[Taxacom] human death list

[John Grehan]

Agreed.

On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 5:19 PM Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:

> Yes, but I'm just suggesting that real world comparisons are always
> tricky. Any summary number hides a complexity of caveats. People tend to
> interpret such stats differently. For example, I could imagine someone
> concluding from Ken's list that Covid19 has become the most deadly
> infectious disease on Earth, when, in fact, the most that one can say is
> that it was the most deadly documented infectious disease on Earth in 2020.
> Maybe some diseases lower on the list were even more deadly than Covid19
> in their first year? The fact that Covid19 preferentially goes for older
> and sicker people also makes comparisons difficult. For example, if Covid19
> and AIDS both killed 1m people, just as an imaginary example, the latter
> would arguably be the bigger tragedy as it would take out more people who
> would otherwise have been healthy. It is also interesting to consider
> mortality in terms of the number of future generations of people who will
> not be born because of the premature death of their ancestors. If a disease
> goes preferentially for old people, that will not be a big factor.
> Comparisons are a minefield of complexity!
>
> Stephen
>
> On Tuesday, 30 March 2021, 09:50:31 am NZDT, John Grehan <
> calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> OK - perhaps so, although how one would dissect this out in relation to
> historical records might be tricky.
>
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 4:33 PM Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
> wrote:
>
> No, I'm suggesting that it applies more, not equally, to covid. Of course
> it applies to some extent to everything else.
> Stephen
>
> On Tuesday, 30 March 2021, 09:19:22 am NZDT, John Grehan <
> calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> The caveat "contributed to the death of " might well apply to all the
> other diseases as well. And perhaps even killing of humans since a number
> of other factors are also involved (such as being present at the time of
> death, or then dying because of the lack of medical resources immediately
> to hand etc.).
>
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2021 at 3:28 PM Stephen Thorpe via Taxacom <
> taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:
>
>  It may not be as simple as saying that Betacoronavirus "killed 2m", but
> rather "contributed to the death of 2m", or even just "2m people died
> within 28 days of a positive covid test". There seems to be a lot of wiggle
> room for "creative accounting" of covid deaths, more so than other
> c.o.d.'s. At least some of the 2m for Betacoronavirus need to be
> substracted from the totals from other c.o.d.'s (crucially including other
> things not in the list like "old age"), but, of course, we can't know the
> details there. I also note that, unlike the other causes on your list, the
> 2m figure for Betacoronovirus is based on a sample size of n=1 (year), so
> even a five year average is as yet unknown. It seems plausible that the
> first year could be by far the most deadly. This invalidates comparisons
> somewhat.
> Stephen
>
>     On Tuesday, 30 March 2021, 07:38:14 am NZDT, Kenneth Kinman via
> Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:
>
>  Hi Les,
>         Yes, I seriously underestimated what the death toll would be from
> this pandemic.  My list was for deaths per calendar year, and the death
> toll for 2020 was about 2,000,000 worldwide.  So genus Betacoronavirus is
> now second behind genus Homo as the deadliest.  See updated listing below.
>                     -----------------Ken Kinman
>
>                                             Deadliest genera to humans in
> the 21st Century
>
> Homo via bad dietary choices (especially those derived from Saccharomyces,
> Bos, Zea, Saccharum, and/or Beta, i.e. excess consumption of sugars,
> alcohol, and/or red meat) (resulting in over 13,000,000 human deaths per
> year).
> Homo via Nicotiana, causing cancers from tobacco smoking and chewing (over
> 5,000,000 human deaths per year).
> Homo (humans killing over 400,000 humans per year, plus about 800,000
> suicides, totaling over 1,200,000 deaths per year).
> Betacoronavirus (killed about 2,000,000 humans in the year 2020).
> Mycobacterium, especially M. tuberculosis (over 1,200,000 human deaths per
> year).
> Lentavirus, causing HIV infections (over 900,000 deaths per year).
> Streptococcus, causing pneumonia and streptococcal meningitis (over
> 500,000 deaths per year).
> Plasmodium (Anopheles the vector) causing malaria (about 400,000 deaths
> per year).
> Alphainfluenzavirus, causing flu (290,000-645,000 human deaths per year).
> Treponema, causing syphilis (about 100,000 deaths per year, plus over
> 200,000 stillbirths and neonatal deaths; total over 300,000 deaths).
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Rotavirus, causing enteritis (over 150,000 human deaths per year).
> Salmonella, causing typhoid fever (over 100,000 human deaths per year).
> Neisseria, causing meningococcal meningitis (about 75,000 human deaths per
> year).
> Haemophilus, causing type b meningitis (about 70,000 human deaths per
> year).
> Entamoeba, causing amoebic dysentery (50,000-100,000 humans per year).
> Clostridium, causing tetanus (about 60,000 human deaths per year).
> Norovirus (over 50,000 human deaths per year; with some estimates as high
> as 200,000).
> Cryptosporidium, causing cryptosporidiosis (over 50,000 human deaths per
> year).
> Aedes (carrying several viral diseases) (over 50,000 human death per year).
> Schistosoma, causing schistosomiasis (about 50,000 deaths; about 200,000
> humans in the year 2000; but treatment programs have reduced the number).
> Bordetella, causing whooping cough (about 50,000 human deaths per year).
> Shigella, causing shigellosis (about 50,000 human deaths per year).
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ________________________________
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Les
> Watling via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Monday, March 29, 2021 12:49 PM
> To: Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: [Taxacom] human death list
>
> As the covid-19 pandemic was beginning to unfold a few persons on this list
> put out ranked lists of deaths of humans from various things like the early
> 20th century flu pandemic, wars, and the like.
>
> I am wondering if those who posted during the early days of the covid
> pandemic a year ago have thought of updating their lists of major causes of
> human deaths. I seem to remember there was some thought that this wasn't
> going to be a very serious pandemic, but I could be wrong about that.
>
> In any case, I am curious about where the covid-19 total death numbers rank
> with other pandemics, wars, etc.
>
> Best,
> Les Watling
> Professor, School of Life Sciences
> 216 Edmondson Hall
> University of Hawaii at Manoa
> Honolulu, HI 96822
> Ph. 808-956-8621
> Cell: 808-772-9563
> e-mail: watling at hawaii.edu
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