CDC Summary For The Week -- February 17, 2023

Updates

February 18, 2023: more than one reader has told me that the tens of thousands of clinical labs across the United states, public and private, free-standing and hospital-based, for-profit and not-for-profit, conspired to report every "seasonal flu" test as negative in 2020 to continue the Covid-19 charade -- see chart in original post, which explains why there was no "seasonal flu" during the pandemic. It gets tedious.

Original Note 

In a long note like this, there will be typographical and content errors. 

Wow, I'm in a great mood tonight. I might just stay up all night listening to music.

Until a reader sent me a Covid-19 graphic earlier this evening, I had completely forgotten about my weekly CDC postings. 

Link here.  

I have never seen such an interesting "seasonal flu" year as this year. One of the earliest and one of the shortest (flu seasons). Hopefully we'll see some studies of this "seasonal flu" year in a year or two, or at least some "Richard Feynman" thoughtfulness. 

Lots of graphs at that link, most of which I often post, but I'd rather do something else tonight, so for now just one graphic.

This was almost the first thing I posted after the outbreak:

The best historic precedent: The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people – about a third of the world's population at the time – in four successive waves. The death toll is typically estimated to have been somewhere between 17 million and 50 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

1918 - 1920 -- two seasons.

And the graph above? Two seasons: 2020 - 2021. 

Very interesting. 

Very few even knew what a virus was in 1918. Now, there are 330 million viral experts in the US alone. And folks tell us that US public education is failing. LOL. Public schools in the US excel in three areas:

• urban studies;
• virology; and,
• political science.

In Texas, add a fourth: football. 

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From Less Than A Year Ago

Link here, April 27, 2022:

In a long note like this there will be content and typographical errors. I often mis-read things. 

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.  

As you go through this note, remember: the number of deaths -- from all causes -- increased by 20% year-over-year, 2020 over 2019. I think a lot of folks forget that. For me, I easily could have been a statistic but I had two good years with granddaughter Sophia. My wife with several co-morbidities is also a survivor. 

In round numbers from memory:

• the US generally has about 2.75 million deaths from all causes;
• in 2020, the year of the plague, the number of US deaths from all causes, jumped from 2.75 to 3.4 million deaths:
• roughly 30% of deaths from all causes were due to infectious lung diseases
• back-of-the-napkin:
• (3.4 million - 2.75 million)/2.75 million = 24% jump in all deaths, year-over-year into the plague year; deaths from "usual" causes did not increase
  
• (3.4 million -2.75 million) * 0.30 = 195,000 deaths due to infectious lung diseases and almost none of them bacterial pneumonia, leaving a viral pneumonia
• just think how better off we are with all the anti-viral medications coming available!

Before we begin, this from August, 2021:

Now, fast forward to April 27, 2022. Almost two years to the day since the lock downs began. Very similar to the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 - 1920. The pandemic is over for the US: Dr Fauci.

I posted an update earlier this morning with much of the Covid news coming out today. There were several takeaways but I won't repeat them here.

What I find most interesting is looking back on the Covid-19 and "seasonal flu" data compiled by the CDC during the last five years or so. 

Wuhan flu. The blog.  Coronavirus: statistics.     Seasonal flu: CDC.  

From the CDC site today.

I think this is the most interesting graphic. Even Sophia, seven years old, with a little help from an adult, could interpret this graph:

Comments:

• hospitalizations due to "influenza" -- laboratory diagnosed; probably does not include Covid-19; simply "seasonal flu"
• for the past seven seasons, 2016 - 2017 to 2021 - 2022 to date, inclusive.
• the year of the plague, 2020-2021: lowest rate ever; absolutely amazing; there will be much discussion over at the CDC on this one;
• current year, to date, is running higher than 2011 - 2012 (but just barely) and higher than 2020 - 2021, but well below all previous years, and by quite a bit
• 2017 - 2018 was particularly bad.

This is my second favorite graphic, influenza- ("flu," "seasonal flu") pediatric deaths:

Comments:

• this is simply phenomenal
• from the 20th week in 2020 (the year of the plague) to the 45th week of the following year, 2021, there was one pediatric death recorded in the entire US associated with influenza; 
• this includes all the undocumented children crossing the southern border, and housed closely together;
• this includes all the kids with severely compromised immune systems, particularly cancer (think leukemia)
  
• during the past winter, it appears there were 20 such deaths in the entire United States;
• none have been reported in the current last couple of weeks
• compare the last "clump" with the two larger "clumps" in 2018 - 2019 and 2019 - the fourteenth week of 2020 (pre-Covid)!

After that, you can scroll through the CDC site and check out the other graphs and charts.

This would be my third favorite: this is all deaths due to pneumonia, influenza ("flu," "seasonal flu"), and Covid-19.

Comments:

• the CDC has separated the deaths by PIC "code" (pneumonia, influenza, Covid-19);
• because many folks question correct coding, let's forget about the specific cause (code) and just lump everything together
• it was the 14th week of 2020 (or thereabouts) when the lock downs began;
• prior to that: three small yellow "clumps": percent of all deaths due to PIC
• look at the small percentage: at worse (2018): 2%
• at best, 2019, about 1%, maybe slightly less
• then, in 2020, upwards of 30% - 35% of all US deaths due to PIC
• imagine had we done nothing -- no social distancing, no masking (early on) and no vaccines (later on) how angry Americans would have been with this data; and having done nothing, it definitely would have been worse, probably much worse (even if social distancing and testing/quarantining) were all we had
• back to specific codes: although one can question the accuracy of diagnosing ("flu" vs "Covid") it's hard to believe the entire US health sector conspired to show so few "flu" deaths that no "yellow" made the chart after the 14th week of 2020
• if this chart doesn't get one's attention, there's no use continuing the discussion.

Think about this. In all my years of practicing medicine, most of the time hospitals had an "occupancy rate" of about 90%. During the "flu" season it was much worse. When I trained at Los Angeles County Hospital -- on par with Cook General and anything NYC has, I assume -- we often "ran out of beds" requiring patients admitted to be on gurneys in hallways. This was not uncommon. And that would have been during periods when deaths from infectious lung diseases were running five percent of all deaths -- I'm amazed the US healthcare system -- hospitals -- in-patient units managed to survive with infectious lung diseases running at 35% of all US deaths.

Without question, "we" learned a lot these last five years: research, diagnosing, treating, public health. We should see some interesting analyses of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 - 2022. 

My nominee for US Covid-19 health care hero: co-nominees -- the chief nurse and the chief of hospital services at every major hospital across the US: public, private, military, county, city.

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Another Musical Interlude
The Nashville Sound

Slip-note or bent-note.

Floyd Cramer’s slip-note piano style.

Floyd Cramer was one of the architects of the Nashville sound.

Cramer used a style of playing that had not been heard before on a piano. Described as a slip-note style, it was familiar to guitar and steel guitar players, who would slide a half tone. Cramer however was using a whole-tone slur, hitting a note and sliding almost simultaneously into the next. He explained it gave more of a lonesome cowboy sound. 

Late in 1960 he released his own single, “Last Date,” a haunting melody that featured the slip-note sound and which was kept from hitting the top spot in the national charts only by Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” which ironically featured Cramer himself on piano. 

Cramer’s own style is sparse yet sensitive. In the intro to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” he uses half-step blue notes, played softly in the upper register, adding an upper note to make the sound even bluer. 

Other variations evolved with other players, but the sound is always unmistakably Nashville.

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Last Date
With The LaGrange (GA) Symphony Orchestra

Jason Coleman.

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Pancakes

I love waffles. Pancakes not so much.

I love making waffles. I made them earlier today and I'll probably make them again before the week is over. 

I use a brand-name waffle mix and a brand-name syrup.

It's interesting that pretty much in less than one year an "American icon" was completely erased from the American psyche. Just one year. That's how fast it can happen.

So, now the #1 American waffle mix has no spokesperson, as it were. Maybe ChatGPT.