Body Counts

At some point in the next 24-36 hours, the US's official tally of Covid-19 deaths will surpass the number of American lives lost in Vietnam from 1961-1975. What is striking about that number is that it almost certainly too low. This WaPo story does a job explaining the idea of "excess deaths" that seem to be a feature of Covid-19.

We have a pretty good idea how many people die every year, on average, in each month. We can also measure things like how many people die from illness in the winter, as opposed to car accidents in the summer.

What we are seeing with Covid-19 is a spike in numbers of deaths from various factors that seem to be part of the effects of the virus. Most states only attributed Covid-19 deaths in the presence of a positive test, plus pulmonary issues. As it became apparent that the virus attacked the heart and caused strokes, they added those deaths. The problem is the huge spike in deaths "at home" where there was no test. And we still don't really know how or why this illness is killing people.

So, we have one group of people who have died of Covid-19, but aren't being counted.  We have a second group of people who are dying from a lack of medical care, because they are afraid or unwilling to go to the hospital in a timely manner. Those are secondary deaths caused by the pandemic, but aren't directly attributable to the virus.

There is some good news, in that auto accidents and murders are down considerably. Roughly 3000 Americans die every month in car accidents, so that number is decreasing, which is good. But that also means that the excess death number is rising in spite of other forms of death falling.

At this point, it's worth talking about why people might be fudging the numbers. If you're a public health official, you will want to include as many Covid deaths as possible for two reasons.  First, you need an accurate count, so you understand just how deadly this illness is or isn't. That's an issue of accuracy.  It's not implausible, that there is a second reason, and that is the desire of public health officials to drive home the idea that this is a scary disease in the face of opposition to public health measures. That might lead them to include some dubiously linked deaths, but generally speaking, scientists are interested in accuracy.

The problem - as always - are the anti-science, anti-intellectual factions of America. Because they are overwhelmingly Trump supporters, they tend to pick up on his prejudice in favor of re-opening the economy and his earlier statements about the virus being a hoax and under control. For them, any added deaths are simply an effort by pointy-headed elitists to make Trump look bad. This means that any effort to bring statistical analysis (instead of only those actually tested who died of pulmonary distress) to capture the true scale of the pandemic will be dismissed as "fake news."

When epidemiologists look back at April 27th (2PM ET), they won't see the official count of 56, 139 deaths.  They will see a number much higher. It certainly looks like the "excess deaths" number has passed 100,000. The Trumpenproletariat won't believe them. Evangelicals washed the blood of Jesus will not believe them. But if the pandemic has proven anything, it's that the natural world doesn't give a shit about your a priori beliefs.