As COVID death toll reaches 200,000, CT share remains large

There are countless ways to measure deaths, especially such an ominous and closely watched tally as the 200,000 COVID-19 fatalities the United States reached on Tuesday.

None come close to capturing the personal devastation for those 200,654 families who lost loved ones, many of them elderly, unable to hold a hand for the last time and say goodbye.

None accurately measure the way the nation, and each state and city, did or did not prepare for the disease to hit. Connecticut’s share of those deaths, 4,496 lives, is double our share based on population — all of that difference and then some, coming in nursing homes in the first several weeks of the crisis.

Unlike most mass tragedies, we could not, we cannot, use cause and effect to predict what might happen. We still can’t, as researchers at the University of Washington predict 400,000 deaths in just a few more months — a guess based on the assumption that cold weather will bring a

spike.

Still, we can compare the number to other countries and see that this nation, with about 4 percent of the world’s population, accounts for more than one in every five deaths. That, come to think of it, mirrors U.S. share of wealth, perhaps by coincidence, perhaps not.

We can compare the total to expectations. Back in on March 29 when the pandemic was new, President Donald Trump picked up on a forecast of 2.2 million deaths for the United States, if no actions were taken to stop the scourge.

“So you’re talking about 2.2 million deaths, 2.2 million people from this,”

Trump said at the time, according to the Washington Post and many other publications. “And so if we could hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000 — it’s a horrible number, maybe even less — but to 100,000. So we have between 100 and 200,000, and we altogether have done a very good job.”

That of course didn’t happen, and so the 200,000 threshold became a sort of political benchmark. Without question, Trump downplayed the crisis publicly, despite recorded conversations he had with journalist and author Bob Woodward in which he called the coronavirus ominous.

Deception? Incomptence? Democrts are using that in force, ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Trump defenders might say the same about the governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, who took strong and swift action but still ended up with the highest death rates in the nation.

“Connecticut has made great progress combating COVID-19 since we were hit hard at the beginning of the pandemic,” said Josh Geballe, chief operating officer for Gov. Ned Lamont and the point man for COVID data and response. “Today's numbers across the nation are a sobering reminder that this isn't over and that we need to continue to follow the guidance that will help keep Connecticut safe: stay home if you feel sick, wear masks, keep your distance and wash your hands regularly.”

Connecticut’s total amounts to 1,248 deaths for every 1 million people. The U.S. total as of Tuesday is 607 per 1 million. But we don’t know how accurate that is. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association July 1 used death totals in every state in previous years compared with 2020 to show that many states are not fully counting their COVID deaths — instead reporting spikes in pneumonia or other causes.

Connecticut, state figures show, measures up with a full accounting when we compare deaths from past years.

We must continue to study the deaths and what the mean and how to slow them — which we have done as a nation, as the death rate as a percent of

That of course didn’t happen, and so the 200,000 threshold became a sort of political benchmark. Without question, Trump downplayed the crisis publicly, despite recorded conversations he had with journalist and author Bob Woodward in which he called the coronavirus ominous.

cases goes down. And we will. But in the end, the tally has its real meaning in the unfathomable, unmeasurable tragedy of lives cut short, whether they be at age 45 or 95.

This much is clear: We are still in the middle, the luxury of looking back still not in our reach.