Should you just let Covid happen?

Omicron finally made its mark last week, when new Covid cases jumped by 76% in a single week (vs. -4% last week). The last time new cases rose so much in absolute numbers was in early September. And the last time they jumped by such a huge percentage in one week was…well, it was probably in March or early April of 2020, when new cases were more than doubling each day, and new deaths were almost doubling each day. As I’ve said before, if deaths had continued to increase at those rates, the entire US population would have been dead before my birthday on May 10, 2020. Talk about a downer of a birthday! And yet a lot of people-who-should-know-better, like the WSJ editorial page, now push the story that we overreacted in April 2020 and should never have locked down as much as we did.

New deaths, of course, aren’t increasing at the same rate as new cases, but they jumped by a healthy amount (if “healthy” is the right word), and now we’re over 1,500 a day again. I expect we’ll soon have the governors of Texas, Florida, and North Dakota once more vying to see who can push up their per capita death rate the most. But now the leaders in that fierce contest are Mississippi and Alabama. Nothing like competition!

A lot of people will tell you, “This really isn’t so bad, since Omicron is much less likely to kill you than Delta. That’s absolutely true. On the other hand, given how hugely transmissible Omicron is, there’s no reason to believe total deaths will be any lower this time around. So if I were you, I wouldn’t get vaccinated or wear a mask. Maybe you can be one of the lucky few that still dies! Or maybe your spouse or kids will. Hey, you might not succeed, but you can always try!

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, December 26.

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%
Month of Oct.	49,992	1,613	88%
Month of Nov.	38,364	1,279	77%
Total Pandemic so far	819,258	1,271

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 837,854

Average daily deaths last seven days: 1,504

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 1,152

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 1.3%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 53,222,444

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 1,456,730 (208,104/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 827,323 (118,874/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 2.8% (1.6% last week)

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