January 2022 — how was it for you? It was Australia’s worst for COVID.
Let’s start with the US wrap up for COVID in January 2022 — in the context of prior month trends. Over 20 million covid cases reported — that’s the highest ever case number; higher even than India during the Delta surge. January recorded 59,000 deaths. Only 3 months have recorded more deaths in this pandemic. Total US deaths are now approaching 900,000.
Still think OMICRON is less troublesome….. when a very big number (like 20 million) gets multiplied by a small number (Omicron fatality rate)… its still a big number. Current average daily fatalities are about 2,400 total for the US. Only in January/ February 2021 have we exceeded those rates.
Average daily trend (this chart is a little busy… I need to edit my macros as I didn’t plan to be sustaining a 2 year time series!). Data points are plotted at month end (and max) points. Clearly cases have peaked!
State data as of 2–2–22
I had to recalibrate my US heat maps because Omicron numbers are so large — but lets cut to the chase and look at the average daily fatality rate across the states. Red is more than 10 fatalities per million per day…very high
As for one example — my home state of Tennessee has an average of 10.7 fatalities per million per day. That translates to single digit availability of hospital and ICU beds:
I’d expect a similar picture across many of the states in red.
While several states have certainly peaked (see NY below); case levels are still very high across the country (2nd chart below)
For those that prefer tables to pictures — here’s the data:
Mississippi is having a very significant surge in fatalities:
Global Context
Here’s India — just to put the US 20 million cases in Jan into context. India recorded 6.5 million cases:
France is currently one of the leading countries in the world for new cases. Over 9 million cases recorded in January — in a country with about 1/5th the population of the US.
Denmark (small population) is leading the world in per capita cases. It recorded almost 1 million cases — and the second highest month for fatalities in its history. Fully 15% of its population tested positive in January. How long until herd immunity?
Israel — almost the exact same numbers play out here. 17% of the population tested positive for COVID in January. It was the 7th highest month for covid deaths.
Africa is recording very little cases — and the epicenter of Omicron (South Africa) has clearly moved past its peak. A look at the global map shows very little activity. I’m not sure if I can put the same level of confidence in this data as we do for US and Europe. Notice how France, Denmark and Israel stand out:
Australia has fully joined the Omicron surge with average daily per capita cases in excess of 2,800. Its kind of shocking to see how an island nation with tough lock downs can have been so successful for some many months — only to see Omicron surge this way. January was the highest ever month for COVID fatalities.
Originally published at http://jf-insights.com on February 4, 2022.
