The trend line shifted this week.
While it has been widely reported that Covid-19 cases have been setting daily records in the United States of later, the solace had been that the daily death rates had been steadily declining. Various theories have been floated, including the hope that younger Americans, the likely source of the record-breaking case count, were less likely to die from the disease (which is true) or that testing was just uncovering more cases. Alas, while we started this last week with some of the lowest reported death totals, the numbers have soared at the week closed out.
According to Worldometer, on July 6, the three-day moving average of death was 302 (granted, that was over a holiday weekend, which likely depressed reporting). Yesterday, July 10, the three-day average was 900.
The last four days of this week (the week of July 6th) were 993,890,960, and 849. That’s the worst stretch in roughly a month.
Here’s the graph:
Death is, of course, a lagging indicator. States have been in various stages of opening up since late May/early June. It is logical to conclude that we are now seeing, in the death figures, the consequences of policy decisions across the country, as well as the lack of seriousness with which many in the population are treating the pandemic.
An AP headline is to the point: Coronavirus deaths take a long-expected turn for the worse.
The number of deaths per day from the virus had been falling for months, and even remained down as states like Florida and Texas saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations — and reported daily U. S. infections broke records several times in recent days.
Scientists warned it wouldn’t last. A coronavirus death, when it occurs, typically comes several weeks after a person is first infected. And experts predicted states that saw increases in cases and hospitalizations would, at some point, see deaths rise too. Now that’s happening.
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According to an Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily reported deaths in the U. S. has increased from 578 two weeks ago to 664 on July 10 — still well below the heights hit in April. Daily reported deaths increased in 27 states over that time period, but the majority of those states are averaging under 15 new deaths per day. A smaller group of states has been driving the nationwide increase in deaths.
Likewise, WaPo reports: National Coronavirus update: U. S. death toll rises as new infections reach record levels
The daily coronavirus death toll in the United States increased this week after months of decline, as new infections soared to record levels and hospitals in the South and West faced a crush of patients.
