The hardest data

There is always a certain amount of slop in attribution of causes of death. Actually those annual influenza death rates that are talked about so much are estimates, because in ordinary times most people with respiratory infections aren't lab tested to confirm the pathogen. Death certificates might just say pneumonia. But enough tests are done to be able to extrapolate. Covid-19 is different in that people who present at the hospital with serious symptoms are tested, so a much higher proportion of deaths are laboratory confirmed. However, some states are only reporting laboratory confirmed deaths, and people who die at home are not usually tested and many of those deaths don't make it into the official counts. That's why every real expert believes the officially reported death toll is an underestimate. So here's what we know for sure.



This is just the count of death certificates, it isn't looking at the diagnosis. But obviously  something has caused the death rate in New Jersey to suddenly shoot up to more than twice the norm for the past 4 years. This has happened with the severe restrictions the state put in place in March.

And it's not just deaths we should be worried about. It is now clear that many people, even those who don't have very severe disease in the first place, face extremely prolonged, debilitating convalescence and in many cases permanent organ damage. This disease is very nasty, even though most people who are exposed don't get severely sick, for unknown reasons.

It is indeed very painful that people with low and moderate incomes, who generally don't have significant savings, have been put out of work, and disproportionately so. As I have said many times, as I said in this space last week, we need to balance the costs of shutting down businesses against the hazard of not doing so, and we need to move responsibly to get people back to work. But just declaring "open for business" is a) not going to get people back to work because either customers will stay away because they are rightfully anxious, or they'll show up and there will be new outbreaks and the businesses will have to shut down again and b) it is precisely those low wage workers who will be most at risk. Note that outbreaks in meatpacking plants, Walmarts, and other businesses where low-paid workers are forced to congregate indoors. The only reason we haven't seen these in bars and restaurants is because they have been closed.

Yes this has forced a lot of people into food and housing insecurity. But sometimes bad things happen and it can't be helped. This would not have happened to us in the first place if we had a president who is not an insane idiot and an otherwise competent administration. We could have ended up like South Korea or New Zealand, and been okay. But now we're stuck with it. More on that later.