From today's Washington Post:
As the number of new
coronavirus cases continues to increase worldwide, and more than a dozen states and Puerto Rico are recording their highest averages of new cases since the pandemic began, hospitalizations in at least nine states have been on the rise since Memorial Day.
In Texas, North and South Carolina, California, Oregon, Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Arizona, there are an increasing number of patients under supervised care since the holiday weekend because of coronavirus infections. The spikes generally began in the past couple weeks and in most states are trending higher.
Data
from states that are reporting some of their highest seven-day averages of new cases is disproving the notion that the country is seeing such a spike in cases solely because of the continued increase in testing, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.
...
Arizona has also been struggling with its bed capacity. On Friday,
Banner Health, one of the largest health-care systems in the country, confirmed that ICUs in Arizona were nearing capacity. Roughly 50 percent of all those hospitalized are in Banner Health facilities. As of Monday, 76 percent of all ICU beds in Arizona were in use, according to data from the state health department.
You can compare flu deaths and COVID-19 deaths, but you must make an adjustment. Usually less than 50% of reported flu deaths are from people who have been hospitalized. Almost all COVID-19 deaths that have been counted to date (over 112,000 now in this country according to John Hopkins) have been from patients who have been hospitalized. That is one reason why the numbers are considered low in the United States, since an unknown but probably significant number of people who died at home or at nursing facilities have not been counted in the 112,000 number.
150,000 deaths from the flu in the U.S is considered an extreme flu season. The usual death numbers are around 40 - 50,000. But that includes the cases estimated from people who did not die in a hospital. If you look at the hospitalized deaths the number is usually closer to 20,000. If you adjust the number of COVID-19 deaths to twice the number in hospitals (which I do not recommend doing since the numbers are so unclear) you would have 224,000 deaths. And the numbers keep increasing.
You see the inability to properly account for total number of deaths in other countries as well, particularly under developed countries. No one knows how many people have really died from this disease in those countries since there was inadequate testing and medical facilities. You can look at the total number of deaths this year versus last year and take a guess, but it is only a just that, a guess. Those numbers would be multiples of "official" deaths.
As for age and the coronavirus, look at Orange County.
COVID-19 Case Counts and Testing Figures | Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) The largest percentage of COVID-19 cases is in the 25 - 34 year old age bracket, with the second highest percentage in the 45 - 54 year old age bracket. The most deadly illnesses are in the 85+ age bracket. But to argue that we should minimize those is a rather inhumane argument. Just because you are 85 and older, or 65 and older, does not mean that your life has no value.
According to a very recent British study the best way to minimize the spread of the illness is for people to wear masks. According to the study that is an even better control than shutting down the economy. This just came out so it will require study. However, given the number of people who don't wear masks because they don't want to, that is simply not going to be an appropriate solution in the United States.