As a pathologist I am well versed in one of life’s certainties.
The CDC recently released some information on morbidity and mortality related to COVID-19 breakthrough cases. Breakthrough cases were defined as instances where COVID RNA or antigen was detectable in a respiratory specimen more than 14 days after the completion of a COVID vaccination protocol.
They specifically looked at hospitalized and fatal cases due to (and this is important) any cause. That means a patient who dies from complications related to an accident but has a positive COVID test would be counted in these numbers, regardless of whether or not the virus had any discernible impact on the patient’s course or outcome.
The results indicate that in the first 144 days of 2021 there were 439 deaths reported that met the criteria above, with 71 (16%) of them being “asymptomatic or not related to COVID-19.” This is almost certainly an undercount of the true number, as surveillance invariable undercounts.
That said, if the pandemic did not exist and 2021 were a more typical year, here are how many deaths we could expect from other causes in the same time period:
- Heart disease: 260,005
- Cancer: 236,555
- Accidents: 68,268
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 61,931
- Stroke: 59,180
- Alzheimer’s: 47,934
- Diabetes: 34,579
- Kidney disease: 20,343
- Influenza, pneumonia: 19,640
- Suicide: 18,744
- TOTAL: 827,180
The point here is not that fully vaccinated people still die from COVID. That’s to be expected. The point is that if you are fully vaccinated then you should probably turn your attention to combating the things that are actually going to kill you. To that end (so to speak) you should walk frequently, do some resistance exercise, eat better, meditate, drink in moderation, and quit smoking.
Nobody gets out of this alive, but if you want to keep the grim reaper in the waiting room, those tactics are the biggest bang for your buck.