We’re going through the eye of the storm
It may seem like good news that new Covid cases and new deaths were both substantially lower last week. Last year, they did the same thing at this time, and the rest of July was pretty good. That ended in August, as the delta variant started to kick in, and of course delta really ruined the fall, followed by omicron, which became dominant in December.
Then
in January 2022 we literally recorded ten times as many cases as November
(twice as many as December). The fact that these were omicron cases, not delta,
and were therefore much less lethal, didn’t prevent deaths from doubling over
November (and being 50% more than in December), simply because of the huge
numbers of people that became infected.
Now,
our problem is that omicron’s children – its subvariants – are busy as beavers,
competing with each other and raising their transmissibility to new heights.
You may have seen my post
last Friday, based on the WaPo story about how the BA.5 variant was
looking like the real winner, and pointing out that it cares very little for whether
someone is vaccinated or has recently had Covid. In fact, I was just on a call
with about 15 people, all of whom are vaccinated and boosted, I’m sure, yet
three of them announced they’d just caught Covid.
But
it turns out that BA.5 is yesterday’s news. There’s a newer BA.2.75
variant that came out of India (you remember them? The country where delta originated
and almost certainly killed more than 2 million people? Do you remember all the
bodies floating down the Ganges, because their families couldn’t afford the
cost of wood to burn them, given the huge demand for wood?), which is more
transmissible and cares even less about vaccination and previous infection.
Of
course, if you’re vaccinated and boosted, you’re much less likely to die from
either variant, if you’re hospitalized. In fact, during the January omicron
wave, unvaccinated people were 25 times more likely to die of Covid than
vaccinated people. Currently, only 67 percent of the US population is full
vaccinated (I’m sure the percentage with two boosters is far lower than that), vs.
82% in Canada. So the unvaccinated people are sitting ducks for the coming subvariant
wave.
But,
hey…These people have made the decision that their freedom to choose non-vaccination
is much more important than improving their chances of surviving Covid. You
have to admire their resolve – all the way to the ventilators and toe tags.
The numbers
These numbers were updated
based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, July 10.
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% |
Month of June 2022 |
11,109 |
370 |
97% |
Total Pandemic so far |
1,045,792 |
1,244 |
|
Total US reported Covid
deaths as of Sunday: 1,045,792
Average daily deaths last
seven days: 258
Average daily deaths previous
seven days: 434
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: 90,338,657
Increase in reported
cases last 7 days: 559,937 (79,991/day)
Increase in reported
cases previous 7 days: 920,983 (131,569/day)
Percent increase in
reported cases in the last seven days: 0.6% (1.0% last week)
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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