COVID-19 Mortality Update - January 2021

This chart compares the total number of people who have died in the United States from ANY cause for this and the previous four years using data from the CDC. The X-axis is the week of the year. (Week 1 end on or about January 1 of each year; Week 11 is the first week in March, Week 39 ends on or about September 30th of each year). There is no doctoring these numbers as it is all deaths for ALL causes.

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Table of Mortalities

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My Thoughts

  1. COVID-19 is killed 11 to 12 percent MORE people in the flu-season year ended October 2, 2020, than would have otherwise died in an average year and thus far has killed over 13 percent more than would be expected in the 20-21. So definitely NOT the flu.

  2. According to Worldometer, there have been 361,637 deaths related to COVID-19. Based on these data, I would say, if anything, this number is slightly understated. However, we could be seeing increased death due to indirect COVID-19 circumstances. I.e., increase suicides, overdoses, etc.

  3. The spike in weeks 13-21 of 2020 was due mostly to the medical profession learning how best to treat the disease. It was a BAD idea to put recovering patients in elder care facilities. It was a BAD idea to intubate based on low O2 levels alone.

  4. Although the CDC says that their data is ~100 percent complete, the total number continues to rise by sometimes more than 2 percent from week to week. I would say that this data is very solid through week 48 (week ending November 28).

  5. In other words, Weeks 47 and 48 will likely increase by another 2 to 3 percent even though the CDC indicates the data of near 100 percent complete.

  6. These numbers do not reflect the recent spike in cases and death after Thanksgiving.

  7. I have heard from multiple sources that while C-19 related deaths are up, normal death due to the flu are way down. It will be interesting to see if there is another big spike like there was in weeks 13-21 last flue year. No big spike would indicate that while C-19 is worse than the flu, it was nothing compared to the ill-advised treatment and patient policies from late last Spring.

Ed KlessComment