Re:Excess Deaths in 2020
by simonh on Thursday April 29, 2021 @10:13AM
(#26981419)
Given the range of values over 5 years it seems pretty unlikely for most states, but might not be out of the question for say Hawaii or Vermont say. Unlikely, but not impossible.
One factor to bear in mind is the 5 year period includes a particularly nasty flu season in 2017-18 so the last 5 year period includes a high outlier.
The thing is over the long term all kinds of outlier events pop up, like this one, but it's hard to think of any with this magnitude. 9/11 killed 3k people in one go, but that's only one tenth of the excess deaths in New York from Covid in a single month. Even the 1906 Earthquake that devastated San Francisco only killed less than 1% of the city's population. World War 2 had an appreciable effect of course at 300k deaths over about 3 years.
If we're including other pandemics of course there's the Spanish Flu which also killed about half a million Americans or more, against a population a third the size.
One factor to bear in mind is the 5 year period includes a particularly nasty flu season in 2017-18 so the last 5 year period includes a high outlier.
The thing is over the long term all kinds of outlier events pop up, like this one, but it's hard to think of any with this magnitude. 9/11 killed 3k people in one go, but that's only one tenth of the excess deaths in New York from Covid in a single month. Even the 1906 Earthquake that devastated San Francisco only killed less than 1% of the city's population. World War 2 had an appreciable effect of course at 300k deaths over about 3 years.
If we're including other pandemics of course there's the Spanish Flu which also killed about half a million Americans or more, against a population a third the size.