Covid and you
Unfortunately, Covid-19 has become very political. Some saying it is a crisis and wanting everything closed down. Others claim it’s a hoax and there are far more people trapped in the middle. But here are some facts to help you decide and it will become clear where I stand since I base my opinion on fact not what the media or anyone else tells me. My numbers are all provable if you do a little research. They are based on 7 day rolling averages of daily numbers not individual dates as day to day the numbers are very volatile.
Around the end of March covid-19 cases hit a peak of around 32,000 cases in the US. This trend gradually decreased to around 22,000 cases on June 12th. From there the trend dramatically increases to around 57000 cases on July 10th. So current cases are close to double what they were at the previous peek at the end of March.
Deaths peaked at around 2200 on April 20th. Since then they steadily declined to about 518 on July 4th then ticked up to 625 on July 10th.
So, while the numbers of cases decreased by about a third, then dramatically went back up to almost double the previous peak. Deaths have steadily decreased by almost three quarters. How can this be? Well testing has greatly increased so more and more people that are asymptomatic are being tested for various reasons. For example, my grandkids had to be tested before going to summer camp, some of their asymptomatic friends have tested positive. We also put elective or non-life threatening surgeries on hold for three months. Now they are allowed but everyone of them are tested for covid-19 first, some are coming back positive even though they are asymptomatic. And surprise the hospitals are seeing high usage as a three-month backlog of elective surgeries are being scheduled in.
But it’s worse than that. If you get in a car accident or go to the hospital for any other emergency you are tested for covid-19. If you test positive you are counted as a covid-19 hospitalization and if you should die from your injuries you guessed it a covid-19 death.
Looking at Georgia’s numbers they ares very similar to the US numbers. Cases peaked at around 830 cases on April 12th, dropped to 604 on June 2nd then steadily increased to 2960 cases July 10th. Meanwhile deaths peaked at 42 on April 20th have steadily decreased to 16 on July 10th with a short blip up for a couple weeks in June. I have checked other “Hot Spot States” as well with similar results. The one exception I have found so far is California whose cases have continued to drastically rise from the beginning until now. Deaths however peaked in early April and have remained relatively the same since then even thought the cases have increased over 7 fold since then.
So, what is reality? To know that we need to look at total deaths in the US. So far, I have only found data on that through April. But the number of deaths on a month to month bases has been running 5-7% lower this year then the previous three-year average. Interestingly, the covid -19 deaths for January had 0 and February had 5. Both months showed the death rate a 5% lower than the three -year averages. March’s covid-19 deaths are listed at around 2700 deaths but the total deaths was 7% less than the three-year average. So, while 2700 extra deaths from covid-19 should have made the number of total deaths rise, they actually decreased. This leads me to believe a majority of the people dying with Covid-19 are not dying from covid-19 and that while people over 65 with two or more preexisting conditions should protect themselves, the rest of us should go about our business.