Coronavirus Deaths, Compared
The numbers on Coronavirus keep increasing. The last time I wrote about the numbers- the comparative numbers- was five weeks ago. While the raw numbers have increased the analysis remains largely the same. It's grim.
The latest numbers for the US are 684,000 reported cases and over 34,000 deaths. Globally, the figures are 150,000 deaths and 2.21 million reported cases. Source: Global Coronavirus Deaths Top 150,000 (Wall Street Journal, 17 Apr 2020).
A few things are worth noting in parsing the meaning of these numbers. For one, the number of deaths in the US is now similar to the number of deaths from influenza... though one figure is number of deaths in a period of about 2 months and the is over the course of a full year. Coronavirus is now clearly much more deadly than the flu. That's a point I made in my blog entry from 5 weeks ago as a scientific prediction; now it's cold, hard, grim fact.
In fact it's not just the flu Coronavirus is more deadly than. Coronavirus is rapidly closing in on being the leading cause of death. An article entitled "Coronavirus is becoming America's Leading cause of death" (Washington Post, 17 Apr 2020) today provides an insightful graphic:
Source: Washington Post
This chart adjusts for the 2 months vs. 12 months issue by counting the number of deaths in a week. (This actual week for Covid-19, an average week for everything else.)
The comparisons in this chart put to bed the canards of the Coronavirus-denial lobby: that things like flu and car crashes "kill more people and we don't shut the country down over them." You can see that on a weekly basis Coronavirus is now killing 10x as many people as the flu and more than 4x as many as all forms of accidents combined.
Also, going back to the numbers I shared at the top: 684k cases, 34k deaths. That's a mortality rate of 5%. Coincidentally that's the rate I estimated two weeks ago when I wrote that I'm not willing to risk my life on not rolling a 1 on my saving throw. 🎲 The point, though, is not that my estimate was spot on but that That's. Too. High. (Remember, the mortality rate for the flu is 0.1%.) We need to keep Flattening The Curve.
The latest numbers for the US are 684,000 reported cases and over 34,000 deaths. Globally, the figures are 150,000 deaths and 2.21 million reported cases. Source: Global Coronavirus Deaths Top 150,000 (Wall Street Journal, 17 Apr 2020).
A few things are worth noting in parsing the meaning of these numbers. For one, the number of deaths in the US is now similar to the number of deaths from influenza... though one figure is number of deaths in a period of about 2 months and the is over the course of a full year. Coronavirus is now clearly much more deadly than the flu. That's a point I made in my blog entry from 5 weeks ago as a scientific prediction; now it's cold, hard, grim fact.
In fact it's not just the flu Coronavirus is more deadly than. Coronavirus is rapidly closing in on being the leading cause of death. An article entitled "Coronavirus is becoming America's Leading cause of death" (Washington Post, 17 Apr 2020) today provides an insightful graphic:
Source: Washington Post
This chart adjusts for the 2 months vs. 12 months issue by counting the number of deaths in a week. (This actual week for Covid-19, an average week for everything else.)
The comparisons in this chart put to bed the canards of the Coronavirus-denial lobby: that things like flu and car crashes "kill more people and we don't shut the country down over them." You can see that on a weekly basis Coronavirus is now killing 10x as many people as the flu and more than 4x as many as all forms of accidents combined.
Also, going back to the numbers I shared at the top: 684k cases, 34k deaths. That's a mortality rate of 5%. Coincidentally that's the rate I estimated two weeks ago when I wrote that I'm not willing to risk my life on not rolling a 1 on my saving throw. 🎲 The point, though, is not that my estimate was spot on but that That's. Too. High. (Remember, the mortality rate for the flu is 0.1%.) We need to keep Flattening The Curve.