
Covid-19 stopped killing people - dustinmoris
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
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burlesona
Misleading title as this is just a link to the case graph for France.

We’ve seen plenty of similar trend in the US already - the large waves of the
summer were seemingly much less deadly than the first intense wave around New
York.

However, there is a likely combination that explains this:

1\. The initial wave in New York was vastly larger than our testing capacity,
which means it was actually less deadly than the official statistics show.

2\. Early waves of infection spread among the general populace, later waves
have spread more among the young and healthy as those at higher risk are being
more careful in avoiding social contact, while the young and healthy are being
less cautious.

Taken together these two factors mean we don’t know much about whether COVID
has changed. Because the real infections are larger by an _unknown amount_ ,
it’s not possible to know whether it is merely being detected more now, or it
is infecting less vulnerable people, or if anything else has changed.

~~~
tsk2
A third factor is that we keep learning more about how to treat COVID. Some
cases that were fatal three months ago might not be now.

~~~
verdverm
Another factor is that there are now multiple strains with different
characteristics

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quag
The equivalent graphs for the USA have Covid-19 still killing people.

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/)

~~~
jfoster
It's interesting, isn't it? What's the difference between the two?

A few possibilities:

1\. Having been through big outbreaks, some countries are now doing a much
better job of coping with it. (protecting vulnerable, treatments, etc.)

2\. In some countries the dominant strain has become milder. (though wouldn't
the deadly strain also still circulate, resulting in just fewer deaths?)

3\. It already got to the vulnerable people in France. (though surely there
would be somewhat more deaths, not almost none?)

4\. False positives in PCR testing. (I'm no expert, but it seems there are
particular ways to run the test that may result in increased incidence of
false positives)

What other possibilities are there?

