I guess I was premature….

In last week’s post, I was happy to announce that it seemed the pandemic was really over, since for the first time, the numbers showed a 0.0% increase in both Covid cases and Covid deaths (the numbers were actually positive in both cases, but less than .05, so they were rounded down). This was the first time that either increase had been 0.0%, and I considered the fact that both were at that level to be some sort of sign from heaven that the pandemic was truly over (I might have been influenced by the fact that the White House is ending the pandemic emergency, of course).

Unfortunately, I must have misinterpreted my heavenly signs. The 0.0% increases must actually have been part of an elaborate heavenly plot to teach us all that it’s too soon to think we can let down our guard: Cases increased by .1% this week and deaths increased by .2% (they were 370 last week vs. 76 the previous week). To give you some perspective, the last time we had more deaths than last week was the week of March 5.

Even less comforting, from my point of view, is the fact that the 370 number from last week is in the middle of the range that we’ve been in for the last 12 months: about 550 on the high side to 150 on the low side (I’m now excluding the 76 number from last week as an outlier). In other words, as far as Covid deaths go, we’ve made literally zero progress in 12 months.

Of course, the pandemic emergency is still going to be called off, since there are a lot of people who think we should never have declared an emergency in the first place. They believe that the danger has been greatly exaggerated all along. And this is true, as long as you ignore the fact that, if Covid deaths had continued increasing at the rate they were increasing at the end of March 2020 – i.e., almost doubling every day – the entire US population would have been dead by early May 2020. Of course, there’s no disputing that the emergency would have been over then…

But I’m now quite glad I got my second bivalent booster shot on Friday (a privilege of being over 65, along with access to Medicare, which is by far the best health insurance available to anyone except maybe the super-rich). I recommend you get yours, too, if you’re eligible.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, May 7.

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%
Month of March 2023	7,885	263	70%
Month of April 2023	4,581	153	58%
Total Pandemic so far	1,162,431	1,019

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday: 1,162,431

Average daily deaths last seven days: 370

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 76

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: 106,768,296

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 137,969 (19,710/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 52,271 (7,467/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.1% (0.0% last week)

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