Yes, it's quite frustrating trying to get a clear picture of the situation in the U.S. But in drilling down a bit into the death statistics reported out by the CDC, an interesting pattern or signal might be emerging, but I'm not sure.
Take the last four months of 2021. According to the CDC, reporting out death certificate information provided to it through the National Vital Statistics System, the total number of deaths *involving COVID for June, July, August, and September 2020 was 98,140. By way of comparison, the total number of deaths involving COVID for June, July, August, and September of this year was 114,261 -- i.e., an increase of 16%. An increase, even though, of course, nobody in the U.S. had been vaccinated in 2020, whereas millions have been as of today.
But that 16% increase isn't the most interesting thing. Rather, when one looks closer, one detects that there was something of a dramatic change this past August. Namely, the total number of deaths involving COVID for June and July of this year (i.e., 18,722) was some 62% lower than the total number of deaths involving COVID for June and July of last year (i.e., 49,118). Indeed, June 2021 saw the lowest number of monthly deaths involving COVID since the very onset of the pandemic (i.e., March 2020, where 7,160 such deaths were recorded).
But, when one looks at deaths involving COVID starting in August of this year, a different picture emerges. The total number of such deaths in August and September of this year (i.e., 95,489) is some 95% higher than in August and September of 2020 (i.e., 49,022). And for the month of September alone, the figures for 2021 (i.e., 49,126 as of today; the CDC updates these most recent numbers as more data comes in) are a startling 157% higher than in September 2020 (i.e., 19,138).
That is to say, comparing the early summer months (June and July) of 2021 to those same months in 2020 (again, when no one was as yet vaccinated), things looked good: a significant decline in deaths involving COVID. But then the bottom seems to have fallen out starting around August of this year.
Perhaps some of this can be explained by the country as a whole being less "locked down" now than a year ago. But, at least where I live, things began to open back up this past spring, before the "Delta scare" saw the reimposition of indoor mask requirements and whatnot. That change, as I recall, kicked in near the beginning of August around here.
In any event, to my eye, something seems to have gone off the rails. "Waning efficacy" of the vaccines strikes me as a possible explanation (although by no means the only one). But, mind, note that we'd be talking "efficacy" in terms of "preventing death," not merely "preventing infection" or even "preventing hospitalization." Whatever the explanation, by the CDC's own most recent numbers, there was a 157% increase in deaths involving COVID this past month compared to September 2020, when no one had yet been vaccinated.
Something's wrong.
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*The CDC defines "deaths involving COVID" in these terms: "Deaths with confirmed or presumed COVID-19, coded to ICD–10 code U07.1."
In any event, to my eye, something seems to have gone off the rails. “Waning efficacy” of the vaccines strikes me as a possible explanation (although by no means the only one). But, mind, note that we’d be talking “efficacy” in terms of “preventing death,” not merely “preventing infection” or even “preventing hospitalization.” Whatever the explanation, by the CDC’s own most recent numbers, there was a 157% increase in deaths involving COVID this past month compared to September 2020, when no one had yet been vaccinated.
Something’s wrong.
Great summary analysis.
Karl Denninger has been questioning where the work force has gone.
He makes an interesting connection, here.....
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=243839
At the hospital where I work we simply saw more younger skewing patients with this last wave but
riddled with co-morbidities and being super overweight. The sick were about 90 percent unvaxxed and about 10 percent vaxxed. I work in our ICU so the patients who got really sick and had to come to our ICU were at times close to 100 percent unvaxxed. The few that were vaxxed had had cancer with recent chemo or other autoimmune issues and the shots were never going to work for them. One recent JJ shot breakthru needed high flow o2 and some extra TLC. He improved and got better and transferred out and went home.
Now.... off the ICU floor and in the general floor populations of both vaxxed and unvaxxed Covids...85 percent got better with fluid and o2 support and went home. The 15 percent who didn’t get better came to us in our ICU. The 15 percent we got in ICU, like I mentioned earlier, were at times nearly 100 percent unvaxxed. We lose 80 percent of them. It was 90 percent but we’ve had some success with ECMO and also the patient ages were skewing younger so being of younger age was helpful in helping some survive. Having no co-morbidities was helpful and control of coagulopathies to avoid strokes,PE’s, bleeds and heart-attacks is primary.
90 percent of the unvaxxed were african American or Latino browns. The rest were mainly old white guys with bad alcohol problems, kidney, heart and lung issues. Age ranges had been 45 on up...now 25 on up. Most hadn’t been started on any Ivermectin or Hydroxy early enough to make any difference if they had been started on anything at all. We are trying some new stuff...Avidaptil(sic) was one name I saw...but our numbers of admittance are dropping and declines in the latest wave are being seen now in Central Va. So perhaps Covid alpha and Delta(no one tests for the strains here so no one knows) has taken all that it will take for now.
I think I was prompted to write because I think the increased numbers you talk about and what we saw were still mostly the unvaxxed getting sick with the newest strains. The vaxxed were getting breakthru illness but by and large were survivng. Had the Covid waves held off and started later, given the reported declines of vax effeciveness over time, I believe we would be seeing more vax breakthrus coming to our ICU and perhaps not surviving in addition to unvaxxed populations. The covid waves are hitting harder in Northern Blue states now and the effectiveness of the vaxxes of those in those states who were vaccinated earlier in the year has had more time to wear off in many of these blue state people than in those vaxxed in Central Va and southern states where Covid rates are now declining.(I repeat...a lot of people in the Northern states got the shot at the same time as the southern states and given that the same shots wear off at the same rates, a later Covid spike in the blue states will hit the vaxxed a lot harder than they did in the southern states where the Covid wave has all ready passed) That might also account for some anomalies you might be seeing.
I fear a blood bath. My own Mother’s NHome in NY state(she’s there for rehab and almost ready to be discharged) is locked down. A dozen people all vaxxed and some vaxxed staff too have been hit with covid...some very sick and one has died just yesterday. My mother has tested negative so far and she had the moderna but hasn’t been “boosted” yet.
Thanks for your analysis.
First of all, we need to realize that the case and death data is very climate/region related. If you compare states especially on the same east/west axis, there is a remarkable similarity on these curves. In fact, when you compare adjacent states or counties, it provides clear evidence that NPIs don’t work and don’t make a difference.
If you look at the trends, we are moving away from a southerly focus (where cases have plummeted) to northerly states and regions — look at recent Vermont data!
The Hope Simpson hypothesis explains viral epidemics by climate. In the northerly regions, key factors are absolute humidity (cannot transmit illness when this is low, and other variables such as solar insolation (UV rays especially), temperature and rainfall. They are less predictive about virus behavior in more temperate zones, though they indicate that the curves should be more endemic rather than more spiked data.
But still, there are a lot of open questions. Why are we having more cases now than last year when we didn’t have a vaccine? It also appears that deaths PRECEDE cases in some circumstances, which is pretty strange.
As we know, the PCR test has “eliminated” flu deaths. Supposedly, a new test will differentiate between flu and COVID, but I don’t think that it goes into effect until the new year. The scary thing is that peak flu deaths occur around the second week of December. It would be a real frustration if this causes spurious COVID cases to be recorded
Then there is the question of herd immunity. Massachusetts, which is where I live, has undoubtedly reached herd immunity. However, it appears that the vaccine, if it does work, has narrow immunity and may not easily handle new variants. In fact, it is quite possibility that vaccinating during and epidemic creates these new variants! Immunity from exposure is much more wide, and SARS-infected people seem to be immune to COVID. And immunity tests are quite specific, and do not test for all types of immunities, especially more broad type of immunity.
Regarding the specifics of your post, it is quite clear that cases started exploding in the south in August. I believe that this is quite clearly related to the jab, but I keep wondering: Where is the herd immunity?
Certainly, given the marginal value of the jab in disease prevention and up to 150,000 deaths (plus overdoses, suicides and the like) the jab has created the worst public health crisis ever. One study estimated that for teens, the costs were 140 times greater than the benefits!
Most scientists believe that age-adjusted deaths are the most important metric, but I think that it doesn’t differentiate between direct and indirect virus deaths, I think there are some issues which are problematice.