Friday, May 27, 2022
Bill King Blog
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About Bill
  • Policy Discussion
  • Categories
  • Tune in
  • Home
  • About Bill
  • Policy Discussion
  • Categories
  • Tune in
No Result
View All Result
Bill King Blog
No Result
View All Result
Home COVID-19

Fatalities in the U.S. by the Numbers

by Bill King
April 25, 2020
in COVID-19, Public Health
4
Week-15-Fatalities-2
Share this article
  
1.2K
Shares

I had a conversation with someone earlier this week about how we should respond to COVID-19.  During the conversation she said to me, “Bill, you just don’t understand, people are dying.”  Of course, I do understand that people are dying because that happens every day.  In fact, about 165,000 people die each day somewhere in the world.  That is about 65 million per year.

My friend’s reaction was based on the heightened sense of empathy humans have evolved compared to other species.  It became part of our survival strategy as it spurred greater cooperation and aid between humans.  But empathy evolved while we were still tribal, so it is based on personal connections.  As a result, we are moved by stories of personal tragedy but less so by impersonal statistics about tragedy.

For example, UNICEF estimates that about one million children die from malaria each year with virtually no global attention or awareness.  If the media went to Africa and brought individual stories about those children into our living rooms and we had a counter on our television screens showing how fast the deaths were stacking up each day, we would have an entirely different reaction.

However, to effectively manage this epidemic we must act based on reason and analysis, not emotion.  To do that we must stay focused on the hard data.  So, I thought this might be a useful time to do a primer on the statistics for fatalities in the U.S.

The National Center for Health Statistics is part of the CDC and maintains the official vital statistics for the U.S.  Since 2013, the NCHS has published a dataset tracking all fatalities on a weekly basis as part of its flu surveillance system.

Over that time, the U.S. has averaged about 2.7 million fatalities per year with the number slightly trending up with population increases.

There is a distinct seasonality to fatalities, which increases during the flu season every year.

The latest data the NCHS has completed for this year is for the week ending April 11 (Week 15).  Here is how 2020 compares to the previous years through Week 15.

Ironically, through April 11, U.S. fatalities are down from last year and are almost exactly equal to the average for the previous six years.1  However, I would discourage anyone from jumping to any conclusions from  this data.  As of April 11, only the first week of New York’s elevated COVID fatalities had hit the numbers and revisions keep coming in.  So, the 2020 total will grow over the next few weeks.2 

Nonetheless, the fact that total fatalities have not increased seems counter-intuitive.  As of April 11 almost 17,000 people died from COVID.  Why aren’t the total fatalities for the year up by that amount instead of being down by 17,000 deaths?

There are, at least, three possibilities.  First, the numbers will be updated notwithstanding that NCHS shows they are complete.  I have seen them do that in recent weeks.  Second, fatalities from other causes are probably down.  Automobile accidents come to mind.  But also, it may be because some COVID deaths are not incremental.  That is, some of the people dying with COVID would probably have died even if they had not been infected with the virus.

Of course, this data will be endlessly interpreted.  Some will see in it as evidence that the threat from COVID has been exaggerated.  Others argue that it is evidence that the containment strategies are working.  But it will take a lot more detail about the data to support any definitive conclusions.  And there will probably be some questions we will never be able to answer.

Nonetheless, I think it is important continue to monitor this data for purpose of perspective.  Because my friend was right, people are dying.  But, at least so far, not in numbers that are much different from previous years.

I have downloaded the NCHS data to an Excel spreadsheet here and will periodically update it. If anyone sees any problems with the spreadsheet, let me know.

_______________________________

1  The NCHS dataset also includes the number of fatalities which are attributed to the flu and to pneumonia.  There is a sharp increase in pneumonia fatalities in Weeks 13-15, which must be COVID-19 beginning to show up in the numbers.

2 To get some idea how much they might grow, the IHME model is now predicting about 68,000 deaths by August 4.  As of April 11, there were only about 11,000 COVID deaths.  So, that would leave another 57,000 to be spread over May-August, say fifteen weeks, which would add on average about 3,000 additional fatalities per week. But even at that, it appears unlikely the 2020 fatalities will reach the previous weekly highs posted during the 2018 flu season when fatalities exceeded 60,000 per week for seven weeks.

Share1152Tweet

Bill King

Related Posts

Fewer People May Be Dying in the US than Normal
COVID-19

Fewer People May Be Dying in the US than Normal

April 19, 2022
COVID-19

County Vaccine Contract Exposed as Blatant Bid-Rigging

March 20, 2022
Excess Death Analysis for 2021
COVID-19

Excess Death Analysis for 2021

March 13, 2022
Update on US & Texas COVID Stats – Omicron Going, Going, But Not Quite Gone
COVID-19

Update on US & Texas COVID Stats – Omicron Going, Going, But Not Quite Gone

February 23, 2022
Stay Home – Unless You Are Going to a Lina Hidalgo Rally
COVID-19

Stay Home – Unless You Are Going to a Lina Hidalgo Rally

February 12, 2022
Update on US & Texas COVID Stats – Omicron Peak?
COVID-19

Update on US & Texas COVID Stats – Omicron Peak?

January 25, 2022
Load More
Next Post
NY per capita 4-17

COVID-19 Statistics – Update No. 6

Comments 4

  1. Jason Hochman says:
    2 years ago

    I didn’t quite understand the spreadsheet. For example, there is a column headed with “COVID 19 deaths” and there are entries in the years before the virus. Also, the total deaths seem to go down from week to week, somehow I don’t get it, shouldn’t the totals being increasing every week?

    Reply
  2. Jason Hochman says:
    2 years ago

    Or is it that those deaths are not cumulative numbers, but rather the total number of deaths for each individual week?

    Reply
    • Bill King says:
      2 years ago

      Sorry, I should have labeled better. The first column are the fatalities from Jan 1 – Apr 11. The next three are the totals for those weeks. The “# of reported COVID fatalities” row are the numbers of COVID fatalities as reported by WHO for those time periods.

      Reply
  3. Tom Kirkendall says:
    2 years ago

    Professor David Spiegelhalter, the noted British statistician, gave an insightful interview earlier this month ( https://bit.ly/39NHKSl ) in which he observed that we are not going to know for months — and maybe even years — whether the COVID-19 pandemic will result in an increased number of deaths in 2020 over a typical year, much less a substantially increased number of deaths.

    He goes on to point out that the main risk of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the compressed nature of treatment and deaths could overwhelm health care systems (as we saw almost occur in Wuhan, Italy, and New York), which would be truly catastrophic. Stated simply, deaths occur at a much faster rate in the COVID-19 pandemic than deaths occur during a typical flu season., which in turn causes a much greater strain on health care systems in the hot spots of the pandemic.

    Consequently, the key to re-opening the economy and returning to a semblance of normalcy is to promote reasonable precautions that hedge the risk of turning a particular area into a hot spot that overwhelms the health care system, Although challenging, this is far from an impossible task.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By Categories

  • Book Review
  • City Of Houston Finances
  • Climate Change
  • COVID-19
  • Crime
  • Demographics
  • Economics
  • Election Reform
  • Environment
  • Ethics
  • Faith
  • Federal Government Finances
  • Flooding
  • Harris County
  • Harvey Recovery
  • homeblog
  • Human Trafficking
  • Hurricane Preparation
  • Ike Dike
  • Immigration
  • Kingwood
  • Management Districts
  • Media
  • Mobility
  • Montrose Management District
  • National Economy
  • National Economy
  • National Politics
  • Pensions
  • Police Polices & Procedures
  • Police Policies & Procedures
  • Political Parties
  • Property Taxes
  • Public Health
  • Quote of the Week
  • Race
  • Rebuild Houston
  • Rebuild Houston – Drainage Fee
  • SAM Party
  • Social Security
  • State of Texas
  • State of Texas Finances
  • TIRZ
  • Uncategorized
  • Uptown
  • Utility Grid
Bill King Blog

Posts range from local to national issues and focus on fact-based analysis, avoiding hyperbole and partisanship. The site is intended to be an open, respectful discussion of the critical issues of our day. Contact Bill directly and let him know what matters to you - weking@weking.net

Recent News

  • “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”
  • Poll:  58% of Voters Would Consider Moderate Independent in 2024 And Utah Democrats Make a Surprise Move

Our Social Media

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About Bill
  • Policy Discussion
  • Categories
  • Tune in