This looks just like last summer. And that's not good news.

The numbers definitely improved this past week, but it’s still important to compare them with last year at this time:

1.      In the week ending June 20, 2021, there were 82,754 new Covid cases reported. Last week, 554,067 new cases were reported. And this is with a big undercount of new cases, since there was very little home testing available last summer and this year there’s lots of it. I doubt any but a small fraction of cases identified at home are reported (in fact, in Illinois it seems there’s no way at all to officially report new cases) – until the person sees a doctor or is hospitalized.

2.      Of course, some people will say, “Remember, the current Omicron sub-variants are much less deadly than the Delta variant last year.” That’s true. On the other hand, if you have ten times as many cases as last year (which is probably an undercount of the actual situation), they would have to be much less than one tenth as deadly, in order to leave the death numbers the same as last year.

3.      And how do deaths compare with last year? There were 307 last week, but last year there were 300 in the same week; in the first two weeks of July they got into the 230s. So, given the number of cases we have now, there’s no reason to think we’re in a better position regarding deaths, either.

The point of this comparison is that, at this time last year, we were living in a fool’s paradise. Biden all but declared Covid beaten on July 4 – and that seemed true, for all of about three weeks. Then cases started to climb again in early August and by the end of August, we were over 1,000 deaths per day. The peak of that wave (which was due to the Delta variant, of course) was mid-September, at 2,300 deaths per day.

What’s to keep the same thing from happening again? Vaccinations? Yagottabekiddingme. Last June, 65% of US adults had had at least one shot, and only 3% of unvaccinated adults even planned to become fully vaccinated. Now, about 66% have had two shots, and it’s safe to say that anybody who hasn’t been vaccinated by this time doesn’t plan to do it at all. In other words, we’ve made just about zero progress in vaccinations since last June.

Because just about 100% of people who are dying now (and last year) are unvaccinated and this isn’t likely to change come the fall, I see no reason why our deaths won’t go up like they did last fall, once people start gathering indoors again. Plus, of course, the masking restrictions that were in place last year are all gone, so if anything, there will be much higher case numbers than now, with correspondingly higher deaths.

Enjoy your summer!

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, June 19.

Month	Deaths reported during month/year	Avg. deaths per day during month/year	Deaths as percentage of previous month/year
Month of March 2020	4,058	131
Month of April 2020	59,812	1,994	1,474%
Month of May 2020	42,327	1,365	71%
Month of June 2020	23,925	798	57%
Month of July 2020	26,649	860	111%
Month of August 2020	30,970	999	116%
Month of Sept. 2020	22,809	760	75%
Month of Oct. 2020	24,332	785	107%
Month of Nov. 2020	38,293	1,276	157%
Month of Dec. 2020	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb. 2021	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March 2021	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April 2021	24,323	811	64%
Month of May 2021	19,843	661	82%
Month of June 2021	10,544	351	53%
Month of July 2021	8,833	287	84%
Month of August 2021	31,160	1,005	351%
Month of Sept. 2021	56,687	1,890	182%
Month of Oct. 2021	49,992	1,613	88%
Month of Nov. 2021	38,364	1,279	77%
Month of Dec. 2021	41,452	1,337	108%
Total 2021	492,756	1,350	158%
Month of Jan. 2022	65,855	2,124	159%
Month of Feb. 2022	63,451	2,266	96%
Month of March 2022	31,427	1,014	50%
Month of April 2022	13,297	443	42%
Month of May 2022	11,474	370	86%
Total Pandemic so far	1,038,354	1,256

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 1,038,354

Average daily deaths last seven days: 307

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 373

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.2%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 88,031,318

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 554,067 (79,152/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 954,690 (136,484/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.6% (1.1% last week)

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