Covid: Cases vs Deaths
News stories keep reporting record numbers of cases but not record numbers of deaths. Santa Clara County, where I live, shows detailed information on both, and the divergence is striking: Looking at the graphs, the case rate began to climb rapidly about a month ago, the death rate appears to be holding roughly steady. We would expect deaths to lag cases, but not by a month.
The divergence is less striking in the U.S. figures, but it's still there. Roughly speaking, over a period when case rates are more than tripling, death rates are doubling. I don't have the data in a form that would let me do a more precise comparison, but that seems to be the pattern so far.
Three possible explanations occur to me. One is that we have more testing, with the result that more of the milder cases are being spotted. If so, the reported increase in cases exaggerates the real change. A second is that we have gotten better at treating Covid, which would be good news but consistent with the increase in cases being real. A third is that fewer of the patients are old. Has anyone here spotted an analysis of the data that can distinguish among those alternatives?