Exactly. Deaths are higher. They should be lower if the program in place was working. And as I said deaths are a trailing indicator. With 750,000 new infections a day at the current rate if the vaccines, weaker variant and new treatment options aren’t helping we will see those daily death numbers climb higher. I hope they don’t but I just think we can’t know yet.
I had thought that maybe the virus had felled the most vulnerable people last year. All those poor people in nursing homes with crap governors and people with other serious ailments who just couldn’t fight off the infection. I don’t know the demographics of the types who are falling victim now. CDC director cited “4 or more co-morbidities” accounting for 75% of deaths, but I am not sure I believe her. These government people love to play with numbers as it suits their agenda.
Incomplete assumption. Greatly increased infectiousness, shedding, and higher viral loads upon infection screw that all up. Then that is exacerbated by a large % of the population unvaccinated and basically not taking any precautions at all. Even many of the vaccinated have been mal-informed by gov't and media or are loaded with misconceptions and / or misinformation about what vaccines for respiratory viruses can do: Result is another big swath of people blithely risking repeated exposures to high viral loads.
Given the above I am frankly impressed the vaccines are reducing serious and fatal cases as much as they have. Be under no illusions: Without the vaccines, and with behaviors the same as what we have now, we'd likely be running several thousand fatalities a day - maybe since Delta got seriously going.
Can you imagine the squalling if the COVID vaccines were as effective as an average year's flu vaccine in reducing CFR?