Some COVID notes

At least in terms of mortality, the COVID epidemic in the USA appears to have moved into what may be an endemic stage: the rolling seven-day daily mortality average from the disease has been flat for six months now, averaging between roughly 300 and 450 deaths per day. We are currently at the low end of that larger plateau (332 deaths per day as of this week).

Note that on an annualized basis this represents 110,000 to 164,000 deaths per year, around 95% of which are excess deaths, that is, people who otherwise wouldn’t have died this year. Since the crude (non-age adjusted) mortality rate for the US population prior to COVID was about 850 per 100,000, this means COVID in its endemic state — if that’s what this is — will be bumping the overall mortality rate in the country by about 4% to 6% per year for as long as the status quo holds.

Of course all this comes with plenty of caveats about new potential strains, the health effects and costs of long COVID — still very poorly understood — etc.

We have excellent data for the first two-thirds (April through July) of this six-month plateau regarding the effects of vaccination on mortality risk, including the effects of boosters.

The most interesting things about these data is that they show the following:

(1) The non-vaccinated have a roughly six times higher risk of dying from COVID than people who have received the initial course of vaccination, but no boosters.

(2) The non-vaccinated have an approximately twelve times higher risk of dying from COVID than people who have been double boosted, that is, have received at least two booster shots.

(3) Curiously in these data, having a single booster shot does not reduce mortality risk during this time frame relative to people who have only gotten the initial vaccination course.

(4) If you’re under 65 and double-boosted, your mortality risk from COVID currently is fairly negligible — it’s a lot less than the average American’s risk of being murdered this year for example. (Again caveats about long COVID etc.)

(5) If you’re 65 and over and double-boosted, your mortality risk from the disease isn’t negligible, but it only bumps your overall annual mortality risk (which is vastly higher than that of young and middle-aged people of course) by around one or two percent. On the other hand, if you’re in this age group and unvaccinated, the odds that COVID will kill you in the next year are about the same as the all-cause mortality risk for people ages 55-64.

On the other other hand if you’re in this age group and totally unvaccinated the odds that your death would improve the overall political and social situation in this country are close to 100% so you do the math, although of course you’re not going to do it because hey Freedom ™.

. . . Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that almost nobody is getting double-boosted.