Do We Still See “Death” as Death?

Do we still see “death” as death?

In late Sept, early Oct 2020 I started hearing a lot of pandemic talk from politicians about our nation “making the turn” – “going to disappear” – “get back to normal” –  again, all this in relation to the pandemic – I was concerned about this chatter because it was from our nation’s leadership, and it presented positions exactly the opposite of the medical community – why were they not in sync?

Perplexed by this disparity, I dug in (as I do) to attempt to sort out the wheat from the chaff – I was conflicted for several reasons:

1. I believe politics and medical issues are separate and distinct – I also believe, great care should be taken if ever the two find themselves in the same space – the absence of “great care” could absolutely be reckless, and perhaps criminal behavior on either or both sides.

• Pandemic numbers and storylines were becoming confusing and inconsistent for me – i.e.

1. number of tests administered,

• positivity rate of tests,

• which tests were more or less effective,

• number of cases increased and why,

• death rate of positive cases,

• causes of spread,

• prevention of spread,

• number of deaths,

1. why is this pandemic better or worse than other pandemics (not sure why that matters),

• which deaths were actually pandemic related….

• Our nation’s leaders, and our collective medical community were not able to formulate a consistent collaborated version of basic truths surrounding the pandemic – even as the basic truths were continually evolving (as we learned more), the two messages were just significantly different.

• We (American’s) were left to decide who to trust, when, in theory, the two entities (Govt & Med Community) should have been in sync – this really frustrated me, and millions of Americans – we elect our state and national leaders – those leaders appoint subject matter experts to run the organizations/agencies which address things like a pandemic – but somehow, this simple process become corrupt and clear/accurate messaging paid the price as confusion/conflict  continues to reign in the land.

Okay, I said all that to point out as this disparity unfolded, ‘we the people’ picked sides, armored up our social medias, and started to launch blame and insult at each other (insert disgruntled face here)  – all the while, I was still very confused and frustrated by the lack of clear/accurate messaging.

So (the point of this rant), I did two simple things to help my (very twisted) mind understand and track a simple and measurable status/condition of the pandemic (for me) – I believe in doing the work, not just following the agendas – so, on 7 Oct 2020 I got to work at sorting this out for me:

1. I dug deep into what is it that causes a death to be considered pandemic related – BLUF, in the US the death certificate does – there are a great many details and hands associated with this process – I’m not for or against the process, but it’s the same process we had before the pandemic started – plus it gave me a constant data point to measure and track – NOTE: I’ve shared insight about the death certificate a few times, pls let me know if you’d like to see those details.

• Then I started tracking daily US pandemic related deaths – the other US data points (tests, positivity rates, hospitalizations, etc…) all had external factors to consider whereas, the death of a person is a constant (albeit tragic) – I collected and compared numbers from multiple sources – then I managed that data into a simple trackable format by following these constant process steps:

1. Pull four daily data sources (US daily pandemic deaths): HHS, CDC, JHU and WHO (numbers were similar but not always the same).

• Averaged the four daily counts into one daily data point.

• Averaged those daily data points into a daily 30-day average, recalculated daily – the 30 day average is significant because daily reporting is very inconsistent (highs & lows) around weekends, holidays and anticipated subtleties of humans – more clearly, 30 averages define trends and trend lines.

• This sounds like a lot of work, but it is not – MS Excel is the closest thing to magic on the planet today (no disrespect to Harry Potter) – once it is set up (properly), it does the work for you each time you enter the new daily data from four data sources.

Why does any of this matter – because regardless of our political posture, our failed (or unblemished) economic condition, our medical beliefs, or our feelings about the pandemic…

…numbers don’t lie – numbers don’t have political agendas – numbers just paint a picture of reality – and for me, because our Govt and our Med Community are at odds, I desperately wanted to know what was real.

I’ve attached the chart that shows the results of the calculations (outlined above) – everyday, I update the data, and let the chart illustrate what I believe is real.