Power Line’s John Hinderaker has been watching the CDC-compiled weekly number of deaths statistic for the U.S. After spiking during the Covid pandemic, the number has dropped below normal. Hinderaker posts the chart and opines the following:
I think the mortality statistics over the next couple of years will confirm that in most cases, people who died with “covid” on their death certificates would have died, in any event, in a matter of months or perhaps a year or two. This is why we are now seeing mortality dip below demographic norms: people who otherwise would have died in April 2021 died in, say, October 2020 instead.
If Hinderaker is correct, then his conclusion that our federal and state governments seriously overreacted is probably justified. The risk for most healthy people was probably roughly equivalent to that of influenza, which is to say real but not a risk for which we shut down schools, restaurants and churches.
His argument detracts not at all from the importance of producing vaccines on an accelerated schedule. For this President Trump deserves much thanks. After all, those of us who care get a flu shot annually.
I’m not quite ready to accept Hinderaker’s interesting thesis. In a year or two we’ll have a better notion of whether he is correct. I predict he’ll keep us apprised of the data on this.
