By John Bozek
Let me begin to say that I am and never was in any way in the medical establishment. I spent my career as a scientist in many other disciplines and as a result love numbers and trends.
I will not attempt to answer questions about why, I only want to show what is happening. With this in mind, I have been tracking the metrics associated with the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the US, Colorado and Archuleta County Colorado.
Figure 1 and Tables I and II below are cumulative metrics up to 11/27/21 (except when analyzing flu metrics). Cumulative metrics seem to me the best type of metrics since cumulative metric trends are not visibly unduly influenced by short term events.
As seen in Figure 1, the 11/27/21 cumulative tests, cumulative cases and cumulative hospitalizations in the US, Colorado and Archuleta County are about equal when data is available. However, Figure 1 shows that US deaths per 100,000 population at 11/27/21 were 4 times higher than Archuleta’s death rate while for Colorado it is 3 times higher than Archuleta’s. A good thing to live in a small community.
One overall depressing aspect of Figure 1 data is that all cumulative metrics of tests, cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise without bending over to indicate the virus is under control.
Table I gives us some hope. It shows several ratios of the cumulative metrics where data is available (cases per tests, hospitalizations per cases, deaths per hospitalizations and most significant deaths per cases).
If one concentrates on the shaded portions in Table I above, interesting observations become evident. As seen the US, Colorado and Archuleta County deaths per cases show, surprisingly, that the US and CO both equally close to 1% with Archuleta County deaths per cases 3 to 4 times lower. A good thing for us in Archuleta County. Or, it can be said that once one gets COVID there is close to a 99% chance of surviving. Also, in Table I we see that one has a somewhat better chance of surviving a hospital stay if one lives in Colorado.
In Table II we see (also in the shaded portion) that the deaths per cases is 25 times higher for COVID than the flu in the US.