Covid update
By 
Some Covid notes as we approach the third anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic:
(1) In the USA, Covid seems to have been in an endemic phase for about nine months now: Since mid-April, we’ve averaged roughly around 400 deaths per day, with relatively little variance from that baseline. This represents, over this timeframe, about 20% to 25% of the official international Covid death toll, which is remarkable, given that the USA only has about 4% of the world’s total population.
A caveat here is that the international totals are less reliable on net ; In particular, China’s official numbers are, as is typical for statistics produced by the PRC, complete garbage. Still, at the international level the overall picture is also that of an endemic disease, although with considerable variation from country to country of course.
(2) Again roughly speaking we saw about 250,000 official Covid deaths in the USA last year, as compared to about 470,000 in 2021 and 385,000 in 2020. Preliminary all-cause mortality statistics also reflect a decline very similar to the difference between the 2021 and 2022 Covid death totals, so we should see something of a bounce back in life expectancy in 2022, to somewhere about halfway between the 2021 and 2019 (pre-Covid) figures.
(3) A strong trend in the mortality statistics has been a shift toward Covid mortality becoming even more of a geriatric phenomenon. While in the earlier stages of the pandemic 80% of Covid deaths were among people 65 and older, in recent months that figure has climbed to nearly 90%.
(4) The extent to which Americans have simply stopped getting vaccinated for Covid is pretty shocking: Per the latest CDC stats, only 15.9% of the population 5 years and older has gotten updated boosters. Given that the Covid mortality risk is currently on average eleven times higher for totally unvaccinated people relative to the fully boosted, that is a remarkable statistic. Even more remarkable, perhaps, is that being fully boosted cuts peoples’ Covid mortality risk in half, compared to people who received the initial vaccination series plus one additional booster. Yet only a small percentage of the adult population is up to date in regard to Covid vaccination.
(5) Long Covid is still poorly understood, so it’s important not to focus exclusively on the mortality statistics, which again still reflect what would be an annual ongoing Covid death toll in the USA of about 150,000 people per year, even in what has become the endemic state of the disease.
(6) Anecdotally, mask-wearing in public indoor spaices in Boulder (Biden got 80% of the vote here) is now very close to non-existent. This is also true for commercial air travel. In that sense, at least, Covid is very much over.