According to a variety of sources tracking Covid-19, sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday, the United States hit the 150,000 deaths mark. For those who maintain that this number is exaggerated, I suggest perusing the Yale study as reported July 2 by Arthur Villasanta in the International Business Times.
The number of deaths is almost certainly a drastic undercount. Johns Hopkins' tally, which is the most conservative I've seen, had the U.S. passing 150,000 early today. Interestingly, CNN has bent over backwards to feature low numbers the entire pandemic, using both the Johns Hopkins numbers and the IHME lowball projections as key elements of its broadcasts. The tally game will be moot when all is said and done, as demographers will be able to assign quite accurate "deaths due to Covid-19" when we get a year or two after the fact.
Another milestone was reached this week as Johns Hopkins joined the Association of American Medical Colleges in publicly calling for a comprehensive national virus response. Johns Hopkins laid out specific plans, benchmarks, and timelines to control the virus. It recommends a nationwide restart of the U.S. pandemic response, including mandatory stay-at-home orders for hot spots. Johns Hopkins warns that not doing so could result in deaths reaching many hundreds of thousands. Summaries of the Johns Hopkins and AAMC recommendations were covered today by Jason Hanna, Madeline Holcombe, and Shelby Lin Erdman at CNN.com.
In terms of overall numbers, the virus case totals now show California and Florida having passed New York. Texas will eclipse New York any day now. To put things in perspective, which I do not think is done often enough on national news programs, California has roughly 40 million people. Texas has 29 million. Florida has about 21 million, and New York between 19 and 20 million.
Meanwhile, close to home, Tennessee has passed 100,000 cases this week and exceeded 1,000 statewide deaths yesterday. Tennessee and bordering Kentucky are projected to be the next hot spots, so Tennessee's deaths, modest to this point, figure to increase quickly the next couple of weeks.
Bob Dietz
July 29, 2020
