The self-inflicted wounds continue

WaPo (and other papers) carried a story this morning titled “U.S. life expectancy down for second-straight year, fueled by covid-19”. However, this title is misleading. In 2020, life expectancy declined in many countries, although US life expectancy declined more than in other wealthy countries. Obviously, Covid was the cause of those declines. But you can’t just blame Covid for the 2021 declines, since in many countries that are similarly situated as the US – including Canada – life expectancy rose. Why was there such a difference?

One component of the answer is to look at the breakdown by race: Native Americans had the worst outcomes. In fact, their life expectancy fell by almost two years and is now about equal to Haiti’s: 65 years. The main reason for this dismal performance was the terrible Covid death rates among younger Native Americans.

However, one brighter spot in the story is that Black Americans suffered a decline of “only” .7 years, while life expectancy of White Americans declined by one year. Why did Black life expectancy – which had declined much more than White life expectancy in 2020 – change course so markedly in 2021? The article offers a clue: “…White America, particularly in red states, is not as compliant with guidance (as Black America). Leadership was much less focused. And we’re probably seeing the results of that.”

Tragedy repeated is farce. The huge loss of life for Americans in 2020 was a tragedy. The even huger loss of life in 2021 was partly tragedy but partly farce, since so many of those deaths wouldn’t have happened if people had simply taken advantage of freely available vaccines. And deaths in 2022 are almost entirely farce, given that the chances that a sick person will die of Covid are currently about 15 times higher if the person isn't vaccinated.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, August 28.

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	1,069,132	1,175

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 1,069,132

Average daily deaths last seven days: 496

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 429

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: 96,011,855             

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 641,765 (91,681/day)

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

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

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