Has COVID Run Its Course? This Chart Suggests The Answer Is Yes
Two years after COVID first landed on our shores, the rate of new cases has absolutely exploded. That’s making headlines. Here’s what isn’t making headlines: Daily COVID deaths are down.
As before, news that COVID is spreading has generated a raft of stories about how the latest wave is stretching the nation’s health care system to the breaking point. A small sampling of headlines:
- “EMS response times lengthening as COVID cases skyrocket”
- “VA Officials Fear Overburdened Hospitals As COVID Cases Skyrocket”
- “Boston hospitals could face ‘disaster’ as coronavirus wastewater shoots up and virus cases explode”
- “Fauci expresses worry for hospitals amid omicron-fueled spike in COVID cases”
But wait a second. Tracking data from the Centers for Disease Control show that this time, things are very different from previous waves.
While the number of people testing positive for COVID has indeed soared – the CDC reported almost half a million new cases on Dec. 29 alone, nearly twice the daily peak from last year – the number of people being admitted to intensive care units and the number reported to have died from COVID hasn’t followed suit.
Johns Hopkins University reports that from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2, there were 17,759 ICU beds occupied with COVID patients. That’s down from 25,000 in mid-September 2021.
The number of inpatient beds occupied by patients with COVID is currently 93,282, which is below the number of beds occupied in mid-September. And many of those are in the hospital for other reasons, but just happened to test positive for COVID.
What’s more, the seven-day moving average for the number of people who died with COVID is lower than it was on Oct. 24, which was the day that the current wave started – 1,100 compared with 1,323.
That’s strikingly different from previous waves, which as the chart above shows, saw daily deaths starting to climb along with cases, with only about a two-week lag.
If this outbreak had been like the previous ones, COVID-related deaths would have started climbing weeks ago.
What does this mean? Most likely it means that the disease is getting less lethal as it gets more transmittable, which is how viruses work.
As an article in New Scientist explains, “In time, virologists predict, the virus will become more benign, following an evolutionary pathway previously taken by four other human coronaviruses that today cause nothing more than the ‘common cold.’”
If this is in fact what’s happening right now, why isn’t this news being shouted from the rooftops?
We can only speculate, but our guess is that power-mad politicians and public health tyrants like Anthony Fauci don’t want this sort of good news getting out. Better to keep the public in a constant state of panic so they can be more easily manipulated and controlled.
Enough!
It’s time for adults to start acting like the 8-year-old Kevin McCallister in “Home Alone.” Get out from under our beds, boldly walk out our front doors and, with our maskless heads held high, shout to the world:
“Hey, I’m not afraid anymore! I said, I’m not afraid anymore!! Do you hear me? I’m not afraid anymore!!!”
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