Five million deaths recorded from the Coronavirus pandemic.

 

Two graves in Brazil of people who died from the Coronavirus. CNBC/Reuters.

Global deaths from the Coronavirus pandemic have reached 5 million people. CNBC. The virus emerged in China in late 2019 and has spread globally since then. The United States had the most recorded deaths at 745,000. Deaths and infections have decreased in recent weeks, except in Europe where the pandemic is gaining cases. The virus had largely disappeared over the summer but new variants emerged, most notably Delta, which spread quicker than previous variants. Vaccines have been available for some time now and appear to have reduced the number of deaths, but experts fear a new wave could come from both unvaccinated people as well as people who have been vaccinated in the past. 

My Comment:

I'm fairly skeptical of these numbers in both directions. I tend to think that in Western countries, especially in the United States, many of these deaths are from people who didn't die directly from the virus. Many of them had underlying conditions that they died from while others are just silly. I have heard reports that George Floyd (you all know who he was) was recorded as a Coronavirus death. That may be false but I do think that there are many cases like that where someone died with the virus but not from the virus. 

In the other direction, I do think that many other countries have undercounted. China for example has lied about everything when it came to the Coronavirus, including its origin. I have no belief that they lied about everything else and then told the truth about how many people they lost. India too seems like a good candidate to have more deaths than acknowledged and many of the third world countries are probably not capable of recording Coronavirus deaths. 

I think these factors probably cancel each other out so I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are accidently accurate. Five million seems like a realistic number. It seems to match what I expect.

As for the state of the pandemic, I am wondering, along with everyone else, how much longer it will last. It seems very clear now that we will not vaccinate our way out of this mess. The vaccines were not anywhere near as effective in preventing the spread of the virus, though it did seem to have some effect on deaths and severe illness. Even if we somehow got 100% compliance on vaccines, and that is simply impossible, the virus would still spread because the vaccines aren't able to stop people from spreading the disease. 

Much of the problem is due to the Delta variant. Delta spreads quite a bit more easy than previous versions of the virus and is the dominant strain. It is also resistant to the vaccines, which were developed for the original Wuhan strain, which no longer really exists. Delta messed up India and then spread to the rest of the world, causing the current wave we are experiencing. 

Past coronaviruses have eventually evolved into less dangerous viruses. You probably know them as the common cold. I still think that is what is going to happen to the SARS-COV2 virus over time but I honestly think all the vaccines and restrictions have made this process last longer. 

I do think that the pandemic is going to be pretty much over at this point. Cases are declining globally except in Europe. Herd immunity is probably rapidly approaching and I think that the flu virus may be coming back as well. If so that virus may be able to out compete the Coronavirus. Here's hoping at least, the pandemic has been largely resilient and frustrating.