US Covid Deaths Reaching 1M: 997041 in 2022/18/03 18:51 MDT

[jim mcnamara]

Per Worldometer 2022/18/03 18:51 MDT data:
Reported Covid US deaths 997041, World deaths 6093047
Population of the US 334256039, World (est) 7934365211
USA as % of world population 4.2%
USA as % of world Covid deaths 16.3%

In a short while the Worldometer counter for USA deaths will hit 1 million. Other counters may vary.

No printable comment...

 

[berkeman]

Hmm, strange. Can you post a link to the worldometer stuff? Any idea why the percentages of US vs World would be skewed like that?

 

[phinds]

Hmm, strange. Can you post a link to the worldometer stuff? Any idea why the percentages of US vs World would be skewed like that?

I think it's known that the US has WAY more science deniers than the rest of the world and consequently WAY more anti-vax people. By far, most of the people who die are unvaccinated. SO ...

 

[berkeman]

I think it's known that the US has WAY more science deniers than the rest of the world and consequently WAY more anti-val people. By far, most of the people who die are unvaccinated. SO ...

Not here in Silicon Valley and much of the Bay Area in California, but I don't know for the rest of Cali. True that there are some <adjective avoided> states in the US where the vax rate is low, but it's hard to believe that the US as a whole is so far behind the rest of the world. If it is true, I think I see an opportunity for a new vax advertising campaign...

 

[phinds]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

Click on "show all" and then click on "fully vaccinated" to sort that way.

I count 63 countries that have a higher rate of fully vaccinated people than the U.S. (although at least a dozen are not all that much higher).

EDIT: Now that I think about it, those stats pretty clearly do not support the stats in post #1

 

[Tom.G]

Any idea why the percentages of US vs World would be skewed like that?

Data collection and reporting comes to mind.

For instance, how many that die out in the wilds of Africa, or even in Russia, would you expect to be reported... and then passed up the communication chain as far as Worldometer?

 

[Oldman too]

"Data collection and reporting comes to mind."

Hi Tom,
Yea, there seems to be an issue there.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00708-0

"The number of people who have died because of the COVID-19 pandemic could be roughly three times higher than official figures suggest, according to a new analysis."I can't sort this out, any thoughts?
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/05/world/worldometer-coronavirus-mystery/

 

[PeroK]

Hmm, strange. Can you post a link to the worldometer stuff? Any idea why the percentages of US vs World would be skewed like that?

Over the past months the USA has had proportionally more deaths than western Europe. Prior to that your national death rate was typical for western Europe and lower than the UK's. As mentioned, this is almost certainly due to the death rate having reduced so greatly among those who are vaccinated.

Note that Peru has the worst death rate and many of the eastern European countries are much worse than the USA. There is a huge spread in western countries. There are figures that are hard to understand - such as Belgium having twice the death rate of the neighbouring Netherlands. Some examples (deaths per million):

Peru - 6273

Bulgaria - 5287

Lots of other small and E European countries

Brazil - 3053

USA - 2983 (now the worst major western country)
...
Italy - 2613 (next worst)

UK - 2387

Spain - 2173

France 2150

Germany - 1511

Canada - 970

That's just a selection.

 

[Astronuc]

Over the past months the USA has had proportionally more deaths than western Europe. Prior to that your national death rate was typical for western Europe and lower than the UK's. As mentioned, this is almost certainly due to the death rate having reduced so greatly among those who are vaccinated.

Note that Peru has the worst death rate and many of the eastern European countries are much worse than the USA. There is a huge spread in western countries. There are figures that are hard to understand - such as Belgium having twice the death rate of the neighbouring Netherlands. Some examples (deaths per million):

Peru - 6273
Brazil - 3053
USA - 2983 (now the worst major western country)
Mexico - 2453

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Brazil is a western country, but perhaps not major, it's not minor either.

I have to wonder how many folks in Brazil and Mexico were not counted, because they died at home, or otherwise away from hospital.

The US number is consistent with NY Times reporting, 292 deaths per 100K, or 2920 per 1 M.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

The worst state, Mississippi, 414 deaths per 100K, or 4140 per 1M.
American Somoa reports no deaths, Northern Mariana Islands 58 per 100K, Hawaii 96 per 100K, Vermont 98 per 100K. One can see vaccination rates as well, and there is some correlations with low death rates and high vaccination rates.

Affecting the number would be population density (urban areas vs dispersed population), poverty rates, international travel, vaccination rates, . . . .

 

[jim mcnamara]

@berkeman
Note the concept of magical thinking.

His point is that we as a species already lost the fight against Covid because of discordant human behaviors. Not because of vaccines. The US appears to be one of the victims of that behavior.

Stick with the video it is 54 minutes...

And the Worldometer numbers are probably circa 1% off - either way. Example: New Mexico under-reports deaths and sometimes said as much in daily reports. "these deaths occurred >30 days ago"
I do not know why...

 

[PeroK]

Brazil is a western country, but perhaps not major, it's not minor either.

I have to wonder how many folks in Brazil and Mexico were not counted, because they died at home, or otherwise away from hospital.

I was putting South America in a different category. Brazil has extreme poverty and far from the universal healthcare we have in the UK, for example.

 

[PeroK]

Affecting the number would be population density (urban areas vs dispersed population), poverty rates, international travel, vaccination rates, . . . .

An interesting comparison is between the USA on one hand and the five largest western European countries on the other. Statistically, a large country like the USA should be neither the worst nor best, as the good and bad should average out. The USA has a similar population to Germany, FRance, Italy, Spain and the UK combined.

The European countries average out at about 2100 deaths per million, compared to the USA pushing 3000. You could check the historical figures, but prior to the vaccine there was little difference here. The main difference has been what has happened since vaccines became available.

 

[MidgetDwarf]

Any predictions from a reputable website which estimate rise of Covid cases (if significant). Among states that removed mask mandates for k-12 education?

I recently quit my job as 7/8th grade math teacher due to removal of mask mandates in LAUSD.

 

[bigfooted]

There are figures that are hard to understand - such as Belgium having twice the death rate of the neighbouring Netherlands.

This is because the registration of Covid casualties has not been standardized. In the Netherlands, you are counted as a Covid casualty if you were tested positive, and if the probable cause of death is covid. In Belgium, the 'probably cause of death' is sufficient to be added to the statistics. That means that Belgium was maybe over reporting, but the Netherlands was definitely under reporting the casualties.

 

[Oldman too]

This is an interesting view of Covid data processing, I found it very informative.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00792-2

 

[WWGD]

I was putting South America in a different category. Brazil has extreme poverty and far from the universal healthcare we have in the UK, for example.

Same goes for African countries, most of which have much lower mortality rates. Same goes for India, which a much lower mortality rates. EDIT: Worldometer can refer you to details at country level by R-clicking on each country, e.g., for the US:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Which can be further broken down to the state level.

 

[WWGD]

An interesting comparison is between the USA on one hand and the five largest western European countries on the other. Statistically, a large country like the USA should be neither the worst nor best, as the good and bad should average out. The USA has a similar population to Germany, FRance, Italy, Spain and the UK combined.

The European countries average out at about 2100 deaths per million, compared to the USA pushing 3000. You could check the historical figures, but prior to the vaccine there was little difference here. The main difference has been what has happened since vaccines became available.

Would be nice to see the evolution of the death rate over time. And, strangely, last I checked, the number of Fatalities in China has remained fixed at 4636 since the beginning of 2020.

 

[WWGD]

The Chinese never die they just lie.

A minor correction. Number of deaths in China went up from 4636 to 4638. _Now_ it seems believable \Sarc.

 

[OmCheeto]

Would be nice to see the evolution of the death rate over time.

It's not really that interesting until about August of last year, at which time the US daily death rate averaged about double that of PeroK's EU Five: 4¾ vs 2 deaths per million per day
This caused us to diverge from only a 10% difference in total deaths to nearly a 40% difference today.

And, strangely, last I checked, the number of Fatalities in China has remained fixed at 4636 since the beginning of 2020.

Unless you count Hong Kong, who recently became #1 in the world with a daily death count of 36 per million. Which from the global average means that twice as many people are dying from Covid than all other causes.

 

[jim mcnamara]

For China & Hong Kong, there has been a "zero tolerance" policy for Covid. Small outbreak -> stentorian lockdown. Plus, vaccines that are efficacious, e.g. Sinovac-CoronaVac.

This has caught up with them in terms of lost economic growth, for example. It also reduced deaths per million for quite a while

 

[PeroK]

For China & Hong Kong, there has been a "zero tolerance" policy for Covid. Small outbreak -> stentorian lockdown.

Do you really mean stentorian?

 

[jim mcnamara]

@PeroK - No, it establishes this fact: I cannot type and think at the same time. My wife asked me to spell stentorian.

Thanks for the correction.

 

[PeroK]

@PeroK - No, it establishes this fact: I cannot type and think at the same time. My wife asked me to spell stentorian.

Thanks for the correction.

I always think the archetype of stentorian is Foghorn Leghorn!

 

[WWGD]

For China & Hong Kong, there has been a "zero tolerance" policy for Covid. Small outbreak -> stentorian lockdown. Plus, vaccines that are efficacious, e.g. Sinovac-CoronaVac.

This has caught up with them in terms of lost economic growth, for example. It also reduced deaths per million for quite a while

But do you really believe just 2 people died in the ( edit) approximately 2.5 years since the onset?

 

[jim mcnamara]

I do not take a lot of mortality reporting as absolutely correct. Neither should you.
I really do not want to go over this again in any great detail.
Under reporting is common. A rule of thumb is that countries with limited health resources under report.
Example Worldometer data for 3/26/2022:
India with an approximate calculation ~521000 total reported deaths, 1.4 billion people
521000/1403000000
.00037134711332858161
This is about 371 per million. I don't think so...

There have been papers with estimates of triple the reported mortality, which includes resource issues.

Example:
I get a thoracic gunshot, the ER is swamped with other critical Covid ICU patients so I am routed to several other hospital ER's and ultimately die en route. So was I killed by covid? No. How the about the disaster that is going on in the Ukraine? People are fleeing in droves, rather like what happened during Plague times. There are reports about an increased Covid prevalence. And polio:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-covid-polio-mounting-health-threats-rcna17780

Census data is slightly better, but it doesn't show immigration, emigration, or mortality very clearly. For example San Francisco lost 55000, due to lots of hypothesized reasons. Covid is one of many.
I cannot get an open access connection to the San Francisco Chronicle, which is counter-productive.
So -- no link.

 

[Oldman too]

I do not take a lot of mortality reporting as absolutely correct. Neither should you.

The article in this link agrees with your points.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00842-9

 

[Tom.G]

I cannot get an open access connection to the San Francisco Chronicle, which is counter-productive.
So -- no link.

Here is an open access article dated Dec. 15, 2021:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/california-bay-area-migration-maps/

(above found with:
https://www.google.com/search?&q=san+francisco+chronicle+exodus)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Perhaps a better way to compare COVID-19 deaths across countries without having to worry about differences in how countries count COVID deaths is excess death statistics. Excess deaths shows essentially, how many more deaths occurred in a country over the baseline level of deaths typically seen in the country in the past. Here's a link to an academic article tracking excess deaths across countries due to the pandemic along with a news article from Nature discussing the issue further:

Tracking excess mortality across countries during the COVID-19 pandemic with the World Mortality Dataset
https://elifesciences.org/articles/69336

The pandemic’s true death toll: millions more than official counts
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00104-8

Here are some sources tracking excess death statistics:
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

With respect to the OP, which suggests that the US has seen much higher mortality than the rest of the world, here is data from Our World in Data comparing cumulative excess deaths in the US vs all countries tracked:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/...100k-economist?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~USA

The US has had ~350 excess deaths per 100,000 vs an average of ~250/100k for the rest of the world. So, yes, mortality from the pandemic has been higher in the US than on average in other countries, though perhaps not as high as the original numbers in the OP suggested (these numbers suggest the US accounts for ~5.9% of COVID deaths vs 4.2% of the population).

 

[Oldman too]

Here is an interesting study regarding Covid mortality in the US. The findings point to a problem with health care in this country, the interpretation of the findings appear to highlight the cause of the problem (My interpretation of the papers interpretation)

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00081-3/fulltext

Findings:
"Groups with lower health insurance coverage had significantly higher mortality as well as greater case counts and hospitalization. Early in the pandemic, they were also less likely to be tested for COVID-19. Applying our regression estimates, we estimate that had there been full health insurance coverage of the population, there would have been 60,000 fewer deaths, 26% of the total death toll in the period of this analysis."

 

[DaveC426913]

But do you really believe just 2 people died in the ( edit) approximately 2.5 years since the onset?

That's Covid deaths.

Cant die of Covid if you die of "lead poisoning" first...

 

[russ_watters]

Here is an interesting study regarding Covid mortality in the US. The findings point to a problem with health care in this country, the interpretation of the findings appear to highlight the cause of the problem (My interpretation of the papers interpretation)

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00081-3/fulltext

Findings:
"Groups with lower health insurance coverage had significantly higher mortality as well as greater case counts and hospitalization. Early in the pandemic, they were also less likely to be tested for COVID-19. Applying our regression estimates, we estimate that had there been full health insurance coverage of the population, there would have been 60,000 fewer deaths, 26% of the total death toll in the period of this analysis."

I haven't read it yet, but those findings are interesting. They seem like counterintuitive or hard to connect cause-effect. Like, how does lack of insurance cause higher case counts and hospitalizations? I'd expect case count to be unaffected or lower (due to less testing) and hospitalizations lower due to lack of insurance. My big question would be if the controlled for related socioeconomic factors.

 

[bob012345]

This disease confounds the experts, defies logic and portends a difficult future. NYT article today suggests reinfections can be multiple times a year with possible long term effects. We may all be living with it for a very long time so the emphasis should be on learning to live with it and each other regarding different views on handling it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/health/covid-reinfection.html

 

[Oldman too]

Hi Russ, here is a link to the condensed version of the paper, a nice synopsis but the link in the previous post has much more detail concerning your questions. I agree that on the surface there is a counterintuitive, hard to connect cause-effect appearance to the title but they do do a pretty admirable job of explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the paper.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667193X22000813?via=ihub

 

[bob012345]

Here is an interesting study regarding Covid mortality in the US. The findings point to a problem with health care in this country, the interpretation of the findings appear to highlight the cause of the problem (My interpretation of the papers interpretation)

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00081-3/fulltext

Findings:
"Groups with lower health insurance coverage had significantly higher mortality as well as greater case counts and hospitalization. Early in the pandemic, they were also less likely to be tested for COVID-19. Applying our regression estimates, we estimate that had there been full health insurance coverage of the population, there would have been 60,000 fewer deaths, 26% of the total death toll in the period of this analysis."

I am skeptical of these conclusions. I believe it is not very scientific to claim what the outcome would have been under different circumstances.

Our study demonstrates that a significant share of COVID-19 mortality in the United States, and much of the excess mortality in the United States compared with other countries, is due to our reliance on a system of market-driven healthcare.

Does this include market driven R&D and vaccine development? I wonder how many lives globally were saved from U.S. market driven vaccines? Or Aids drugs?

 

[Oldman too]

I am skeptical of these conclusions. I believe it is not very scientific to claim what the outcome would have been under different circumstances.

Being a confirmed skeptic myself, I would always question results, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(22)00081-3/fulltext does, as I said earlier cover things very well (just my opinion though). there is much more to the paper than the snippet quoted,

Findings:
"Groups with lower health insurance coverage had significantly higher mortality as well as greater case counts and hospitalization. Early in the pandemic, they were also less likely to be tested for COVID-19. Applying our regression estimates, we estimate that had there been full health insurance coverage of the population, there would have been 60,000 fewer deaths, 26% of the total death toll in the period of this analysis."

Have you read the entire Lancet piece? It's pretty well done with plenty of details as to methods and findings.