COVID Update

The data, in graphical form, looks a bit like a heartbeat where the patient experienced a shock, but is now settling down.  It’s a chart of COVID-19 deaths, which erupted from nowhere in late January, 2020, spiked, receded, spiked again, and then recorded a massive spike, followed by a remarkable decline.  There were two more spikes, and then, since the summer of 2022, smaller (but surprisingly regular) ups and downs that look like they might (finally!) be petering out.  Each blue bar on the graph represents the number of COVID-19 related deaths across the U.S. for an individual week, spiking up over 25,000 across the U.S., now lower than 1,000.  

How do we account for the decline?  For one thing, COVID is less deadly than it was; the new variants seem, for some of those afflicted, to be nothing more than a common cold.  For people age 80 and above, who were the hardest hit by the pandemic, the average death rate was 29% at the peak.  It is now just under 2%.  

Another factor is demographics.  More than two-thirds of new cases are contracted by people under age 40, where as at the peak, these younger people accounted for only 28% of cases.  Younger patients have had a higher survival rate throughout the pandemic.

Meanwhile, hospitals now have much better treatment for COVID than they did early in the pandemic.  

Interestingly, the oft-cited ‘herd immunity’ that was going to save all of us from the pandemic seems not to have been a factor.  COVID’s ability to change over time into different variants means that many people are getting the disease for the second, third or fourth time.  But the strains seem to be getting milder—yet another factor.  The Center for Disease Control says that individual infections today are less likely to result in severe illness for most people.

The graph makes it clear that future surges are possible, and there is no guarantee that a more virulent strain will emerge in some new variant.  And even at 1,000 deaths a week, the virus is still dangerous—roughly the same number of deaths as the suicide rate in the U.S.—and still to be taken seriously, particularly by older Americans.

Sources:

https://www.internationalsos.com/insights/why-are-covid-19-deaths-falling-even-as-cases-are-rising

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00

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