Covid 2022 - A Look at the Stats while we still can.

Stuff you read on the internet should always be checked, especially things that seem remarkable.  So when I heard that hospitals would no longer be required to report Covid 19 deaths I was pretty skeptical.  But I did find the source, a very dense document from January 9th of this year advising hospitals that as of February 2nd the Department of Health and Human Services would no longer be requiring them to report Previous Day's Deaths from Covid 19.  

There are several possible interpretations of this.  On the one hand it is pretty clear that deaths "from" and "with" Covid have been so blended together that the statistic is not that helpful.  Or if you are of a more cynical point of view the acknowledgment that Covid has not been eradicated is "not that helpful" to the political fortunes of the current beleaguered Administration.  Of course we will still get daily rations of Scary News regards record "cases" and increases in subcategories such as pediatric cases.

Soon we'll be consuming a steady diet of frightening anecdotes. So, while we still have the numbers lets have a look at incidence and fatality.  In most northern states the omicron variant has resulted in record numbers of cases, most of whom - allowing for a whole lot more testing - are younger than in prior waves and are not getting particularly ill.  Deaths are also up but far from earlier peaks.  The demographics of fatalities in places that actually report useful data are worth a look.  Here's my home state of Minnesota.  It's a bit hard to make out, but all those lines near the bottom indicate a very low death rate in people under 60.  Under 20 does not even register.

Digging deeper into their stats you find that the average "case" is 36 years old, the average ICU hospitalized patient is 63 and the average age of those dying from Covid is 80.  That stat caught my eye.  To have an average age of 80 there must be some real oldsters in the sample set.  Indeed, deaths were recorded in patients ranging from age 1 to age 109.  As an aside I can say that other information mined from the Minnesota data indicates that virtually all recent deaths under 30 have significant co-morbid conditions or are just fanciful.  Several were fentanyl overdoses with an incidental positive Covid test noted.

Northern states are always disease ridden in the Winter months.  That's why people move to, oh I don't know, Florida maybe?  And Florida might, hopefully, be showing us the future.  There have been some bad stretches down in the Sunshine State.  All of them gleefully reported.  But through some combination of weather, prior disease, immunization and who knows what else, Florida has massive numbers of positive tests and, well, have a look.

Cases:  Averaging 61,500 a day.  Pretty bad....

And deaths.  While acknowledging that each death is tragic to the families involved, a rolling seven day average of 9 deaths a day suggests to me that barring some new, horrid variant, Covid is nearly over.  I don't have age breakdown for Florida cases by week, but their overall stats since the beginning of this horror mirror those of Minnesota closely.

Sorry to bring up a subject that everyone is tired of and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.  But if even imperfect statistics are soon going to be discarded, 'cause Science or something, this is our last chance to see beyond the Scary News.