100,000 Americans Dead from Coronavirus
Yet another grim milestone.
The United States has suffered over 100,000 deaths from COVID-19, according to Worldometers. That number is almost certainly an undercount.
There have been “only” 349,714 fatalities worldwide, using the same source, so the United States alone accounts for nearly a third of all reported deaths. Even taking it as a given that China, where the disease began, is almost certainly lying when it claims a mere 4,634 dead—and, indeed, 82,992 total infected—that’s quite staggering.
The pace of the toll has been well ahead of official predictions.
- On March 31, last than two months ago, the U.S. tally passed 3000, meaning the virus killed more Americans than 9/11.
- By April 7, we passed four 9/11s.
- We had only 100,000 dead worldwide on April 10—a mere six weeks ago.
- By April 21, we’d lost fifteen 9/11s worth of people.
- By April 28, just a month ago, we had lost more Americans to COVID-19 than to the Vietnam War.
- On May 14, less than two weeks ago, we hit 300,000 global deaths.
The good news is that the toll seems to have slowed considerably.
The interactive graphic at the above Worldometers link is more useful than the static version captured above but we have gone from routinely losing 1500 to 2500 people a day to two days straight with 500ish deaths. The toll, however, will inevitably climb as we start re-opening businesses and resuming something more closely resembling our old lives.
May they all rest in peace.
If you take the Northeast and Cali and Washington State out of that graph, it would likely be going in the other direction.
Especially when you consider that many Red States are almost certainly under-reporting for political reasons.
Over 36,000 directly attributable to Trump’s inaction.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-us-deaths-preventable-trump-study-a9525351.html
I do not believe that study has been peer-reviewed…but it seems logical given that Trump basically did next to nothing in February and March.
So let’s reopen!
From Carnegie Mellon University:
Nearly Half Of The Twitter Accounts Discussing ‘Reopening America’ May Be Bots
Worth mentioning that the ‘two days with 500ish deaths’ is two days of a holiday weekend. The rhythm of the graph above shows a variation in reporting of deaths, not in the actual rate at which Americans are choking to death.
I know of course that you are aware and no criticism is intended.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
Golly gee, all the websites where Cult45 hangs out are claiming that deaths from Covid-19 are being vastly overcounted. I wonder why.
NYC – almost 8 million people.
For comparison’s sake, let’s look at Hong Kong.
7.6 million people.
In China
1100 total cases.
4 deaths.
Why? The entire population immediately started wearing masks when told of the virus. They did this ON THEIR OWN, long before the government suggested it.
Yet, we can’t get 40% of the public to wear masks.
We deserve the pain coming our way – just for being stupid.
https://www.vox.com/2020/5/18/21262273/coronavirus-hong-kong-masks-deaths-new-york
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
I expected Trump would do little. But I thought the federal bureaucracy and the states could do their jobs. I didn’t expect him to actively interfere, blocking communication and coordination, blocking effective standards for opening, pushing quack cures, pushing for premature opening, encouraging the gun toting cosplay protesters, and apparently assigning his failson-in-law to screw up procurement for everybody. And I certainly didn’t expect him to actually RUN on screwing up the response.
According to an article by Gabriel Sherman in Vanity Fair today, Donald Trump feels that he is the biggest victim of Covid-19 because it’s ruining his shot at re-election.
Among the other revelations in this piece were that Melania told him last Feb. that he had to take the virus seriously and, commented one aide, “he totally blew her off.”
Later Melania was said to have remarked, to an unnamed individual, that Donald hears only what he wants to hear and that he surrounds himself with family and yes men. Well, that’s obvious, but it’s interesting she’s willing to admit it.
And, as a side note not Covid-related, people close to Trump are going to hold an intervention to get him to stop rage-Tweeting about Scarborough.
@gVOR08: “I expected Trump would do little. But I thought the federal bureaucracy and the states could do their jobs. I didn’t expect him to actively interfere, blocking communication and coordination, blocking effective standards for opening, pushing quack cures, pushing for premature opening, encouraging the gun toting cosplay protesters, and apparently assigning his failson-in-law to screw up procurement for everybody. And I certainly didn’t expect him to actually RUN on screwing up the response.”
One of the people involved with making the movie ‘Contagion’ said that they had talked with a large number of people about how this sort of thing would be handled. None of them had even thought that the US government would deliberately hamper the response. Problems, yes. Bad decisions, yes. But (morally) treason, no.
@CSK:
I guess Melania isn’t family. I hope she has a healthy pre-nup.
And numbers are ticking up, not down, in many places.
The 100K number is almost certainly an undercount. Several weeks ago there was a lot of reporting about excess deaths and it was pretty clear the multiplier was about 1.8. If that is still true, then we are up around 180K. However, the excess deaths reporting has all but disappeared. No idea why….
@EddieInCA:
I wonder if people in Hong Kong wear their masks the right way.
Today at the office we got another mail, sent presumably to all employees, that masks are mandatory inside the premises. still, about half wear them only in the downstairs lobby. In our department, I’m about the only one who wears it all day.
Among people wearing masks, in the office and other public spaces, I see lots of things like: not covering the nose, just having the mask hang around the neck, the types that have straps that need to be tied are only tied on top so the mask hangs like a curtain in front of the mouth.
By far the most prevalent is the mask on with the nose uncovered.
That part is striking. Some months back there were photos of a depressurization event in an airliner. I’ve never experienced one, but every single safety card and demo I’ve seen make it clear the emergency oxygen mask should cover the mouth and nose. In this photo, a lot of people placed it in such a way that the nose wasn’t covered.
This isn’t a comfort issue. If you keep breathing through the nose, you’ll pass out, maybe even get brain damage. Unlikely, yes, as any plane descends quickly to 10,000 feet in such cases, precisely because the air at that altitude is breathable. But why take that chance?
So what is it about covering one’s nose people find so objectionable?
@Sleeping Dog:
I used to think that that alleged kidney procedure she underwent in May 2018 was another face lift, since she was out of sight for at least 3 weeks afterward. Now I wonder if it was to repair any damage she incurred when Trump chastised her for being impertinent.
@Kathy:
In a depressurization incident, presumably people don’t have to keep the mask on for 8-9 hours at one go, which they would at work. I haven’t had to do that, since I work from home and I’m avoiding going out, but I have some sympathy for people who have problems wearing a mask for extended periods of time.
@Kathy: I see nose uncovered (not as much as you I think) by people who wear glasses. It does fog them especially a more poorly fitting one. I tend to not wear my glasses when masked. But I can see well enough to do so – I wear them mainly for seeing distant objects or when driving. I actually can’t wear them in a store looking at labels, etc.
@CSK:
Well, no. Most emergency oxygen masks use oxygen generators which can produce supplemental oxygen for only about 30 minutes. That’s the main reason a depressurized plane descends quickly to 10,000 feet.
I’ve no major problems, not even fogged glasses. But it’s uncomfortable, I’m conscious of it unless I concentrate on something, it gets hot and sweaty under it. Overall it’s a major PITA. I assume it’s the same for everyone, and I can see how it could be worse for some for either physiological or psychological reasons.
Most people simply can take the discomfort. the numbers I see without a mask, or an improperly worn mask, is too high for this.
Oh good luck with that…if people close to him had been able to stop him from doing stupid things up until now, he would be cruising to reelection…
@An Interested Party: I assume if Trump had formed even a semi-competent team to deal with Covid-19 and they had any type of reasonable national strategy with decent results, Trump would be in the driver’s seat in terms of being re-elected. He would have received a short term bump of maybe 10 points in approval rating, and maybe a long term bump of five points. That is all he would have needed to win in November. But if he had done that he wouldn’t be Trump. His first instinct in any situation is to turn to his bestest, smartest person he knows and trusts – Jared Kushner. The only silver lining is that if he was going to fuck things up this badly, at least he made it obvious so that everyone knows that he screwed the pooch, and mom-trumpkins can assign blame.
@Kathy:
I’ve noticed that if I wear a mask high on my nose (close to where my glasses nose pads are resting on my nose) that I don’t get any fogging .
OTOH, if the top of my mask is just on the tip of my nose, then I will experience some fogging.
At 2 minutes shows there the top of the mask should be
Actually the whole video is helpful, the one thing that is not emphasized (but should be) is NEVER touch the mask fabric after use. Remove the mask ONLY by loosening ties or unhooking elastic ear loops. The mask fabric is contaminated after use – dispose after use.
@Kathy: sorry, didn’t capture the link
Link to proper mask
@Kathy:
I had an issue with glasses fogging for the few minutes a week I wear a mask (I’m home almost all the time). My wife fitted the top of my mask with a pipe cleaner and now I can comfortably shape it to the contour of the top of my nose, and no foggy glasses.
@Pete S: Yeah, the wire to shape the mask so it properly over the nose is important. Not just for the fogging issue, but for the mask to do its job.
@EddieInCA: If the US had the same history over the last 50-60 years of influenza and other respiratory viral outbreaks that Hong Kong has, people in most of the US would wear masks too. The US has never been good at learning from other countries’ experiences.
@Jen: Back at the beginning of the month there were published reports of internal administration documents predicting 3,000 deaths per day by June 1. Clearly that’s not going to happen. The source of that number turns out to be incomplete work done by outside consultants for FEMA and was the absolute worst case scenario, assuming things like gross undercounting of the actual deaths. Modeling is hard work. My own experience is that getting reliable data for whatever you’re modeling is usually harder.
@Bob@Youngstown: @Pete S: @Michael Cain: We’ve continuously been told not to procure and wear medical masks, as they’re needed by those on the front lines. That we’re supposed to wear crappy cloth masks instead. But they don’t form a very good seal and, yes, have the glasses fogging issue. The pipe cleaner makes sense, although that adds a degree of complexity in a homemade mask.
@Michael Cain: Agreed. But the Asian countries, in addition to more direct experience with these outbreaks, also tend to be mono-cultural and to be much more comfortable with authority. It’s so much harder to adopt those practices here.