Hard to Argue with Death -- Covid Mortality Confirmed

For a specific group of Covid deniers, a popular argument has been that total deaths in America are not higher than they were in the past, an assertion supported by a frequently shared tweet that purports to quote CDC statistics.

As noted here before, this tweet is absolutely false.

Final figures will take a while to compile, but the CDC is releasing what information that it has, and the real numbers are as terrible as we assumed. America will experience well over 3.2 million deaths, projecting an increase of more than 400,000 over last year, and the largest percentage increase since 1918, when fatalities from that pandemic combined with WWI.

Last year's mortality total was 2,854,838, an increase of about 16,000 over the year prior. Normal increases from year to year due to population expansion and aging have been moderating prior to this year, due to improvements in heart and cancer mortality... age specific deaths actually fell by 1% in 2019.

The real impact of the coronavirus is demonstrated in the measurement of life expectancy, set at 78.8 years in 2019. As a result of Covid, the life expectancy figure is expected to drop by 3 full years for 2020, reversing decades of progress.

The stated Covid fatalities are around 320,000 currently, although most experts consider that number understated, not overstated. There are a wide variety of outcomes for the remainder of the pandemic into summer 2021; the affects of the disease will continue unabated for many more months while the vaccine is delivered in sufficient quantities.

There is much that we do not know yet pertaining to the ultimate cost of this pandemic. One thing that we do know, that we can absolutely say is real, is that it has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans over a nine month period, and will likely kill hundreds of thousands more before we get it under control. Any arguments to the contrary are a willful ignorance of the truth.