The question of gross deaths is a tricky one. From a timeline perspective, exponential growth can show very low numbers for a substantial period of time and then quickly become more visible. There's a lot of noise from year to year on the number of monthly deaths and small numbers may not allow for getting above the noise level. Another issue is confounding factors that affect gross deaths. In Wisconsin, there's been an observation of a substantial decrease in traffic deaths with people largely staying at home. So while we see deaths due to COVID-19 there may be fewer other deaths due to the mitigation practices. While self-isolation and social distancing are relatively recent phenomena, the likely low level (relative to total deaths) of COVID-19 deaths in very late 2019 or early 2020 mean that statistics may not be able to get past the signal to noise ratio.
What I think will be needed are regional statistical comparisons based on deaths, mitigation practices, health care system limitations, and controls for other known and measurable factors (e.g. counts of known nonCOVID-19 related deaths, like having a piano fall on you). I'm sure the epidemiologists and other health statisticians are going to be digging into that sort of thing for years.
But my personal view is that there is too much noise in the system to rely on the last few months of gross deaths to draw any conclusion. And if mitigation strategies work, COVID-19 deaths may stay in the range of noise, though I think NYC will definitely show something different.
Eville Rich
2016 S10
www.thejuicemedia.com
