I didn't check the COVID-19 stats at all while I was on vacation, so I figured I should take a look now that I'm back. This time around, I was interested in death rates by vaccination status. Here it is:
The CDC provides death rates by vax status through the start of April. The more recent numbers are extrapolated from overall death rates provided by Our World in Data.
At the peak of the Omicron surge in January, the death rate for the unvaccinated was about 160 per million. Today it's 2.5 per million. For the vaccinated it's about 0.5 per million.
Of course, if you look at age you get a different picture. The Omicron surge primarily affected the unvaccinated elderly over the age of 65. The death rate for those under 50 has been low for a long time and is tiny today. It's especially minuscule for those who are vaccinated: 0.2 per million vs. 0.9 for the unvaccinated in the 30-49 age group. (Click the chart to embiggen.)
The difference in death rates between races and ethnic groups has largely disappeared too. In fact, the CDC reports that the white death rate is now higher than both the Black and Hispanic death rates.
Case rates have also fallen to low levels, which is a very good thing. Even if COVID isn't killing a lot of people anymore, long COVID is nothing to sneer at. It's still well worth your time to get vaccinated and to practice at least basic pandemic hygiene.
After 4 shots of Moderna I’m moving on to the shingles vaccine.
And I am still wearing a mask in indoor public places.
In December I got my first Moderna booster and the shingles vaccine at the same time.
Nearly fucking killed me.
Had the second shingles shot Monday, not nearly so bad, but still awful. Pain at injection sight for four days, and it's still sensitive, highly blurry feeling, and every minor ache and pain I had was magnified and sharpened horribly.
What really helps is if you can pull yourself out of the lethargy of the post-violent assault dismodia it puts you in and get out and physically move around and do things.
Thanks for the info.
So now I’m going to wait until winter to spend a week sick. I’ve never done well with vaccines. All 4 Moderna shots confirmed it.
I’m 61 and in good health. And like I said, I wear a mask the few times I do go to public places.
I would actually recommend going ahead and getting it over with if you're going to do it, lousy at it is it's still better than shingles; and you'll have to get the second shot two to six months later.
You do not want long-covid and you do NOT want shingles. The latter changed my brother's life in 2008. He got it bad on scalp and near one eye. And apparently you can get it almost anywhere on your body.
Shingles vax is the toughest shot I've ever had, But it was still 2 days of a bad cold max. I'm 59 and healthy.
Please, do the shingles vax at your earliest opportunity - the horror stories I've heard make infinitesimal the day or two of the mehs after the vax.
OK.
So now I’m following medical advice on an internet message board. Gotta like that.
Made my appointment for tomorrow.
It is supposed to be in the high 90’s here for the next several days.
I figured If I’m going to have to suffer through a heat wave and then a shingles vaccine I might as well do all of my suffering at once.
I like your style!
No, you really don't want shingles. It can cause a long-term or even permanent pain syndrome. I had a super mild case on my arm and it was still pretty miserable for two weeks. I only had a day of mild post-vaccine discomfort.
Shingles is not contagious. It's a reactivation of the chicken pox you had as a child. You can get it at any age.
Actually shingles is contagious. It's just not too many people are not immune to chicken pox which is what you will spread.
Well, it's only contagious if you've never had chicken pox or a vaccine and you touch the lesions (there yucky, why would you do that?). It's not airborne like chicken pox.
Unvaccinated People Create Higher Risk for Vaccinated, Study Says,
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20220427/unvaccinated-people-create-higher-risk-for-vaccinated-study-says?src=RSS_PUBLIC
You mean to tell me David Leonhardt & Will Stancil* have been lying to us?
*Possibly related, Will Stancil's multiple bar exam failing self has to be among one of the softest people on Twitter, having conspired to get the parody account Will St. Incel permanently suspended from the social media platform. The fact it came right after KKKlay Travis got Exposing Clay banned for impersonation was kind of perfect, though. Two heartland halfwits demonstrating their free speech absolutist bona fides in the most obvious way.
At least Exposing Clay has risen as Project Grifter.
At my mom's assisted living facility in Connecticut, there has been numerous recent cases of Covid among the 150 residents, including some who were in close proximity to my mom (like when playing Mahjong for a few hours), prior to having symptoms and testing positive. All residents have be vaccinated and double boosted, and so far only minor symptoms and quick recovery. All residents are in the vulnerable category and so far, no covid deaths once vaccinations began in January 2021. May be a different story at similar facilities deep in the heart of MAGA county.
I got omicron'd at the beginning of February and I still have symptoms now, more than four months later. Milder symptoms, yes, but still. I'm tired of coughing.
Lots of people on the west coast think covid is over. No masks, even in restaurants. I've seen it from Seattle to the SF Bay Area.
"COVID-19 Update: Hardly anyone is dying anymore"
According to the NYT tracker the current daily covid death rate (7 day average) is 385. Average daily deaths from guns (in 2020) were less than a third of that. So it would appear by the Drum standard that gun deaths are insignificant.
Not what Kevin said.
7-day average positivity in:
TN - 20.80%
HI - 21.77%
TX -21.99%
AZ - 23.88%
UT - 25.98%
NV - 29.77%
It's great that we have vaccines and the Omicron lineage is milder, but Ba.4 and Ba.5 is starting to gain steam just as Ba.2.12.1 is slowing down. Moderna's bivalent candidate has outperformed their original vaccine (https://bityl.co/CfDh). I hope they get EUA soon. I'll be first in line.
Soon?
If it hits before October I'll be astonished.
mRNA-1273.214 candidate has already shown to be safe and the preliminary results show that the volume of elicited NABs is 8-fold higher than that of their original vaccine.
One would hope that the FDA would require less time for phase 3 trials, given how the vaccine very much operates in the same way the prior SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have worked, specifically, targeting different parts of the Spike protein.
The Omicron lineage isn't milder. Or rather, it may or may not be a little milder than Delta, but it's probably worse than Alpha, which was worse than D614G, which was probably worse than the original Wuhan strain. Omicron is infecting people with immunity -- that's what has changed.
Not the crises that it was earlier on, but hospitals still haven't recovered. Covid patients, whether admitted for Covid or not, still require Covid protocols.
Numbers are falling in the earlier hit states in this wave, still going up in others. Deaths are still lagging cases. Nationally, numbers will probably look like they're plateauing .
I've seen estimates of 3x-5x the cases which means even less dying. But I'm not going indoors in a public place without a mask probably ever.
Me either. Mask wearing is just so easy.
Government stats on COVID levels are now useless thanks to in home testing.
I think it was John Hopkins that estimated that Omicron is spreading 2 times faster than Delta.
We are now seeing BA4 and 5 spread.
This is the 5th generation of Omicron since December or almost one distinct variation per month on average and now several leading medical.science journals are saying that increased transmission does NOT decrease severity in all cases.
If this turns out to be true then it's just a matter of time before a new variant comes by that has both at high levels. And immunity wanes far too quickly
Man this comment section just has the biggest bunch of Covid downers on the web.
I'm all about following CDC guidelines about getting vaccinated, but avoiding public places and planning on wearing a mask forever is, at this point, I think about was logical as people in June of 2020 saying they were never going to wear a mask.
Risk assessment is hard. And the media and, frankly, our government institutions, don't make it any easier. The media loves scare stories. "Is your dryer going to kill you? Find out at 11:00." And at this point this is largely how Covid stories are covered. The government, under Biden, at least, is extremely cautious and tries to take the firmest possible stance when it comes to safety. But good grief, people. If you hare been vaccinated and healthy there are much greater causes for worry in your life than Covid.
Risk assessment IS hard. But the media and the government aren't the biggest contributors to our risk assessment... it's the massive HERD of people who really want to get back to work, get their kids to school, and feel normal. This entire pandemic has been a case study in being led by the herd, and now the herd has decided that the pandemic is over.
It doesn't seem to matter to the herd that literally every credible scientific organization at the moment is kinda freaking out about Long Covid. I truly hope that what they're all saying turns out to be overstated, because if it's not then the real pandemic of mass disability is just about to start.
Exactly. I'm surrounded by viral researchers and we're all wearing masks. Nobody wants Long Covid.
People are dying who would be living if it weren't for the high level of covid still prevailing in much of the United States.
Fewer deaths than at the worst times, but still a considerable risk that I wish had been further reduced.
I mean, deaths are way down from where they were, but "hardly anyone" is an overstatement. Deaths have been hovering around 350 day for the last 6 weeks. If that's the "new normal" than Covid will remain one of the top 10 causes of death for the foreseeable future.
Here's the CDC stats from last year.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
350/day x 365 days = 127,750 deaths per year. More than diabetes (#8 cause) and about the same as Alzheimer’s (#7).
I like how NYT put it, COVID is now like smoking. Most of the deaths are preventable and most of those dying made a choice. I'm not personally worried about COVID anymore, but it's not because "hardly anyone" is dying.
And 350/day is our low point. When you factor in the winter waves (which will likely to continue, though hopefully won't be as severe) the annual deaths will be somewhat higher than 130K. I'd guess 150-200K.
Am I missing something? A peak of 160 per million unvaxinated seems way to high? If only 20% of the country were unvaccinated (160 * 330 * 0.2) , that would mean 10K deaths (we're talking per day, right) from the unvaccinated alone. We never went that high.
Your question has me confused all of a sudden. You're right, it seems to me, that the question is: over what time period? 160 deaths per million over what time period? Obviously, cumulative deaths keep, well, accumulating. Death rate figures have to cover some specific time period. Pardon my innumeracy, but inquiring minds want to know.
Over 300 people per day dying from COVID is not "hardly anybody," especially if you know any one of the deceased.
But then we're also a country that doesn't pay attention to the over 100 people per day who are shot and killed in this country every day.
Nor do most of us spend all day hiding inside for fear of getting shot. Or avoid traveling in cars for fear of being injured in an auto accident. This is what I mean about risk assessment. For a healthy, vaccinated person, what is your real risk from Covid, compared to all the other risks you take every single day without even thinking about it? This is the question that it is still impossible to get a straight answer to.
For example, drinking a glass of whiskey a night might give cirrhosis. Going to a concerts, sporting events, and movies might give me long covid. How comparable are these risks? I am certainly not about to give up on whiskey despite the risks, which I am well aware of. Should my behavior for covid be any different? The answer is not obvious but I am leaning pretty hard toward "no" at this point.
Thanks for putting this chart together, I've been trying to find one like this for a while, and it certainly seems like no one wants to tout these results. They are pretty fantastic, honestly.