I can’t find a definitive study or conclusion about the effect of the coronavirus on the lost life expectancy of the people who die.  It’s something that is NOT being mentioned or considered by the press or pundits.  One early study claiming that the coronavirus cut 10 years off the average infected dead person’s life has been totally debunked.  But my searching finds nothing else so far.

I would think that this factor should be an important consideration.  We know that the OVERWHELMING majority of COVID-19 deaths are very senior people who usually had other major health problems and a limited life span to begin with.  But beyond that general observation, nobody seems to be studying the longevity factor.

As is my wont, I’ve been digging around on the CDC website. I found some bizarre figures on the TOTAL national weekly “excess deaths.”  In their data on the coronavirus, CDC defines the aggregate “excess deaths” as the percent of weekly TOTAL deaths compared with the previous three years’ average deaths.

Clearly COVID-19 has increased the total deaths this year.  I’ve included the weekly data in a chart below from CDC.

In one week, the national total excess deaths were 26% higher than the previous three year average.  But here’s where it gets interesting.  After that peak in the week ending 7/25/20, the “excess deaths” percent has been dropping. EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

Here’s the truly bizarre part:  For the last four weeks ending 10/25/20, the total deaths have been LESS than the three previous years’ average — the time before the coronavirus hit. And less by a LOT.

In the week ending 10/17/20, the total U.S. deaths were over 40% less than the previous three year average.  The latest week is INCREDIBLY low, but I’d discount that last figure as there’s some lag in CDC getting all the figures.

While it’s just conjecture on my part, here’s two likely factors contributing to this dramatic drop in deaths:
1.  Our treatment of COVID-19 patients and how it works with related infirmities has been improving.  The WSJ ran an editorial that confirmed this point:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coping-with-the-covid-winter-11603840305

2.  PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANT, it’s because the coronavirus has killed off a bunch of seriously ill seniors would would have normally died in August through October.  In other words, COVID-19 accelerated the death of many seniors who would have soon died anyway.

This latter probability is important when discussing perpetually locking down all of America.  The overwhelming COVID-19 threat is to seniors with existing health problems (such as myself).

Our pandemic problems are far from over.  The Spanish Flu disaster peaked in the winter following its spread in society.  We’ll likely see a significant uptick in COVID-19 deaths — the number of cases (people testing positive) is growing fairly rapidly.

But we need recognize that we can’t stay shut down forever. This virus seldom kills people under age 45.  It’s primarily a geezer disease.  The harm this lockdown has done to our economy and mental well-being is huge.

Arguably COVID-19 lockdowns are driving the Antifa violence.  The only time people can go out and let off steam (up to and including murder) is under the cover of “peaceful protests.”

Here’s the relevent CDC chart and URL:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

CDC

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2020 at 11:36 am and is filed under Blog Posts.