Op-Ed: You’re Only Hearing About 1 of 3 Important COVID Stats

You cannot watch TV, or go on social media without seeing multiple, even dozens, of headlines about "XXX new COVID Cases here"  or "Tri-Cities-WA State reports XXX new cases,"  or even "Record number of new cases..."

There are also some other statistics that are well buried or not even reported in the media or by other sources. It would seem easy to assume that with all the push being made about new cases, and only new cases, that along with that death and hospitalization rates would be skyrocketing.

While of COURSE COVID has to be taken seriously (no one doubts that), you have to wonder why these other two important statistics (and perhaps even others) are skimmed over.

We have included three graphs, taken from the Washington State Department of Health as of July 8, 2020 via the Benton Franklin Health District site.

The first one (orange) shows the "death curve" or the number of persons dying from COVID-19 itself.  The second (yellow) shows the number of hospitalizations.  That graph shows hospitalizations appear to have peaked in April, and have dropped significantly. Yet, Gov. Inslee and other officials indicate hospitals are running out of space, beds and room. If that was the case, then why were these alarms not being sounded six weeks ago?

The orange graph shows a significant drop in deaths since a similar peak in April. While the virus still affects elderly and compromised individuals the hardest, why have the death rates not risen to match the rise in COVID positive tests? (See the blue chart-positive test cases).

When it comes to news reports, media and other information, compare this data with what the headlines are, and what is being "pushed."  You will quite likely notice the emphasis is on  all the "new" cases. And when new deaths are actually reported, there is little or no mention of the age demographic or underlying health conditions. You have to look that up for yourself.  You have to wonder why that is...

To see the dashboards for yourself, click on the button below.