Here's how we went from zero to "there"

Last update: Thursday 5/26/22 

One million deaths. How did we get there? Here's the best but far too painful answer:  one victim at a time plus the relatives and friends who loved them. But that would require one million obituaries with photos and loving commentaries ... way too long for a blog note. So let's just do some high speed skipping by 100,000s, OK? 

Up until recently, the overriding goal of our pandemic management efforts has been to limit the loss of life. At first we employed social mitigation, but with limited success. 

• "The number of people with the virus who died in the U.S. passes 300,000.", Amy Harmon, NY Times, 12/14/2020
• "The virus death toll in the U.S. has passed 400,000.", Patricia Mazzei, NY Times, 1/19/21

We lost 100,000 lives in one month between mid December 2020 and mid-January 2021, just before vaccines became widely accessible. Our highly effective vaccines stopped most infections, hospitalizations, and deaths until the sudden emergence of the Delta variant in late Spring 2021. It took five months for our death toll to increase by 200,000 before Delta, i.e., about 40,000 per month. The slowdown was so remarkable that there was a widespread feeling that we were gaining our "independence" from the virus. Indeed, the CDC issued profoundly unwise guidance that cancelled masks and social distancing.

• "Covid has claimed more than 600,000 lives in the U.S.", Dan Levin, NY Times, 6/16/21
• "Vaccinated Americans May Go Without Masks in Most Places, Federal Officials Say", Roni Caryn Rabin, Apoorva Mandavilli and Noah Weiland, NY Times, 5/13/21 

Being more lethal and more transmissible than previous variants, Delta accelerated our infections, hospitalizations, and deaths until it was displaced by Omicron in late December 2021. Under Delta we were forced to add social mitigation to our "vaccinate everyone" strategy, e.g., wearing masks again; otherwise the 200,000 increase in our death toll from 600,000 to 800,000 would have been much higher by mid-December 2021. Renewed mitigation triggered widespread impatience with those who weren't vaccinated

• "Covid News: U.S. Deaths Surpass 800,000", NY Times, 12/15/21 
• "Vaccinated people are ready for normalcy — and angry at the unvaccinated getting in their way", Marisa Iati, Washington Post, 7/31/21 
• "Biden Mandates Vaccines for Workers, Saying, ‘Our Patience Is Wearing Thin’", Katie Rogers and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NY Times, 9/9/11 ... "Biden’s Bet on Vaccine Mandates", NY Times "The Daily (podcast)", 9/13/21   

Although Omicron was not as lethal as Delta, it was far more transmissible, so our death toll increased faster than under Delta. Whereas our death toll increased by 200,000 in five months under Delta, i.e., 40,000 per month, it increased by 100,000 in two months under Omicron, i.e., 50,000 per month. By the end of February, Omicron had slowed down, so the CDC relaxed its guidance for masks, but most of us had reached our breaking point.

• "U.S. Covid Death Toll Surpasses 900,000 as Omicron’s Spread Slows", Julie Bosman and Mitch Smith, NY Times, 2/5/22 
• "Americans Are Frustrated With the Pandemic. These Polls Show How Much.", Nate Cohn, NY Times, 2/8/22 
• "New C.D.C. Guidelines Suggest 70 Percent of Americans Can Stop Wearing Masks", Apoorva Mandavilli, NY Times, 2/26/22 

Three months after the CDC's February no-mask guidance, as the nation was within days of officially reaching one million deaths from COVID, the CDC director joined other memberS of President Biden's Covid Response Team in a recommendation that 30 percent of Americans resume wearing masks because of surging cases of Omicron sub-variants in their communities

• "Biden Health Officials Warn of Substantial Increase in Virus Cases", Sharon LaFraniere, Michael D. Shear and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NY Times, 5/18/22 
• CDC official count = 1,000,254 on 5/25/22

Given the widespread frustration with on-again, off-again pandemic restrictions, perhaps 30 to 40 percent of Americans might comply with this new guidance ... but not because they live in high COVID communities. 

The CDC's data makes it crystal clear that the coronavirus has focused its killing on members of the same target groups ever since the pandemic reached the U.S. back in early 2020. About 75 percent of its victims have been 65 and older, even though they represented less than 17 percent of the population. Other targets included persons who were immunocompromised or had other underlying conditions, perhaps 3 percent of the population. Add another 10 to 20 percent for relatives and friends of the target groups who don't want to infect them and you reach 30 to 40 percent.  

Mitigations and vaccinations merely impeded the efforts of the virus to reach its preferred targets. We are no longer "in it together" because we never were. It has always been about the members of the target groups and those who loved them.

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Links to related notes on this blog:  

• "Why are we wasting most of our vaccines?", Last update: 5/15/22