Covid19 Reflections #10

Today’s insight

I’ve previously written that the number of positive tests in any country is not necessarily a good measure of how prevalent Covid19 is in that country. It really depends on how much of the population is being tested, and how many of those tests are positive. I had been thinking that the number of deaths (while coming later in a pandemic) was a better measure.

But this article from Italy adds more evidence to a theory I had been hearing from a few sources – that not all Covid19 deaths are being counted. From a combination of overwhelmed testing resources, and an overwhelmed health system, not everyone who has died has been tested, and if they were not tested, they weren’t counted as Covid19 cases, even if they had all the symptoms.

The authors of this linked article (Claudio Cancelli, Mayor of Nembro and Luca Foresti is the CEO of Centro Medico Santagostino, both in the middle of the Italian Lombardy outbreak) described their analysis:

We noticed that something in these official numbers did not come back right, and we decided – together – to check. We looked at the average of the deaths in the municipality of previous years, in the period January – March. Nembro should have had – under normal conditions – about 35 deaths. 158 people were registered dead this year by the municipal offices. That is 123 more than the average. Not 31 more, as it should have been according to the official numbers of the coronavirus epidemic.

The graph below shows this – it is in Italian, but fairly clear given the description.

The authors say that up to four times as many deaths are occurring from Covid19 as are being counted – most of these deaths are probably directly caused by Covid19, but some may be indirectly caused by Covid19 as medical care is triaged and those who are sick from other causes don’t get the care they need.

It is extremely reasonable to think that these excess deaths are largely elderly or frail people who died at home or in residential facilities, without being hospitalized and without being swabbed to verify that they have actually become infected with Covid-19.

This shows the difficulty of getting accurate statistics for both number of cases and number of deaths, and therefore how hard it is for anyone around the world to predict the course of this outbreak. The range of potential outcomes over the next 12-18 months is still very large.

Today’s Link

Last month, I posted about the shocking statistics of family violence in Australia – on average one woman is killed a week, and one child a fortnight from family violence. This article reminds us that this issue has not gone away with Covid19, and that for many people, their home is not a safe place to retreat to as we lock ourselves further away from each other. In Australia, more money has been given to mental health helplines, but as this article points out, the most important assistance is often a place to stay. And with the tourism industry basically closed down, I would like to think something can be done about that.

Life Glimpses

I’ve been a member for a community choir called Unaccompanied Baggage for more than 10 years (it’s been going more than 25). We meet every Monday night during school term time. The last time we met was 9th March. One of our number is very involved with pandemic preparation for NSW, and persuaded us to stop before the various rules came into place. Many of us are putting aside Monday evening to sit and watch our director’s videos of the music we should be learning. He goes through each part, compares it with the original song, and we can sing along. It’s not as good as singing together, but on the other hand we learn about the background to the arrangements, which is so much more interesting than the mathematical approach to music arranging I learned at school. And it gives us some virtual, at least, community.

Bit of Beauty

Another flower from the nearby streets today. Enjoy!