We Get Results! The Bogus Death Spike of NC and CT are Now Gone!
Also: RIP, Queen Betty 2 and your awesome hats
Huzzah!
Kudos to the modelers of the CDC for updating their assumptions! You have been noticed!
The fixed graphs:
Prior posts on the bogus death spikes:
August 28: More on the Mystery Death Spike of CT and NC (that is totally bogus)
August 20: A Tale of Know Your Data: The Mystery of the Excess Connecticut Summer Deaths
You can go to the August 20 post if you want to see what the bogus spikes looked like. But, again, they were totally fake.
Thank you, CDC, for fixing this! Woot!
(I think someone must have come off vacation, but still)
Bonus: Queen Elizabeth II (RIP) and Hats!
Alas, this good news has been superseded by other death news.
Queen Elizabeth II, the UK’s longest-serving monarch, has died at Balmoral aged 96, after reigning for 70 years.
Her son King Charles III said the death of his beloved mother was a “moment of great sadness” for him and his family and that her loss would be “deeply felt” around the world.
Senior royals had gathered at her Scottish estate after concerns grew about her health earlier on Thursday.
Not being a subject of Betty, which I prefer to remember her as (given my own grandma was a Betty, and she reminded me of my grandma — remember, the one I used to talk death with all the time), the thing I most fondly remember her for is her collection of hats. What a queen of hats.
Here are a few of my favorites.
96 is a good finish, to be sure.
Queen Betty 2 was the longest-reigning of the British monarchs, and her son will be the oldest of them to ascend. Indeed, a little British trivia — at age 73, only 4 monarchs lived to be older than Chuck 3 is right now: his own mother, Vicky, George 3, George 2 (I do not include Eddie 8 for obvious reasons). I assume his own sons should live to be older than 73, as well as his own grandchildren. It’s interesting that the Germans lived so long.
Anyway, I will close out with this actuarial perspective on longevity (leavening the inevitable COVID conspiracy-mongering):
