Pandemic Deaths Are Not Accurate - Double the Current Number

I was looking for a topic to write about today, and I noticed a headline that states the pandemic deaths are too low, especially outside the United States. Dr. Fauci suggested that they should double the current number of deaths. https://www.newsmax.com/headline/fauci-us-undercounted-covid/2021/05/09/id/1020680/.

Worldwide Pandemic Stats

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. As of this weekend, nearly 160 million cases of coronavirus have been reported. Eighty-five percent of those people infected with the virus have recovered. Over three million have died.

New daily cases of COVID-19 rose steadily from late October 2020 and dipped to September/October 2020 levels before rising quickly and exceeding previous highs. The past two weeks have shown a peak, and the number of daily new cases is starting to fall.

The daily death stats associated with coronavirus is similar; however, the current high number has not exceeded the late December and early January totals. The trend upward from October 2020 and the current trend from the middle of March show nearly the same slope. Recent daily deaths are starting to fall in the past two weeks.

Headlines tell us that India is suffering daily with hundreds of thousands of new cases of COVID-19. India has over twenty-two million total cases and nearly a quarter of a million total deaths (9.2%).

The stories have not indicated the demographics or timing of those deaths.

Nine percent is a high rate of COVID-19 deaths. However, looking at the past weekend’s data, the daily death rate from coronavirus is hovering around 1%.

Brazil is another country with galloping new coronavirus cases. Over fifteen million total cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Brazil, with around 35,000 new cases today. Approximately 2.8% of Brazilians have died since the pandemic started. The daily deaths in Brazil from coronavirus are averaging about 2.4% this past week.

How do those numbers compare to the United States?

Over thirty-three million total coronavirus cases have been reported to date, with a death rate of 1.8%. The most recent COVID-19 reporting shows around 20-50-thousand new cases and 240-770 deaths with an average death rate of slightly over 1.5%.

The trend of daily new cases of COVID-19 is still going downward, slightly, but definitely downward. The same is seen for daily deaths – the lowest seven-day average since last July.

Double the Current Deaths!!!

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-updates#Update-on-COVID-19-numbers. Why should the numbers double for deaths from SARS-CoV-2? The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reported that many deaths go unreported overseas last week. Deaths attributable to coronavirus from patients in hospitals are reported, but not the deaths occurring outside hospitals.

Because we do not know the accurate total of coronavirus deaths, the IHME wants to estimate COVID-19 deaths based on expected death rates and current death reports. They call it excess mortality. The global deaths from COVID-19 should be many times larger than what has been reported to date.

Based on the expected deaths, the United States should have over 900,000 deaths, not just under 600,000 that have been reported.

The Study

https://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths. As of last week, the IHME is switching its number counting protocols. New figures of total deaths from COVID-19 will be estimated totals rather than actual totals. The IHME believes that coronavirus deaths should be a proportion of all deaths.

The deaths in hospitals and not in homes are part of the reason. Another is that many countries do not have adequate testing procedures, and the number of deaths from COVID-19 is not known because testing was never done. Additionally, older adults in many countries were never tested and died early in the pandemic. These early deaths are not accounted for in the current regimen of pandemic reporting.

Conclusion

If you do not like the numbers, change them! Why not? Science is based on what can be observed and measured, not what can be expected. We do not have enough fear and panic over the daily headlines shouting that this state or country has recorded new cases or daily deaths. Now, we have to double those numbers to reflect what might be happening.

We have all seen reports of a person being admitted to a hospital who had an automobile wreck and happened to test positive for the virus. That person died of injuries of the accident and not coronavirus, but the CDC wanted the hospitals to report those deaths as COVID-19.

What about those people who died from a stroke, heart attack, and other causes that were reported as COVID-19 deaths? Maybe the numbers in the United States should be cut in half rather than doubled?

It will be interesting in three or four years watching the death analyses of what happened in 2020-2021. Seasonal influenza deaths are almost non-existent compared to previous years. I believe many other deaths lumped under COVID-19 will show massive reductions in deaths from heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, pneumonia, kidney disease, and more.

Time will tell.

Live Longer & Enjoy Life! – Red O’Laughlin – RedOLaughlin.com