US Passing 500,000 Cumulative Covid Deaths in One Week and Maybe 1 Million This Summer

114 thoughts on “US Passing 500,000 Cumulative Covid Deaths in One Week and Maybe 1 Million This Summer”

1. “I would even say, that preparing for a pandemic, even without the aid of the government, smacks of collectivism, and shouldn't be done.”

   In any other context this would be a joke. But here this serious statement is a particularly clear example of the maladaptive thinking so prevalent in the US. It doesn’t. only apply to pandemics of course but any threat, such as climate change. Interestingly war would be an exception. It is well deserved of a Darwin Award. Congratulations.!

2. Outrage is not the only reasonable response. Outrage only makes sense if humans (or other minds) are 100% responsible. As in they knew the likely results of their actions and they caused this. I don't see a lot of evidence for this. That is not to say brilliant timely action could not have ended this threat early…but incompetence is not entirely culpable.
   We have to deal with what is.

3. 1/5th of total mortality is small potatoes? You are wonky. There are 160+ categories for cause of death. This is #3 right behind Heart Disease and Cancer. Globally this could even reach #1 in 2021…depending on how well we do vaccinating.

4. Many countries do not have the testing or medical facilities to get a handle on actual cases and actual deaths from COVID. There are countries who are purposely under-reporting statistics.

5. Curious coincidence how the official numbers started dropping as soon as Joe Biden took office.

6. I am getting more optimistic, and changing my prediction. This could grind to a halt fairly quickly.
   After looking around quite a bit, I found this: "In the US,
   compared to 10,846,373 reported cases, an estimated 46,910,006 SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred through mid-November 2020 https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/01152021_covidupdate.html
   As there are 27,799,946 reported cases now, that suggests there could be as many as 120,233,338 cases…if positive people were equally likely to get tested now as at any earlier time. But that does not appear to be true. There is a lot of testing. To me that suggests something like 84m cases. The 120m would be about 36% of US pop. 84m would be about 25%. The actual percentage is almost certainly between these.
   Adjusting for double counts and early under-count gets 568,000 US deaths to date. 
   40.3m Americans are over 65. 32m people have had at least one dose of the vaccine to mostly over 65 years+. And 1.3 million doses a day are being given. That also suggests that the elderly are eager to get the vaccine. That's good for keeping deaths down. 3 more weeks, and I think the deaths are going to go to less than 1,000 a day probably bellow 500. Other variants could throw a monkey wrench in that, hopefully not. I put a estimate of less than another 200,000 deaths this year, if new variants don't cause much of a problem.
   Another wildcard is that old un-vaccinated people may emerge too soon. Anyone's guess how that will play out.

7. Can you back that up with something other than speculation by profoundly biased media?

8. I think the major factor in Africa is a combination of a very young population and very bad record keeping.
   If my grandpa dies in South Africa, I won't register his death but use his papers to access his social pension.

9. Someone says "in one week I'll be 21 years old".

   Did this mean they age 21 years in 1 week, or is there a less retarded explanation?

10. You've gotten literally everything wrong. Thinking the infections are merely double those infected is a child's mentality. We were confirming at best 1 in 20 for the first few months. At Thanksgiving the CDC said "about 100 million infected" when 12.9 million were confirmed. While they've pulled that ratio down to 5-6x in various updates, it means we were at least at 75-80+ million the beginning of December, and the following 5 weeks were by far the most infectious since the pandemic began. We are another 5 weeks since infections started going down, but still higher than summer and early fall. Hell, we're at more than double the confirmed cumulative infections we were at on Thanksgiving. When dealing with figures of infections and tests over 100 million, bringing the true infection to confirmed ratio down gets harder and harder. Safe to say we're still at least 5x as many infected. Also, work backward from the IFR in the USA. It was 0.6% February – April, then brought down to 0.2 – 0.27% by July. Most infections have happened since the latter. So we average it out and we get an overall IFR of 0.3 – 0.33% since the pandemic began. Worldometers is junk, so if we stick with 460K deaths as of today, and multiply by 300- 330 to get 138-152 million infected. Deaths are of course a lagging indicator by weeks, so in all likelihood we're talking millions more. 40% infected is an extremely modest estimate.

11. Yeah I was citing this to talk about prevalence of B.1.1.7,
    despite the overall numbers currently falling of COVID-19. I'm guessing from current vaccination speeds of the Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines in the U.S., that by the time we get to 40% of our most vulnerable population double dosed (we are at 3% of our population double dosed see https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ ), probably by late April to early June, that there will be no more significant waves (of B.1.1.7 or whatever). If any other variants get out and about more, B.1.351, with further boosters at worse, I'm still predicting no more significant waves once we get to the big 40 (since efficacy looks reasonable even against these with the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines).  For the model of that 40% vaccinated population on wave suppression see https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.27.20240051v1 . In the meantime, until I get vaccinated to smooth out 'the ride' in the hopes of prophylaxis outside social distancing, I’ll keep up with my Vitamin Bs, C (1000mgs twice a day or 1000mgs time released), D3 (500-2000IUs once a day), quercetin (200mgs twice a day), trans-resveratrol (250mgs twice a day with 5mgs piperine), and zinc (50mgs) seeing some of the mechanisms of these (with some clinical trials in viewing what’s out there)(best guess).

12. And, we are seeing record low Flu numbers this year. Two weeks ago, we had 48 Flu deaths reported for the Entire US.

13. Not saying that I am some kind of genius, but I was saying that we should build in more redundancies at least a year before the pandemic hit. Someone else chimed in and said that he agrees with me, that there could be a pandemic and that we need to prepare for it. I personally did not specifically suggest that there could be a pandemic, but other people were well aware of the possibility. Nothing was done though, apparently. My personal opinion at this point? That Americans are too caught up in demonizing the government, but aren't really involved in their own affairs, at least, not enough to matter. Not saying that we should become Communist, but Americans should be more active in preparing for these kinds of things. But the neoliberals are so active with spreading their ideology that it essentially gives the impression that the only thing that matters is you and your family and I would even say, that preparing for a pandemic, even without the aid of the government, smacks of collectivism, and shouldn't be done. I try and give them the benefit of the doubt and let them off the hook in some circumstances, being that many of them are macro-economists, but their ideology still comes across badly.

14. …your last line- "boarders will be shut down…" This will isolate families even more, reduce their income, cause more depression, death, suicide, etc. I loathe spellchek/autocomplete.
    Historically, we had yellow cards for proof of smallpox vaccination which were mandatory for entry or travel to many countries. I kept mine with my passport which I didn't need at the US border before the "War on Terror."
    The usual US death rate is about 60-70,00 per week, over 3 million per year. The French found that Covid-19 was about 2.8 times as lethal as the 2018 influenza. I haven't searched for a 2008-9 H1N1 comparator. StudentG above has a nice link to German mortality statistics, and I previously posted a reference to a similar analysis for the USA.
    Our local provincial lab reports no influenza this year, except a few positive swabs from people who had the nasal flu vaccine, with matching serotypes. I am not aware of any life insurance companies suffering significant losses from the "epidemic" , or squealing for compensation like the airlines.
    Vastly underemphasised has been advice for Vitamin D supplementation and reports of use of Ivermectin prophylactically or therapeutically (search Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance). Expensive and state-controlled vaccines are far sexier than 12 cent pills, and possibly as useful. Clinically useful antivirals (e.g. Acyclovir, possibly Oseltamivir( Tamiflu) ) work if given very early (72 hours from symptom onset).

15. Yes, that's it, we need to age in reverse rapidly. Then we will all be just dandy.

16. Lack Lalaine was 96. His brother Norman lived longer than he did.

17. When scientists exposed rabbits to staph superantigens, they got Diabetes.
    Staph is very common in diabetic patients. Coincidence? I don't think so.
    One after another diseases or conditions that people blame people for having turn out to be caused by something outside their control. There used to be camps for people to try to chill out to help their stomach ulcers. But low and behold it was caused by an infection in their stomach by a bacteria. People were blamed for lower back issues. They would say you need to learn to lift right. But 70% or so is caused by the same bacteria that causes zits. You just need a very long and intense course of antibiotics to kill the little buggers.
    There is considerable and growing evidence that obesity is caused by three forms of Adenovirus (5, 36, & 37). It was suspected that there was some pathogen cause when it spread the globe exactly like a pandemic. Then they looked at viruses that had increased. When they checked these adenoviruses in animals…there you go…obese animals.

18. No, I'm simply pointing out that the risk of dying from COVID is extremely low if you are healthy. The evidence for that is overwhelming. Look at the case fatality rates in the military, the 20 somethings, athletes, etc. Very, very low.

19. I injured my knee a week ago or so…I guess I am not so chipper about exercising.
    I have a stair climber and a rowing machine. Neither are going to do my knee any good.
    Of course people should exercise. That is not the issue. You are conflating vulnerabilities with cause. That is the issue.

20. It's generally caused by the failure of your pancreas to produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes is generally caused by eating a high carb diet. Not just high sugar, but any type of carb raises your blood sugar, causes insulin resistance, and damages the insulin producing cells in your pancreas..

    The less you manage diabetes, the more stress on your system. The more stressed your system is, the higher chance that COVID will kill you.

21. Am I splendid? No. Do I live a healthy lifestyle? Yes.

    It's real simple. If people want to reduce their risk of dying from COVID then I strongly recommend they try living a healthy lifestyle. It's their choice of course. The harsh reality is that most simply aren't willing to do that.

22. At one point, there was a financial incentive for hospitals to report deaths from Covid-19. As always, if you subsidize something you get more of it.

23. Nowhere, I read, does it say only diabetics with "unmanaged" Diabetes died of Covid-19. Actually, it is not registered as a comorbidity unless it was already diagnosed. And generally after diagnoses people get drugs and/or insulin shots managing the condition.
    I don't believe Diabetes is caused by soda. I think it is caused by a Staph infection. And it is more likely to cause it if you have folds in your skin that are not regularly cleaned. https://now.uiowa.edu/2015/06/bacteria-may-cause-type-2-diabetes

24. Or they could try eating right, getting some exercise, losing some weight. You know – be responsible about their own health.

25. Well, I probably won't get diabetes, but even if I did it's easily manageable thru diet. Maintaining a low A1C is easy if you manage your blood sugar level. Note that my dad has diabetes, but he manages it. He's 74. He's alive because he manages it. People that don't manage it and get COVID die.

26. So no one deserves to live because they are not as splendid as you?
    From the very beginning I suggested that they need to encourage everyone to get into better shape. Instead they suggested everyone get drunk.

27. Congrats on taking care of yourself. I guess everyone should forget about Covid because you won't die of it.

28. Wrong. Does half of the US population die each year? They have comorbidities.
    If I find out you have Diabetes I suppose that means I can shot you dead. It is not me that killed you, you hand a comorbidity that did it. 
    (that is an example, not a threat)

29. You are making my case for me. All these things you mention above are easily avoidable if one simply eats right, exercises, and maintains a healthy body weight.

30. How many Americans have high blood
    pressure? 103,000,000.
    102,000,000 have high cholesterol (hyperlipanemia). 
    100,000,000 or almost everyone who is obese has fatty liver disease. 
    37,000,000 million have kidney disease…and
    most don't know it either. 
    How many have diabetes? 34,200,000.
    18,200,000 have Coronary artery disease. 
    So sure, we are all going to be just fine if we catch the bug.

31. No, it's the underlying condition that kills them. If they did not have it, they would not die. How many young, healthy people do you know who have died with COVID? Look at the population of college and/or professional athletes – not a single one has died. Obviously, if you are healthy, you have very, very little to fear from COVID.

    I'm 53 with a family history of diabetes. My dad has it. My grandfather died from it. Both got it in their late 40s. I've been on a keto diet for 5 years. And I exercise vigorously 3 times a week. I dont have diabetes, high blood pressure, and my blood sugar is low. Simply put, I stay healthy.

32. Those people with comorbidities often live for decades with their conditions. Covid kills them now. I'd say that qualifies as killing them.
    When is the last time you had your blood pressure tested? Your cholesterol? Your A1C? Your liver? Your kidneys? Your heart?

33. I'll grant that it's perfectly possible that someone could die while driving a motorcycle. Or at least become so weakened that they lose control. And hence the motorbike crash is validly attributed to covid.
    On the other hand… unless you were monitoring all his vital signs while he was riding, you could never be sure enough to justify recording it as such.
    At best you could observe that based on his lungs etc he must have been pretty sick and that covid was probably a contributing factor to the crash, not the other way around.

    On the gripping hand, this is one case. To stretch that out to dismiss 300 000 deaths is ridiculous.

34. People were dying of Covid walking down the street in China, so why is it preposterous that someone could die on their motorcycle?
    I would guess that close to 94% of people in their 70s and 80s have one or more of these comorbidities. The only reason for trying to diminish that is to suggest that people are not vulnerable. But that is rubbish as at least half of the adult population has a comorbidity.

    "Nearly nine in ten (89%) adults 65 and older report they are currently
    taking any prescription medicine. This compares to three-fourths of
    50-64 year olds who report taking prescription drugs, half (51%) of
    30-49 year olds, and four in ten (38%) 18-29 year olds. Older adults are
    also more likely than their younger counterparts to be taking multiple prescription
    medications. More than half of adults 65 and older (54%) report taking
    four or more prescription drugs compared to one-third of adults 50-64
    years old (32%) and about one in ten adults 30-49 (13%) or 18-29 (7%)." https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/data-note-prescription-drugs-and-older-adults/

    If you are taking pills, there probably is a reason…most likely one of those "comorbidities".

35. You misconstrue the data in a number of ways. First, looking at the data you've linked, COVID deaths (500k) are a fraction of the total deaths (2.7 million). In other words, using your stats one can see that COVID deaths account for 1/6th of total mortality. Small potatoes indeed. And that's before you weed out the underlying condition factor.

    Second, overwhelmingly those who die with COVID have an underlying condition. So is it COVID that kills them, or the underlying condition? Or both? Given the HUGE number of otherwise healthy people that survive the disease, the answer is the underlying condition. So the question is how many die from COVID alone. Once you remove the underlying condition deaths, the true number of COVID caused deaths is extremely low.

    Lastly, people who eat healthy do not die of heart disease, or diabetes, strokes, etc. They generally live beyond the normal life expectancy and die of old age, falls, accidents, or like in Fitness Guru Lack Lalaine's case, because they get the flu and stubbornly refuse to go to the hospital (he was over 100).

    Chris68

36. Covid-19 will be the third leading cause of death in the US for year 2020. So, no, not small potatoes. Here is data on a typical year: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/LCWK1_2015.pdf
    2.7 million total
    Top 3:
    Heart disease: 633,842
    Cancer: 595,930
    Chronic lower respiratory diseases(mostly smoking related): 155,041
    As you can see, Covid-19 easily passes into third place.

    Even if people ate perfectly healthy, they would die of heart disease, arteriosclerosis, and stroke. How do we know this? Progeria kids, who age 8x the normal rate. They don't live long enough for their diet to kill them, but they die of these things. They don't get arthritis, cancer, cataracts, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or other neurodegeneration diseases, lower respiratory diseases, kidney disease, or liver disease. That suggests environment (chemicals/solar radiation/radon/asbestos/tobacco/alcohol/drugs/smog/unhealthy food) and/or pathogens are involved with the rest of these. There are modest increases in cancer and cognitive decline with Progeria, but nothing like we see in a typical nursing home.

37. Bastards. They have interstellar flight, so they must have advanced medical tech too. The least they could do after a round of probing is to load you up with some medical nanobots.

38. So you have a link to one case of obvious misattribution, and a general trend that less healthy people are more likely to die of a disease.
    Nobody (OK, this is the internet, I'll stick to "nobody sane") has ever disputed that Covid is most deadly to people who are already old and in poor health. This is just about the first thing that is mentioned about the subject.

39. In a normal year, several million people die in the U.S. In reality, COVID deaths are a fraction of those. Main causes are cancer, strokes, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. No one takes those seriously either. If they did, the numbers of deaths would be lower. Look at the fitness of the average person: overweight, sedentary, eat a high carb diet, I could go on. In reality, people's actions show they don't care about their health, except to ask their doctor if there is a pill that will fix their ills. Many people don't take their health seriously, so why would you expect COVID to be any different?

    Chris68

40. Even in the "Third World" parts of US the "poor" people are fat.

41. "Trumps Economy" was the first 3 years of his Presidency, until the CCP Virus destroyed economies throughout the world. In the US, Democrat governors have been doing all they can to keep people confined like a sheep they are.

42. Actually, it more has to do with a lack of self-discipline/self-control in US society since the late 1960s (sorry Boomers). To the contrary, it was the throwing away of Protestant-values that had instilled mental self-discipline and thus tolerance that has lead to the increase in dangerous risk-taking, unhealthy habits, child/old people neglect, narcotics abuse, smoking, soda drinking, social media abuse, political strife, use of foul language, leaving work early, credit card debt, ignoring homework, etc. that we see today.

    In fact, I will wager the real reason the US ranks lower than its economic peers when comes to measures of public order/safety, public education, public health, even public infrastructure quality and public housing/homelessness despite massive public spending has ultimately more to do with a lack of individual self-discipline more than anything else.

    Neuralink FTW.

43. It is a hoax in the sense that it's way overblown. In the grand scheme of human mortality, COVID is much ado about nothing. COVID deaths are far outweighed by the normal causes of mortality: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, etc, etc. Moreover, if you are healthy, i.e. you aren't on a long term plan to eat, drink, and smoke yourself into the grave, then you pretty much have little to worry about. So yes, the idea that we should treat treat COVID as some super virus is a complete hoax.

    Chris68.

44. Why should there be outrage? Millions dies every year from cancer, obesity, diabetes, strokes, heart disease, traffic accidents, drug overdoses, etc. No one is outraged by that. Why should COVID be any different?

45. Right now daily COVID infections is going down. Daily deaths are at a peak from the peak daily infection in the middle of January. Deaths lag infection by about 6 weeks. So I expect daily deaths to start falling by the end of February. Daily deaths will average about 1,200 until the end of June. So I estimate an additional 250K deaths by June 30th. We won't reach a million deaths. In fact, we may never reach a million COVID deaths.

46. Already at actual 575,000 deaths because of 100,000 under-count early on from lack of tests in the US. I am thinking, that as long as we can get the right 30 million people vaccinated in the next month, the official number (not my modified number) could stall out at around 700,000, maybe lower. However, if they just continue this over 65 thing as is, I think it could be 800,000+. There are 49m people over 65. It will take time to get those vaccinations done. They also could have saved more lives doing over 60 for men and over 70 for women. Women are surviving this much easier than men: https://www.epstrong.org/images/corona/results/chart-18.png
    They also need to open it up to people with 35+ BMI, diabetes, very high blood pressure, immune compromised, cancer, chronic kidney disease, COPD, and sickle cell disease who are over 40 years-old, and severe immune compromised of any age.
    And there is still the issue of people refusing the vaccination who are none-the-less vulnerable. I am hoping the vulnerable ones are under 10% of the population, and that most of the cowards are actually healthy and can survive an infection.

47. Smh… Spell it out.

48. If you get a vaccine and you develop the antibodies, they don't generally have to be a perfect match for the virus you come in contact with. You might have zero symptoms vs the virus version it was designed for, but the likelihood of a bad infection that sends you to the hospital or kills you from another variant is going to be reduced dramatically even with the mismatch.
    Reinfection? I am not concerned. That should be much easier to fight off.
    These things do, however, increase the percentage needed for herd immunity…as more people could spread it.

49. "40%+ of US population has already been infected" where is your evidence? CDC says 27m cases. That is about 8% of the US population. Sure it is higher, maybe twice that, but that is still a far cry from 40%.
    And taking facts that were true early on and claiming they are still true is disingenuous. Half of the deaths are not taking place in long term care facilities. The cumulative deaths percentage of the total is down to 36%: https://covidtracking.com/nursing-homes-long-term-care-facilities
    Varies dramatically State to State.
    And the positivity rates were down because there were lock downs…imagine that.
    After opening up again it will climb all over. People let down their guard, forget the mask or wear it silly, have the parties they have put off…
    Reaching a million deaths by the end of 2021 is possible. I am hoping it can be limited to around 750k-825k. And there are many unattributed deaths that were due to the pandemic, most of those were due to infection but some were due to suicide, drug abuse, and domestic violence that increased. You can clearly see the early spike here: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/01152021/images/nchs-mortality-report.gif?noicon
    First is as big as the third, but it is muted in the daily Covid deaths graphs because we had no good tests early on: https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-daily-deaths
    As such, there have actually been about 100,000 more Covid deaths or ~575k.

50. Lack of testing, could also be due to much higher levels of Vitamin D due to people living outside more…

51. Very possible? Evidence needed. So far the world has little more than a small number of rumors of such, nothing substantial. People that had the first SARS in 2003 are immune to SARS Cov2. Let's not get hysterical.

52. And I know three people abducted by aliens who later passed away and their deaths were coded as COVID.

53. You know which.

54. Reinfections. Very possible. And the wild card: new strains

    As for worldometer, I stumbled upon them March 22, 2020. They’re the go-to.

55. Interesting graphic included there, the opposite of reality. Must've been made over Christmas break. Daily new cases and positive test rates have fallen in half in the last month. Hospitalizations just went down from 131 thousand to 81 thousand in 25 days. The B.1.1.7 variant is having a stroll toward the dominant form in the US, not a surge. The DS61G variant that took hold last year did so a lot faster even though it was less infectious than B.1.1.7. Too many Americans have already been infected and acquired immunity for the B117 to cause a wave. As numbers keep falling in weeks ahead and we head into 10 million vaccine doses a week, B117 may cause a short splash from lower numbers, not a wave. And spring is on the horizon.

56. You Marxist extremists can't scream "RIGHT WING MYTHOLOGY" and make the facts go away.

    https://www.rt.com/usa/495200-coronavirus-motocycle-crash-mistake-florida/

    https://www.newsweek.com/florida-man-killed-crash-listed-covid-19-death-raising-doubts-over-health-data-1518994

    https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/new-cdc-report-shows-94-of-covid-19-deaths-in-us-had-underlying-medical-conditions/

57. Click bait! Title says "cumulative deaths", but teasers (and the link name itself) say "deaths in one week"

58. By March B.1.1.7 should be the predominant form in the U.S. as other variants become less and less.
    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7003e2.htm

59. BTW Google maps has a Covid information option
    I suspect the extremely low figures for much of Africa is due to lack of testing, but aside from issues like that I would tentatively trust the figures.

60. We will reach 600,000 cumulative deaths in 4-5 months, not 1 million. We may reach 700,000 cumulative Covid deaths some time in 2022. It's astounding that people don't realize it's declining twice as fast as the winter wave grew, when respiratory illness season usually is still in full swing. Vaccinations haven't even made more than a tiny difference yet, but they certainly will in March and onward.

61. When you run PCR tests with a 35-40 cycle threshold you can pick up a SARS Cov2 infection from a few months prior, unrelated to the death. Or another coronavirus infection, unrelated to their death. When the median death age is 81, older than the avg lifespan, the substance gets weak . Classifying and tabulating deaths with a positive PCR test is ultimately decided by county and state officials, not doctors. Better to overcount than undercount is the philosophy. Public health officials have said these exact things on camera. The US, Latin America and Europe test far more than other countries. Unsurprising that except for a few tiny countries they all have disproportionate Covid figures compared to the rest of the world. Also, there's literally zero reason to believe any figures out of China. They've been falsifying data since December 2019. It also doesn't help that besides Vitamin D deficiency the greatest health risk factors are the interrelated trifecta of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. The US is addicted to sugar, and Americans are dying from it. Same will still be true when Covid is out of headlines and a nuisance.

62. Yes, and a significant fraction of that excess mortality is due to shutting down 'elective' medical procedures in order to keep hospital beds open for a surge of patients that never materialized.

63. Worldometers double counts some deaths. Ones listed at the bottom. There's a reason everyone else has less listed. It's impossible for the US to reach 1 million Covid deaths in 2021, let alone over summer. 40%+ of US population has already been infected, and a solid, growing % of the elderly have received at least their first vax shot, which offers partial protection. Almost half of all Covid deaths have been people from long term care facilities, where <1% of the population lives. They've been highly vaccinated, far more than the mere over 65 yrs old group.

    For 3 months, from early October to early January daily cases and hospitalizations went through the roof, but now are falling twice as fast as they were climbing, in the middle of normal cold/flu season. The B.1.1.7 variant has been in the US for at least 6 weeks, and the positive test rate has fallen in half. The variants can do a lot in Europe, but not much here since we've been so highly infected already. People with T-cell reactivity from infections of other coronaviruses not only get through the infection quickly, they are very poor vectors of the virus. They are at least a third of the US population. Hospitalizations went from 132K to 81K in a month. Now we will see deaths follow the same pattern downward. Incoming hospitalizations will be on avg younger than before. Their death rate will be lower.

64. I personally know 3 people who's older relatives passed last year. 2 cancer 1 heart attack all coded as covid on the death cert.

65. 2020 (until Dec.) German mortality rates as a comparison to 2016-2019 :
    https://harald-walach.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Co18-Abb1.png
    Graph is based on official public numbers:
    https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoelkerung/Sterbefaelle-Lebenserwartung/Tabellen/sonderauswertung-sterbefaelle.html?nn=209016

    RT-PCR overcycling leads to Covid infection overestimation. The virus is very dangerous for elderly 70+ and overweight, diabetes and other preconditions which you get from eating and living unhealty or just bad luck. Median covid death age is 80 which is also average life expactency. Colletral damage for young people and people yet to be born caused by feared response is probably much worse than the virus itself

66. That's a nonsense prediction. Case numbers are dropping rapidly, which means death numbers will probably start dropping soon (deaths have been in gradual decline for about 2 weeks). In addition most very old people have received at least 1 shot now which provides some protection.

67. Excessive mortality in USA as of October in 2020 was 300,000. https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/20/cdc-data-excess-deaths-covid-19/

68. Brian, 
    I read lots of skepticism about Covid reporting and it may be justified. Honestly, it’s hard to know for sure.

    Could you find/publish the all-cause mortality rate per million citizens for 2020 compared to previous years?

    If Covid really is deadly, it will show up in the annual number, not the monthly.

69. I'm an athiest and you're full of it.

70. Which part is that?

71. There is also the excess deaths. The total number of deaths from all causes is dramatically up, increases even beyond the official Covid death total.
    If you are saying these hospitals just flat out kill people to get higher numbers, you have likely been wearing aluminum hats and underwear for decades.

72. These things would appear on death certificates. The families would be complaining left and right.

    Just myth.

73. Right-wing mythology.

74. The CDC weekly report is based on what hospitals send it and they are given a monetary incentive to get the covid numbers as high as possible.

75. "And it's like that everywhere. "We are over counting! Countries with better stats must probably be hiding their numbers""

    No, it's the other way around.

    "John Doe came into the ER after his car was hit head-on by a 18-wheeler He had a punctured lung, multiple broken ribs, and severe head trauma."

    "Did you test him for Covid-19?"

    "We tested him just before he died and the results came back positive."

    "Then list him as a Covid-19 death. We could use the money to give the break room a new coat of paint."

    This is an old trick by politicians going back to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and probably even further. Free blacks were snatched up and accused of being runaway slaves. Judges were paid $10 if they ruled against the alleged runaway slave but only $5 if they ruled in favor of the black man.

    Now how can anyone familiar with history not see the government is using the same tactic of legalized bribery to get the results they want.

76. Right-wing mythology. It does not really hold up, if you read the CDC weekly reports. It would require just absurd levels of fraud.

77. The main reason it hit the US and Europe hard and quick was travel. Having more money and time to travel means there will be a lot of traveling. The globetrotter jet set both spread it far and wide in the US and abroad. The popular destinations were more strongly hit. Skiing cities were hit first, because it started in winter, and that is one of the big destinations in winter. 
    New York was hit like a ton of bricks because sick Uber and taxi drivers spread it to hundreds of people. Then it quickly got in the public transit system. And, of course, there are many wealthy people there that travel all over the planet.
    Then there are the more obvious reasons: absurdly high cost healthcare causing people to not come into the hospitals or come so late that nothing can be done to save their lives. The mythology of the rugged individualist, makes people continue working when sick, getting many others sick. We have a lot of elderly, and a lot in nursing homes where it spread very easily. We also have a lot of restaurants, bars, fitness centers, and churches where people easily spread stuff. Workers are also not very diligent in cleaning surfaces that could easily spread the disease. Somewhere like Germany…I am sure they do much better. Doubters were and are a problem. People who believe(d) it is all a hoax, put a lot of people at risk. There were very few masks available to the pubic at first. We were told to make them ourselves.

78. The critical question is whether infection numbers are dropping or increasing for B.1.1.7. In Denmark overall numbers are dropping due to lockdown but even so, numbers are increasing at a steady rate for B.1.1.7. Soon overall numbers will rise again reflecting this..

79. He's smart, but he usually seems really hardline in a certain direction (don't get me wrong, I understand). He also just trolls sometimes, like I do, but in a different direction.

80. They need to make the third US stimulus check contingent on agreeing to take your choice of approved vaccines when eligible. As it is, it could be as little as 60% willing to take the vaccine. That just is not enough. And paying them later to take the vaccine punishes everyone who was willing and eager.
    Maybe the 60% number is just temporary, and most of the remaining will come around. But, assuming that, I think is unnecessarily risky. 
    I don't want them to force anyone, but there should be more direct consequences to rejecting it. Withholding the stimulus costs no more than we are already spending.
    Anti-vaccine stuff is still being aired on uber right wing Youtube shows. They are going to cost lives. Too me, this is every bit as dangerous as yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, and needs to be shut down.
    I suppose there is an alternative. We could give them the option of being isolated say on a ship and then infected. Give them the immediate treatments to help them fight it off. Losses should be very low. lower than just letting them be. They should be screened for a handful of genetic errors that make one exceptionally vulnerable. Those can opt out and still receive their check.
    The longer it takes to get everyone vaccinated, the greater the opportunity for new variants to crop up.
    We also need to heavily assist the World in getting vaccinated, because if it lingers for years, new variants will be all over, and boarders shut down indefinitely.

81. No it's about Freedom! Freedom to infect someone else.

82. I guess it was necessary because people are idiots, it never cross my mind it wasn't cumulative. I assumed the wording was due to brevity, my default position is never a conspiracy or unsupported delusions.

83. This over reporting nonsense is also spouted by the conspiracy theorists in Brazil.

    And it's like that everywhere. "We are over counting! Countries with better stats must probably be hiding their numbers"

84. Actually, evangelicals and pentecostals are already over 30% of Brazilian population (only 51% catholic), and like their American breathen, the ones against using masks, saying covid is a communist conspiracy, etc.

    Traditional protestants are a minority only seen in the south.

    It's a tragedy, as evangelicals are anti science young Earth creationists, most of them.

85. I see outrageous behavior on the matter. People still think it’s a hoax. I’m outraged at that.

86. It’s a stretch, but it is the hard core evangelical church community giving the most resistance to just calling it off for a few months.

87. Half a million people dead, extreme backups at cemeteries dealing with the dead and there are those who still aren’t taking it seriously. Just outrageous.

88. Why? What newly advantaged health organizations are you citing?

89. You haven't seen any outrage? Really??

90. There is no correlation with protestantism and covid, unless Italy, Spain, Brazil and Iran have changed a LOT in the last year.

91. Sshhh…. he hasn't accepted it yet. He'll be so disappointed when he finds out.

92. I was going to write the same thing.

    500k in a week is a straight projection of current rates.
    1M in 4 months is assuming the whole vax project fails, without explanation.

93. I thought we gave up trying to communicate with the real idiots when they were complaining that the log scale graphs were using "fake scales" back a year ago.

94. Blue states…

    Subtract New York and recalculate.

95. We're reporting everybody who is even suspected to have been infected with Covid at their time of death as a Covid death, that's how it happens.

    We've created a very strong financial incentive for health institutions to overestimate the contribution of Covid to deaths.

96. The thing with rich 'protestant-valued' (but not 'that' religious leaning-more about legal system, ethic, and property rights) countries is that they are often filled with risk-tolerant/craving, not spectacularly healthy, old-people-discarding, and otherwise law-ignoring types. Covid is particularly aggressive on those types of people/ cultures. That being said, there seem to be varying reports on whether people of southeast asian descent are somehow more immune to these SARS-ish-like outbreaks.

97. I added cumulative to the title. I also checked and there is a difference between what IHME counted for Jan 29 and what Worldometers had for Jan 29. This means the 9 day total underprediction might be about 10%. Still numbers still coming in higher indicates the Worse and Variant spread scenarios are coming in even higher than the IHME models. They did not expect a 2000+ gap until mid-March between Worse and variant spread vs baseline.

98. We have to focus more on reducing viral load of suspected cases, a symptomatic, pre symptomatic and light cases. Instead of strict quarantine and on top of it, there should be supervised programs to ensure that they stay out in the sun daily for sufficient time and provide them with anti viral diet and herbs perhaps provided in dedicated local day care facilities to ensure that they don't spread the virus and better alleviate their sickness. There is still plenty of space for thinking outside the box!

99. 6. Remaining 50%+ should have steady decline with nicer weather.
    So, maybe 650k in early-Summer before major opening-ups and otherwise all main gathering events slowly increasing capacity – cruise ships and stadiums by Hallowe'en and top out (flu like numbers only going forward) at 850k by year-end.
    Huh – worse than I would have thought.

100. Yeah. A lot of Gee-Whiz numbers but not a lot of analysis.
     Main causes of deaths:
     1. Private facilities featuring high numbers of vulnerable with low-moderate protections/regulations and low-negligible acute-health services. Prognosis- better regulations and enforcement for nursing homes should mean steady decline.
     2. Public medical facilities featuring overwhelming caseloads and limited beds and equipment. Prognosis- steady to declining numbers, declining stay-length, improving treatments – should mean steady decline.
     3. Multi-generational, Single-Family Residential in Dense Urban featuring various age groups with varying exposure to various workplaces, outsiders, and each other. Prognosis – better weather for 3- and 4-season regions in 8 – 12+ weeks with increased likelihood of most vulnerable and priority individuals being vaccinated – likely steady up or down in near-term with steep decline after Easter.
     4. Multi-Family Residential in Dense Urban featuring various age groups with varying exposure to various workplaces, outsiders, and each other. Prognosis – better weather for 3- and 4-season regions in 8 – 12+ weeks with increased likelihood of most vulnerable and priority individuals being vaccinated – likely steady up
     or down in near-term with moderate decline after Easter.
     5. Single-Family Residential with Stupid People there (partying/ outgoing members and high-risk activities). Prognosis – 3- and 4-season regions in 8 – 12+ weeks- steady up/down until summer.

101. Not?

102. Why do you assume that every country tests and reports things the same?

103. Part of the US is 3rd world-like.

104. Greater than 911 fatality daily death rates most days. Where’s the outrage ?

105. That's WHY I'm worried!

106. I like the predictions on this site. I just happen to have my own predictions that are based on some assumptions (all are based on assumptions), and on a bit of data. My prediction just happens to be quite different than his this time.

107. Does a country with 4% of the world's population have 20% of the world's covid deaths? Noting that this is the richest country in the world and not some 3rd world nation

108. Extrapolators have been a great source of learning during this pandemic! Do not scare them away!

109. Extrapolation is a fonky business!

     Note that there were zero predictions in this text. Wong just extrapolated some found object. We know nothing about other found objects that he did not extrapolate and what their extrapolations would have hit had they been extrapolated.

110. I like the "mute" option too.

111. War crime? Crime against humanity?

112. Huh?

113. I predict that he is way wrong on this. The number of deaths has stayed high merely because deaths lag behind infections by several weeks. The number of infections is dropping like a rock right now, and will continue to do so in this country, as we begin to reach herd immunity. April and May are going to be months where COVID-19 as a pandemic becomes a chronic virus, but not a deadly one on a massive scale like it has been for the past year.

114. That is a very easily misunderstood headline. A half million are not going to die in a week, (26 million a year!) and we will not see a million deaths this summer.

     The phrase, "cumulative total" really needs to find its way into that headline.

Comments are closed.