March 2020 haunts March 2023

The Times produced a great article this week about events at the CDC in early March 2020. Some staffers were in despair over the novel coronavirus. Of course, the whole world knew it could be deadly, and it was already clear it had appeared in the US. But this didn’t cause their despair, since the CDC had dealt successfully with deadly viruses before. The formula was tried and true: You quarantine anyone who has symptoms of being infected, as well as anyone who has been in close contact with an infected person.

However, these CDC staff members, as well as others in Europe (and probably some in China), had learned that the virus could spread asymptomatically. In other words, there would now be no way to quarantine everyone who was infected, since they themselves wouldn’t know they were infected until they started experiencing symptoms.

But even this realization didn’t cause them to despair, since it would just be another obstacle to overcome, not the end of the fight. The cause of their despair was that the “leadership” (to use the term loosely) of the CDC also knew about this, yet had clearly decided they didn’t want to let the rest of the country know about it. This determination was clearly led by the White House, so the staff members weren’t going to be able to do anything about it:

“All of us knew tens of thousands were going to die, and we were helpless to stop it,” said Dr. Daniel Wozniczka, one of the trainees. “It was really heartbreaking and difficult on a psychological level not to be able to do anything.”

Of course, this statement was just a little off. Tens of thousands didn’t die; hundreds of thousands did, for a total of over a million (and still counting, albeit more slowly. Thank God for small favors, as my former boss used to say). And the US has the highest Covid death numbers per capita of any major country other than Brazil.

The next time someone refers to Covid as a medical disaster, be sure to correct them. This was a political disaster, pure and simple. Four years ago, anyone proposing a movie script with a storyline like that would have been laughed out of the studio.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, March 19.

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%
Month of September 2022	13,074	436	81%
Month of October 2022	12,399	400	95%
Month of November 2022	9,221	307	74%
Month of December 2022	11,978	386	130%
Total 2022	271,387	744	-45%
Month of January 2023	17,768	573	148%
Month of February 2023	11,247	402	63%
Total Pandemic so far	1,151,642	1,055

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday:          1,151,642

Average daily deaths last seven days: 119

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 289

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.1%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 105,972,038          

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 80,699 (11,528)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 288,342 (41,192)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.1% (0.3% last week)

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