We all know that the Covid-19 case count has been increasing pretty dramatically the past month in the United States:
But the good news is that the deaths from Covid continue to drop. The chart below shows the daily deaths, through last weekend. The solid line is a 7-day rolling average, which smooths out the variations (deaths don’t get reported as much on the weekend, for example):
There are several reasons for the decline in deaths despite the increase in cases: expanded testing (we’re identifying milder cases), better treatment, and the people getting sick are younger and healthier.
One more reason: there’s a time lag between a positive test, and death (2-4 weeks). So maybe the increase in deaths just hasn’t shown up yet. And unfortunately, that appears to be the case. Here’s the same chart, through today:
There’s the uptick we’ve been fearing. It’s possible it’s just a one-time glitch, but that’s not what my gut tells me.
