Excess Deaths Soar.
Despite the still-incomplete data from October and November, we were already at 400k excess deaths this year by mid November. We'll end the year far above 500k, once the total results are in about three months from now.
That's well beyond the total US civilian and military deaths in WW2.
About 345K will be confirmed COVID deaths. The rest are a mix of unconfirmed COVID deaths, deaths from other causes as COVID crowding in hospitals delay other services, and probably some increase in suicide and overdose deaths.
Sharp COVID cases in Collin county.
Collin County COVID-19 cases climbed 6x from mid-October levels. We're now at about the US average, but climbing very quickly while the national numbers appear to have peaked.
This is similar to a trend with many southern states seeing a sustained rise from a low baseline over the last couple of months, but the last 3 weeks' increase in Collin County is unusually sharp.
Cases are falling rapidly in the midwest, appear to have peaked in the NE and W (maybe even CA and AZ), but are rising in most southern states.
Projected soft flu season is real.
As I had hoped/expected, it's looking like our COVID NPIs are slamming the flu door shut this year.
Flu is less contagious than COVID, although it transmits a bit differently. Social distancing that can keep COVID at sane levels should give us a very soft flu season.
I expected this, but got a flu shot anyway.