[Northerner52]

Interesting statistic on deaths in Florida for 2017. We are on track to have the same # of Covid deaths as accidents in Florida. 1/4 the deaths of both cancer and heart attacks.

Stats of the State of Florida

[Bay Kid]

When the govern stops paying hospitals more to report a covid-19 death things will change.

[JerryLBell]

How does it compare annually? Well, since record keeping began up until last year, there weren't any Covid-19 deaths at all. Just over halfway into this year, there's been nearly 6,000 deaths. So I'd have to say there's been a bit of an uptick.

True, that's only comparing the 2020 Covid-19 death rate against the Covid-19 death rate for previous years. That's cherry-picking. However, there has already more been than twice as many Covid-19 deaths in 2020 compared to flu-related deaths for the entire year of 2019. No doubt there will be more to come in the remaining 5 months of the year as the rates are trending upwards, not downwards.

As far as "When the govern [sic] stops paying hospitals more to report a covid-19 death things will change.", the governor is actually suppressing the hospital reporting, not encouraging it. Hospitals don't get bonuses for reporting deaths of particular types. Things will change for the better when and if an effective vaccine is developed and widely distributed. Until then, they will only get better if the vast majority of people socially distance, wear masks in public and wash thoroughly and frequently. It's boring to stay home for those of us fortunate to be retired and economically disastrous for those who still need to work, but this virus does not care.

[GoodLife]

Originally Posted by JerryLBell

How does it compare annually? Well, since record keeping began up until last year, there weren't any Covid-19 deaths at all. Just over halfway into this year, there's been nearly 6,000 deaths. So I'd have to say there's been a bit of an uptick.

True, that's only comparing the 2020 Covid-19 death rate against the Covid-19 death rate for previous years. That's cherry-picking. However, there has already more been than twice as many Covid-19 deaths in 2020 compared to flu-related deaths for the entire year of 2019. No doubt there will be more to come in the remaining 5 months of the year as the rates are trending upwards, not downwards.

As far as "When the govern [sic] stops paying hospitals more to report a covid-19 death things will change.", the governor is actually suppressing the hospital reporting, not encouraging it. Hospitals don't get bonuses for reporting deaths of particular types. Things will change for the better when and if an effective vaccine is developed and widely distributed. Until then, they will only get better if the vast majority of people socially distance, wear masks in public and wash thoroughly and frequently. It's boring to stay home for those of us fortunate to be retired and economically disastrous for those who still need to work, but this virus does not care.

Because of CDC coding guidelines, a lot of deaths are classified as covid 19 deaths even though the death was not caused by covid 19. We have seen reports of the guy killed in motorcycle crash or another struck by lightning, since they tested positive for covid they are coded as a covid death. This is true for many cases, heart attacks, cancer etc. Peope dying WITH covid rather than FROM covid

People die every day from many cause, so a better way to look at this pandemic is to compare excess deaths to the average baseline of deaths that occur every year.

Here is a chart for Florida showing all cause deaths for various years. You can see that 2020 has excess amount of deaths from covid 19.



CDC also looks at excess death rates over normal which can be seen in a graph at this link. Scroll down to see chart

Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19