Coronavirus Becomes Leading Cause of Death in U.S.

[Ms. Toad]

11. This is EXTREMELY misleading -

This paragraph captures the FALSE narrative the chart (intentionally or otherwise) conveys

According to a graph published Tuesday by Dr. Maria Danilychev, who practices in San Diego, COVID-19 is the cause of 1,970 deaths in the U.S. per day. Just last week, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, averaging around 748 deaths per day, but as the virus has continued to spread, the increase in daily deaths have followed. In comparison to COVID-19 fatalities, 1,774 deaths are attributed to heart disease and 1,641 to cancer.

The chart referred to plots the COVID 19 deaths on a specific day, against the average deaths for each other cause.

The AVERAGE COVID 19 deaths are currently between 350 and 400. NOT 1970.

In case the problem is not clear - what average means is that from from the beginning of the measuring period, the total number of deaths is equivalent to the average number of peopld dying every single day during the period. In other words, as if 1774 people died from heart disease every single day since the deaths from COVID 19 first started. In contrast, the COVID 19 deaths started at zero, and increased over time, so to compare to the average heart disease deaths, you have to add every single COVID 19 death up, and divide by the number of days since people started dying of COVID 19. When you do that you find that (depending on what you use as the starting day) the average is between 350 and 400.

This is bad, to be sure, but it is not averaging around 1970 per day, as the graph (and this article) imply.