March 31, 2024: Final Monthly COVID Data Update

Four years ago this month, I began emailing out or posting regular blogs regarding COVID-19.  It’s now time for me to stop, and this will be my last COVID update. 

In addition to summarizing the most recent data, I would like to add a few news items that have been put out there over the past month:

• As of January 15, 2024, there have been 7.02 million confirmed COVID-19 deaths worldwide with an estimated 28.46 million estimated excess COVID-19 deaths.  In the United States, those numbers are 1.17 million confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 1.37 estimated excess COVID-19 deaths.  As a reminder, excess deaths include confirmed deaths as well as other deaths above what we would expect based on pre-COVID death rates.  The reasons for these deaths could be due to pandemic disruptions leading to a lack of medical care for other diseases; an increase in social ills including deaths from alcohol, drugs, and murders; or errors in the coding of the cause of death.  The link for the above data is here.
• The United States has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates among high-income countries (link here).  In Panel A below, the dashed lines show the expected death rates, while the solid lines show the observed death rates.  Panel B shows the excess deaths rates for 2020 and 2021.  We did not do well.

• The CDC recently changed its respiratory virus guidance (link) despite showing that about 30-35% of people are still shedding culturable virus five days after symptom onset (link; see section on SARS-CoV-2 shedding and transmission dynamics). The following summarizes the new guidance:

• Vaccines are effective in reducing the severity of COVID-19 leading to reduced hospitalizations and deaths.  On February 28, 2024, the CDC recommended that adults aged 65 years and older receive an additional updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine dose (link).
• Data from the Pew Research Center shows that the partisan gap in COVID-19 vaccinations among adults ages 65 and older is widening (link).  I find this disheartening since public health should be a bipartisan concern.

County and State Data Updates

2024_3_27Download

Data files by county are available for download on the SDDOH dashboard and the weekly hospitalization and death data are shown below.  Numbers for the last couple of weeks may be incomplete.  The case data are significantly underreported since home test results are not included; the graphs depicting newly diagnosed cases for South Dakota and Brookings are available in the PDF. 

South Dakota:  One out of every 268 South Dakotans died from COVID-19 over the last four years (based on an estimated population size of 909,869 [2022, link]).

• Total COVID-19 deaths = 3,395 (there is a delay in reporting deaths and this is the number posted as of 3/27/24).
• There have been 14,087 hospitalizations among South Dakotans.

Brookings:  One out of every 486 Brookings County residents died from COVID-19 over the last four years (based on an estimated population size of 35,491 [2022, link]).

• Total COVID-19 deaths = 74 (there is a delay in reporting deaths and this is the number posted as of 3/27/24).
• There have been 301 hospitalizations among Brookings County residents.

Below are the cumulative number of COVID cases per 100,000 by time for the 10 counties with the most populated cities.  Codington, Davison, and Pennington counties continue to have the highest cumulative rate of COVID.

There are many great blogs out there that cover not just COVID, but other public health issues as well.  I highly recommend these two:

• Your Local Epidemiologist: Translating Public Health Science for Everyday Use by Katelyn Jetelina:  https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/
• Ground Truths: A Substack from Eric Topol: https://erictopol.substack.com/  

For more information on basic epidemiological principles, refer to the list of links to the “Epi 101” videos that were done with the City of Brookings (link). 

Take care of yourself and each other.