A curious but fortunate characteristic of virus epidemics is their limited lifespans. No one knows why, but guesses include herd immunity and mutations of the virus.
The following graph from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Health Statistics shows the time profile of the COVID-19 weekly death counts from February onward. (For an interactive version of the graph go here.)
n the U.S., the virus got underway in March. For the week ending March 14 the total number of deaths nationwide was 52. During the following month the number of deaths increased rapidly, peaking in the week ending April 18 at a count of 17,026.
From that time onward, the death count declined rapidly to a weekly number of 3,684 in late June. A second “wave” began in July. The peak of that second wave was 6,794 deaths during the week ending July 25. After that a steeper decline commenced and accelerated.
The peak death count for Americans under age 25 was 28 (for the week ending April 11) and has been under that number since. Only a single death occurred in that age group during the latest reported week, and there were no deaths recorded in the 25-34 age group.
Virus epidemics behave differently than virtually all other diseases. If you graphed timelines of the number of cancer deaths, fatal heart attacks, and fatal strokes, those timelines would be virtually flat.
Virus epidemics, however, have relatively short time profiles, like what we’re seeing with COVID-19. There’s nothing unusual about the fact that the coronavirus death count is dying a natural death. That should have been anticipated, and it should now be widely publicized. Why are we pretending not to know this good news? These facts are easy to find. We ought to be celebrating like we did when WWII ended.
This COVID-19 death profile is extremely significant yet is almost totally ignored by the media. Their focus is on cases, not deaths. The number of cases has not decreased as rapidly as the number of deaths. Only a small percentage of cases now ends in death, and the death count is vastly more important than the case count. The case count may linger, but that problem is becoming increasingly manageable.
The latest reported weekly death count (August 29) was 370. That’s out of a population of 330 million people. In a single week, between August 8 and August 15, the number of deaths dropped 85 percent (from 3,169 to 455). The COVID-19 death rate in the U.S. is now barely more than one per million and dropping like a rock. Coronavirus deaths are currently half the number of weekly vehicle fatalities. We’re now seeing the pandemic in our rearview mirror.
Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former professor of economics and author of The Unbeatable Market. He can be reached at rossecon@aol.com.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Adam,
This is indeed good news. A dear friend of ours told us yesterday that four residents died in one day from COVID-19 at a care facility in town that she used to be in. Another friend has a sister in Washington State, who caught the disease and is recovering after only a few days — a person over 60s, with severe athsma. At the care facility, some workers have refused to come to work because of the deaths, which nonetheless bring our cumulative county total to only 9, most or all of them happening among the very elderly.
I hope the CDC graph is correct, and we are indeed at the end of this thing. If so, it shows that the experts and handwringers have been as sure, as “prophets”, as the red-faced financial advisors when Lehman Brothers crashed in 2008. When the smartest of men have been made fools of like this, I give the glory to God, who cares for them that love him and answers those who call on His name.
Right now, my cares are elsewhere. Monday night, a 37,000 acres fire exploded from nothing. Last night it grew to 105,000 acres. At one point, there were only some 150 firefighters trying to do the job that normally requires 1000; and now the task has tripled in size. The fire is 0% contained, as the firefighters, struggling to maintain their own safety, have not even tried to contain the blaze; they are so busy rescuing people and trying to save key structures. The “leave now!” evacuation order extends to the city limits; and the flame front is 25 miles from our house.
This situation is being repeated throughout Oregon, and I am not pleased with Democrat Governor Kate Brown’s response. While the fire crews are desperate for help, she is telling people to “brace themselves” for massive deaths and property loss. It seems she has gotten her playbook from New York’s Cuomo. In Portland, meanwhile, the rioters have just celebrated 100 straight nights of rioting. I pray that people will come to their senses and vote those hapless/ evil Democrats out of office! Somebody please say Ah-mehn!
Since in all probabilty the number of people for whom CV-2 was the primary cause of death is apparently only about 10-15,000 at most, not the 200,000 claimed by the CDC, the fraud is even greater than Mr. Ross says. It is very hard to know for certain, since the CDC makes no effort whatsoever to keep exact statistics for any other disease than CV-2. But the CDC has now conceded that all but 6 per cent of supposed CV-2 deaths were suffered by people with two or more ‘co-morbidities, and in more than half of these cases three or more comorbidities. Most of these people would have died in less than a year even if they had not contracted CV-2. And there were some people whose deaths were ascribed to CV-2 when this illness played no role at all in their deaths, such as traffic and work accident victims, and even people who died of gunshot wounds. Some states reported these deaths as caused by COVID-19.