They will get that death count up one way or another, won’t they? When you lock down almost an entire country, you can’t admit maybe it wasn’t as bad as you initially thought. You have to just make the statistics conform to your initial projections by any means necessary.

Alex Berenson on twitter makes a good point about potential problems tracking all-cause deaths:

between this kind of counting of #COVID deaths and the fact that all-cause NON-virus mortality is almost certainly up in the last month (bc some people aren’t getting necessary care) even the most basic metrics are likely to be unreliable.

It’s a scary thought. The COVID hysteria could be killing people and the State is then ascribing the excess deaths to the disease rather than the lack of treatment people may be receiving for non-COVID health issues.

I know this is morbid, but we’re being locked in our homes indefinitely on the premise that there’s some deadly disease lurking in the air trying to kill all of us. And it’s supposed to be more of a threat than all the other causes of death we already know about and basically just choose to live with.

So we’ve got no choice but to pay attention to this stuff.

Breakdown of deaths reported to the CDC since the beginning of February as of yesterday:

I’m finding this data useful. Trending overall deaths vs expected deaths in the US during the pandemic.

For the entire time period of 2/1 through 4/11, the US has had 3,817 deaths above what was expected when looking at the previous three-year average.

If you look at it just from the week of the first COVID death (2/29), it’s 10,287 excess deaths. There were 22,851 COVID deaths reported during that timeframe.

If you look at it just for the 3 weeks where deaths were above the expected number, which is also the first week with over 1,000 COVID deaths (3/28), it’s 18,872 excess deaths. There were 22,286 COVID deaths in that timeframe.

Here is the same graph with COVID deaths included

Just trying to give some perspective to the deaths from this thing. I didn’t include the week ending 4/18 because it’s still showing a decrease in COVID cases that week and based on what I’ve seen that can’t be accurate. The data must be very incomplete at this point.

4/2 Projected total deaths: 93,531. Projected deaths now: 72,433. “Actual” Deaths on worldometers.info: 61.734.

I would note that Worldometers had almost 1,000 more deaths as of 4/27 than the Model.

4/2 Projected: 1,036. Actual: 1,158

4/3 Projected: 1,194. Actual: 1,420

4/4 Projected: 1,360. Actual: 1,558

4/5 Projected: 1,529. Actual: 1,177

4/6 Projected: 1,699. Actual: 1,402

4/7 Projected: 1,865. Actual: 2,254

4/8 Projected: 2,025. Actual: 2,152

4/9 Projected: 2,169. Actual: 2,098

4/10 Projected: 2,296. Actual: 2,113

4/11 Projected: 2,407. Actual: 2,106

4/12 Projected: 2,496. Actual: 1,774

4/13 Projected: 2,563. Actual: 1,704

4/14 Projected: 2,610. Actual: 2,544

4/15 Projected: 2,637. Actual: 2,693

4/16 Projected: 2,644. Actual: 2,160

4/17 Projected: 2,634. Actual: 2,131

4/18 Projected: 2,607. Actual: 1,892

4/19 Projected: 2,565. Actual: 2,294

4/20 Projected: 2,512. Actual: 1,736

4/21 Projected: 2,448. Actual: 2,492

4/22 Projected: 2,375. Actual: 2,437

4/23 Projected: 2,296. Actual: 2,400

4/24 Projected: 2,213. Actual: 2,125

4/25 Projected: 2,127. Actual: 1,698

4/26 Projected: 2,039: Actual: 1,302

4/27 Projected: 1,951. Actual: 1,450

4/28 Projected: 1,864. Actual: 2,470 (worldometers)

4/29 Projected: 1,779. Actual: 2,390 (worldometers)

11 days since peak resource use. 15 days since peak deaths.

I think people need to put the number of overall deaths in some perspective. COVID is increasing overall deaths, but by how much? are there really over 50,000 more deaths over the last month or so than we would have had without COVID? We know most people whose deaths are blamed on COVID were elderly and already sick so this is important to track.

Unfortunately, the data won’t be in on this for a while. Looking at this page of the CDC website, they are indicating through week 15 they have 100% of the deaths reported. Look at how deaths track through week 15 compared to earlier years:

You can see deaths were below average prior to the outbreak and the shot up in week 14, but this doesn’t look like the nightmare scenario our media and government are presenting to us.

To be fair, despite that other page stating they have 100% of deaths reported, it appears to be less up to date than this other one I found on cdc.gov. Let’s look at Expected (based on previous 3-year average) compared to actual for the week ending 2/1 through the week ending 4/11:

This is definitely a scarier visual. And it may get worse. If you look at the last 3 weeks on there and compare expected vs actual, it would appear to be around 16,700 excess deaths. There were around 21,900 COVID deaths reported.

None of this can prove or disprove whether lockdowns helped or hurt the situation since the lockdowns were in place for most of the country. So we can’t say for sure what would have happened with no lockdowns. But when this is all over will excess deaths be lower than the total number blamed on COVID? That’s an interesting question. We can also keep tracking this after the official COVID death numbers more or less disappear. Will fewer people die in June because maybe they caught COVID and died a little earlier, but they had some terminal illness anyway? Will more people die in September because of the social and economic consequences of the lockdowns which included a near shutdown of all medical services not specific to COVID?

It’s important we don’t lose track of this moving forward. Many of us feel our ruling class caused much more harm than good with these lockdowns and we can’t just allow them to congratulate themselves without digging into the hard statistics over the coming months and years.

4/2 Projected total deaths: 93,531. Projected deaths now: 72,860. “Actual” Deaths on worldometers.info: 59,329.

I would note that Worldometers had almost 1,000 more deaths as of 4/26 than the Model.

It appears the Model went back and revised the numbers down on almost every day by a few deaths.

We had the usual ridiculous Tuesday spike in deaths on worldometers. It should be interesting to see where it goes from here. It’s also worth noting that worldometers is still showing 200 more deaths from last Tuesday than the Model.

4/2 Projected: 1,036. Actual: 1,158

4/3 Projected: 1,194. Actual: 1,420

4/4 Projected: 1,360. Actual: 1,559

4/5 Projected: 1,529. Actual: 1,177

4/6 Projected: 1,699. Actual: 1,404

4/7 Projected: 1,865. Actual: 2,255

4/8 Projected: 2,025. Actual: 2,153

4/9 Projected: 2,169. Actual: 2,099

4/10 Projected: 2,296. Actual: 2,114

4/11 Projected: 2,407. Actual: 2,107

4/12 Projected: 2,496. Actual: 1,775

4/13 Projected: 2,563. Actual: 1,705

4/14 Projected: 2,610. Actual: 2,545

4/15 Projected: 2,637. Actual: 2,694

4/16 Projected: 2,644. Actual: 2,161

4/17 Projected: 2,634. Actual: 2,131

4/18 Projected: 2,607. Actual: 1,892

4/19 Projected: 2,565. Actual: 2,296

4/20 Projected: 2,512. Actual: 1,737

4/21 Projected: 2,448. Actual: 2,493

4/22 Projected: 2,375. Actual: 2,438

4/23 Projected: 2,296. Actual: 2,401

4/24 Projected: 2,213. Actual: 2,126

4/25 Projected: 2,127. Actual: 1,699

4/26 Projected: 2,039: Actual: 1,303

4/27 Projected: 1,951. Actual: 1,384 (worldometers)

4/28 Projected: 1,864. Actual: 2,470 (worldometers)

4/2 Projected total deaths: 93,531. Projected deaths now: 67,641. “Actual” Deaths on worldometers.info: 55,461

4/2 Projected: 1,036. Actual: 1,156

4/3 Projected: 1,194. Actual: 1,417

4/4 Projected: 1,360. Actual: 1,554

4/5 Projected: 1,529. Actual: 1,174

4/6 Projected: 1,699. Actual: 1,391

4/7 Projected: 1,865. Actual: 2,248

4/8 Projected: 2,025. Actual: 2,146

4/9 Projected: 2,169. Actual: 2,092

4/10 Projected: 2,296. Actual: 2,107

4/11 Projected: 2,407. Actual: 2,100

4/12 Projected: 2,496. Actual: 1,768

4/13 Projected: 2,563. Actual: 1,700

4/14 Projected: 2,610. Actual: 2,539

4/15 Projected: 2,637. Actual: 2,688

4/16 Projected: 2,644. Actual: 2,156

4/17 Projected: 2,634. Actual: 2,131

4/18 Projected: 2,607. Actual: 1,892

4/19 Projected: 2,565. Actual: 2,283

4/20 Projected: 2,512. Actual: 1,733

4/21 Projected: 2,448. Actual: 2,683 (worldometers)

4/22 Projected: 2,375. Actual: 2,358 (worldometers)

4/23 Projected: 2,296. Actual: 2,340 (worldometers)

4/24 Projected: 2,213. Actual: 1,957 (worldometers)

4/25 Projected: 2,127. Actual: 2,065 (worldometers)

4/26 Projected: 2,039: Actual: 1,157 (worldometers)

I’d expect a jump and another possible retroactive update to change past deaths to COVID. The CDC has added six more symptoms to COVID and that follows earlier “guidance” to mark “presumed” COVID deaths (no test) as official COVID deaths. So now it seems any symptom from just about any common illness can be considered a COVID symptom:

The new symptoms for the disease are chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste or smell, the CDC said. The list already included fever, cough and shortness of breath…Other symptoms of the highly infectious virus include diarrhea, skin rash, runny nose, red eyes and fatigue.

I’m starting to find this a bit more interesting than the model to actual comparisons. The official COVID death counts are somewhat dubious at this point. And we know the models weren’t based on good data initially (and may not be even now). So we’ll have to see how much deaths went up during this crisis period to start to get a handle on how deadly the Corona really was.

If we look at total all-cause deaths and compare it to the previous 3 year average for those same weeks, then here’s what we get:

Week ending 3/28: 100% of expected deaths. So 0 excess deaths. 2.569 official COVID deaths.

Week ending 4/4: 109% of expected deaths. That works out to 5,058 excess deaths. 7,383 official COVID deaths.

Week ending 4/11: 103% of expected deaths. That works out to 1,700 excess deaths. 9,958 official COVID deaths.

These numbers will increase but it starts to give you an idea of how many people this has really killed and the possibility that there are more official COVID deaths than excess deaths. That could mean authorities are overstating COVID deaths. Keep in mind that this data set only shows 24,555 COVID deaths as of 4/24. Are there really 30,000 deaths missing from the CDC data (the current # on worldometers is over 55,000)? We will have to wait and see what they’re saying a few weeks from now.

The other less conservative way to possibly calculate excess deaths is to look at 2020 trends going into the COVID crisis. Weeks ending 3/14 and 3/21 had deaths at 94% of the previous 3-year average. So if we assume that was going to continue into April then excess deaths are much higher:

Week ending 3/28: 3,376 excess deaths.

Week ending 4/4: 8,430 excess deaths.

Week ending 4/11: 5,101 excess deaths.

So based on data reported as of 4,24 we could say there have been between 6,759 and 16,908 excess deaths. These numbers will continue to go up, but if we take the high 17,000 range and try to project it out-saying the crisis period will last an additional 5 weeks after 4/11, we’d be looking at close to 45,000 excess deaths. Certainly a lot, but not beyond what we might expect from a bad flu season.

As I said, the data are not close to complete by any stretch, but it will be interesting how this all plays out.

For the record, I still think the lockdowns were unnecessary, extremely damaging to society, and should be lifted immediately.