Coronavirus: Don't believe the numbers - Russia

As the world creeps ever so closer to an official million deaths due to COVID-19, one has to wonder what the true numbers really are. I've spent time looking at various countries and the speculated under-counting of deaths, for example, Ecuador, Iran and Mexico

Now Reuters (Sep 14) takes a look at Russia:

While Russia has confirmed the world’s fourth largest tally of coronavirus cases, it has a relatively low death toll from the associated disease, COVID-19.

Moscow says the way it classifies deaths is more accurate than other nations. Some Russian health officials have explained that in many cases, a patient who dies with COVID-19 does not necessarily die of it but from other causes including pre-existing health problems. 

. . . But data released by the Rosstat State Statistics Service on Sept. 4 show there were 57,800 excess deaths between May and July, the peak of the outbreak.

. . . In Russia, they surpass the number of COVID-19 deaths by a factor of 3.6 for the months in question. Raksha and some opposition figures have criticised Putin for downplaying the pandemic. 

I actually can see an argument about pre-existing health problems being listed as a primary cause versus COVID-19. To me, if someone has terminal cancer and has 3 months to live, I really don't think the cause of death should be designated as COVID-19 (if that individual came down with the virus during that time frame). I think to determine this nuance of death, we'll need more time. For example, do future months result in significantly fewer deaths for a period of time (meaning that deaths were brought forward).

Yet, let's look at some Worldometer statistics regarding Russia:

1. If I remove countries with populations of less than 5 million (arbitrary on my part, but I think smaller countries can easily cause distortions), Russia ranks 19th for most cases per million. 

2. Using the same criteria, when it comes to deaths per million, they rank 28th.

3. If I look at the top 30 countries when it comes to deaths per million, the average CFR % is 3.8%. Russia is at 1.7%, less than half of the average.

4. Russia's 1.7% compares to USA at 3.0%, Spain at 5.0%, France at 8.0%, Mexico at 10.6% and UK at 11.2%. Once again, just arbitrarily selecting some countries. 

5. Since we know that age plays an impact on death rates, let's just take a look at the average age of the countries I've mentioned. USA is at 38.2, Spain 43.1, France at 41.5, Mexico at 28.6, UK at 40. Russia's average age is 39.8. So Mexico actually stands out because their CFR % is really high and the average age in the country is far lower than the countries listed. One explanation is that they've done far less testing than the other countries in this list. They've done tests equal to 66,000 per million while the other countries on this list are all over 200,000+. So their CFR % might not be accurate. Anyways, age definitely doesn't seem to be a reason why Russia's CFR % is 1.7% while all the other countries are much higher.

6. Do they have a better health system? That I don't know, but I doubt it.

7. One thing is that Russia's first wave hit a top in May. Mexico's peak look to be around July. But the other countries hit their peaks in March or April (once again, talking first wave, not the second waves). There is some benefit to having a late 1st wave. You get a better idea of what works and what doesn't work when it comes to helping those with the virus.

Anyways, I agree with Reuters that Russia's deaths are significantly lower than it should be. We're going to need some forensic analysis when the virus is finally done and it might take a number of years to settle on a good estimate, but we're going to find out that official numbers from sources such as Worldometer will be well short of reality.