Tag: COVID

On Covid, Excess Mortality by Race/Ethnicity, and Geographic Patterns

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/on-covid-excess-mortality-by-raceethnicity

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And now you can see it — the blue curve for Hispanics has a summer 2020 peak much higher than that for whites, Blacks, and Asians.

I want to note the high peak for Asian deaths in winter 2020-2021.

See that there is a high spike for Asian, Hispanic, and Black in that first NYC-centered wave that we’ve known so well… but a little blip for White. And I want you to think about that a little. Because that really explains a lot of the disproportionate effects on minorities in the U.S. and it goes back to Charles Blow’s question at the top of this post.

The answer to all of this being geographic distribution.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 6 Nov 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Who Had Covid-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Cases?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/28/us/covid-breakthrough-cases.html

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Compared with the unvaccinated, fully vaccinated people overall had a much lower chance of testing positive for the virus or dying from it, even through the summer’s Delta surge and the relaxation of pandemic restrictions in many parts of the country. But the data indicates that immunity against infection may be slowly waning for vaccinated people, even as the vaccines continue to be strongly protective against severe illness and death.

“The No. 1 take-home message is that these vaccines are still working,” said Dr. David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “If you saw these data for any disease other than Covid, what everyone’s eyes would be drawn to is the difference between the unvaccinated and fully vaccinated lines.”

The data shows notable differences in breakthrough death rates by age and slight differences in both case and death rates by vaccine brand, trends that experts say are important to consider as tens of millions of Americans weigh whether to get a booster shot.

Author(s): Aliza Aufrichtig, Amy Schoenfeld Walker

Publication Date: 28 Oct 2021

Publication Site: NYT

Virus surge hits New England despite high vaccination rates

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.yahoo.com/news/delta-tearing-states-despite-high-115328590.html

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Even though parts of New England are seeing record case counts, hospitalizations and deaths that rival pre-vaccine peaks, largely among the unvaccinated, the region hasn’t seen the impact the delta variant wave has wrought on other parts of the country. 

According to statistics from The Associated Press, the five states with the highest percentage of a fully vaccinated population are all in New England, with Vermont leading, followed by Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. New Hampshire is 10th.

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Case counts in Vermont, which has continually boasted about high vaccination and low hospitalization and death rates, are the highest during the pandemic. Hospitalizations are approaching the pandemic peak from last winter and September was Vermont’s second-deadliest month during the pandemic.

Author(s): Wilson Ring

Publication Date: 3 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo News

Vital Statistics Rapid Release — Quarterly Provisional Estimates, Mortality Dashboard

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/mortality-dashboard.htm#

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Quarterly Rates

The crude death rate for all causes in All States for the 3-month period ending with 2021 Q1 was 1118.3, which was greater than the crude death rate of 944.9 in 2020 Q1.

12-Month Ending Rates

The crude death rate for all causes in All States for the 12-month period ending with 2021 Q1 was 1069.9, which was greater than the crude death rate of 878.2 in 2020 Q1.

Publication Date: accessed 25 Oct 2021

Publication Site: CDC

Trying to Make Sense of COVID’s Mysterious 2-Month Cycle

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://news.yahoo.com/trying-sense-covids-mysterious-2-121821028.html

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The number of new daily cases in the United States has fallen 35% since Sept. 1. Worldwide, cases have also dropped more than 30% since late August. “This is as good as the world has looked in many months,” Dr. Eric Topol of Scripps Research wrote last week.

The most encouraging news is that the most serious forms of COVID are also declining. The number of Americans hospitalized with COVID has fallen about 25% since Sept. 1. Daily deaths — which typically change direction a few weeks after cases and hospitalizations — have fallen 10% since Sept. 20. It is the first sustained decline in deaths since early summer.

These declines are consistent with a pattern that readers will recognize: COVID’s mysterious two-month cycle. Since the COVID virus began spreading in late 2019, cases have often surged for about two months — sometimes because of a variant, such as delta — and then declined for about two months.

Public health researchers do not understand why. Many popular explanations — such as seasonality or the ebbs and flows of mask wearing and social distancing — are clearly insufficient, if not wrong. The two-month cycle has occurred during different seasons of the year and occurred even when human behavior was not changing in obvious ways.

Author(s): David Leonhardt

Publication Date: 4 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Yahoo News (originally at NYT)

COVID-19 Vaccination and Non–COVID-19 Mortality Risk — Seven Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020–July 31, 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043e2.htm

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What is already known about this topic?

Although deaths after COVID-19 vaccination have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, few studies have been conducted to evaluate mortality not associated with COVID-19 among vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.

What is added by this report?

During December 2020–July 2021, COVID-19 vaccine recipients had lower rates of non–COVID-19 mortality than did unvaccinated persons after adjusting for age, sex, race and ethnicity, and study site.

What are the implications for public health practice?

There is no increased risk for mortality among COVID-19 vaccine recipients. This finding reinforces the safety profile of currently approved COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. All persons aged ≥12 years should receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

Author(s): Stanley Xu, PhD1; Runxin Huang, MS1; Lina S. Sy, MPH1; Sungching C. Glenn, MS1; Denison S. Ryan, MPH1; Kerresa Morrissette, MPH1; David K. Shay, MD2; Gabriela Vazquez-Benitez, PhD3; Jason M. Glanz, PhD4; Nicola P. Klein, MD, PhD5; David McClure, PhD6; Elizabeth G. Liles, MD7; Eric S. Weintraub, MPH8; Hung-Fu Tseng, MPH, PhD1; Lei Qian, PhD1

Publication Date: 22 Oct 2021

Publication Site: CDC

5 States Where Young-Adult Deaths Are Spiking

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/10/15/50-states-of-mortality-spike-data-for-the-25-44-age-group/

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In the first two weeks ending in September, the number of deaths of U.S. residents in the 25-44 age group spiked to 8,604.

The number of deaths of people in that age group was 22% higher than it was during the comparable period, and 57% higher than it was during the comparable period in 2019 — before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

In the first half of 2021, which included the January spike, the number of deaths of people in the 25-44 age group was 38% higher than in the first half of 2019.

There are about 87.4 million people in the 25-44 age group in the United States, according to the Census Bureau.

Author(s):Allison Bell

Publication Date: 15 Oct 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

COVID-19 Vaccination and Case Trends by Age Group, United States

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/COVID-19-Vaccination-and-Case-Trends-by-Age-Group-/gxj9-t96f

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[created by Mary Pat Campbell, using the data]

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Trends in vaccinations and cases by age group, at the US national level. Data is stratified by at least one dose and fully vaccinated. Data also represents all vaccine partners including jurisdictional partner clinics, retail pharmacies, long-term care facilities, dialysis centers, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Health Resources and Services Administration partner sites, and federal entity facilities.

Author(s):CDC, NCIRD

Publication Date: accessed 19 Oct 2021

Publication Site: data.cdc.gov

Vaccines Reduce Risk: A Look at the Changing Age-Related Mortality Risk of COVID

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/vaccines-reduce-risk-a-look-at-the

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I will put a few facts in front of you, and you think it through:
– The population age 85+ in the U.S. in 2020 was 6.3 million
– Through July 2021, there were a little over 180K COVID deaths for that group
– That’s about 3% of the age 85+ population

Do you think only 3% of the age 85+ population is vulnerable to COVID?

Pretty much all of them are “vulnerable”. The mortality rate for people age 85 (much less older) was 7.3% for females and 9.5% for males in the most recently available tables. It only goes up from there.

There is a huge difference in mortality by age for just non-pandemic years, and it’s also true for COVID.

There may be a few hardy souls with a base risk similar to the middle-aged without vaccines, but the percentage is not high.

The vaccines have been having an effect in cutting risk.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 18 Oct 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Introducing the UK Covid-19 Crowd Forecasting Challenge

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.crowdforecastr.org/2021/05/11/uk-challenge/

Twitter thread of results: https://twitter.com/nikosbosse/status/1449043922794188807

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Let’s start with the data. The UK Forecasting Challenge spanned a long period of exponential growth as well as a sudden drop in cases at the end of July 3

Especially this peak was hard to predict and no forecaster really saw it coming. Red: aggregated forecast from different weeks, grey: individual participants. The second picture shows the range for which participants were 50% and 95% confident they would cover the true value

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So what have we learned? – Human forecasts can be valuable to inform public health policy and can sometimes even beat computer models – Ensembles almost always perform better than individuals – Non-experts can be just as good as experts – recruiting participants is hard

Author(s): Nikos Bosse

Publication Date: Accessed 17 Oct 2021, twitter thread 15 Oct 21

Publication Site: Crowdforecastr

KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor: September 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-september-2021/

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In the midst of a “third wave” of the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic driven largely by the highly contagious Delta variant, more than seven in ten U.S. adults (72%) now report that they have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, up from 67% in July. An additional 2% say they plan to get the vaccine as soon as possible. The share who say they want to “wait and see” how the vaccine works for others before getting it themselves dropped to 7% in September. Four percent of adults this month say they will get vaccinated only if required for work, school, or other activities and 12% say they will “definitely not” get the vaccine.

The largest increases in self-reported COVID-19 vaccination rates between July and September were among younger adults (up 11 percentage points among 18-29 year-olds) and Hispanic adults (up 12 percentage points). The largest remaining gap in vaccination rates is by partisanship, with 90% of Democrats saying they have gotten at least one dose compared to 68% of independents and 58% of Republicans. In addition, large differences in self-reported vaccination rates remain between older and younger adults, between those with and without college degrees, and between those with higher and lower incomes, while rural adults continue to lag behind those living in urban and suburban areas. Non-elderly adults without health insurance also continue to report one of the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates of any group (54%).

Author(s): Liz Hamel Follow @lizhamel on Twitter , Lunna Lopes , Grace Sparks Follow @gracesparks on Twitter , Ashley Kirzinger Follow @AshleyKirzinger on Twitter , Audrey Kearney Follow @audrey__kearney on Twitter , Mellisha Stokes , and Mollyann Brodie Follow @Mollybrodie on Twitter

Publication Date: 28 Sept 2021

Publication Site: Kaiser Family Foundation