Wouldn’t the increased risk of death for under 65s be offset by the increased risk of death from severe Covid-19 itself for the over 65s?
New listing of states with record daily reported COVID cases (7-day average) as of January 19 2022
Wisconsin – 29372
Tennessee – 28157
New Hampshire – 3886
South Carolina – 20902
Michigan – 24732
North Carolina – 34119
Alabama – 20937
Indiana – 16155
Kentucky – 12931
Mississippi – 7729
Minnesota – 13814
South Dakota – 2187
Nebraska – 4644
Montana – 1492
Wyoming – 1419
New Mexico – 6745
Nevada – 13121
Utah – 13112
Arizona – 25750
Washington (state) – 19443
Darn it! Just when I think we’re starting to beat this, with several days of only 7 states having record highs, today we hit the mark at 20 states setting all-time record highs in the number of daily reported new cases. This is no way to win.
The US as a whole is on an upward trend for daily cases, although we still have a way to go before we break the record again.
Counting on my fingers from the holidays plus return to home state or university from the holidays, I’m not surprised.
There are certainly more over 65s dying from Covid at the time of infection, but this study suggests that if over 65s survive the initial infection, they’re in better shape than the under 65s in the long term. I hope there will be follow-up and additional studies because this is a very interesting finding.
I just want to note that Iowa … does not report that well.
“Covid Weekly Info 01/14-01/20: 38,404 New Cases, 116 New Deaths, 49,906 Vaccines Doses Given, 984 Average Hospitalized per day” (4 days earlier): https://www.reddit.com/r/Iowa/comments/s8r66n/covid_weekly_info_01140120_38404_new_cases_116/
343,059,726 total cases
5,593,256 dead
276,358,155 recovered
In the US:
70,544,862 total cases
883,903 dead
44,047,799 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Not quite.
This is saying that there is a greater increase in risk of dying in the year after a severe case of Covid for people under 65. Whenever a study talks about an increase in risk, you have to consider what the size of the risk is to begin with. These are totally made up numbers to illustrate the point.
Let’s say the risk of dying in the next year for all people under 65 who haven’t had severe Covid is 0.01 percent. So, one in ten thousand.
Let’s say the risk of dying in the next year for the 65 and over cohort is 0.10 percent. So, one in a thousand.
An increase in risk for the younger cohort of 233% means their risk is now just over two in ten thousand. (.0233 percent)
Let’s say the increase in risk for the older cohort is 150%. That would mean that their risk of dying is now 0.15 percent, or 3 in 2,000.
So the 65 and up cohort is still much more likely to die in the next year. It’s just that the increase in risk is greater for the younger group.
What I am saying is that more over 65s died of severe Covid cases, initially, than under 65s. Everyone who died initially of severe Covid cases is NOT included in this study, is my assumption. That leaves survivors of severe Covid cases.
Since more of the initial severe cases for over 65s died, what’s left is going to be less severe in that cohort than it would be in the under 65s. You have a 100 over 65s and 100 under 65s. Identify the 20 most severe cases in each group. But 10 of the 20 most severe died in the over 65s, and only 1 died in the under 65s, initially. So to get the same amount of “20 most severe” in each cohort, you have to dip farther into less severe cases in the older group.
Very sorry to see that reported in grisly detail. I don’t delight in increasing COVID misery – I’m just keeping a finger to the pulse.
Today’s Johns Hopkins figures are in earlier than usual. Here are the New Daily Reported Case state record highs as of January 20, 2022
Wisconsin – 33903
Virginia – 20817
South Carolina – 24127
Michigan – 24732
North Carolina – 41514
Illinois – 35770
Indiana – 20247
Kentucky – 16268
Tennessee – 28157
Mississippi – 9811
Minnesota – 16671
Missouri – 13666
North Dakota – 2488
South Dakota – 2834
Nebraska – 5972
Oklahoma – 13754
Montana --2003
Wyoming – 1757
Colorado – 17017
New Mexico – 8237
Idaho – 2888
Nevada – 14665
Utah – 16014
Arizona – 29181
Alaska – 2548
Washington (state) – 23580
Oregon – 11642
Hawaii – 5198
28 states set new record high numbers of reported daily new cases of COVID (7-day average) yesterday.
That’s the highest it’s been in quite a while. For some odd statistical reason, it’s hit particularly hard in states beginning with the letter “M”, or with “North” or “South” in the name.
I’m impressed by the way the sharp rise turned abruptly around and is still retreating in Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. New England, though, looks like it’s shooting back up again. They haven’t set new records, yet, but it’s rising in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. New Hampshire just set a new record yesterday (Having been there recently, I’m not all that surprised. Mask wearing was apparently seen as only a suggestion.)
The US, which had been tracking downwards, reversed that trend and recorded a new record high number of daily reported COVID cases in the world, at 849864.
I can’t believe that Texas rarely shows up on your list. Last time it did was Jan 19 and Texas blew everyone else out of the water. [I added the line spaces to make Texas stand out.]
I have to conclude that Texas is only reporting numbers sporadically.
Our local positivity rate here in San Antonio is 38.3%, and we’re by no means the most populous city.
I just report what Johns Hopkins posts on its site. They did indeed hit record-breaking numbers several days recently (one day exceeding 200,000 cases), but I’ve been committed to reporting the seven-day average, since it smooths out what are clearly daily variations in which you can see trends for each day of the week, and only gives you the overall broad variation. That mixes it together to give you fewer peaks than you’d see from the raw data.
I hope I didn’t give the impression that I thought you were slighting Texas data in some way – not my intention at all. 
I’m going to have to ask what that means, ThelmaLou. No joke, I don’t understand. I would read that as meaning that 38% of the populace currently has COVID - surely to god, no??
j
Less “breaking” than “notable”:
What on earth are they doing to calculate percentage change? In the table below, rightmost column, they are reporting the “% increase (past week)” and for some states it is a negative value of more than 100%. I cannot drill down to the raw data, but presumably they are using the NEW figure as the denominator for % change, that’s the only way you could get a decrease of more than 100%. What on earth are they thinking? Can anyone think of any sensible reason for this? To me this undermines confidence in all of their data.
Link again:
Beats me – you have to ask them.
This doesn’t undermine ALL their data. The numbers I report are the number of reported cases (however they gather this info) averaged over seven days as a running average. No percentages enter into it at all.
Lol. No, it just means that 39% of the tests come back positive. When it’s that high, there’s likely a lot more cases out there that are being missed. There are officially 343 per 100,000 daily cases. I wouldn’t be surprised if over 5%, maybe even 10%, of the county is currently infected.
Well, if they don’t have the basic numeracy to calculate a percentage change, how can you trust them to report anything reliably?
Ah - the rest of the post was about case numbers, and that threw me.
In England we got to 1 person in 15 infected nationally in early Jan - 7% or so - which makes a local rate of 38% only borderline unbelievable.
(See first bullet)
j
Breaking news!