How Deadly Has The Covid-19 Pandemic Really Been? Francis Menton
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Back in April I wrote several posts on the subject of the severity and expected mortality from the Covid-19 pandemic. It is fair to say that I expressed a high degree of skepticism that the pandemic was of sufficient severity to justify the extreme economic suppression that was being undertaken at that time (much of which still remains in place today). Here is my post from April 16 titled “What Is The Proof That This Covid-19 Thing Really Is A ‘Crisis,’ Or That Economic Suppression Is The Solution?”; and here is one from April 27, titled “What Is The True Level Of Mortality Caused By The Covid-19 Virus?”
I have been holding off revisiting the subject because I have not been able to find data that answer the principal questions that I asked in those posts. In particular, I made this statement in the April 27 post:
The best indication we will get [of the true death rate from this virus] will come when the CDC issues final data for deaths from all causes in the U.S. for the month of April. When we get that number, we can subtract from it the approximate “normal” number of deaths that would have occurred anyway during April. The difference will be a good estimate of the number of excess deaths attributable to the virus.
At this writing I still cannot find those data. If anyone can point me to a source, I will appreciate it.
But meanwhile, it is timely to come back to this subject, because over the past several days, as the demonstrations following the death of George Floyd have faded from the news cycle, the media have relaunched a drumbeat of articles seeking to re-terrify the public about the virus and an impending resurgence. To just give you a handful of random examples, here from the New York Times on June 25 is “As Virus Surges, Younger People Account for ‘Disturbing’ Number of Cases”; from the New York Times today, “Florida’s Covid Cases Up Fivefold in 2 Weeks: ‘The Numbers Are Scary’”; or from Bloomberg News on June 25, “Trump Ignores Virus Spike as U.S. Cases Surge to Record Level.” There are dozens more to the same effect.
Over at the worldometers site, they are reporting 128,437 deaths attributed to Covid-19 through yesterday (June 27). That certainly sounds like a lot; and it’s more than double the approximately 61,000 deaths estimated by the CDC for the bad 2017-18 flu season.
So am I still maintaining my highly skeptical position about the level of mortality from this disease, and the efficacy of economic lockdowns at minimizing the numbers of illnesses and deaths? Yes.
There are very substantial reasons to believe that the 128,000 deaths currently attributed to Covid-19 are grossly overstated. How grossly? It’s impossible to say at this point. In my April 27 post I pointed to two main issues: (1) substantial financial incentives (including premium payments to healthcare providers) for attributing a death to Covid-19, and (2) large numbers of deaths involving both Covid-19 and other causes, meaning that the person would have died anyway within the year with or without the virus. Do we have any ability to separate out how much these factors are inflating the real danger from the virus? All that I can find at this point would have to be classified as “anecdotal.” But for example, consider these quotes from a piece at Issues & Insights on June 25:
A review of Minnesota deaths through late May, for instance, found that of 741 registered COVID-19 deaths, fewer than 41% listed it as a “primary cause.” . . . After New York reported its 10,000 fatalities in May, the New York Times revealed that “3,700 additional people who were presumed to have died of the coronavirus … had never tested positive.” . . . In California, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond investigated 194 COVID-19 deaths through mid-May and found that only six could be clearly claimed as caused by COVID-19. . . . Washington state reported that at least five of its then 828 COVID-19 deaths were actually due to gunshot wounds. Pennsylvania had to remove “hundreds of deaths” from its tally for misreporting the actual causes. . . .
There are more such. And from the CDC data update on June 24:
“For 7% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.5 additional conditions or causes per death.”
To me, 7% is an astoundingly small percentage to be attributed solely to the virus. At PowerLine, John Hinderaker adds this quote from the Director of the Illinois Department of Health.(from April 22):
I just want to be clear in terms of the definition of people dying of COVID. So, the case definition is very simplistic. It means that at the time of death it was a COVID-positive diagnosis. So that means if you were in hospice and had already been given, you know, a few weeks to live and then you were also found to have COVID, that would be counted as a COVID death. It means that if, technically, even if you died of a clear alternate cause but you had COVID at the same time it’s still listed as a COVID death. So, everyone that’s listed as a COVID death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had COVID at the time of death.
As far as I know, the basis for listing cause of death as Covid-19 is the same throughout the country as it is in Illinois. In other words, the basis on which deaths are getting attributed to Covid-19 is entirely different from the basis on which deaths are attributed to flu in normal flu seasons, or to other causes generally.
So once we have waited for the all-cause death statistics, will there be clear evidence that Covid-19 was actually more deadly than a regular bad seasonal flu? The jury is still out on that. I am extremely dubious.
And how about the “surge” of new cases that the media are now so breathlessly reporting? Are these serious cases that will quickly lead to a new wave of deaths? Or are they simply the result of rapidly expanding testing revealing large numbers of asymptomatic or low-symptomatic cases that previously went undiagnosed and will rarely end in death? Again, the jury is out. Certainly, although states like Florida and Texas have recently shown dramatic rises in cases diagnosed, the corresponding surge in deaths has not yet emerged. Over the past week, Florida has suddenly had some 5000 up to 9000 new “cases” reported each day; meanwhile, New York is down to well under 1000 new cases per day. But Florida’s deaths in the past week have ranged from 12 to 64 per day, and 27 today; in New York the range for daily deaths over the same period was 15 to 53, today 32. Perhaps Florida’s deaths are about to soar. I’ll bet against it, but I’m prepared to be proved wrong.
One of my ex-partners by the name of Joe Baio sends in a comment on these issues taking a very different position. The comment was submitted about a week ago on a post I had written about a different subject, and then it was held in some kind of unexplained queue for several days. So as a service Joe, I am copying his comment and posting it below. I would note that Joe could have been more polite, but he has been a friend and colleague for about 40 years, so he gets a lot of leeway.
From my perspective the media hype about the new resurgence looks like no more than one more effort to damage the President by keeping the economy locked down unnecessarily and preventing him from holding rallies. I certainly hope I am wrong about that.
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