More good news on COVID: Despite relatively high wastewater levels, we had fewer deaths in this year's summer surge than last year's. covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-t... - ThreadSky

michaelhobbes.bsky.social • 163 days ago

More good news on COVID: Despite relatively high wastewater levels, we had fewer deaths in this year's summer surge than last year's.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_weeklydeaths_select_00

1 / 3

Comments

malraux.bsky.social•163 days ago

The more encouraging part of that graph is the sharper decline now vs last fall. The hope is the winter surge will be lesser.

jakobpunkt.bsky.social•163 days ago

In Canada, the lag time between deaths happening, and being reported by the hospital or province to the federal government is on the order of 6-18 months. If the US is at all similar, it is way too soon to say how many excess deaths there were last summer.

adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com•163 days ago

How are overall excess deaths looking for 2024 to date? They went back to pre-pandemic levels in 2023 right?

nudl.bsky.social•162 days ago

@michaelhobbes.bsky.social the way the cdc normalizes their data will artificially deflate the covid levels when we have sustained high levels. You can get raw levels from https://www.wastewaterscan.org/en

xchurchmouse.bsky.social•162 days ago

Yeah that is really good news

xchurchmouse.bsky.social•162 days ago

Long covid is still a very real concern

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•163 days ago

Wastewater is a tricky metric for assessing the severity of COVID surges because it's a relative scale and re-normed every six months. Hospitalization reporting has gotten spottier over the last year so deaths are one of the few reliable indicators we have.
https://www.cdc.gov/nwss/about-data.html#data-method

quick13.bsky.social•163 days ago

Yes, but are people reporting deaths from COVID or from related issues caused by it (stroke , cardiac arrest, etc)?

malraux.bsky.social•163 days ago

Every death gets a death certificate. Death certificates list cause including contributing factors. But it’s a slow process. In the peak of the pandemic, a separate faster process was created for reporting covid deaths.

malraux.bsky.social•163 days ago

Some stuff is almost certainly getting missed. The increase in heart attacks that lasts for a year after infect, probably not getting accurately reported, but acute deaths yes.

malraux.bsky.social•163 days ago

But we also know that influenza has a similar effect that often gets missed in reporting. Lots of long effects like that are best done through other statistical analysis.

jakobpunkt.bsky.social•163 days ago

The deaths reported here are all-cause mortality. The problem isn't that cause of death is misleading, it's that the lag in death reporting is months long, so it's too soon to say what deaths from 2024 have been.

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•163 days ago

Not quite! Deaths were elevated by 6-8% this summer wave, compared to 11-13% last year.
https://bsky.app/profile/adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com/post/3l6wwo2xckn23

adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com•163 days ago

Ah damn. Obviously a lot better than peak pandemic numbers but I thought it was even lower than that

seriva.bsky.social•163 days ago

Considering almost literally no one masks anymore, those death numbers are comparatively overrepresented compared to years past of the pandemic, right?

astrokatie.com•163 days ago

Unfortunately both hospitalizations and deaths are such lagging indicators that they’re really not very useful for infection risk assessment though. If you want to know risk of infection is particularly high, wastewater is really all you got

michaelhobbes.bsky.social•163 days ago

Right, and I'm extremely frustrated that public health authorities aren't doing some sort of notification when they start to rise! In Seattle our numbers started going up right before Pride and all the (crowded, indoor) events just went ahead with no mitigation

astrokatie.com•163 days ago

It’s very very frustrating. It definitely seems like some decision was made to drop any messaging that would be consistent with avoiding infection being a priority.

jucifer.bsky.social•162 days ago

🎯

flyingsquidgoggles.bsky.social•163 days ago

I'm increasingly starting to feel like the 1950s-1980s programs to reduce polio were the high water mark of public health and the 2020s mark the near-total defeat of public health

arreffbee.bsky.social•163 days ago

Are doctors finally prescribing paxlovid more in the first three days instead of "waiting to see"? That alone would have a massive effect on the number of deaths

aleighmac.bsky.social•163 days ago

Not really. Paxlovid is really only shown to have significant effects in the super vulnerable populations, not the patients for whom doctors would be waffling.

mattpt55.bsky.social•162 days ago

I mean, define significant. In my one bout of COVID (so far) pax resolved all my symptoms in 24 hours. Why would you waffle when that level of relief is available for patients (notwithstanding contraindications)? It is baffling to me tbh.

aleighmac.bsky.social•162 days ago

I'm defining it statistically, not anecdotally. Studies indicate paxlovid's effects on duration are even weaker in the literature than its effects on mortality. I'm glad you found relief, but respectfully, you have no control comparison. And again, this data is specifically about mortality.

mattpt55.bsky.social•162 days ago

So I'd be curious, if you have the time to link, to read them. As for me, in my n=3 sample of my family, it was 100% successful in symptom resolution within 24 hours. 10/10 would recommend.

arreffbee.bsky.social•162 days ago

I mean we're still talking 65% reduction in hospitalization and death

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10187454/

mattpt55.bsky.social•162 days ago

Here is a 2023 study in Korea that did find a difference in symptom resolution. Interesting across the board hopitalization/death seem to agree. Authors do note that symptom severity of current variant may play a part in time to resolution. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9840968/#:~:text=In%20the%20prescribed%20group%2C%20symptoms,patients%20resolved%20within%204%20days.

mattpt55.bsky.social•162 days ago

And yes I also read the larger study that didn't find an effect. My scientist friends tell me this is good science....

arreffbee.bsky.social•163 days ago

It's still really effective for preventing hospitalization and death in people over 65 and with other risk factors, and the number of doctors who still aren't prescribing it for fear of "paxlovid rebound" (which is not a thing) is still too high

aleighmac.bsky.social•162 days ago

It's most effective in the unvaccinated, and many patients in that over-65 and high-risk category can't take it because of contraindications. All I'm saying is, I don't believe it's the relevant factor in this data.

stephybara.bsky.social•162 days ago

Where I live (Ontario Canada) Paxlovid is basically impossible to get. Pharmacies just … don’t have it … even for seniors. Maybe if you’re hospitalized? Otherwise, no.

subtlefire.bsky.social•162 days ago

I was going ask about availability. I know in some (US) places it was virtually impossible, especially for rural, but last real info I heard was... a year ago? more? though like other measures, less likely to have improved than to be same or worse

seamonk.bsky.social•162 days ago

Isn’t diarrhea (and other GI issues) an increasingly common symptom? Seems like that might increase wastewater levels disproportionately to number of infections?

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply