                Doctors do not get involved in billing.

                Doctors don't mop the floors either, but somehow the work gets done.

                • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:48PM (1 child)

                  by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:48PM (#1034080)

                  Hospitals do not issue bills for reimbursement to the government.

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 10 2020, @12:02AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 10 2020, @12:02AM (#1034087) Journal
                    There is some sort of accounting. I don't care what the labeling for it is called.
        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by kazzie on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:02AM (4 children)

          by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:02AM (#1033702)

          In England's case (as alluded to in TFA), they've been counting the death of who's had a positive test as being a Covid-related death. Even if they tested positive back in April, recovered, and then died of something else last week.

          That system might have been fit for purpose whe were still at the start or peak of the outbreak, but it's absurd to keep doing that now that we're in the long tail.

          Other nations in the UK (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) sensibly decided to limit that window, so a death was only counted as Covid-related if it ocurred within four weeks of a positive test.

          • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:03AM

            by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:03AM (#1033703)

            Argh, tag fault: there should have bean an ”anyone" in that first paragraph.

          • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:16PM (2 children)

            by Nuke (3162) on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:16PM (#1033760)

            Except that in the UK it is a doctor (your regular one if you die at home, or a hospital one if there) who enters the cause of death on a Death Certificate. If they are just putting down "Covid-19" because they have a record that you tested + for it back in April then they are being very lazy or incompetent. And they would have to know even less about medicine than I do to put down "Covid-19" for a corpse that had been dragged out of a car accident with its head smashed in.

            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:30PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:30PM (#1033867)

              I heard about a guy who fell into the Mississippi river and got eaten by a catfish, then during the autopsy he tested positive for covid. Even George Floyd tested positive at autopsy.

            • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:38PM

              by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:38PM (#1033870)

              I doubt that they"re putting that as a single cause of death: many people are dying because of (e.g.) respiratory failure rather than the viral infection itself. That's why the details being collected are deaths involving Covid-19 [ons.gov.uk]. As TFA explains, England were including deaths that ocurred months after an individual recovered from Covid-19, where the other three nations weren't. And they've now gone back and weeded out a lot of these deaths from thier running total.

              There may be other miscounts being resolved too: the UK Government (and the only body collating figures for England) stopped releasing figures [itv.com] last month, and I'm sure that they stopped giving running totals even earlier when they realised many deaths were being double-counted (though I can't find a convenient link atm).

              I'm only paying passing attention to the English figures, however, as I'm concentrating on my local (Welsh) figures.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:04AM (7 children)

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:04AM (#1033704) Journal

        either their pre-existing condition meant they died more easily from Corona, which killed them (with the other condition being a co-morbidity), or the tests are generating false positives.

        Wrong. As it stands, if someone in the UK who has had a positive test for COVID-19 lives for another 50 years and then dies of old age, the current recording method will still report that death as resulting from COVID-19. The last line of TFS states this quite clearly. Neither of the conditions that you 'deduced' cover this problem. The UK problem means anyone who dies following a positive test will eventually be recorded as a COVID-19 casualty. A limit of 28 days, which is in use in some other countries, is being considered as a reasonable 'cut-off' point.

        Currently the UK believes that over 4000 deaths that have been attributed to COVID-19 have already been recorded in error, and the situation will only get worse as time goes on. And I for one am wondering how many other deaths worldwide have also been mis-recorded by a similar blanket reporting regime.

        Certainly there were reports earlier in the year of the Chinese following a similar recording pattern simply because they were being overwhelmed by the number of fatalities at the time. They simply 'assumed' that every death was as a result of COVID-19.

        • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:27AM (4 children)

          by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:27AM (#1033710) Journal

          the other part of Runaway's question was "where are the deaths from other heart diseases going?"

          if the primary cause of death was Covid, but they already had a heart condition that would have killed them in short order anyway, they won't now be shown as 'heart disease' - they will show up as covid death.

          --
          "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
          • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:52AM (2 children)

            by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:52AM (#1033716) Journal

            And this is where I believe a fallacy in medicine shows up. A death can be caused for multiple reasons, even if any of those singular reasons wouldn't have bumped off the victim. Hence the phrase "Death by a thousand papercuts.". It seems the medical community doesn't fully embrace this idea. And I can understand why -- diagnosis of such a thing would be complicated. But it leaves us with bad reports. And you know what they say in the software community: garbage in, garbage out.

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:52PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @08:52PM (#1034002)

              Not sure if this is really a medical as much as a legal issue. There are legal requirements for establishing a single primary “cause of death” that I believe go back centuries in common law, which was originally created for legal reasons (e.g., who may be at fault in a suspicious death, etc.). Most medical researchers clearly understand that there are many contributing factors to most deaths. But a coroner (in some jurisdictions not a medical professional at all) must write something on the legal document on the line “cause of death.”

              • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday August 10 2020, @03:04AM

                by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday August 10 2020, @03:04AM (#1034166) Journal

                That's a great observation and I bumped you up a point for it. Nevertheless, I think my point still stands for a good reason.

                People tend to think that marriage as a single thing. It's not. It's a legal thing, it's a religious thing, and / or it's a personal thing. If four people say they are married because they clapped their hand eight times, then they are married in the sense at a personal level even if it's not legal. Who am I to say they aren't married? They just can't file their taxes jointly because the state doesn't recognize their marriage. Maybe you don't recognize their marriage either, but why would they care? That's something that they believe.

                The same principle applies here. Why would the medical community care about what a governmental agency says? If the medical community really wanted to keep track of how many people died from what (listing multiple causes), they could do it. Granted, it takes money and that's why it won't happen, but they could keep records that are better than a line in a coroner report.

                But again, good observation and one I hadn't thought of.

          • (Score: 2) by dry on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:59PM

            by dry (223) on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:59PM (#1033979) Journal

            Well if they have a heart condition and catch Covid-19 badly and their heart stops, it is still Covid-19 that killed them. It's really hard with advanced medicine to say whether their heart would have packed it in shortly or in a decade.
            This brings up another paradox, the better a countries medical care, the more Covid-19 deaths due to all those people being kept alive with their bad heart, stroke survivors, and such who get finished off by the virus. In a more backward health-wise country, those people would already have been dead.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:37PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:37PM (#1033869)

          Wrong. As it stands, if someone in the UK who has had a positive test for COVID-19 lives for another 50 years and then dies of old age, the current recording method will still report that death as resulting from COVID-19

          Wrong.....England maybe, but not the UK...

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:33PM

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:33PM (#1033896) Journal
            True - thanks for the correction.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Sunday August 09 2020, @09:57AM (8 children)

        by driverless (4770) on Sunday August 09 2020, @09:57AM (#1033727)

        Does anyone have more reports of this from a source that isn't Pravda^H^H^HRussia Today? I've checked UK sources and can't find any mention of this.

        In other words we could be arguing over something that's nothing more then Russia Today's creative misreporting.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:09AM (5 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:09AM (#1033739)

          How about this [bbc.co.uk] from Pravda?

          • (Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:14AM (4 children)

            by driverless (4770) on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:14AM (#1033740)

            That's a story from three weeks ago with a call for review. The other source given is The Sun... I guess whoever reported the story had the prerequisite big tits [thesun.co.uk] for a Sun story.

            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:38AM (3 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:38AM (#1033744)

              The RT summary cites the twitter official accounts of DHSC and ONS, titty size unconfirmed.

              I don't get the RT hatred, the BBC is also a state broadcaster - one who's editorial independence gave way to a smug condescension which has seen it alienate everybody.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @02:35PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @02:35PM (#1033824)

                Russia bad! Britain good! Trump Hitler! Biden Jesus!

              • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:41PM

                by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:41PM (#1033872)

                There are plenty of tits in Government; with a great tit as Prime Minister.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 10 2020, @12:20AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 10 2020, @12:20AM (#1034103) Journal
                You got it half right. Part of the problem is that the RT is a state broadcaster, the other part is that it's a state broadcaster for Russia. I got burned by them back in 2003 during the Iraqi invasion and I haven't looked back.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:56AM (1 child)

          by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @11:56AM (#1033750) Journal

          It is mentioned on Public Health England's own website, but it gives no details of any figures yet. It does confirm that the review of reported deaths is taking place.

          • (Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:42PM

            by driverless (4770) on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:42PM (#1033769)

            Yeah, that's about the closest I found, mentions in various sources that things were under review, which is what made me a bit suspicious about Pravda's hard figures.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @10:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @10:53AM (#1033736)

      Mysteriously, deaths from heart disease have pretty much disappeared from the statistics, because every death is being attributed to Covid19.

      Or Derek Chauvin

  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:06AM (7 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:06AM (#1033691) Journal

    Just burn all the books and start over

    I hope people are more awake next time they vote

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by leon_the_cat on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:19PM (1 child)

      by leon_the_cat (10052) on Sunday August 09 2020, @12:19PM (#1033761) Journal

      no they need to be more asleep next time they vote.

      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:30PM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:30PM (#1033931) Journal

        No, they need to feel the pain. Make them know what they are doing

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:48PM (4 children)

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @04:48PM (#1033876)

      Well, at the next UK vote, "get Brexit done" won't be as effective a rallying call.

      (At least I hope so: if it hasn't been "done" by then, the electorate are going to be really fed up with it.)

      Mind you, there'll be entertaining stuff in the Scottish Parliament elections next year: SNP set for a landslide majority, but the UK Government's line is the can't have another independence referendum because the one in 2014 was meant to settle things for a generation. (Never mind that one of the main arguments for staying in the UK was continued membership of the E.U. :/ )

      • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:14PM (3 children)

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @06:14PM (#1033923) Journal
        It has already been done, kazzie. It became formal on 31 Jan 2020, and they have also formally notified the EU that they will not be asking for an extension to the ongoing trade negotiation phase. The date for extending the stay within the EU has long gone.
        • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday August 10 2020, @06:07AM (2 children)

          by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 10 2020, @06:07AM (#1034232)

          Yes. I await the end of the negotiation phase in December with curiosity. There'll probably be a last-minute flurry of activity to get something done by the deadline. The last UK election demonstrated that a majority wanted the whole process to be over and done with, and the current Government seem eager to be able to show that's (superficially, at least) the case.

          Whatever agreement (or lack of agreement) is made, there'll be a portion of UK society that will be up in arms about it. I just wonder which it will be...

          (And, as many political comentators have noted, the new trading relationship between the UK and EU is going to take the best part of a decade to be hammered out properly.)

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday August 10 2020, @07:51AM (1 child)

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 10 2020, @07:51AM (#1034252) Journal

            The trade negotiations have already started. The first formal meeting was in January, and since the arrival of CV-19, have mostly been conducted via teleconferencing. There is currently an impasse. The EU still want the UK to be bound by European Law as a result of any future agreement, and the UK is saying that the reason that we voted to leave was because we want to be controlled by our own laws. I think that they are both waiting to see who will blink first.

            • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:39AM

              by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:39AM (#1034820)

              Yes. And if neither blinks, then the transitional arrangements will come to an end in December. Personally, I expect a small "filler" agreement to tide things over while negotiations continue on the trickier stuff, but who knows what'l happen in the run-up to the cliff edge?

              It's nice to have the political and economic strife of Brexit, to distract us from the political and economic strife of Covid.

  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:45AM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:45AM (#1033697)

    - "I'm not dead."
    • "Ere, he says he's not dead."
    > "Well he will be very soon."
    - "I'm getting better!"

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @05:05PM (#1033881)

    Golly-gee-willikers, now how could that have happened?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2020, @07:41PM (#1033972)

    "wherein a death is marked as Covid-19-related only if it occurs within 28 days of a positive test."

    so a smaller lie, then?

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