The recent death of Scott Adams reminded me of an exchange we had in January 2021 about the large and abrupt rise in deaths at home in 2020 among 15-44 year-olds.

That increase was not driven by COVID-attributed deaths, occurred before this age group was eligible for vaccination, and predated widespread COVID shot deployment even among healthcare workers and older adults.

Staying home did not save lives.

Adams interpreted the data to suggest that stay-at-home orders led to more deaths at home simply because people were spending more time there—a reasonable hypothesis, but ultimately an incorrect one.

The increases observed, both within specific age groups and in home deaths across age groups, were real and could not be explained by mere displacement of deaths from other settings.

Subsequent analyses by me and others showed that the rise in home deaths among younger adults was largely driven (and accompanied) by non-natural causes, including drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths, motor-vehicle accidents, and homicides.

Where Scott Adams ultimately landed on the issue, I’m not sure. Despite our disagreement, he was, by celebrity standards, a good provocateur, willing to challenge various COVID narratives from more than one direction.

And to his credit, he resisted the obvious temptation to critique my truly indefensible bar-graph color choices at the time. 🙂