Covid 19 Deaths, Not Lockdown Deaths, Part 1: Why the Deadly First Month?

Covid 19 Deaths, Not Lockdown Deaths, Part 1: Why the Deadly First Month?

October 5, 2020

Lockdown Kills! We've heard this around from people who think the SARS CoV-2 virus itself only kills on par with a seasonal flu. Yet all over, a serious outbreak leads to alarming daily deaths from confirmed infections, and then an enormous number of people past expected norms die on top of that, far above what the virus is known to kill, but piling up just when its deaths do - primarily in the 3-4 weeks after lockdown orders are imposed. 

Alarm bells!

What started as a response to just two of the many articles around making such claims turned into a strong but expansive general rebuttal that needs to be done in three parts. I'll start with virus apologist John Pospichal's "Questions for lockdown apologists," which Vanessa Beeley for one passed on as a "very well researched article." He clearly put some work into it, and it's astounding how he was able to follow through that far while completely missing the fairly obvious answer that whole time.

Peak Deaths AFTER Lockdown - Why?

After a quick read, it seems Pospichal just asked variations of one (compound) question: why did Covid 19 deaths, and indeed overall (all-causes) deaths, spike suddenly after lockdowns were imposed, and remain high for weeks afterwards, and not rise noticeably before that, despite the virus apparently spreading for months already? The suggestion is that the severe restrictions are what killed so many over the first few weeks. Just how and why isn't made clear, but the patterns were supposed to speak for themselves in showing it must be something else.

The discussion of early spread is interesting, seems true, and it's worth asking why it didn't kill more widely before (except it seems in Spain, S. Africa, somewhere in the U.S. by Christmas, anywhere a below-average baseline hides the small early death toll, etc.)  Many, many places see unexplained surges of deaths in mid-February, some building on one already underway. But these surges tend to drop - apparently on their own, or from quiet control measures - before the covid surge noticeably begins, variously in mid-February to mid-March. 

Perhaps a more contagious strain started spreading in January, or it just started spreading from far more points in quick order, adding to the existing transmission pathways, hitting the point of exponential growth where it goes from all-but invisible to overwhelming in very short order.

Whatever to make of that issue, once the new wave of infections took off, late February up to lockdown, it got bad all over quite fast. As cases and impending deaths rose sharply, escalating measures were taken. And yet the impending deaths rose sharply for a couple weeks after the final lockdown orders, as if the orders did NOT magically cure them. 

Virus and overall deaths continue past the peak because ... most of them are virus deaths, and in those death comes well after infection and confirmation, not the same or next day. In fact it can take just a few days up to a month, and usually 2-3 weeks, with several sources agreeing on 18.5 days median time between first symptoms and death. For example, Drugs.com gives 18.5, while indicating 19, in a chart I adapted below to get a better view relative to actual infection date.

I'm still no expert, so keeping it broad ... 2-14 days is commonly given as the broad span between infection and symptoms. Confirmation date will vary a lot too, from first concern to first symptoms, to several days after that to ICU admission around day 12 (to death, to never). But confirmation doesn't matter here. Broadly, Covid 19 deaths will follow infections by a wide range of between 20 and 33 days. That may be a bit late and long, and it will describe just the majority of cases involving a real struggle. There are some with bad prior conditions where just a few days of infection is enough to push them over the edge, so a number of deaths resulting from any one day's infections will come scattered over the days and weeks before the crowd arrives at the final finish line.

So if you look at the day after lockdown, you'll see deaths already set in motion about a month back. If infections are to fall off, check for that around 20 to 33 days later. If the response was good, I reason you'll see them already falling by then.  

Working in this key detail to the handy graphic Pospichal had prepared flips his case around nicely. Deaths peak usually 15-20 days after lockdown, maybe depending on how well prior measures had worked. They always fall steadily during the 13-day span roughly corresponding with the last pre-lockdown fatal infections. new cases/deaths will have come in, and a new surge might be waiting in the wings if measures failed, but here we see the high death tolls Pospichal wanted to claim as lockdown deaths all show how well lockdown saved lives.

Madrid: 

Ile-de-France aka Paris, I think. A bit of a slow response, but then quite effective, as seen from 21 to 33 days out and beyond. Good thing too - notive it peaks at nearly 5,000 deaths in a week - the norm it had been was just over 1,500/week. Anyone care to see what would happen if they did lockdown a week later?

London: unusually, that plate had its control measures marked in red a week earlier than they should be, putting more deaths after the orders and less of them before. Interesting. Corrected here, checking 20-33 days out, something deadly was in fact locked down pretty well, besides the people.

New York City, a bit more inexact timeline here at right, but it seems to be the same picture: Lockdown worked, completing improvements made at least a week earlier with other measures (the slope goes from almost vertical to 60 degrees before peak).

Finally, hard-hit Guayas province, Ecuador (below). They saw peak deaths near 700/day 18 days after lockdown, with a sharp fall starting day 19, down to 200/day by day 33, and to average levels again by day 37. That seems to have worked out exceptionally well.

Conclusion

Everywhere, after 18-21 days plus some resolution, these last pre-lockdown cases have died, and deaths then fall steadily by day 33 to fairly low levels, taking different turns from there. That means the lockdown orders and preceding measures worked. The main question on the death delay is answered.  Lockdown did not cause those ongoing coronavirus deaths - it stopped them from rising higher over a longer time. 

To note: the drastic shutdowns and stay-at-home orders so widely used did not do this single-handedly. Social distancing and special protection of the most vulnerable, by themselves and others, seems to have an even bigger impact on falling death rates. These can be seen lowering deaths prior to full lockdown, and must be behind the consistently lower fatality among older people during secondary outbreaks over the summer and fall. But the spikes of death we do so still see - smaller and delayed - show how they can avoid the virus much better when it's not being spread like mad. 

And we know lockdown didn't do this cheaply; the disruptions have been enormous. But the global surges of deaths this year are not one of these costs.

But if one still insists it really wasn't the virus but some aspects of the response, or anything else that killed these people, well... now we can add a detail, in case anyone wants to find out just what is truly to blame. The mystery cause(s) overwhelmingly kill on just about the timescale Covid19 would, peaking about 20 days after lockdown and falling from there. There are some other details we can add, and will in part 2 fairly soon.