The pandemic is still in the rear view mirror. This means we’re not going anywhere.

The Wall Street Journal published a good article recently, summarizing where the US stands in terms of the Covid death rate. Here are the main points it makes:

1.      The death rate remains at 400 per week, which is almost exactly what it’s been since March 2022. Not going up, but certainly not going down, either.

2.      The number of “excess deaths” (i.e. deaths above what would normally be expected at this time of the year) is more than would be expected from just looking at the Covid death rate. A clue why this might be the case is the fact that Covid is listed as a contributing cause in many cases of heart disease and cancer (the two leading causes of death, with Covid holding its own at number 3, thank you very much). So, if you do catch Covid (especially if you’re old), be sure to hope that you don’t develop heart disease or cancer.

3.      Older people are most likely to die (of course that’s always been the case, except during the Delta wave, when it seems younger people were much more likely to die. I’m guessing that’s because by the time delta hit – the summer of 2021 – the older people were almost all vaccinated, but the young weren’t, and they were devasted by the much more easily transmissible delta variant).

4.      Nursing home residents are especially likely to die; in fact, 270 of those average weekly deaths are among nursing home residents. However, only 53% of those residents have received the bivalent booster shot. I don’t get it. Why should it be optional for a nursing home resident to be up-to-date on their boosters? If they think vaccination is some sort of woke conspiracy, let them go home. Why keep them around, where they’ll get sick and infect the other residents, as well as the staff?

5.      Which were the two states with the lowest vaccination rates? Two of the states with the highest percentage of old people: Arizona and Florida. Go figure.

 

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, February 26.

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%
Total Pandemic so far	1,145,365	1,074

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday:          1,145,365

Average daily deaths last seven days: 396

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 368

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.2%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 104,986,098          

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 274,409 (39,201/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 219,245 (31,321/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.3% (0.2% last week)

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