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United States Medicine

COVID-19 Deaths Top 1 Million In US (nbcnews.com) 282

NBC News is reporting that the United States has officially surpassed 1 million COVID-19 deaths -- "a once unthinkable scale of loss even for the country with the world's highest recorded toll from the virus." From the report: The number -- equivalent to the population of San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the U.S. -- was reached at stunning speed: 27 months after the country confirmed its first case of the virus. While deaths from Covid have slowed in recent weeks, about 360 people have still been dying every day. The casualty count is far higher than what most people could have imagined in the early days of the pandemic [...].

Now, more than two years and 999,999 fatalities later, the U.S. death toll is the world's highest total by a significant margin, figures show. In a distant second is Brazil, which has recorded just over 660,000 confirmed Covid deaths.

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COVID-19 Deaths Top 1 Million In US

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  • We had over 1 million excess deaths [washingtonpost.com]. Somehow I don't think they all killed themselves because they couldn't bear the (largely non existent) lockdowns or having to get take out instead of sitting down to eat at the restaurant.

    In about 10 or 15 years when the research is done to show the actual death toll (including people who technically survived but later died from complications and/or damage done to their lungs) I suspect it'll be north of 3 million for just the 1st 2 years.

    But hey, at least for on
    • by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @04:52PM (#62503876)

      We had over 1 million excess deaths [washingtonpost.com]. Somehow I don't think they all killed themselves because they couldn't bear the (largely non existent) lockdowns or having to get take out instead of sitting down to eat at the restaurant

      Of course not! It was the massive cutback in driving and nearly wiping influenza off the face of the planet that drove excess deaths.


      Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound right for some reason...

    • by fermion ( 181285 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @05:08PM (#62503918) Homepage Journal
      Excess deaths sets a general maximum. What we have seen though is the excess death rate is generally consistent with the measured COVID count. This contradicts those who say few have died of COVID. And we may see yet secondary effects causing premature deaths.

      Of course medical people are not resined scientists and so report measurements with little knowledge of the pre idiot or accuracy. They just copy from a spreadsheet and hope for the best. Even though we know that a population equal to Vermont and Wyoming will be dead from COVID.

      Last summer it was the belief that others who were vaccinated, less that half the US, would provide protection from the virus. Some protection was provide as there were over a million infections by a greatly reduced rate of death. We hopefully will see much fewer infections now that the country is largely vaccinated. And the new normal will be a few thousand deaths a year.

      • This contradicts those who say few have died of COVID.

        Not really. "Few" is subjective, and 0.5% of the population is arguably "few" for a pandemic of this nature. I don't think those arguing that deaths have not been "few" are wrong, they're just looking at it a different way.

        An interesting note is that the total death count in the US for people less than 50 years old is about 69k. It gets more difficult to argue that that isn't "few".

        I read an estimate last year for "life years" lost per Covid-19 death to be about 14 years. If we're at 1 million deaths

        • by fermion ( 181285 )
          If we are talking years lost, we cannot just look at current deaths. It is like cigarettes. A smoker dies not die immediately. They lose years. And social policy involves hospital care, lost productivity and saving in pension payments. The upper respiratory and GI issues here are significant. Over the next 20 years we might see lost years escalate. But only 0.5% dead is not significant. That is why Russia never met a war it did not like. A few percent dead is good for the economy.
        • Are conspiracy theorists who are saying few in the sense that maybe a few hundred or a few thousand but certainly less than die of the flu every year.

          That probably wasn't obvious from the context but if you hang around here a lot it was understood. We politicized the response to covid because it hit just before an election and the previous administration wanted to keep the economy on track because presidents don't get reelected if the economy is cratering. I created all kinds of crazy nut jobs saying al
      • by zeeky boogy doog ( 8381659 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @08:25PM (#62504462)
        And we may see yet secondary effects causing premature deaths.

        Oh, there's no "may" about it unfortunately.

        Over 75% of all victims, regardless of any other correlation (age, fitness, gender, symptom severity), have pericarditis or myocarditis after being infected. That only happens because something really bad happened to your circulatory system. 2/3 of victims show signs of significant lung damage 6 months and now 12 months after acute infection. 20+% of victims eventually exhibit signs of neurological damage ("brain fog") and long term impairment on numerous measures of higher brain function. Increasing evidence has also emerged of rapid-onset type I diabetes after covid because of the damage it does to the pancreas.

        Back when such things were reported in the futile hope that plague rats might be convinced to take this seriously, doctors were talking about patients coming in in their 40s having strokes, heart attacks and DVTs - shit you're not supposed to have to even think about before you retire - because of circulatory system damage.

        This monstrosity steals many, many years from your life. And not the ones at the tail end that we've already accepted aren't going to be that great, the best ones you had left.
        • Over 75% of all victims, regardless of any other correlation (age, fitness, gender, symptom severity), have pericarditis or myocarditis after being infected.

          What do you define as "victim"? Certainly not "any person who was infected" I assume. Otherwise it's like to see a reference for that statement.

          I didn't do a thorough search but CDC saw that 5000 covid-related myocarditis in the hospitals over the course of a year:
          https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volum... [cdc.gov]

  • by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @04:50PM (#62503868)
    I thought the pandemic was over because Russia invaded Ukraine...
    • Re:What do you mean? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @05:00PM (#62503896)
      Interestingly, not even Russian military incompetence managed to kill as many Russians in Ukraine as Covid-19 did at home in Russia.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The Ukraine invasion was last week's news. This week, we're going 70's retro with a new abortion ban!

  • Unthinkable? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by space_spaghetti ( 8158346 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @04:53PM (#62503878)
    The most capitalist driven nation with an amazing amount of personal mobility and freedom that is still lacking enough compassion to enact universal healthcare... I think some people should re-consider what it means to "think" because this is going to happen again unless things change.
    • by Z80a ( 971949 )

      There's no such thing as free government services, you're still paying it with your taxes and your taxes only as the rich just can use their resources to dodge taxing completely.
      But on the other hand, countries that have actually affordable health keep a healthy competition between the companies operating in the country instead of just letting everything turn into horrendous mega monopolies as it is with the US.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Whether I'm paying the government in the form of taxes, or paying for private health insurance, I'm still paying. However I'll bet I'd pay less in taxes than I pay for the private insurance, and I'll bet that Medicare won't deliver nearly the runaround or bullshit that private insurance does. And costs would go down.

        Sounds to me like socialized medicine would be a step up.

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      > The [richest nation] still lacking enough compassion to enact universal healthcare

      USA values freedom over life. (Except maybe when it comes to abortions.)

    • Unless you're just referring to the ability to move from state to state. But in terms of moving up into a higher income bracket than your parents were at record lows for that and you have to go to the third world to find countries that are worse off than us for upward mobility.

      Like George Carlin said it's called The American dream because you would have to be dreaming to think it was real
  • Better Reporting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @04:55PM (#62503886) Homepage Journal

    The US has much better reporting than many other countries. Are there even estimates for what portion of covid deaths aren't reported as such in different countries? Authoritarian countries are underreporting on purpose, both to make themselves look better to the rest of the world and to keep their local population from blaming the government (right or wrong). Many countries simply don't have the mechanisms in place to produce reliable numbers. Are numbers from India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brazil reliable? It would be interesting to see estimates of how many deaths would have been reported in each country if they used the same standards as the US with perfect data (which even the US doesn't have).

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by dskoll ( 99328 )

      Well, Canada has roughly the same level of reporting as the USA. We're reporting just over 39K COVID deaths, which is about 1/3 the per-capita rate of the USA.

      Differences? We had much stricter lockdowns and masking requirements earlier on in the pandemic, and even now with restrictions lifted, many people voluntarily observe public health measures like wearing masks in indoor settings. We also have a much higher vaccination rate than the US... 82% of Canadians are considered fully vaccinated as opposed

      • Yeah, but we all know how unreliable the reporting in Canada is.
        The vast country, full with little villages in remote unaccessible regions.
        Of course the medical education and equipment as well as dedication in such remote villages is below average. Probably in the lowest pecentils thinkable.
        And now you have to imagine that they have to file a paper report for every dead one. Obviously they are slacking in reporting, as the bush plane only comes every 14 or 20 days. Depending on weather, and availability of

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @06:30PM (#62504158) Journal

        > about 1/3 the per-capita [death] rate of the USA.

        Canada has a secret weapon over the USA: No-Fox-News.

        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Nah, if you've got cable, you probably get Fox News. Must be something else.

          • Just because it's there, doesn't mean you actually watch it.

            It's in my channel grid, and not once has it been tuned in.

            • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              Sure, but Americans have the same option. Availability is not the difference between the two countries.

        • by Creepy ( 93888 )

          The US is just culling the anti-vax left and right. It should move the country more centrist, unlike you liberal crazies in Canada. Don't worry, the Republican party is trying to counter the far right deaths by breeding more people by banning abortion, which may backfire on them if they get too much education and realize the parties switched platforms in the 1930s. All they need is votes on party lines, parties they have a long history of supporting, who used to support them but now oppress them.

          If I had a

      • >Differences?

        Well, most deaths in the U.S occurred in blue states with strict lockdowns: California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan.
        Just to give an example, California had 245 deaths per 100k while Utah (a conservative state) had 145 deaths per 100k.

        And the reason is pretty simple: blue states also have higher population densities and bigger cities.
        New York City, for example, has 4x the population of Toronto, even though Toronto is 3x the physical area, and Toronto is Canada's largest city.

        • Deaths per million by US state

          1. Mississippi - 4,183/m
          2. Arizona - 4,148/m
          3. Alabama - 3,995/m
          4. Tennessee - 3,836/m
          5. West Virginia - 3,385/m
          6. Arkansas - 3,379/m
          7. New Jersey - 3,768/m
          8. Louisiana - 3,715/m
          9. Michigan - 3,611/m
          10. Oklahoma - 3,606/m

          Source: https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I would suggest to travel a bit around in the world.

      Countries that can not report properly are such as Somalia etc.

      Also: it is plain stupid to look at "underreporting countries", regardless if true or percieved, to distract from the catastrophe the US is - or had - or still has regarding COVID.

    • Re:Better Reporting (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @06:44PM (#62504194)
      India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brazil? Those are not the USA's economic peers by a long shot. The reporting in countries like the UK, Canada, South Korea, Japan, or Australia are a good bit better than the US and most economic peers have far lower death rates than the US. The US has about 300 deaths per 100,000, The list of countries I just gave has 260, 103, 45, 24, and 29 respectively. i.e. 90% of the people who died in the US would have lived if they resided in some economic peer nations. data source [ft.com]. Please stop with the false counter-narrative.
    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      You know there are countries in the world other than "the USA" and "authoritarian hellholes." Many of those countries probably have better reporting than the US because public health didn't become (as much of) a political plaything.

      (also, both Brazil and India are democracies)

      • by crow ( 16139 )

        Yes, I did not mean to suggest otherwise. I'm also confident that many countries have solid reporting, but I wasn't talking about them. And I wasn't suggesting that the countries I names were authoritarian; those were two different categories. I was suggesting that there are a number of other large countries that may have been hit worse than the US, but due to reporting issues, look better on paper. That's all.

    • For sure the US has better reporting than many countries. Typically poorer, authoritarian-led countries that didn't want the populace to know how bad it was in their countries.

      But now, explain how many European countries, with higher population densities and better recording (*) have lower per-capita figures.

      * The Federal model means inconsistent reporting and allows politicians with agendas (eg. DeSantis) to affect reporting.

      • by crow ( 16139 )

        I was in no way arguing that the US was better off than Europe. I was simply saying that while the US may be the worst on paper, there are a number of candidates for actually being worse, but we just don't have the numbers. That in no way justifies how badly we did, or excuses the deaths.

    • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @07:54PM (#62504374) Journal

      Regardless of anything happening in other countries, the US is still a total shit show. Underreporting in Belize does nothing to change the fact that one million people are dead that shouldn't be.

    • You are trying to compare the US to Brazil or India ? Why not Yemen or Ethiopia when you are at it?? Don't you see the disparity in economic power or political regime ? Try comparing to, say , Germany, Spain, UK, or Sweden, then maybe you would realize there is NO problem of reporting with those countries which have a degree of reporting which would make the US in shame. Here are the real time number day by day , city by city , region by region of Germany : https://experience.arcgis.com/... [arcgis.com]
      now try to tell
    • The US has much better reporting than many other countries.

      There's no reason to believe that the USA's reporting is any better than that of any other western nation. But you're ahead of nearly all of them (save for a few European eastern block borderline not western nations) in per capita death rate.

      I don't think that pointing out that some 3rd world shitholes have higher death tolls really does anything to cement your status as "teh bestest country eva"

  • There is almost no consistency in reporting between different countries. China reports almost no deaths as being the result of Covid because they want to make it seem as if they have conquered the virus. In the US we report as many Covid deaths as possible (Someone with Covid gets in a car accident and it gets reported as a Covid death, etc) because there are politicians with a vested interest in seeing Covid continue as long as possible.
  • Stupidity wont kill you....but it will take care that something else does.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Not nearly enough. Otherwise stupidity would be a negative fitness factor evolution-wise. As the stupid also breed like crazy, it seems to be the other way round.

  • ... facepalming during those press conferences? That was him imagining the death toll with solid accuracy.
  • You finally beat Italy, France, Belgium, and the UK who you always pointed to as having a higher death per capita rate (presumably out of jealousy).

    You're on your way to number one, just got to out-stupid a few eastern Europeans and a bunch of 3rd world countries and you'll win again.

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