If you aren’t afraid of dying of Covid, good for you! Just don’t take your friends and family with you when you go

People who haven’t been vaccinated against Covid often point to the fact that, since Omicron and its variants came to dominate the Covid scene (since last December), being fully vaccinated and boosted doesn’t seem to prevent someone from getting sick with Covid. That’s true, but what it does do is make it much less likely that you’ll die from it.

This graph (and the accompanying table) shows that as of July 2, an unvaccinated person of any age is 16.7 times more likely to die if they get Covid than is a fully vaccinated and boosted person. And notice that the gap has itself been growing rapidly all year – meaning it’s becoming more and more disadvantageous (if that’s really the right word. Most people don’t look at death as simply a disadvantage) not to be vaccinated.

I realize that most people who aren’t vaccinated aren’t basing their decision on facts (except anecdotal evidence, which of course can justify any decision), so they’re unlikely to suddenly get vaccinated now. But IMHO it seems the least they can do is not try to convince their friends and family members that they shouldn’t get vaccinated, either. Unless they’re looking for company on their journey to…wherever they’re going.

I should point out that, once the new omicron-specific vaccines start being available in the fall, that provides an even stronger reason to get vaccinated, since those should make it much less likely you’ll get sick in the first place.

And here’s a further question: Polio seems to be spreading again. Are you vaccinated against that? If you are, why do you think polio is different from Covid? After all, there have still been only a handful of polio cases – all in unvaccinated people, natch. Perhaps it’s because when you’re not vaccinated against Covid, you believe you're somehow owning the libs (which I don’t understand at all, but hey…I’m a lib. What do I know?). But polio hasn’t yet become a politicized disease, so it’s not nearly as much fun to be unvaccinated for polio as it is for Covid.

So have all the fun you want! Just don’t try to persuade your friends and family to join you in your joyful journey to the next world. We’ll all go that way one of these days, anyway. No need to hurry it.

 

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, August 21.

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%
Month of July 2022	11,903	384	107%
Total Pandemic so far	1,065,661	1,217

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 1,065,661

Average daily deaths last seven days: 429

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 428

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: 95,370,090             

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 619,633 (88,519/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 650,077 (92,868/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.7% (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.