Trump throws a party (or 25)!


Yesterday brought close to a record number of Covid deaths, amounting to one death every 30 seconds. Given that hospitalizations are now at an all-time record and deaths follow hospitalizations with a 2-3 week lag, we’re probably guaranteed to have an even worse December than the number shown here. I heard today that we might reach 450,000 deaths by the end of February.

That number seemed unimaginable even a couple weeks ago, yet if we just have the same number of deaths in January and February that we will have in December, that will happen. And if deaths are higher in January and February than in December, we’ll have more than 450,000 deaths by then; in fact it looks like almost a certainty that by the end of March we’ll be over half a million deaths.

Meanwhile, we have news that President Trump is going to host 25 (!) holiday parties at the White House this month. These will be just about the only official events he’s had on his calendar since the election (except for a wreath-laying at Arlington Cemetery on Veterans’ Day). So not only is he doing exactly nothing to help the national effort to fight the coronavirus (to the extent that such an effort exists at all), he’s actively doing his best to keep the case counts climbing by holding superspreader events.

For a man who supposedly wants to run for president again in 2024 (which he definitely won’t do, but he’ll be the last to realize that), he is making a great case for his re-election: “Vote for Donald Trump, the man who threw parties, played golf and invented conspiracy theories while the pandemic cut down an additional 200,000 people!” Of course, there are a few die-hard Trumpers who would vote for him then, but I’m sure a huge share of the people who just voted for him will wonder exactly why they did that. Ultimately, he has to make more of a case than simply that he should be president so that the liberals feel bad.

The numbers

These numbers are updated every day, based on reported US Covid-19 deaths the day before (taken from the Worldometers.info site, where I’ve been getting my numbers all along). The projections are based on yesterday’s 7-day rate of increase in total Covid-19 deaths, which was 4.3%.

Month

Deaths reported during month

Avg. deaths per day during month

Deaths as percentage of previous month’s

Month of March

4,058

131

 

Month of April

59,812

1,994

1,474%

Month of May

42,327

1,365

71%

Month of June

23,925

798

57%

Month of July

26,649

860

111%

Month of August

30,970

999

116%

Month of Sept.

22,809

760

75%

Month of Oct.

24,332

785

107%

Month of Nov.

38,293

1,276

157%

Month of Dec.

58,924

1,901

154%

Total March-Dec.

333,289

1,086

 

Red = projected numbers

I. Total deaths

Total US deaths as of yesterday: 279,867

Deaths yesterday: 2,833

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 4.3% (This number is used to project deaths in the table above. There is a 7-day cycle in the reported deaths numbers, caused by lack of reporting over the weekends from closed state offices. So this is the only reliable indicator of a trend in deaths, not the one-day percent increase, which mainly reflects where we are in the 7-day cycle).

II. Total reported cases

Total US reported cases: 14,314,265

Increase in reported cases since previous day: 203,737

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 8.9%  

III. Deaths as a percentage of closed cases so far in the US:

Total Recoveries in US as of yesterday: 8,462,434

Total Deaths as of yesterday: 279,867

Deaths so far as percentage of closed cases (=deaths + recoveries): 3.2%

For a discussion of what this number means – and why it’s so important – see this post. Short answer: If this percentage declines, that’s good. It’s been steadily declining since a high of 41% at the end of March.

IV. 7-day average of test positive rate for US: 10.2%

For comparison, the previous peak for this rate was 7.8% in late July, although the peak in early April was 22%. The rate got down to 4.0% in early October but has been climbing since then. This is published by Johns Hopkins.

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.

 

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