Why Are COVID Fatality Rates Dropping?

Near the end of 2020, we got some puzzling but good news: COVID-19 fatality rates have been dropping. Here are a few factors that might help explain why we’re seeing this trend.

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[firesighnavatar]

could y'all talk about the other effects of covid? I feel like people figure it's either dead or recovered 100% and people don't understand the other lasting problems this can cause.

[bastian_]

It's because they realized it needed to get into Greenland

[flavioaugustojose]

"Some drugs we thought would work didn't, so we can stop giving them to patients" -- Brazilian government has left the chat

[pyalot]

Another reason is that those likely to get it and die from it, have gotten and died from it, so they can't keep doing that.

[sebastianmunoz]

My dad passed away Dec 21st after a 5 month long battle with the after effects of covid. He left me in charge of any decision making after he lost consciousness so thank you Sci-show for helping me understand things as they were occuring and informing me of things that could have helped him. I remember when remdesivir and the plasma treatments were some of the earliest possible treatments and I requested it be given to my dad so many times. Its weird seeing these new updates after going through everything but I'm still glad you guys are there to inform, thank you.

[Mohawks_and_Tomahawks]

"Now you know. And Knowing is half the Battle"
-G.I.Joe 1985

[adamdenley]

You guys are the best. Every news outlet give up on doing their own Covid science coverage and play an episode of Scishow once an hour.

[dgray]

Finally all those prayer emojis are starting to work.

[MrNicoJac]

I feel like you've missed the most important one:

Here in Europe, we have a lot of homes for the elderly. In other words, we packed our most-vulnerable closely together.

At the start, those places were hit really hard.

As a result, the weakest people are probably already dead, and the homes by now have devised strict rules to minimise the spread.

[uss_]

Health Workers are like IT Workers
“Everything is fine, what do we even pay you for”
“Everything is falling apart, what do we even pay you for?”

[solocamo]

Because the election is over, but hey.

[Tundra-ecii]

Crab Check:
No. There are no crabs in this video.

[princeofexcess]

It's important to remember that once the most susceptible people die the death rate will also drop. It doesn't mean its a good thing

[Rin-qjzt]

remember. this could be so much worse. imagine this were the kind of pandemic where we had something like Ebola somehow become as infectious as the measles, but with as long an incubation period as covid.

[logos]

Y'all are doing great work. My thanks to Hank and the SciShow folks for the steady stream of thoughtfully presented pandemic info on top of the usual entertaining videos.

[gomezfriesen]

Why do we still call it social distancing, when really, it's physical distancing? Social distancing is bad.

[noah]

I like how Mr. Hank is dressed like a 2000’s skater kid who’s mom shops clearance at Old Navy

[thoughtfuljester]

SciSchow always makes my day. Love you guys!

[peterpan]

Let me be the a-hole here:
The amount of people most vulnerable to covid has decreased too.
Meanwhile more resistant people can get it nonetheless, without dieing.

[wintrparkgrl]

I know one thing, even after this gets under control, I'm going to keep wearing a mask everywhere I go. I haven't gotten a single cold since this started.