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.