Reports of the demise of Covid deaths are greatly exaggerated

 

In August, Covid deaths showed the largest percentage month-to-month increase since January, when the Omicron wave hit in full force. Of course, since deaths over the previous few months were at a very low level, this in itself doesn’t signal we’re heading to hell in a handbasket.

However, I’ll point out that this same pattern occurred in the summer of 2021. Deaths were very low for a few months but jumped up in August. After that, we were off to the races with the delta wave in the fall and the omicron wave starting in December and reaching full force in January. This time, it’s the omicron variants that are causing all the trouble, but we fortunately now have a vaccine that specifically targets them.

Congratulations to the vaccine makers, who followed the advice of Wayne Gretzky: skate toward where the puck’s going, not where it’s been. Hopefully, the fact that they did this will make this fall and winter a lot better than last year’s – although when it comes to Covid variants, the one thing you can be sure about is there’s a surprise waiting around the corner.

However, it’s hard to be too optimistic about the deaths figures, given that the main reason so many people are dying now – a year after vaccines became freely available in the US – isn’t because the vaccines aren’t targeted well enough, but because the huge majority of deaths this year are among people who for some reason believe that getting vaccinated for Covid is a much greater threat to their health than not getting vaccinated.

This is called “learning the hard way”.

 

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, August 4.

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%

Month of August 2022

16,199

540

136%

Total Pandemic so far

1,072,946

1,170

 

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 1,072,946

Average daily deaths last seven days: 545

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 496

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.4%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 96,626,337             

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 614,482 (87,783/day)

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

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.6% (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.

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