Statewide in the near nine months since our first COVID linked fatality, we’ve had enough COVID deaths to fill eight average flu seasons.
Those numbers come from New Orleans-based data analyst Jeff Asher who said when extrapolating current rates out to 12 months COVID will likely rival cancer and heart disease deaths.
“The number that jumped out to me was that the first 72 days of COVID in Orleans Parish was enough to fill 13 average flu seasons here in terms of the number of deaths, which was just astounding,” said Asher.
The average flu season was taken by averaging flu deaths every year between 2012 and 2016 which came out to 765.
Asher said the high number of COVID fatalities came despite a historic effort to prevent the spread.
“We have a shutdown, we have had mask restrictions, gathering restrictions, and it is the kind of thing that in spite of these changes it still has been significantly more deadly than most diseases,” said Asher.
Louisiana has the fifth-highest number of COVID fatalities per capita in the nation.
The state reports 6,684 people have died from COVID so far. Asher says that number is likely undercounting the real total.
“There is tons of data to support that,” said Asher. “Especially in March and April when testing was pretty minimal the number of unreported deaths was likely much higher than the number that the state has reported,” said Asher.
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