Name:   PTClakefan - Subject:   Interesting Covid-19 Data Date:   7/8/2020 6:21:55 PM

Below is a paste of a link of a chart that is updated weekly by the CDC.  It tracks the number of Covid-19 deaths since the virus first arrived in the US through the week ending July 4th.  I have just included the link as the chart is fairly extensive.

In a nutshell, Covid-19 deaths have dropped significantly each week since the week ending April 18 when deaths peaked at 16,394 to last week when there were a total of 177 Covid-19 related deaths in the US, and despite the fact that positive cases have increased substantially during the same period.  That would seem to suggest a few reasons, such as: (1) the virus is becoming much less lethal; (2) treatment methods have improved significantly; (3) the most vunerable persons are being isolated much better; or (4) Covid-19 death related data from earlier weeks was grossly over reported.  There may be other reasons as well.

Another set of interesting data is the weekly percent of expected deaths from all causes.  Essentially, the CDC averaged the total numbers of deaths to be expected for a given week based on the average number from the same period during the years 2017-2019.  As one would expect, total deaths exceded the total number expected during the April-May period, but have actually fallen below 100% since early June.  In fact, during the week ending July 4, the total number of all deaths in the US (including Covid 19 deaths) was only 16% of the total number expected for that week based on the average of the prior 3 years! (and we know several of those were due to acute lead poisoning).

As Ricky said to Lucy" "someone has some splanin to do."

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm