Deaths are back where they were in January. Where’s this progress we keep hearing about?

I was amazed to look at my spreadsheet just now and discover that daily Covid-19 deaths in the US, in the week ended last Sunday, were 3,753. This is the highest number since February 6. Yes, daily new cases fell again this week, but they’re still higher than they were in February, when vaccinations were just starting to have their effect, and we were coming down from the peak of the terrible third wave in January.

And I’d like to point out that daily deaths in that third wave were mostly lower in January than they were last week. But in January, we were moaning about the terrible toll caused by lax attitudes during the holidays – and hoping that vaccinations would start to make a difference soon. They did make a difference, but now deaths are back to their level in January!

I wondered if deaths might be going back up because more sick people were dying – since the chances of dying from Covid are about 10 times higher for an unvaccinated person than a vaccinated one. However, the ratio of deaths to the sum of deaths and closed cases (i.e. all sick people who have either recovered or died) is at 2.0%, which is unchanged from what it’s been since the summer (for perspective, when I first started tracking this number in late March 2020, it was 41%, meaning close to half of all people who caught Covid ended up dying. The huge improvement is primarily due to big advances in treatment, of course).

So Covid isn’t any more deadly than it’s been. It’s just that the disease is still spreading rapidly among the unvaccinated – since very few people who die were vaccinated.

As I’ve been saying for the past few weeks, we’re nowhere through this wave yet. And I read this week that cases are climbing relatively faster in colder states now – which is what you’d expect with winter coming. So it’s not like the weather is going to bail us out anytime soon. Just the opposite.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, October 17.

Month	Deaths reported during month	Avg. deaths per day during period	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
Month of March 2020	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.	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb.	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April	24,323	811	64%
Month of May	19,843	661	82%
Month of June	10,544	351	53%
Month of July	8,833	287	84%
Month of August	31,160	1,005	351%
Month of Sept.	56,687	1,890	182%
Total Pandemic so far	746,206	1,234

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 746,206

Average daily deaths last seven days: 3,753

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 2,621

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 3.6%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 45,865,766

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 582,223 (= 83,175/day0

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 765,116 (= 109,302/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 1.3%  

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