Word of the day: "endemic"

On the morning of March 22, 2020, I read an email I’d received about 20 hours earlier, but which I had put off reading. A friend had sent me this article about what was known as the “novel coronavirus”. I had certainly read about it, and I knew it was something to be taken seriously. I knew a lot of people had died in Wuhan, China in January and early February, but I also knew that quick action by the Chinese authorities (after an unfortunate period of trying to pretend it didn’t exist, which of course may have turned what could have been just a serious local disease outbreak into a catastrophic worldwide pandemic) had seemed to put it to bed.

Yes, the novel coronavirus had come to the US, and a few people had already died of it; and we all watched in horror at what unfolded in Italy in February, comforting ourselves that their government had made some serious mistakes early on, that would certainly not be repeated by other world leaders. And even though President Trump was trying his hardest to deny the disease away from our shores, he still had a quite competent CDC. After all, Johns Hopkins University had last year listed the US as the country best prepared to withstand a global pandemic.

What I read in the article completely changed my worldview, and I put out this post for the readers of my cybersecurity blog (which I’ve been writing since 2013, and which gets 15-20,000 pageviews a month). The message was that infections in the US were almost certainly surging behind our backs (since the level of testing was already woefully inadequate compared to countries in Asia and Europe). We certainly couldn’t beat the virus back at this point; the only thing we could do was “flatten the curve”, so that the hospitals wouldn’t get overwhelmed. In April, we saw in New York City what could happen to the rest of us if we didn’t do that.

Fortunately, it seemed to me that the steps we needed to take to flatten the curve, especially social distancing (a new term for most of us), were so obvious that the country would band together to beat the virus. In fact, I was sure that, when presented with the facts, all parts of our government, including the White House, would pitch in and do what was necessary. In a few months, we’d be out of the worst of the epidemic (as China already was) and would be able to congratulate ourselves on a job well done. Hmm…how did that work out, anyway?

A week ago, I read this great article about where we stand vs. the novel coronavirus (although the plural would be more appropriate – coronaviruses). Most people think – or at least hope – we’re out of the worst of it, so we can relax. The first two sentences of the article throw cold water on that idea:

“It may surprise you to learn, given the pandemic mood of the country and indeed the world, that probably half of all Covid infections have happened this calendar year — and it’s only July. By December, the figure could be 80 percent or more.”

So there you go: Not only are we not through the pandemic, there’s no assurance at all that we’ve even passed the halfway point. In fact, the idea of there being a definite trajectory to the pandemic may be wrong. We could be – in fact likely are – in a long period where we continue to have big numbers of Covid deaths, year after year. The car is rolling downhill and the brakes have completely failed. What will stop it? Maybe when the water gets up to all of our knees (I should say your knees) 30-40 years from now, that will finally stop it.

You should read the article, but here are some quotes that jumped out at me:

“… going forward we can expect that every year, around 50 percent of Americans will be infected and more than 100,000 will die.”

However, since 200,000 people have already died this year, we can expect  “…over 250,000 deaths by the end of 2022.” However, a leading epidemiologist says we could have 300,000 deaths this year.

The elderly “ have been accumulating immunity more slowly than the rest of the population and shedding it more quickly.” Fortunately, I’m not elderly, since I’ve been 40 for the last 30 or so years. When you find a good age, why change it?

100,000 Covid deaths a year is nothing to sneeze at (pun intended). The reporter says, “It’s a few multiples of a typical flu season and more than die each year from diabetes, pneumonia or kidney disease.”

But 100,000 deaths a year for the foreseeable future may be the low end of the range. “According to Céline Gounder, an infectious disease epidemiologist and a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, that figure is actually the low end — the ballpark, she says, runs from 100,000 to 250,000. That’s not her estimate of this year’s toll but of the annual continuing mortality burden rolling forward indefinitely into the future. “And the question I have is, how much death are we OK with?” she asks. “Have we decided this is OK? And if so, why?””

Good question.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, July 24.

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	1,048,843	1,237

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 1,051,996

Average daily deaths last seven days: 450

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 436

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.3%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 92,194,892

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 919,743 (131,392/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 936,492 (133,785/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 1.0% (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.