Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf recently took to X to mourn the “catastrophic” decline in U.S. life expectancy.
But his post, which hit on smoking, diet, chronic illness and health care, ignored the obvious: People are dying in abnormally high numbers even now and long since COVID-19 waned. Yet public health agencies and medical societies are silent.
Life insurers have been consistently sounding the alarm over these unexpected or, “excess,” deaths, which claimed 158,000 more Americans in the first nine months of 2023 than in the same period in 2019. That exceeds America’s combined losses from every war since Vietnam. Congress should urgently work with insurance experts to investigate this troubling trend.
With the worst of COVID behind us, annual deaths for all causes should be back to pre-pandemic levels — or even lower because of the loss of so many sick and infirm Americans. Instead, the death toll remains “alarming,” “disturbing,” and deserving of “urgent attention,” according to insurance industry articles.
Actuarial reports — used by insurers to inform decisions — show deaths occurring disproportionately among young working-age people. Nonetheless, America’s chief health manager, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opted in September to archive its excess deaths webpage with a note stating, “these datasets will no longer be updated.”
Covid is over, so what could it be? 
So close to getting it...
what is the intended purpose of that "year-over-year" graph from the wastewater data site? why does the year begin in march? just seems unintuitive to me
Feb/March 2020 is basically when covid was acknowledged and data collection began. Using the year over year graph we can look for and compare seasonal patterns to get an idea of what to expect as well as get an idea of how fucked we are. For example, notice how the low points for each year are getting higher and higher, strongly indicating that we are heading towards what is essentially an endless wave.
I guess they start it March so that they wouldn't have to split any of the peak periods and it's (arguably) easier to see each wave come and go. I like that graph because I find more compelling to show that COVID's not over when you can see the lines all stacked right on top of each other and not quite as squashed by the Jan 2022 peak.
But I guess not everyone sees it that way, there's a button for the running total graph above and to the left for anyone who would prefer to look at it that way.
Seems okay to start tracking things through the four seasons instead of the twelve calendar months.
Removed by mod