What should we learn from the nearly 500,000 US #covid19 deaths to date?

@zhoyoyo and I teamed up for a deep dive into the data.

The big takeaway: the virus spared no one — no community, no age cohort, no part of the country. 1/11 https://www.vox.com/22252693/covid-19-deaths-us-who-died

At the same time, some groups have been hit way harder than others.

At the start of the pandemic, a trend emerged that's held: people of color of overrepresented in both US #covid19 cases and deaths.

As if that weren't bad enough: people of color are also more likely to die young from #covid19 compared to white people:

But a little-appreciated shift occurred throughout 2020: the share of #covid19 deaths among white people grew, while the share among Black and Latino people decreased.

(For more on what happened, details ) https://www.vox.com/22252693/covid-19-deaths-us-who-died

So over the course of the US epidemic, the #covid19 racial death gap has narrowed:

- In August, Black people died at 2.5 times the rate of white people
- By November, the rate was 2.2
- In early February, it was 1.5

What that says: if you were a white person sitting in Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska, watching the pandemic play out in minority communities in urban centers, and you thought you'd be spared, you were wrong.

If you thought you were safe working from home, even though the virus was running rampant among essential workers (like your cleaning person or nanny) you were wrong.

Again, the virus spared no one.

We saw a similar shift occur among age cohorts: throughout the #covid19 pandemic, older people have been way over-represented in the deaths.

Specifically, people over 60 account for almost *90%* of the deaths. But...

... a virus that began by mostly affecting older folks shifted into younger people last spring.

So more disability, illness, #longCovid for younger folks who thought they'd be spared. It also meant passing the virus on to elderly friends and family members who may have died.

That seems to be the pattern of the pandemic, how SARS-CoV-2 went from being a distant threat in China to a global tragedy: People who thought they wouldn’t be impacted, or who couldn’t protect themselves, passed the virus on, and on.

So again, what should we learn from the deaths? I think @sandrogalea put it best:

"The health haves cannot keep ignoring the health have-nots. Because everyone is susceptible to Covid, the fact [that] higher-risk groups exist makes everybody vulnerable.” 11/11

Full details in the story with
@zhoyoyo and a team of behind-scenes others including @kainazamaria @elizabarclay and Tim Williams https://vox.com/22252693/covid-19-deaths-us-who-died

Also thanks to @shwoolf @sandrogalea @ambilinski @JuliaRaifman @JonSkinner17 @WeinbergerDan for essential feedback