Local Media Hype Sacramento’s ‘100th Confirmed Coronavirus Death’

Breathlessly reporting Sacramento’s 100th confirmed coronavirus death,” local radio and print media have jumped the shark.

Calling it “a grim milestone that comes as pandemic deaths continue to accumulate across California amid a surge in COVID-19 activity that’s continued since June,” nowhere in the article does anyone do math.

“California has seen an average of 121 deaths per day over the last two weeks, Newsom says. Still, there are reasons for hope,” the San Diego Union Tribune reported this week.

Sacramento County has a population of 1,567,490.

The City of Sacramento has approximately 550,000.

The most deaths in a day in Sacramento County has been 6. The average is much lower – like 2-3 per day (see data below).

Here is how the Bee reported the latest:

“California’s capital city has a population of roughly 500,000, meaning at least about one in every 5,000 residents has died of the novel coronavirus in the past five months.”

The City of Sacramento has lost 100 of its 550,000 residents to coronavirus, and that is assuming a lot given how many deaths have been coded COVID-19 for the inflated Medicare and Medi-Cal reimbursements.

California Globe looked at the Sacramento County data, noting they want people to focus on “cases” – those testing positive for coronavirus – rather than deaths.

Sacramento County, with 1,567,409 residents, has had 155 deaths. They report 10,544 residents testing positive, and buried in the data, they show 8,000 “likely recovered.”

Of the 250 “hospitalized cases,” only 81 are in the ICU. The data line for those in the ICU is almost flat from the beginning of April through August 6.

The boundary map of the City of Sacramento is a piece of work as the City has annexed several large areas over the years.

While the County of Sacramento, which is much larger, is this:

Again, the City of Sacramento has approximately 550,000 residents, while Sacramento County has 1.5+ million.

Notably, immediately following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press conference Monday where he reported some good news – that the average weekly number of positive tests was down by about 21% – reports of “incomplete data” were all over the news.

Following the governor’s Monday press conference of good news, Tuesday had the grim reaper, public health agency director Dr. Mark Ghaly, reporting the bad news that incomplete data was why cases were reported down.

It’s almost as if Gov. Newsom received a phone call warning him that the good news just could not be allowed.

Remember, as California Globe recently reported, Stanford’s Dr. Scott Atlas said that there’s been too heavy of a focus on an uptick in cases, “especially in places where governors either have reinstated or have further enforced restrictions. When we see this focus on more cases, it doesn’t really matter how many cases — it only matters who gets the cases (see graph below). We know that the infection-fatality rate for people under 70 is 0.04 percent — that’s less than or equal to the seasonal flu,” he said.

Notice in the graph that the first age group is 0-49, and then each subsequent age group is broken down by 10 years. Not only does the 0-49 age group have the fewest deaths (12), it is very likely those deaths are also in the 40-49 range. But the county does not provide the data.

Another Stanford doctor, Dr. Michael Levitt announced two weeks ago that US COVID-19 will be done in 4 weeks. Levitt said the U.S. saturates at no more than 170,000 deaths.

With good news like this, is it any wonder that “incomplete data” is now to blame for any of the uplifting news?

For perspective, as we like to remind readers, Victor Davis Hansen reported, “California loses about 270,000 lives to all causes every year — meaning, on any given day, around 740 Californians die.”