Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

The US experienced 15,400 'excess deaths' from March to April 4 compared with last year, suggesting coronavirus death toll is higher than known

• The US saw 15,400 "excess deaths" from March to April 4, compared to the year before, according to an analysis conducted for The Washington Post.
• During the same time period, the official death count from COVID-19 was 8,128.
• The discrepancy exists in data from around the world, and suggests the true number of coronavirus-related deaths is being significantly undercounted.
• New Orleans Health Director Jennifer Avegno believes the actual death toll may be 15% higher than what is officially reported.

At least 54,000 people in the US have died as a direct result of the coronavirus, but a new study suggests that the true number of deaths caused by the disease is far greater than the official statistics suggest.

In an analysis conducted for The Washington Post, a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health found that the US experienced 15,400 "excess deaths" from March through April 4 compared to the year before.

"Excess deaths" is the number of extra deaths in a given period compared to a historical average, from any cause. This, the Post noted, came at a time when traffic fatalities were in steep decline due to stay-at-home orders.

 

Besides the Ro number, this is the number that seems to be critical. With additional testing catching less severe cases, new treatment protocols, new treatment alternative medicines, etc one would think this number would be on the decline. It continues to creep up.

 

lack of n95 masks kills frontline nurse. no reason for this. none.

A nurse without an N95 mask raced in to treat a 'code blue' patient. She died 14 days later

The 61-year-old charge nurse knew the chest compressions and other breathing treatments the patient needed would likely spew dangerous virus particles into the air that could land on her face and clothing. She would be at high risk of catching the coronavirus.

Marcos raced into the room. Fourteen days later, she was dead. Marcos died in the same hospital where she had worked for more than 16 years, one of at least 36 healthcare workers in California who have succumbed to COVID-19.

As charge nurse, Marcos was required to respond to patients who stopped breathing, but she wasn't provided an N95 mask at the beginning of her shift, her coworkers say. The masks are scarce, and staff who do get them are often asked to reuse them over multiple days, they said.

"The hospital wasn't giving us appropriate PPE — the N95s were locked," said one nurse, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity after expressing fear of retaliation from hospital administrators. "It's just too painful for everybody, what happened to her."

 

My sister's director just got fired due to a nurse outing his incompetency on Facebook. She exposed their lack of PPE to the world and the CEO ended up having to step in.

 

Georgia reported 894 new cases today. That's certainly not a record low.

 

This week, for @dynogator

beaver dam reservoir, in Ashburn.

 

I wonder why the headline does not include Trump's criticism of governor Kemp. As for the news, that's fantastic. My only remaining immediate family lives in GA, so I'm happy to hear things are well. It seems early, yet, though for a celebration. Things have only been opened for a short while. Let's hope those numbers remain low.

 

I certainly think that the efficacy of masks hasn’t been fully established in all aspects, so they might not be that helpful. But that would be true regardless of whether the community had a high incidence of covid.

I still think that a particular city’s outcome isn’t useful for assessing methods. There are so many factors that affect the transmission that this kind of analysis requires many cities worth of data and much thought about how to compare them. If someone closes their eyes and walks across a street safely, they shouldn’t be considered good evidence that it is a safe method.

 

Perhaps, but you have to control for auto deaths, which would most certainly be down. Heck, even petty crimes and some other actions resulting in death would have to be down.

 

Maybe the projections will turn out to be wrong, but I'm not sure that it's possible to draw any conclusions one way or the other a week after Kemp opened up the state. If the downward trend continues over the next two weeks I will concede that there has been a needless panic. Using a football analogy it's usually not a good idea to claim victory after one quarter of play.

 

my daily update, and in defferrence to RIP, today was a positive move in the right direction. new cases20,239, almost 6,000 better than the 4 previous sundays with more tests, and deaths 750, almost400 better, hope the weekend numbers do not roll heavily into next week

 

and then add in the drop in vehicular deaths and flu deaths to get to the real number. My suspicion will be that covid deaths will be 20 - 30% higher than being reported using that approach. I'm surprised how hard it is to find april 2019 death total, death by accident, flu death and same info for 2020 to be able to do the math

 

And when that determination is made the conspiracy theory folks will lose their shit.

 

Just a reminder we are 2 bad cases of coronavirus from President Pelosi. The WH better start using masks and social distancing.

 

Hey man. Show some respect. Tennessee fans lurk here.

 

City of Naples beaches closed after being overrun by visitors from east coast where beaches are still closed.

 

I don't know if that would be accurate or not. There are a lot of things different about this year compared to previous years, many related to coronavirus restrictions. People are generally driving much less (and getting drunk in bars less), so there will be fewer highway deaths. Many cities are reporting fewer murders. People are going out to eat less, so maybe people are consuming less salt and sugar with their food (fewer heart attacks). People are staying home instead of leading a stressful, busy life (again, fewer heart attacks).

 

Maybe because it wasn't about Trump. Agree it's early and hope this trend stays on this course