The US government may be done with Covid, but recent data shows an alarming number of Americans are still dying from the respiratory disease
Nearly four years into the pandemic, hundreds of Americans are still dying every day from Covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The virus is responsible for around 1,000 deaths and 15,000 hospitalisations each week, CDC Director Mandy Cohen said during a media briefing on 2 December.
Death rates briefly dipped below 500 per week in July, the lowest rates since the pandemic began, before steadily increasing to as high as 1,400 in September.
The latest CDC data shows emergency doctor visits and hospitalisations spiked by 10 per cent over one week in mid-November, the first major increase in the virus’s spread for several months.
I am not at all suggesting to not take Covid seriously, please get your shots and mask up in confined or crowded spaces and on transit and especially when not feeling well and unable to stay home. However it’s worth giving perspective that that puts its death toll now at similar to an unusually bad flu year, or about twice as bad as a typical flu year. Covid is no longer, thankfully, a leading cause of death and it now pales in comparison to deaths caused by accidents, or by obesity, or smoking. In 2021 for example, Covid deaths were at least 8 times higher than they are now.
Most telling, given how difficult to track Covid adjacent deaths or to be certain of what caused every death, excess deaths has returned to prepandemic levels, meaning the overall death rate in the US is now within the margin of historical norms.
It’s killing as many as in a bad flu year - but we’re not even in the middle of a surge at the moment. The background numbers are twice as deadly as the flu, and they’re going to get worse when winter actually kicks in, more people get sick, and hospitals start getting overloaded again.
A recent surge went up to 1400 per week, there may be a Dec-Jan surge that goes significantly above that but death rates are down significantly across the year compared to a year ago.
Regardless the comparison to a bad flu year was based on an average over the year based on 1000/week for Covid which has been roughly average in 2023 so far which seemed a better way to show it given how extremely seasonal Flu is and to a lesser extent Covid. Regardless excess deaths is a better metric to look at and we are back to a baseline there.
Again, I am not saying to not take Covid seriously and not to take precautions. What I am saying is that the vast majority of people should no longer let Covid prevent them from living their life to its fullest and taking care of themselves, as depression/inactivity related illnesses are now a larger threat. IE. If you arent going to the gym because you’re scared of Covid, that is counterproductive for your health now, nit exercising enough is more dangerous to your health than Covid right now. Or likewise if you’re letting fear of Covid cause depression and anxiety and lack of physical contact with loved ones, as the effects of those things are also statistically more dangerous than Covid right now.
Something to note is deaths don’t tell the whole story, covid has many somewhat common long-term side effects such as exhaustion and respiratory issues, which can last years after infection. Long covid (basically a mix of these and many more symptoms) also affects about 1/4 people who get covid, though this is trending downward.
I was worried about catching covid when out in public, but now I’ve gone back to just worrying about being shot.
With COVID killing so many people, Flu can take the year off. That’s how that works, right?