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I have already violated one of my New Years Resolutions - "Stop the obsessive data collection of COVID-19 statistics". Alas - last night I am back "on the wagon" and reading all kinds of COVID porn. One of the antivaxer sites was spouting about a CEO of an Indiana Life Insurance company claiming that deaths for 18-64 year old working adults in Indiana have increased 40% and the deaths were not due to COVID. Hmmmmm sounds suspicious.
My blog is not about fact checking that claim or article - but it launched me back into the CDC death statistics for the USA as a whole. Naturally they lag by a year. Eurika - I found the stats and listened to the podcast and downloaded the pdf report - 2020 FINAL Death Statistics.
Here is my personal summary. 2020 had 3,383,729 deaths in USA an increase of 528,891 over 2019 - 18.53%. The podcast does a good job of explaining COVID contributing deaths and COVID underlying deaths. Simply put - 2020 COVID Underlying deaths were 350,831 and the third largest contributor to deaths in 2020. So that leaves the question - why did 2020 Non COVID deaths increase 170,060 (6%)? The same excess is being investigated in the United Kingdom.
The big swings in prior year death rates may be due to the influenza. There is always the growth rate in deaths that will naturally occur with the aging baby boomers. But this number seems outside of statistical norms.
The lockdown and fear of hospitals may have kept many people from getting necessary treatment. Homicides in 2020 are at the highest level since 1995 (7.8 per 100,000). Drug overdose for 12 months ending 4/2021 was 100,306 and increase of 28.5% over the 78,056 drug overdoses from the comparable 12 months in last year. It CAN NOT be vaccine related (as the antivaxers might jump to), since EUA for Pfizer was only authorized 12/11/2020.
You pick the poison/reason.
Maybe the will to live is at play when faced with a mountain of suffering all around us and the infinite chasm of despair that lies under a mysterious knock at the door of hope.
I have blogged before about the statistical correlation of holidays, key dates (birthdays), etc. that once achieved, death occurs. Could our energy to live just petered out?
At our last Vistage Veteran's monthly meeting we discussed any New Year's Resolutions that each of us had for 2022. We are "old white guys" (and of privilege) and unanimously had no comment. Could that be because of our stage/age in life or might there be a COVID cloud affecting us also?
From the CDC report life expectancy at birth for 2020 (for males) is 76.3 (so that applies to Teddy). For those age 65 at 2020 the male has 18.2 years and female 20.8 years remaining. I'm older than 65 and let's confidently (or arrogantly) say, as a COVID survivor, I am healthier than average. So assuming I have 16 - 28 years left to live, several questions came to my mind last night:
(1) What do I want to accomplish in the next 16-28 years? What are my hopes and dreams?
(2) What did I accomplish in the last two COVID years (2020 and 2021)?
(3) What didn't I accomplish in the last two COVID years (due to self-inflicted FEAR)? Or how did I let COVID impede my hopes and dreams?
(4) What will I do differently in COVID 2021 to not let COVID interfere with my hopes and dreams?
I need some COVID Resolutions :)
