Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

April 13th US Covid Data

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On April 13, 2020

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The curve continues to flatten, though the absolute numbers are bad.

A note from our benefactor:

The assertions on the right that deaths are being drastically over-counted are amazing to me–especially the assertions that this is not much more serious than the flu. Refutations with data simply lead to challenges of the data. The irony is that most flu deaths are also attributed to pneumonia or co-morbidity. https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/1727839/

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4 Comments

  1. Joan

    Eventually there’s going to be a bump with Easter, since some people did go to church. I think it’s pretty reasonable to double the number of cases since people largely aren’t getting tested, so one million cases. The federal government isn’t paying for tests anymore, right?

    I heard the governor of Colorado said he thought the actual numbers to be at least four times what is reported. I’m not sure where he got that, but it’s hard to know what is actually going on in the US. Japan is considering banning entry to anyone with a US passport.

  2. Ten Bears

    I have in the past proposed our dilemma: Revolution is agreed upon but no one seems to have any idea what to do on the other side of it. I found this quite interesting…

    The Great Pause. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now.

    We have a unique opportunity to take another hit deep breath (of fresh air!) and give some thought to what’s only other side of this.

    Climate change, resource depletion, overpopulation… still happening.

  3. Joan

    @Ten Bears, that’s a good point. There’s a lot less mindless pollution and noise happening right now. I heard China is repealing environmental regulations to try to make up for lost time, so in the end this pause might not slow climate change. I was one of the few people I know who never saw the point in all the racket. I’d much rather lead a simpler life and leave a healthy planet for the next generation, but I’m not running for public office. It doesn’t mean losing all of modernity either, which is the typical strawman argument I hear. We could go back to technologies from an earlier era but still keep the things that matter to us as a society, like women voting and the polio vaccine or whatever else.

  4. S Brennan

    The mortality rate, at 4% is, 60% greater than 1918, I don’t know of anyone who predicted the extreme fatality rate. Clearly, we need to up our game on the treatment end…

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