First, comparison tables often have inaccurate and outdated figures. In addition, they ignore the exponential increase in victims. In addition, they compare deaths that can be prevented with treatments, such as those caused by infectious diseases, with accidental deaths.
Inaccurate figures
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These tables comparing the number of deaths from COVID-19 with other causes of death are inaccurate.
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The first problem with these tables is that the data for the coronavirus is inaccurate. Since the number of deaths from COVID-19 has increased rapidly since the start of the pandemic, a few weeks are enough for the numbers to be out of date. The other causes of death in these tables are fairly stable from week to week.
For example, in a table dated March 30, it is said that the coronavirus killed 36,272 people, and in another table, dated May 1, it is said to have caused 237,469 deaths. In reality, as of May 21, 2020, 334,719 people died from the coronavirus.
Thus, contrary to what is displayed in the table, the number of deaths due to coronavirus greatly exceeds those caused by seasonal flu, and it is almost equal to the number of deaths from malaria.
In addition, malaria is a very important cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa, but causes very few victims on other continents. (New window)
One of the circulating tables also includes the number of abortions. However, this value cannot count among the causes of death in the population, since fetuses are not included in the population calculation.
Possibly higher balance sheet
The actual toll of COVID-19 is not yet known, but it could be much higher than expected. Several countries suspected of hiding their actual number of victims, and other countries fail to count all their deaths from coronavirus (New window). Experts estimate the actual number of deaths from COVID could be up to 1.5 times higher (New window) than the official figures.
In addition, since the pandemic is not over, the toll could worsen, believes Professor Antoine Flahault (New window), director of the Institute of Global Health of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva.
COVID-19 may not have said its last word. We are not yet at the end of 2020. So the people who talked about comparison over a whole year are people who assume that COVID-19 will not come back from May .
Furthermore, if no measures had been imposed, the number of deaths would have been even greater. According to a study by the Graduate School of Public Health (New window) (EHESP), in France, confinement made it possible to avoid the death of 60,000 people in this country.
“If we hadn’t done anything, everyone would have blamed the government for it. [On aurait dit :] “Come on, this is negligence, you don’t take care of your population” “, emphasizes the epidemiologist Nimâ Machouf, from the Latin Quarter clinic and lecturer at the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal.
A very high average number of daily deaths
Another undated table provides an even more distorted portrait of the COVID-19 pandemic. It compares the number of daily deaths from different infectious diseases. It is claimed that the coronavirus would kill 56 people a day.
This is not true: between January 22, 2020 and May 21, 2020, the coronavirus caused an average of 2,789 deaths per day, which puts it almost at the top of infectious diseases. At the height of the pandemic, there were up to 8,429 deaths in one day (New window), which exceeds all other diseases in the table.
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This table comparing the average number of deaths from COVID-19 with other causes of death is far from the reality.
Photo: Screenshot
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A “frightening” mortality rate
The tables circulating on social networks do not take into account the death rate from the disease, that is to say the number of deaths compared to the number of people infected. <q data-attributes = "{" lang ": {" value ":" fr "," label ":" Français "}," value ": {" html ":" What we see as mortality is a mortality that looks a bit like the Spanish flu pandemic of1918, which must have been between 1 and 2% mortality “,” text “:” What we see as mortality is a mortality that somewhat resembles the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which must have been between 1 and 2% mortality “}}” lang = ” en “>What we see as mortality is a mortality that somewhat resembles the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which must have been between 1 and 2% of mortality, explains Professor Antoine Flahault.
It doesn’t sound like much. In fact, it’s scary. Because a mortality of 1% for a disease which has an attack rate potential, that is to say of infection of the extremely large population, it is something which is quite worrying.
Seasonal flu has a death rate 10 times lower, around 0.1%.
While for AIDS, although the disease has killed twice as many people as the coronavirus this year – 652,088 people as of May 21 – there are 10 times more people with HIV than people who contracted COVID-19. Almost 38 million people are living with HIV (New window) worldwide, while just over 5 million people have acquired COVID-19 to date. In other words, a higher proportion of coronavirus carriers died this year than of HIV carriers.
Avoidable deaths
Other causes of death, such as cancer and malnutrition, kill far more than the coronavirus. Some then wonder why impose such strict confinement on a disease that is not the leading cause of death in the world. Because deaths can be avoided with these measures, retorts epidemiologist Nima Machouf.
You don’t expect to die from an infectious disease. We don’t accept that anymore. We are no longer in the 1900s. We must do everything to prevent people from dying or suffering from an illness.
According to her, one cannot sit idly by in front of a potentially fatal disease, under the pretext that other causes claim more victims. It’s great to talk about these things, but the comparison is not good
, she says.
Otherwise, every time you go to the hospital to treat yourself for something, people can say, “We stop treating you, ma’am, because there are more people who die from diarrhea than that.”
The epidemiologist also points out that when it comes to confinement, one cannot compare coronavirus, which is a highly contagious disease, with diseases that are little or not contagious.
For example, AIDS is transmitted through the blood or through sexual contact. It is therefore less contagious than COVID-19. Malaria, or malaria, is transmitted by a parasite (New window) and is not transmitted from human to human. Cancers are caused by a multitude of factors, but they are not contagious.
Thus, these diseases cannot be prevented by containment, while COVID-19 can be avoided. In this regard, the coronavirus can be compared to tuberculosis, a disease with compulsory treatment (New window), according to Quebec laws. It’s a public health danger, says Ms. Machouf. Me, if I have a heart problem or diabetes and I don’t want to be treated, there is no one who can force me […] But if I have tuberculosis, I can be forced to get treatment, because I can pass it on to someone else, so I’m a danger to the public.
Can we compare Sweden with Quebec?
Another viral image compares the number of deaths in Sweden (3,871 as of May 21 (New window)), which imposed few preventive measures, with the number of deaths in Quebec (3800 deaths as of May 21). This image suggests that containment would have made no difference. An erroneous conclusion, underlines Nimâ Machouf, since several factors differentiate Sweden from Quebec.
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This table comparing the number of deaths in Sweden and Quebec, without taking into account all the factors.
Photo: Screenshot
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It has to be a similar demographic, says Ms. Machouf. A population with roughly the same age structures, the same size of cities.
Instead, Sweden should be compared to its Scandinavian neighbors, where conditions are similar. We see that Sweden has 10 times more victims of COVID-19 than its neighboring countries, while its population is only two times higher.
As the pandemic is in full swing, epidemiologist Nimâ Machouf believes that it is still too early to take stock.Of course, once the epidemic is over, there are going to be a lot of analyzes to be done, she said. Because it may not be the last epidemic that affects us.
