Yesterday's numbers are bad in the category that counts the most, Deaths. "Death is different," our courts have intoned when the ultimate penalty is sought by the government, and in COVID as well. The most important metric is Deaths. President Biden will own this data in toto tomorrow. The 14-day changes will be all his, the 7-day daily averages, all his, and of course the raw daily numbers. Were I the opportunity to ask the president one question on COVID, and I hope the press does at the first opportunity, it would be this. "Mr President, what specifically have you done or not done in your first two weeks in office that has caused average daily Deaths to be slightly higher than in your predecessor's last two weeks?"
14-day changes
-30% Cases
-22% Hospitalizations
+2% Deaths
Stupefying. Daily hospitalizations have decreased even more yet daily deaths have increased.
7-day averages
141,146 average daily Cases on Jan. 27-Feb. 2, 2021. Down.
98,820 average daily Hospitalizations. Down. The first time the average has been under 100k since Nov. 30-Dec. 6.
3,062 average daily Deaths. Down. (In 46-1's last week the daily Deaths were 3,056).
Feb. 2 Dailies
114,437 new reported Cases in President Biden's thirteenth day.
3,532 new reported Deaths, a completely unexpected and meteoric rise over Feb. 1's daily. Whatever, if anything, Biden has done to get daily Deaths down has failed utterly.
