That's a very interesting question.
The number he's asking after is called "excess mortality," and it is of interest to epidemiologists. It has varied quite a bit for 2020 compared to previous years. You can find numerous sources for it. Here's a chart for the U. S. from one of them:
The data's a little lagged, so the present upswing isn't shown, but the earlier peaks are obvious. CDC has a slightly more up-to-date (and more conservative) data set here. The medical profession appears to be getting better at managing cases, but you're still better off not catching the virus. More people are dying than usual.
Talking to doctors and nurses who treat chronic conditions, my doctor's since I've got a new ticker and the immunosuppression that goes with it, and according to a couple articles I've seen there has been a fairly large uptick in the mortality rate for those people due to the hospital lockdowns and the limitation of access to routine care as well.
ReplyDeleteBut you're absolutely correct, young or old, well or sick, you're best off not getting it.
Anon here - Wow. I did not expect that large a deviation from the norm. Spring 2020 definitely sprung. Thank you ma'am for that graph.
ReplyDeleteExcept for that first peak, it's impossible to say how much of this was actually COVID-19 and how much was a result of the lockdowns - not when people that died of a heart attack were classified as COVID after the test results came back...
ReplyDeleteUnknown, I have let your comment through in order to debunk it in a new post. You're entirely wrong; we can know, to a reasonable degree of probability, for a very simple reason.
ReplyDelete