I’ve kept out of this debate so far and I have to confess that I haven’t read every single one of the 500 posts so far and I apologise if what follows has been covered before.
My reason for contributing is that I was concerned by Rorschach’s comment yesterday that
“Vast majority of deaths are over 60 and most of them are over 80. I can't remember where I read it but they said that almost everyone that has died was older than average life expectancy.”
What follows is very boring as it involves statistics
It’s true to say that those reaching age 80 have reached average life expectancy but that is the age expectancy at birth and, by age 80, quite a number of those who were born in, say, 1940 have already died. Based on data for 2016-2018, the Office of National Statistics reckons that the life expectancy of an 80 year old is over 8 years, by 90 it’s 4 years – see Ex in the table below.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... encetables
Age x q x E x
80 0.054457 8.39
81 0.060978 7.85
82 0.067751 7.33
83 0.076890 6.82
84 0.086362 6.35
85 0.096080 5.90
86 0.108379 5.48
87 0.120527 5.08
88 0.135267 4.71
89 0.151119 4.37
90 0.164525 4.06
As well as figures for the expectation of life, the table also includes the probability of death at each age – column q x. So, for a group of 1,000 80 year olds, 55 would be expected to die before reaching age 81, 61 of a thousand 81 year olds etc. To calculate excess deaths, the statisticians calculate the expected number of deaths using similar tables and subtract that from the actual number of deaths. There has been much talk about excess deaths although another way of looking at it would be to regard them as premature deaths since we are all due to die at some time. As to whether deaths in future years will be lower, it’s possible, but not certain, since those who survive may well be the healthier ones. However, how long it takes for this to play out is anybody’s guess.
If one wants more information on the topic of excess deaths, it can be found here:
https://www.actuaries.org.uk/system/fil ... -06-09.pdf
As for the pronouncements by Matt Hancock et al, it might be worth reading the following couple of articles
https://www.actuaries.org.uk/news-and-i ... iable-data
https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/ ... ting-data/
This last also gives a link to Matt Hancock’s reply.
However, matters continue to proceed at a fast rate so, what was true yesterday may not be true tomorrow.
Finally, when it comes to predicting the future, there is always a danger in being too confident about this. I read recently of a professor warning of being too confident of predictions by telling the story of a turkey that hatched in the USA on New Year’s Day. Every day thereafter he was fed and, as the months passed, he came to the conclusion that his future was bright; then came the fourth Wednesday in November. Also, when it comes to predictions, at the end of the 19th century, it was predicted that, with the growth of population and of transport in London, within a limited number of years there wouldn’t be enough resources to carry away all the horse manure and the streets of London would be awash with the stuff; then came the internal combustion engine.
