Disasters in Slow Motion (pt. 15) - Jun 30, 2020

June 20 (16:03 GMT) - Actual Numbers
Worldwide Cases: 8,814,580
Worldwide Deaths: 463,756
Worldwide Mortality Rate: 5.26%
Worldwide Mortality Rate (without US): 5.25%
US Cases: 2,306,049
US Deaths: 121,552
US Mortality Rate: 5.27%
US Total Recovered: 956,358

June 30 (14:08 GMT) - Actual Numbers
Worldwide Cases: 10,450,207
Worldwide Deaths: 509,142
Worldwide Mortality Rate: 4.87%
Worldwide Mortality Rate (without US): 4.89%
US Cases: 2,683,908
US Deaths: 128,842
US Mortality Rate: 4.80%
US Total Recovered: 1,122,598

The US makes up roughly 25% of Covid-19 cases worldwide while representing about 4-5% of the global population. Countries with much higher, and denser populations (such as India) are doing much better than the US - despite so many Americans stating that it is “hard” to do anything because of how dense our population is and how large our population is.

That argument is, of course, a load of garbage.

The bright side is that the mortality rate has dropped significantly in the past ten days, which we always expected it to do. How much further it will go down remains to be seen but every .10% reflects about 10,000 people worldwide who should survive. As the US races headlong into embracing infection - that’s a good thing to hear.

People keep on talking about how we just need to get everyone infected so that we can achieve herd immunity - as if that is the only way to achieve such a state. Brute forcing our way to herd immunity would be utterly catastrophic. Herd immunity normally requires between 80-95% of a population to carry antibodies. Without a vaccine, that means that a whole lot of people need to become infected. In fact, on the high end, virtually everyone in the US (since our mortality rate is just under 5%).

So roughly between 13,390,560-15,753,600 Americans would need to die for us to achieve herd immunity. If you find that acceptable, you’re a sociopath.