How does the coronavirus compare to other major causes of death in an average week?
In just weeks, covid-19 deaths have snowballed from a few isolated cases to thousands across the country each day.
The U.S. surgeon general had warned that last week would be like Pearl Harbor as he attempted to create context for the threat — but it turned out that more than five times as many Americans died from covid-19 last week than were killed in the World War II raid.
You can grasp the scale when you compare a single week’s pandemic deaths with how many people die of major causes in a typical week.
In early and mid-March, when America began widespread closures, quarantines and social distancing, covid-19 caused many fewer deaths than other common causes — fewer in a week than chronic liver disease or high blood pressure, and far fewer than suicide or the common flu. By the end of March, the toll was closer to the average weekly deaths from diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. Into April, weekly covid-19 deaths climbed past those from accidents and chronic lower respiratory disease. And last week, covid-19 killed more people than normally die of cancer in this country in a week. Only heart disease was likely to kill more people that week…
To read the entire article from The Washington Post, click https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/16/coronavirus-leading-cause-death/?arc404=true&utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most
