The true death toll of COVID

Two articles I have noticed about this:   one in Nature that starts:

On 1 November, the global death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic passed 5 million, official data suggested. It has now reached 5.5 million. But that figure is a significant underestimate. Records of excess mortality — a metric that involves comparing all deaths recorded with those expected to occur — show many more people than this have died in the pandemic.

Working out how many more is a complex research challenge. It is not as simple as just counting up each country’s excess mortality figures. Some official data in this regard are flawed, scientists have found. And more than 100 countries do not collect reliable statistics on expected or actual deaths at all, or do not release them in a timely manner.

And after explaining the complexities, concludes with this:

Amid the search for ways to count deaths, Andrew Noymer, a demographer at the University of California, Irvine, says the pandemic and the increased demand for real-time mortality figures highlight a demographic shortcoming that goes back decades: many countries simply don’t collect good data on births, deaths and other vital statistics. “Demographers have been part of the problem, because we have helped to put band-aids on this for 60 years. We’ve developed all sorts of techniques to estimate demographic rates in the absence of hard data,” he says.

That means the true death toll of COVID-19 might always be disputed. “We still don’t know how many people died in the 1918 [flu] pandemic, but I always figured we would know pretty well how many people would die in the next one, because we live in the modern world,” Noymer says. “But we don’t actually, and that’s kind of sad for me as a demographer.”

Over at Science, the particular difficulties of counting deaths in India is discussed in detail in a paper.  (I have always said that I would not be surprised if the true death rate effect of heat waves in that country was not clear at all.)   Here's the abstract:

India’s national COVID death totals remain undetermined. Using an independent nationally representative survey of 0.14 million (M) adults, we compared COVID mortality during the 2020 and 2021 viral waves to expected all-cause mortality. COVID constituted 29% (95%CI 28-31%) of deaths from June 2020-July 2021, corresponding to 3.2M (3.1-3.4) deaths, of which 2.7M (2.6-2.9) occurred in April-July 2021 (when COVID doubled all-cause mortality). A sub-survey of 57,000 adults showed similar temporal increases in mortality with COVID and non-COVID deaths peaking similarly. Two government data sources found that, when compared to pre-pandemic periods, all-cause mortality was 27% (23-32%) higher in 0.2M health facilities and 26% (21-31%) higher in civil registration deaths in ten states; both increases occurred mostly in 2021. The analyses find that India’s cumulative COVID deaths by September 2021 were 6-7 times higher than reported officially.

 

This is making "King Kong" island more believable

I'm still really surprised at how long it is taking to get a good idea of the amount of damage in Tonga.   It has reminded me of the start of King Kong, with an island that is unobservable.   If ever we have a significant meteor strike causing tsunamis all over the Pacific, it's obviously going to take ages to learn the full extent of what has happened.

The ABC notes:

Tonga's internet could be down for more than two weeks after a violent volcanic eruption cut the kingdom's only undersea communications cable, isolating the country from contact with the outside world.

Surely Elon Musk ought to be promoting Starlink private internet services as a solution to this problem?  

Another thing that had escaped my attention, until now

I don't have much interest in language as a topic, which probably explains why it had escaped my attention (until Google wanted me to learn it - yes I am talking recommendations on Youtube again) that it is widely held that the Koreans have the easiest writing system (alphabet) ever invented. 

   

Huh.  I just thought it looked weird, but as I say, languages are not my "thing". 

 

The big bang in Tonga

I'm kind of surprised, in this modern day of communications, that Tonga could apparently be so easily cut off from the rest of the world.   What about satellite phones?   Do all governments keep a bunch of them on hand in case cables are cut?   But then, I thought, maybe satellite phones don't do well under a giant cloud of volcanic ash?   Anyway, some communications have taken place, apparently, but using what system?

 It also would not be at all surprising to see some global cooling as a result of this:

 

Further evidence that all smart, likeable people like They Might be Giants

(I don't care for the Pixies, though.)

Steamy, boring personal news

I bought a new steam iron and it's good to be ironing with steam again.  [Oh my.  I just checked  and it would appear that I have been putting up with using a water spray bottle while ironing, instead of using a continuous stream of steam, for just over 5 years!  How did I last so long?]

Gone with Tefal this time - this one:

The company makes a song and dance about having "anti-calc" systems which involve openings into the iron and the ability to remove scale (or bits of it.)   I was thinking of just using distilled water in it (as I happen to have some in the garage), but they actually recommend against using it!   

I am a tad sceptical, but we will see. 

People won't freeze to death in their Tesla

I had been wondering about this:  in frigid climates, if people drive electric cars, how long can the battery keep the interior warm if they are stuck in traffic for a very long time, as was the case recently in Virginia?

It turns out a guy on Youtube ran a test on two Tesla models, at least, and the results were pretty impressive.   Starting at a 90% charge, and keeping the inside at a nice 21 degrees C (70F), and without any human body warmth to help maintain the interior temperature, the test indicated the batteries should last well over a day, perhaps 36 hours.   (And in reality, people might turn the heater down to under 20 degrees if they have concerns about how much power was left.)    This is better than I would have expected, to be honest.

Here's the video:

Biden being punished for things beyond his control

I have no doubt at all that Biden is the one who is getting punished in public opinion polls for things not  within his control:

* the intransigence of two conservative Democrat Senators.   Manchin (who tells lies about the filibuster) and Sinema do appear to be just awful people who, if they had principles, would get out of their party;

* a COVID variant which the behaviour of the Right has made much worse;

* inflation which is thought to be at a temporary high.

I think I have to stop following moron Creighton

 Also:

 It's pretty simple:  it takes a jerk to like a jerk.

Rogan tactics noted

So Joe Rogan, who I have never cared to listen to, got very publicly corrected on a COVID/vaccination risk point, and didn't like it, as explained in these tweets:

 

Filibuster commentary

The COVID messaging wars - shouldn't the message be "the importance of consensus"?

Man, I'm sick of the COVID messaging/expertise wars.   I read the article yesterday in the AFR (which I can't link to now as paywall is up), about the fight between Nick Coatesworth and "Ozsage", which started:

A year ago, when he was Australia’s deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth told colleagues to watch out for a group of doctors and academics who, he felt, were so concerned by SARS-CoV-2 they would advocate for excessive measures against the virus.

Yet Coatesworth himself was partially wrong in his pooh-poohing of 25,000 a day from Omicron:

University of NSW modelling has suggested NSW could have up to 25,000 new cases a day by February - eight times higher than the current number. 

However, Dr Coatsworth slammed that figure as ­not 'accurate', challenging claims by clinical immunologist Dr Dan Suan that the state was 'sleepwalking into an Omicron disaster'.

Sure, you might say he turned out to be right "in the big picture" on his very early guess (because, really, that's all it could have been) that Omicron would result in much lower hospitalisation and might, maybe, be (kind of?) the end of COVID.   (Although, as far as I can tell, it is still completely unknown how much protection an Omicron infection might give against future variants.)  

I've complained from the start of the pandemic, pretty much, that people on all sides seemed to be overconfident of their positions on the basis of very clearly complicated and early information that would be very hard to sort out and take years in some cases to understand well.    

If anything, it has made me think of the importance of consensus in science and policy matters - you will always get a range of opinion even from normally credible experts, and there will always be the influence of personal and social political philosophy on expert's views as to how to respond.  But that doesn't mean that there is no such thing as valid expertise on which to draw reasonable policy responses.

The important thing, I think, should be is to look at a science and policy consensus position, and always have sufficient regard to the uncertainties of novel and evolving events.   

Pyramid scheme that also wastes huge amounts of energy

 

Has Boris Johnson given all Conservatives permission to look ridiculous?

 

Cost of weather and climate disasters in USA

The report by NOAA has some good analysis of the cost of weather/climate disasters in the US over recent years.  I took this screenshot from it:

A reminder:  conservative wingnuts obsess over the cost of BLM rioting - which was widely reported last year as probably ending up costing insurance between $1 to $2 billion.

Personal COVID update

My daughter started feeling over her COVID on Sunday, with no symptoms yesterday and today.  She (and the rest of the family) are supposed to have RAT's today, the 6th day after her positive test was taken, but the problem was - how to get them.   Apparently, there was a fair chance we could get them free if we went to a testing clinic, but as far as I know, people are still lining up for hours (whether in  or out of a car) to get processed.  (Last week, apparently, a friend of my daughter and her Mum went at 3 am to line up in their car for a test - and there were already 30 cars ahead of them.  It took until 9 am!)

So, although the official rules for isolation say that I wasn't supposed to leave the house, as I had taken a negative RAT last Friday, and did not have any symptoms since, yesterday I decided to check 4 or 5 chemists near me, mainly 3 Chemist Warehouse outlets.   No tests were to be found, and I went both in the morning and afternoon.  People were practically stalking delivery vans, asking the guy if his delivery included tests.   (I did ask too, at a smaller chemist.)    People are obviously very happy to use these tests, and pay for them, if only they were available.

But then, behold, Facebook did something useful for once, and I got a text at about 7.30pm from my worker that they were available at Coles nearest me.  They were selling only one pack per customer (or two tests), and so my wife (no symptoms either) came with me.  Success!

About to test my daughter...she will be irate if it's positive!

Update:  I reckon the test came back a clear "invalid".  Ugh.  I don't entirely trust this brand.  My son's test didn't seem to give a clear result either.

Update 2:  my wife and I tested negative, clearly.  That's good, at least.  Meanwhile, the government advice as to coming out of isolation for even the diagnosed is somewhat ambiguous.   Clearly, though, they are changing the rules almost every day to deal with the problem with testing such a large number of people who would like a test, but can't get their hands on one.

 

Richard's nutty obsession

I had to stop following this guy on Twitter, because his scores of oddball tweets every day were just too much to put up with, for the occasional one that I might be of genuine interest.  But someone else has re-tweeted this, and it did remind that I don't think I have posted before about his absolutely nutty obsession with the (alleged) outrageousness of children wearing masks.  Fortunately, some people in tweets are starting to tell him he's ridiculous:

 

Excess deaths and COVID - UK edition

I still don't know why it is that Sky News UK is allowed to be sensible and responsible in terms of its reporting and commentary on things like climate change and COVID, while Rupert wants Sky News Australia (at least at night) to be a wingnutty branch of Fox News in its takes.   

Anyway, this explanation and analysis today of excess deaths in the UK from COVID is well done:

 

It illustrates why I think the correct line to take with wingnuttery in the Australian blogosphere that insists this was never a "serious" pandemic is just "you are too stupid to engage with".  (The only trouble being, they vote!)

The cost of climate change

I think this is quite a balanced take on the matter of the increasing cost of natural disasters to the world, and the relationship with climate change, from DW News:

Don't Look Up: I see what you were trying to do there...

[This post contains spoilers, to a degree.]

Talk about a curate's egg (good in parts) of a movie:  the much discussed Don't Look Up on Netflix.  

On the upside:

* all of the actors are really good, and I thought that Mark Rylands as the self involved tech billionaire was excellent.  He's the sort of actor who seems to inhabit roles, rather than act them.

*  some of the satire of Trumpian politics worked well - especially the dumb son as Chief of Staff.  Meryl Streep herself wasn't bad, but the role as written was ambiguous - you never really could tell if she was just dumb, like Trump; or smart but just so self-involved as to be dangerous.

* sure, I get the overall intention of a satire where the political opportunism and media messaging (and tech's manipulation of what interests in the public) is more important than the actual information;  but for broad satire to work it has to feel a tad more credible to me.

On the downside:

*  I think there are two key problems - the first being that the screenplay seemed to bend over backwards to avoid the risk of characters being identified exactly with any living person or institution.   So, for example, the Trump-ian President is shown getting a hug from Bill Clinton in a photo - is that just there so the writer can say "see, I'm not saying she's necessarily a Republican"?   The tech billionaire - you got a sense he was designed to vaguely remind us of Steve Jobs, but a dumber version. (That guy's dead, so defamation wouldn't have been a problem if the character was more like him.  It would have upset Apple fanboys, however.)   We all know that the worst tech billionaire is probably Zuckerberg, but the character as written was not given any of his obvious features (in terms of age or terrible haircut), so it seems to me it was again "playing it safe".   And the terrible morning TV show - surely Fox News should be the target, but they took a fair amount of care to make it something more generic.  If I worked on one of the mainstream morning breakfast shows in the US, I would be a bit insulted by this aspect, actually.   

* The second problem - is it too much to ask of satire to be more scientifically accurate?    I think - without looking it up - that the chances of a comet being found to have valuable minerals is next to nil.  An asteroid - sure - but if the movie had gone with that, they wouldn't have had the ability to make the joke that the disaster was literally staring the idiot part of humanity in the face.   (Also, I suspect in real life, the comet would have been obvious in the sky earlier than it was in the film.)   I didn't care for the silliness of the plan to cut up the comet, either.   And really, very popular disaster films have made the public (and even media stars) aware of what the end of the world by giant meteor or asteroid strike would look like - it's just not really credible to have this news immediately downplayed on virtually any media network - even (dare I say it) Fox News.

I suspect that a more realistic scenario would have worked better as satire - say, that it was an asteroid, and that the problem turned out to be an ageing, libertarian inclined astronomer with Republican connections coming up with his own calculation that it was only a 50% chance of it hitting - not the 99% chance that NASA gave.  (Or he could calculate that it would hit the North Pole and not really endanger the planet - just some unfortunate Russian Northern cities that can be evacuated.)    And the President and her party runs with the contrarian advice...

It wouldn't be as broad a satire, but that would (in my opinion) be a good thing.