CDC Covid-19 Fatality Count and Excess Deaths

CDC has released data through 15 August as of today.

Figure 1: Weekly fatalities due to Covid-19 as reported to CDC for weeks ending on indicated dates (black), excess fatalities calculated as actual minus expected (teal), fatalities as tabulated by The OurWorldinData (dark red), all on log scale. Source: CDC accessed 8/26/2020 vintage, OurWorldinData accessed 8/26/2020 and author’s calculations.

From week ending February 29th through the week ending August 8th (the latest CDC data, which incorporates severe undercounting in the last three weeks), the cumulative CDC fatality tally is 165.6 thousand. Cumulative excess fatalities is 223.4 thousand, implying an additional 57.8 thousand Covid-19 fatalities above the official tally over this period.

NEC Chair Larry Kudlow stated yesterday:

“It was awful … Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere. But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the Covid virus.”

The Covid Tracking Project/Atlantic reported 1249 fatalities today (8/26, as of 8/26).

 

 

 

19 thoughts on “CDC Covid-19 Fatality Count and Excess Deaths

  1. Moses Herzog

    This video discusses the politicization of health information by donald trump:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va90YNObNsU

    The running joke around our house is that COVID-19 is such a sophisticated virus that it knows to take the weekend off. Our state health department often reports 0 deaths on Sunday, and a large amount of deaths every Tuesday. Today (Wednesday obviously) we had a record amount of COVID 19 deaths for our state in a 24 hour period—nineteen deaths. Of course they didn’t all die in the last 24 hours, but it’s the highest official tally for one day. And you can bet that no matter where the case numbers or hospitalizations go this Sunday the numbers will be low again. This is aside from the fact testing is still bad—which then makes it impossible to do tracing.

  2. Moses Herzog

    We’ve heard donald trump, Mike Pence, Steve Mnuchin, Mitch McConnell profess their love for America’s military veterans. Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa no doubt has given lots of lip-service to how much she treasures American military veterans. Well…… here’s an interesting little health statistic I just read in Krugman’s NYT column: The Department of Veterans Affairs delivers about 80% of its outpatients’ prescriptions by mail.

    I don’t know the exact numbers total, but this site verifies that over a 3 quarter period of 2019 the VHA serviced at least 8,580,000 outpatients.
    https://www.performance.gov/cx/dashboard/va/vha/

    What do Republican Senators have to say about donald trump, Steve Mnuchin’s, and Louis DeJoy’s sabotaging of the U.S. Postal Mail?? Right now, NOTHING. They are all silent. Just like Benjamin Netanyahu is silent while Hispanic children are kidnapped from their parents by American ICE agents and held in cages and off-record in hotels where they can be abused. For Netanyahu the kidnapping and abuse of Mexican children based on race means nothing, because the Hispanic children are not Israelis, so Netanyahu thinks donald trump is an “ideal and great American leader”. “Never again” is a selective cause for Mr. Netanyahu. And for the Israelis who vote for Netanyahu.

    1. not_really

      The frustrating thing about this is the built-in excuse of “this administration is so incompetent they can’t see past their next meal” forgives them their incompetence.

      The ongoing message of this is an attempt to discourage voting might be true. It also might be more intentionally generated chaos to affect an election. Or, it could be as simple as, “Yes, really, all the decommissioning is excess capacity.”

      No way to really, actually know what’s true. Which, in true conspiracy theory thinking, is fuel for the conspiracy minded.

      Funny how the usual government process: studies, committee hearings, announcements feels almost nostalgic. That’s how far the Democratic process has fallen in 3+ years.

  3. pgl

    The entire Kudlow presentation was one lie after another. But what’s new. Oh yea – the CDC is now recommending less testing. Got to get Trump’s poll numbers up regardless of how many people end up dying.

  4. ltr

    August 26, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases ( 6,000,365)
    Deaths ( 183,653)

    India

    Cases ( 3,307,749)
    Deaths ( 60,629)

    Mexico

    Cases ( 568,621)
    Deaths ( 61,450)

    UK

    Cases ( 328,846)
    Deaths ( 41,465)

    France

    Cases ( 253,587)
    Deaths ( 30,544)

    Germany

    Cases ( 239,000)
    Deaths ( 9,352)

    Canada

    Cases ( 126,417)
    Deaths ( 9,094)

    China

    Cases ( 84,996)
    Deaths ( 4,634)

    1. Moses Herzog

      It’s good to know all the health information you give us out of China isn’t dictated by Winnie the Pooh out of Beijing:
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/hong-kong-jimmy-lai-arrest/2020/08/09/d7312f20-daa4-11ea-b205-ff838e15a9a6_story.html

      https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/iguy5b/i_bet_you_guys_are_gona_like_this/

      https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/ied65b/full_page_portrait_of_agnes_chow_in_yesterdays/

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/12/agnes-chow-the-hong-kong-activist-who-gave-up-uk-citizenship-to-fight-for-democracy

      https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://www.dw.com/image/44981793_303.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.dw.com/en/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-report/a-44982027&tbnid=_TIf7Eafz4ZqxM&vet=1&docid=9827P5B43r0DNM&w=700&h=394&itg=1&source=sh/x/im

      Make sure to click on the short video of Xi Winnie the Pooh Jinping after the link jump. Xi Winnie the Pooh Jinping only gets his honey if you go ahead and click on that—-plus it’ll be your biggest laugh of the day looking at that FAT ugly F**K.

      1. Moses Herzog

        Forgot to mention, the 2nd link listed above is where the Winnie the Pooh video is. That’s good for at least a month’s worth of intermittent laughs.

        Of course if QAnon, MAGA, and Senate Republicans on eternal vacation have their way, eventually Steven Colbert cartoons and jokes about donald trump will be illegal, then all the fruitcake Karens who can’t handle putting on a mask can celebrate their new won “freedoms”.

  5. ltr

    August 26, 2020

    Coronavirus (Deaths per million)

    UK ( 610)
    US ( 554)
    Mexico ( 476)
    France ( 468)

    Canada ( 241)
    Germany ( 112)
    India ( 44)
    China ( 3)

    Notice the ratios of deaths to coronavirus cases are 12.6%, 12.0% and 10.8% for the United Kingdom, France and Mexico respectively.

  6. ltr

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-27/Chinese-mainland-reports-eight-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-ThXZfsEYgg/index.html

    August 27, 2020

    Chinese mainland reports 8 new COVID-19 cases, no new deaths

    The Chinese mainland registered 8 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, all from overseas, Chinese health authorities said on Thursday. This is the 11th consecutive day that the mainland has reported no domestic transmissions.

    No deaths linked to the coronavirus disease were recorded on Wednesday, while 31 patients were discharged from hospitals.

    The total number of confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland stands at 85,004 and the cumulative death toll at 4,634, with 365 asymptomatic patients under medical observation.

    Chinese mainland new locally transmitted cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-27/Chinese-mainland-reports-eight-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-ThXZfsEYgg/img/8137e4f6e19d436d99de11467cd45e12/8137e4f6e19d436d99de11467cd45e12.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new imported cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-27/Chinese-mainland-reports-eight-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-ThXZfsEYgg/img/29fbd9fea6c842edb0cda000248dd1be/29fbd9fea6c842edb0cda000248dd1be.jpeg

    Chinese mainland new asymptomatic cases

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-08-27/Chinese-mainland-reports-eight-new-COVID-19-cases-all-from-overseas-ThXZfsEYgg/img/2c1aaac1d6af4e90a6d975fef5010f79/2c1aaac1d6af4e90a6d975fef5010f79.jpeg

  7. pgl

    Chart of the day:

    https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-states?country=~USA#daily-confirmed-deaths-are-countries-bending-the-curve

    Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths
    Shown is the rolling 7-day average. Limited testing and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death means that the
    number of confirmed deaths may not be an accurate count of the true number of deaths from COVID-19.
    The US series has remained near 1000 for quite a while. Yea – not as bad as the 2500 plus several months ago as our social distancing was working bring this down to around 800. But reopened too soon without enough testing and it went back up to 1000 and has stayed there.

    Of course the RNC is claiming we have solved this problem. Maybe they are looking at the EU curve which has come down.

    The confusion continued at the RNC when they wanted to show riots in the streets of America so they showed film from Spain.

  8. ltr

    https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1299030451751813121

    Dr. Angela Rasmussen @angie_rasmussen

    A brief history of the CDC’s position on testing:

    -Jan: Let’s think about a test
    -Feb: Let’s make a test that works
    -Mar: We’re making more tests!
    -Apr: Anyone who wants a test can get one (not really)
    -May-Jul: Our tests are the best! (not really)
    -Aug: We need less testing

    [ What must be made clear, is that the American coronavirus containment and treatment failures reflect severe weaknesses in the healthcare system; weakness beyond inept White House leadership. Can we diagnose and begin to resolve the institutional weaknesses? ]

  9. Ooe

    As Peter Thiel said, “the Trump Administration will end in calamity,” Guest what, it did.

    183 Thousand dead and counting.
    5.90 Million infected.
    millions unemployed….

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