USA
The three charts below, all taken from the CDC website (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm), show weekly deaths from all causes for 1) the US, 2) New York State and 3) New York City.
- The first chart clearly shows the first and second waves hitting the US overall in April/May and then the winter.
- In the second and third charts, for New York and New York City respectively, we see that, the first wave was much more severe, showing the potential for covid to overwhelm hospital systems. In New York City, deaths rose from a typical 1100 per week, to over 5 or 6000 per week during the height of the March/April crisis.
- Interestingly though, New York City has not really experienced a winter wave, which may be because covid has already burned through many of the communities and at risk populations (see the death table).
- This highlights the importance of looking beneath country averages to understand spread by region/city.
EUROPE
Pooled all cause mortality data from 27 countries in Europe for 2017-2021 is shown below. The 2020 March/April covid peak clearly stands out. The winter peak is looking somewhat worse than the 2018/2019 flu season.
Note: the chart’s y-axis does not start at zero which makes the deviation from the normal range look more dramatic.
Source: https://www.euromomo.eu/
The Euromono website also had a useful breakdown by age, which is worth checking out, but I have pulled out some of the data below to tempt you. (Caution; the y-axis scales on these charts are different by age group, so you have to be careful in judging the size of any variation vs the norm). Some highlights:
- There is NO excess mortality for the 0-14 age group, confirming that covid is NOT a significant risk for the young
- There is scarcely ANY excess mortality for the 15-44 age group. (Make sure you check the y-axis scale).
- If you are over 75, covid is a big deal.
