Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Updated August 26, 2020
Contents
- Daily Updates of Totals by Week and State
- Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics
- Health Disparities: Race and Hispanic Origin
- Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19
- Index of Available Data Files
- Technical Notes
Estimates of excess deaths can provide information about the burden of mortality potentially related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including deaths that are directly or indirectly attributed to COVID-19. Excess deaths are typically defined as the difference between the observed numbers of deaths in specific time periods and expected numbers of deaths in the same time periods. This visualization provides weekly estimates of excess deaths by the jurisdiction in which the death occurred. Weekly counts of deaths are compared with historical trends to determine whether the number of deaths is significantly higher than expected.
We will never get back to a non-pandemic economy, at least any time soon. In the forseeable future,the epidemiologists will always proclaim one or another disease to be a pandemic that justifies restricting business and personal activities. They can always “replace” COVID-19 with tuberculosis, for example. Cases of tuberculosis have been increasing worldwide, including the United States, for many years. Strains resistant to antibiotics have developed. TB could certainly be used as a rationale for closing down airlines, bars, restaurants, conventions, “in the bleachers” spectator sports, etc., all of which are excellent incubators for tuberculosis. Acaseof the deadly “West Nile” virus was recently discovered in California. If it spreads, it could also be used to close everything down. Or a new, possibly deadly strain of flu, a new, antibiotic-resistant strain of pneumococal pneumonia, or one of the many deadly diseases of Africa, such as ebola or dengue fever, if a few cases of these horrible diseases Occur in the United States and other Western countries. Politicians will be reluctant to defy the demands from epidemiologists to shut down the economy, for fear of being accused of being baby-killers.
The coronavirus pandemic has given the epidemiologists the power and publicity that they have attained by scaring the public and governments out of their wits. And power is a heady drug that is addicting. The doctors won’t surrender it willingly. Expect the lockdown reality to continue for years, maybe decades, with only brief interludes when the restrictions will be relaxed.