I’ve been thinking about Covid-19 and reading all the pushback against the shutdown. I don’t know what the best policy should be durning this time. What’s good for society might not be good for the individual. Or for certain specific individuals. I expect the economy will be reopened within a month because enough people will demand it and we’re still a democracy.
Before coming out of hibernation, what everyone needs to consider is the context of Covid-19 in American history. Covid-19 has killed forty thousand Americans in a mere fifty days. That’s a Hurricane Katrina a day. That many Americans dying in so short a time period has only happened twice: the 1918 flu pandemic and some vicious months of the Civil War. Regardless of what the infection rate turns out to be, we’re losing Americans to this virus faster than any event in the last century.
Individual states and cities have it much worse than the USA as a whole.
New York City
8,398,748 population / 129,788 positive cases = 1 out of every 65 New York city residents has tested positive for Covid-19
8,398,748 population / 8,811 deaths = 1 out of every 953 New York city residents has died
There is also a lot of skepticism around the numbers. While it’s true that we’re undercounting positive cases and deaths, we’re still able to conduct more than 100,000 tests a day. Those types of results work as a very large sample pool to assess trends. Presidential polls function using only two to three thousand people interviewed over several days.
People are also often asking why America has it so bad. While true that we have the most positive cases and deaths, we also have the third largest population of any country on the planet. A better comparison is deaths per 100,000 people. Here are the top ten countries using the standard morbidity metric:
Belgium - 50
Spain - 47
Italy - 40
France - 31
UK - 24
Netherlands - 22
Switzerland - 17
Sweden - 16
Ireland - 14
USA - 13
Source is here. I limited my results to countries that have over a million people in population. It’s important to note that we have no idea what China’s numbers actually are.
Some more historical context. Covid-19 is on pace to be one of the deadliest disasters in American History.
Daily Death Rates
Flu deaths per day (average season): 205
WWII average daily death rate: 292
American Civil War daily death rate: 504
Covid-19 US average death rate for April (1st - 19) = 1,866
Bad Days to be an American (deaths)
1945 - Iwo Jima: 6,821
2020 - Covid-19 on April 14: 6,185
1944 - D-Day: 4,500
1968 - Tet Offensive: 3,178
1906 - SF earthquake: 3,000
2001 - 9/11: 2,977
1941 - Pearl Harbor: 2,467
1889 - Johnstown Flood: 2,209
2005 - Hurricane Katrina: 1,836
Select American significant historical event death tolls
Civil War: 655,000
1918 - 20 flu pandemic: 575,000
WWII: 405,399
WWI: 116,516
1957–58 influenza pandemic: 93,000
2020: Covid-19: 41,575
Korean War: 36,516
Revolutionary War: 25,000
War of 1812: 15,000
HIV/AIDs yearly deaths: 13,000
Source: Wikipedia except for Covid-19 deaths (see above).
Growing up, I always wondered what it would be like to live through incredible, deadly, historical events. I got a little taste on 9/11. During Covid-19, I’ve learned how boring it can be. A 9/11 every two days by death count has just become the new normal. I am undergoing future shock only in reverse. The shock I’m experiencing, the ancients knew well.
Note: my context and numbers are valid as of 20 APR 2020.