The U.S. is now down to about 8 newly reported COVID-19 cases per 100K population per day, based on the latest figures as reported by the New York Times. That’s down from about 10, two weeks ago, continuing the long, slow decline that began right around Christmas 2022.
That’s still not quite down to the lows that occurred in the summer of 2021. But we seem to be getting there. Fairfax County (where I live) currently reports about 4 cases per 100K, compared to fewer than 2 in June 2021 (Post #1163). Along with that, you’d probably have to figure in less complete reporting now, due to the widespread availability of over-the-counter COVID tests.
The US CDC reports a corresponding continuing decline in COVID-related hospitalizations and COVID as cause-of-death. Again, taking Virginia as an example, we seem to have between one and three COVID-19 deaths per day (reference). That’s in a population of about of about 8.7 million.
For me, I think that the U.S. 2022 mortality rate is the last major statistic I’d like to see. Unfortunately, we won’t see the official U.S. deaths data for 2022 for another month and a half yet. Arguably the biggest surprise of the pandemic is that the U.S. COVID-19 mortality rate didn’t fall in 2021, but was kept high first by the deadliness of the Delta variant, then by the huge number of cases in the initial ramp-up of the Omicron wave.
Source: underlying data from the Government of Michigan.
Omicron actually peaked at the end of January 2022, so we can expect the 2022 mortality rate to remain somewhat above the historical average. The interesting question will be, by how much? And did the U.S. mortality rate finally return to the long-term average by the end of 2022? Based on the preliminary data through September 30, 2022, the answer is no. Mortality rates appear to be coming down, compared to 2020. But even at that point, the crude mortality rate of 9.2/1000 remained well above the prior long-term average of around 8.2/1000.
Source: CDC, annotations in red are mine.
As of Q2 2022, COVID-19 accounted for an average of about 3000 deaths per week. Doing the math, those COVID deaths, by themselves, if they were all “additional” deaths (people who would not have died at that time, absent COVID) would have raised the U.S. mortality rate by five percent, or (on the chart above) by about 0.5. Thus, the COVID deaths themselves account for only about half the excess mortality that appears to remain, relative to historical trend, as of Q3 2022.
I don’t think this will be worth revisiting once the full-year 2022 mortality data are released. Thanks in part to the peak of the Omicron wave occurring in 2022, it’s a given that the 2022 mortality rate will exceed the prior historical average of about 8.2/1000. And it will be another six months before we have any information at all on 2023.
Accordingly, until something changes materially, this will be my last post on COVID-19.
Finally, here’s my “COVID-19 odds” table, updated for the low rates of incidence that we are seeing at present. Even with that few cases in circulation, if you regularly attend any sort of large group meeting, the odds are that you’re going to be sharing a room with an actively infectious person at some point over the course of a year.
If you come across someone who is still masking up in public, be kind. They’re not crazy. Risk of infection is low, but it’s not zero. They just have a different level of risk aversion from the average.
