Two years after COVID first landed on our shores, the rate of new cases has absolutely exploded. That’s making headlines. Here’s what isn’t making headlines: Daily COVID deaths are down.
As before, news that COVID is spreading has generated a raft of stories about how the latest wave is stretching the nation’s health care system to the breaking point. A small sampling of headlines:
- “EMS response times lengthening as COVID cases skyrocket”
- “VA Officials Fear Overburdened Hospitals As COVID Cases Skyrocket”
- “Boston hospitals could face ‘disaster’ as coronavirus wastewater shoots up and virus cases explode”
- “Fauci expresses worry for hospitals amid omicron-fueled spike in COVID cases”
But wait a second. Tracking data from the Centers for Disease Control show that this time, things are very different from previous waves.
While the number of people testing positive for COVID has indeed soared – the CDC reported almost half a million new cases on Dec. 29 alone, nearly twice the daily peak from last year – the number of people being admitted to intensive care units and the number reported to have died from COVID hasn’t followed suit.
Johns Hopkins University reports that from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2, there were 17,759 ICU beds occupied with COVID patients. That’s down from 25,000 in mid-September 2021.
The number of inpatient beds occupied by patients with COVID is currently 93,282, which is below the number of beds occupied in mid-September. And many of those are in the hospital for other reasons, but just happened to test positive for COVID.
What’s more, the seven-day moving average for the number of people who died with COVID is lower than it was on Oct. 24, which was the day that the current wave started – 1,100 compared with 1,323.
That’s strikingly different from previous waves, which as the chart above shows, saw daily deaths starting to climb along with cases, with only about a two-week lag.
If this outbreak had been like the previous ones, COVID-related deaths would have started climbing weeks ago.
What does this mean? Most likely it means that the disease is getting less lethal as it gets more transmittable, which is how viruses work.
As an article in New Scientist explains, “In time, virologists predict, the virus will become more benign, following an evolutionary pathway previously taken by four other human coronaviruses that today cause nothing more than the ‘common cold.'”
If this is in fact what’s happening right now, why isn’t this news being shouted from the rooftops?
We can only speculate, but our guess is that power-mad politicians and public health tyrants like Anthony Fauci don’t want this sort of good news getting out. Better to keep the public in a constant state of panic so they can be more easily manipulated and controlled.
Enough!
It’s time for adults to start acting like the 8-year-old Kevin McCallister in “Home Alone.” Get out from under our beds, boldly walk out our front doors and, with our maskless heads held high, shout to the world:
“Hey, I’m not afraid anymore! I said, I’m not afraid anymore!! Do you hear me? I’m not afraid anymore!!!”
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I appreciate your using the COVID numbers but YOU cannot trust them. Most of the numbers are inflated due to money concerns of the hospitals. I was “very” sick 2 years ago and so was my husband, We suspect it was COVID. Anyway we believe we have strong immunity and have not been vaccinated or boostered. We are careful and don’t travel or go out much. That is okay since we are older and are enjoying our home. I wish people would just calm down and pay attention to what is going on around them. Fauci, the media and government are lying to us. We go through this every year, but the media is making a mountain out of this.
Unless it’s intentionally spread like they did originally.
At my Atlanta grocery store, the toilet paper is almost gone again and the idiot checker asked me where my mask was. I haven’t worn a mask since 2020, and half the people in the store aren’t wearing them either. But people are surviving covid everywhere I look, including me, and the more they do, the less the fear factor is going to work.
Why would I be afraid now when I was never afraid to begin with? In early 2020, I crunched the numbers coming in from several isolated populations (including the Diamond Princess) and South Korea and realized anyone under 65 or so, had almost zero risk.
Pandemics are defined by death rate not case rate. For people younger than 60 and in good health, there is no pandemic.