Zincy
In Vino Veritas
The US suffered well over 1 million excess deaths as a result of the covid pandemic.
To note, these are not solely covid deaths. These are deaths associated with the effects of the pandemic as well.
This includes direct virus deaths, deaths caused by comorbidities during infection, deaths caused by lack of beds/resources/staff at hospitals, deaths caused by delays in screening, deaths caused by mental health episodes related to the virus, and deaths from increases in substance abuse attributed to the pandemic.
In total, as of 2 days ago, 923,000 deaths can be directly attributed to viral infection. Meaning the remaining 150-200k’ish deaths are side products.
Deaths amoung working age Americans are up 40% from the pre-pandemic era.
Now that we are crossing out of the pandemic phase we can start to look back at the true toll this virus wrought.
Millions around the world have died, not only as a direct result of the virus, but by factors created by both it, and our responses/lack of responses to it. The flaws in our medical systems, already apparent, were thrown into sharp relief by this plague.
Many things should return to normal when this virus abates. Our medical response system cannot be one of those. We really need to work toward bolstering it.