During the pre-Omicron phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, regions of the U.S. had markedly different mortality rates, primarily due to differences in mask use, school attendance, social distancing and other behaviors. Had the entire country reacted to the pandemic as the Northeast region, more than 316,000 deaths might have been avoided, 62% of those avoidable deaths being in the South. The study, by Georgetown University’s School of Nursing & Health Studies researchers, appeared April 28, 2022, in PLOS ONE. Excess mortality, which helps account for avoidable deaths from a new disease or situation, is defined by the difference between total current deaths and deaths expected based on earlier time period, usually the previous decade or so. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calculates these numbers weekly. For this study, the CDC excess mortality data were analyzed for the period between January 3, 2020, to September 26, 2021. For regional comparison purposes, areas of the country were broken down into the Northeast, Midwest, South and West. “Our goal was to carefully examine regional differences in COVID-19 death rates based on reliable statistical data,” says Michael Stoto, PhD, professor of Health Systems Administration and Population Health at the School of Nursing & Health Studies and corresponding author of the study. “Our study is the first to quantify avoidable deaths and confirm that both COVID-19 deaths and avoidable deaths disproportionately occurred in the South.” The investigators found that regional differences in COVID-19 mortality rates have persisted throughout the pandemic. The southern part of the United States has had higher mortality rates than the rest of the U.S. since the start of summer in 2020. Since October 2020, 48% of COVID-19 deaths were in the South, which makes up 38% of the population, pointing to disproportionate outcomes regionally. The researchers also determined that between January 2020 and September 2021 there were 895,693 excess deaths associated with COVID-19, which is 26% more than reported by other experts who track disease. Although the official total neared on 1 million deaths in the U.S due to COVID-19 by late April 2022, based on this undercount the scientists believe that threshold was actually passed at the beginning of 2022. These estimates of undercounts are important because most studies have looked at excess mortality at the state and county level in the U.S., but because of small population sizes, the studies have not examined patterns over time. Some earlier studies explored the relationship between COVID-19 mortality and age, education, and other factors, as well as vaccine uptake, party affiliation, and other factors. But most studies have used reported COVID-19 deaths rather than excess deaths, as compared to what Dr. Stoto and collaborators have done, and may not be as statistically reliable. https://nhs.georgetown.edu/news-sto...he-southern-u-s-due-to-behavior-differences/#
Congratulations "Tsing Tao" on the success of your movement. Covid thanks you for your cooperation and efforts to get the message out.
In 2020, I notice a big problem in the U.S. Covid deaths reporting that has been consistent to this day... The media and individuals were so focused on the raw numbers that they almost never mentioned the excess mortality rates when comparing states or regions of the United States to each other. In contrast, when we look at the Covid Deaths in foreign countries, we often looked at the excess mortality rates along with the raw numbers. An example, I often saw in the media or even here at Elitetrader for the United States... Let us pretend that state A in the North had 10 Covid Deaths whereas state B in the South had 8 Covid Deaths... Many of the Covidiots here would say...more Covid Deaths in the North or people on both sides would try to make it a political comparison...Democrats versus Republicans as if Covid knows the difference. Yet, if you look at the excess mortality rates, 3 of the 10 Covid Deaths in the North were excess mortality whereas 6 of the 8 Covid Deaths in the South were excess mortality. Simply, the behavior in the South had much more excess mortality than those living in the North. Therefore, behavior is one of the critical variables to analyze/predicting excess mortality rates from infectious diseases, especially in a Pandemic, which often impacts federal and local public health policies (guidelines). I can't remember the name of the college degree but there are Universities that actually study people’s knowledge, worries, anti-vax attitudes, political attitudes, and behaviors to help them predict which regions of a country will have excess mortality rates above the norm that should have happened. These people are able to determine the allocation of resources to areas most impacted by the pandemic. An example: Most of the Covid Thereauputic Medical Treatment (free) tents sprung up outdoors in southern counties in places like Southern California, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida. Personally, I don't like comparing North versus South. I prefer to compare state to state or county to county when examining excess mortality rates. Regions in the United States: Excess Mortality Rates The same is true with the Anti-Vaccine people that I often refer to as Covidiots. They look at the raw numbers because that's what's being fed to them by whatever media platform they're reading. An example...lets pretend 100 Vaccinated people had breakthrough Covid infections out of 1,000 people that were vaccinated. In comparison to 80 Unvaccinated people had a Covid infection out of 400 people. The anti-vax people use the raw numbers...more vaccinated people (100) are getting infected with Covid than unvaccinated people (80). In reality...the vaccinated people are greatly outperforming the unvaccinated. Looking deeper into the numbers...vaccinated people with breakthrough infections are less likely to be hospitalized, less likely to die, have lower hospital duration stay, lower medical costs, and less time off from work... Vaccines are doing what they were designed to do. The raw numbers comparison has always been a favorite statistical manipulation by anti-vaccine people since the years of the smallpox vaccine. wrbtrader
Charles Gaba: “For the full year 2021, official Covid deaths ran more than three times higher in the reddest tenth of the U.S. than the bluest. This is something I’ve been tracking and writing about for nearly a year now, so while it’s pretty dramatic, it’s nothing new.” “What is new is the ‘other’ excess deaths in 2021: They ran a jaw-dropping twenty-one times higher in the reddest decile than the bluest… nearly 50 per 100K residents vs. only ~2.3 per 100K.”