Thread: Check My Math
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Old 09-17-2020, 10:01 PM
  #1  
NotMrNiceGuy
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Joined APC: Oct 2015
Posts: 736
Default Check My Math

So, I’ve been bored lately and made a few spreadsheet to compare different aspects of COVID. The first area I focused on was a comparison between the USA and a comparable population size in Europe. The countries I selected in Europe were: Italy, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, France, and the U.K. These countries have a population of 344.7 million compared with the USA’s 331 million. I corrected the final numbers for population.

CASES DEATHS % Death Total POP Tot Tests


Europe 2,084,038 157,570 0.0476% (1 in 2100)* 67,341,545



USA 6,874,600 202,213 0.0615 (1 in 1635)* 95,235,000

The mortality rate represented when comparing the two regions is significant. Europe comes in with 7.56% mortality compared with 2.94% for the US. It is difficult to say what this means due to the number of tests done in the US. The US testing was 40% more when corrected for population which likely means I higher number of cases discovered. This larger denominator could perhaps drive down the mortality rate. It is likely that Europe has had more cases that have not been discovered.

*For reference, odds of dying in a fire is 1 in 1498.

The next area of comparison was across age groups. My reference point came from the CDC. My population death rates came from 2007 and I used total USA deaths from 2018. The data was difficult to find, so I had to do some interpolation, but the gist should be similar.

Death Rate/100000 Death
35-44 185 24,466
45-54 421 55,677
55-64 878 116,116
65-74 2,011 265,955
75-84 5,012 662,837
85+ 12,947 1,712,241

Total Death
2,837,292

The above numbers indicate all deaths in the US in 2018.

The below numbers are from the CDC. They are a few weeks behind. Total deaths at this point were 180K. I believe now it is over 200K.

Death Rate/100000 Total Deaths % COVID Deaths
35-44 28 3,675 2.04%
45-54 73 9,694 5.38%
55-64 175 23,134 12.83%
65-74 296 39,129 21.70%
75-84 364 48,136 26.70%
85+ 427 56,525 31.35%

Total Death
180,293

It is clear to see that the lion’s share of death is over the age of 65, coming in at 79.75%.

By dividing the number of COVID deaths by the annual deaths for each age group, you can determine the added rate of death stemming from COVID, respectively. For example, there are 3,675 deaths from COVID so far in the 35-44 age group. In 2018, there were 24,466. COVID deaths add a roughly 15% rate of death in this instance. Here are the other death rates broken down by age group.

Age % Increase

35-44 15.02%
45-54 17.41%
55-64 19.92%
65-74 14.71%
75-84 7.26%
85+ 3.30%

An observation that jumps out is that the age groups with the most risk from COVID have the least amplification of that risk.

The next section compares the number of deaths to the total population of that age group.

Age COVID Deaths Population % of Population
35-44 3,675 41,213,474 0.0089%
45-54 9,694 41,577,706 0.0233%
55-64 23,134 42,224,249 0.0548%
65-74 39,129 30,449,183 0.1285%
75-84 48,136 15,375,856 0.3131%
85+ 56,525 6,544,300 0.8637%

This example shows that although the 85+ age group is most at risk, COVID still accounts for less than 1% of this segments source of death. Again, 2018 population numbers were used as a source of interpolation.

The final grouping of numbers shows the current odds of death for each age group. The COVID Bump was then applied to determine the odds of death during the COVID Pandemic. Keep in mind, only six months of the year have past, so the data is incomplete.

Age 2018 Deaths Segment Population 2018 Odds of Death COVID Chance
35-44 24,466 41,213,474 0.0594% 0.06828%
45-54 55,677 41,577,706 0.1339% 0.15723%
55-64 116,116 42,224,249 0.2750% 0.32979%
65-74 265,955 30,449,183 0.8734% 1.00194%
75-84 662,837 15,375,856 4.3109% 4.62396%
85+ 1,712,241 6,544,300 26.1638% 27.02758%

As you can see, the risk jump for each group due to COVID is surprisingly low. The chance of death for someone in the 35-44 group goes from 0.0594% to 0.068% (15% jump). A 15% jump sounds like a lot, but when the odds are 1/1685 to begin with, not so much. The likelihood for someone 85+ to succumb to COVID as opposed to a non-COVID year went from roughly 1 in 3.82 to 1 in 3.7.

A couple of things in closing.
- I am keenly aware that all death is a tragedy, and by no means do I want to minimize anyone’s experience with sickness and death. My father is 75 and I don’t want him anywhere near this thing.
- I am not a statistician (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night). This project was borne of boredom. Feel free to critique or teach me some tricks of the trade. I’d like to know how to better interpret the data.

I really just thought there may be some interest in the data. I know it certainly is interesting to me.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/Mo...rktable23r.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/c....htm#AgeAndSex

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
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