The Recorded Deaths vs Date of Death hype

"There were ten more Covid 19 deaths reported in the South Carolina today. An additional 29 fatalities were added for days earlier in the week, bringing this weeks total fatalities to 131. An additional 10 fatalities going back to May 29th were also added today bringing the state's total fatalities from the Covid 19 virus to 1,334. July 13th remains the South Carolina's deadliest day with 38 deaths.  Check the states web site for details." 

I guess like everything else to do with the Covid-19 "crisis" it should not be surprising that even deaths are taken out of context. Let me begin by pointing out that nearly all states do not report most deaths on the day they occurred. Even some smaller state are behind in reporting deaths since they have not yet received the data from their counties.

This is obvious when comparing when states report their deaths and when they show up on whatever "meter" you are following. Florida for example reports once a day at 10:00 AM, South Carolina once a day at 4:00 PM. Some states, California and Texas, for example, report death more than once a day, but they are never all the deaths that occurred that day nor could they be. Look at any chart of "reported" deaths and you will see up and down spikes in the graph, this is the lack of reporting on weekends look like valleys then are offset by the peaks of mid week as reporting catches up. This compounds itself the bigger the state where the reporting to recording sage can take even longer.

On July 16, the media, both local and national, breathlessly reported that South Carolina had recorded the most deaths of any day since the pandemic started, 72. Here you can see it as it is on the WorldMeter site and all other such sites.

Note that they describe this as "Daily Deaths" and "deaths per day". The reality is that more deaths were "recorded" but that was not the death count for that day. Here is South Carolina's official daily death count by day.

 It may be difficult to read, but the official count for July 16 is seven bars from the right, 23 deaths not 72. A few more may be added in the next few days as the state catches up, it will not come close to 72. Most data is pretty much complete in a week to ten days. Although it will be widely reported that July 16th was South Carolina's "deadliest day" with 72 deaths you will note that the most deaths on any day in South Carolina thus far was 38 on July 13th, 10 days ago. Today's count of 10 deaths (far right) is being recorded and reported as 49 deaths in the media. From the official South Carolina daily death count graph.

Today was Florida's "deadliest day" which is actually yesterday since Florida like almost all states is a day behind. But regardless the delay in reporting at the state level which is totally unavoidable in a nation as large as ours, distorts reality. Tonight, on the evening news we will hear that today Florida set a new record for deaths, but they did not really. Here is Florida's official daily death toll.

As of now 20 people died of COVID-19  on 7/22/2020. As the days go on, that number will grow with more reporting and recording. It is doubtful however that it will ever reach 172 since it is beginning so low. Thus far the actual most deaths on any day in Florida from Covid 19 is 104 on July 8th.

Is this important, well yes. First it is a matter of optics and second it is a matter of timing. The optics are obvious, every day that there is something "dramatic" to report is another day to prolong the "crisis." The actual daily deaths are far less dramatic looking when the graph showing fatalities is spread out.   Compare the chart above with this:

 

 Not only does it look like Florida is on a severe upswing when they are possibly headed downwards. The actual highest daily death toll in Florida, that we are sure of, is 68 less and two weeks earlier than is popularly reported or believed by the general public. The day of death charts will obviously change and more deaths will be added, but doesn't it seem important to know the actual numbers rather than the hype? Can you imagine if, from the beginning, only confirmed recorded daily deaths were reported and then an explanation of recorded deaths were explained, like I wrote at the top of this article.

Meanwhile the Case Fatality Rate, nationally, in South Carolina and in Florida continues to drop, which automatically means the Infection Fatality Rate is also dropping. While the media hypes that we went over the four million cases mark today, they fail to report that at least 2,178,000 , probably far more, have recovered, the vast majority who have never even been seriously ill or ill at all.

Covid 19 is real and as these things go, semi-serious only because there is still much we do not know. However, based on what we do know we are being played.