Relative lethality of dominant variants does not explain them

by Deep Dive

On its worst day, COVID was about twice as severe as severe flu. That means that it’d be possible for COVID to cause about 3.0 daily excess deaths per million (DEDpM).

But after Delta variant in June of 2021, COVID was no longer worse than severe flu, so only about 1.5 DEDpM would be expected from June of 2021 going forward, and even less for 2022 going forward, when Omicron predominated.

This graph shows the average daily excess death per 100,000 in weekly increments. To convert to DEDpM, you multiply by 10. Here is the same graph with notes in it:

Because the dominant COVID variant wasn’t worse than flu in this entire time-window, you would expect that the excess death would not be worse than what is seen with flu. If flu can cause ~500,000 excess deaths worldwide, then the remainder of graphed excess deaths in this chart — those not explained by COVID — would sum to 11 million.

But that’s 11 million unexplained excess deaths worldwide.

Reference

[one of the worst-ever flu experiences: The Netherlands, 2018 (yearly avg of 1.5 DEDpM)] — van Asten L, Harmsen CN, Stoeldraijer L, Klinkenberg D, Teirlinck AC, de Lange MMA, Meijer A, van de Kassteele J, van Gageldonk-Lafeber AB, van den Hof S, van der Hoek W. Excess Deaths during Influenza and Coronavirus Disease and Infection-Fatality Rate for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, the Netherlands. Emerg Infect Dis. 2021 Feb;27(2):411-420. doi: 10.3201/eid2702.202999. Epub 2021 Jan 4. PMID: 33395381; PMCID: PMC7853586. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7853586/