One million COVID Deaths

Last update: Wednesday 5/25/22 

On Thursday 5/12/22, President Biden announced that flags on all federal buildings would be lowered as a highly visible marker of our nation's achievement of a horrendous milestone -- one million deaths from COVID since the beginning of the pandemic in the  U.S. back in early 2020. This is indeed a horrific milestone that should be observed with the utmost reverence. Unfortunately, there is a nagging quibble associated with the president's announcement: Are we there yet? Are we really, really there yet?

• "Biden to order federal flags to fly at half-staff as the U.S. Covid toll nears one million.", Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NY Times, 5/12/22

The correct answer to this question is: Yes, as of 5/25/22. 

• Centers for Disease Control (CDC) ... 1,000,254 on 5/25/22

Surely, the CDC should be America's "official" death counter. Beyond this, most people anywhere in the world would probably regard the WHO as the best death counter for all countries other than their own. 

Ordinarily, the editor of this blog would regard this issue as a quibble in a teapot, not worthy of serious consideration. However, last week the Biden administration waved another dubious statistical flag that was definitely not a quibble.

•  "Coronavirus wave this fall could infect 100 million, administration warns", Yasmeen Abutaleb and Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, 5/6/22 

One hundred million sounds big, sounds scary ... under Delta, but not under Omicron. Under Delta 100 million infections might have led to one million hospitalizations and perhaps 250,000 deaths ... but not under Omicron.  Omicron infections have become the norm among the vaccinated; but severe illness is uncommon. For example, Vice President Harris was mildly infected a couple of weeks ago, even though she was only 51, fully vaccinated, and doubly boosted.

• "Vice President Harris Tests Positive for Coronavirus", Peter Baker and Aishvarya Kavi, NY Times, 4/28/22

So why did the Biden administration only announce a "scary" prediction about infections? Why didn't it also announce its predictions about hospitalizations and deaths? Was it because those numbers would not have sounded very "scary"?

If the Biden administration continues to wave dubious statistical flags, it will lose our attention. But far worse, it will lose a substantial amount of the credibility that it has worked so hard to amass via its extensive vaccination and test to treat initiatives.

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Links to related notes on this blog:  

• "One million U.S. COVID deaths ... so far", Last update: 5/13/22