Still there---still killing

[Dave Grubb]

I think there is some of that but I expect it to be somewhat constant so that in the day to day differential it has little impact.

I do know that, at one point, some doctors listed the cause of death as COVID related because of government programs to cover part of the funeral costs. I don't know if that is still in place or not.

[Dave Grubb]

Here is an excerpt from an article in this morning's NYT that puts far more information into the story of where we are today.

Some of the worst days of Covid in the U.S. have come as winters have settled in, and surges led hospitals to overflow and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

A comparable surge has yet to materialize on a similar timeline this winter. By now, hospitalizations in particular would have started to sharply rise. Instead, data suggests that more of a Covid bump than a surge has emerged. Recent hospitalization figures are much lower than the past, largest surges, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu demonstrates:

Daily average U.S. Covid patients in the hospital





There is some geographic variation. Covid hospitalizations have risen more quickly in the Northeast and South in recent weeks, potentially driven by a new Omicron subvariant. But even there, hospitalization levels are closer to the summer increase caused by the Delta variant in 2021 than to the following winter surge caused by the Omicron variant.

Some Western states are reporting among their lowest hospitalization rates since the pandemic began.

Daily average Covid hospitalization rates




After years of winter surges, the absence of one translates to potentially tens of thousands fewer deaths and is worth celebrating, even if it ends up being a temporary reprieve. Today’s newsletter will look at the lack of a winter surge so far and what that means for Covid’s future.

Population immunity
Why have we avoided the typical winter surge? Because the U.S. population has, collectively, built up immunity to the virus. Much of that is thanks to vaccines and boosters. But repeated exposure to the virus and infections have played a significant role, too.

...and this further down in that same article:

An important caveat to all of this: The data is messy. Covid case totals in particular are unreliable because fewer people are testing and reporting results.

Even the counts for hospitalizations and deaths are less accurate than they once were. For example, someone may show up to the hospital for an issue unrelated to Covid, test positive for the virus and get marked down as a Covid hospitalization. Massachusetts officials estimate that only about one-third of people hospitalized with Covid are actually there for Covid-related illness.

But that phenomenon indicates that Covid hospitalizations are overcounted, which would mean that, if anything, the data overstates the size of the current bump.

It amounts to a victory for public health: Vaccines have managed to tame Covid, relative to 2020 and 2021.