In Boulder County over 355 people have died with COVID-19 as of March 27, 2022. COVID-19 has hospitalized hundreds more and has caused a nasty illness for some with long-term illness for others. For links to references, click here.

From Fear to Facts

The above facts look cold and hard, especially to those who have lost a loved one or continue to struggle with long Covid. These facts are not meant to increase pain, but to diminish fear and the cascade of suffering that results from fear.

As awful as this virus is, there is another deadly virus, which is fear. Fear has increased rates of depression and suicide in Boulder and around the world. Fear has eroded freedoms around the world and in Boulder County. The goal of this page is to present facts about COVID-19 to help liberate you from fear and give you the information to make good choices to protect yourself, your family, and the community.

COVID-19 Kills the Most Vulnerable

The following graph shows that COVID-19 kills older people. What this graph doesn’t show is that most of these older people had, on average, four other comorbidities, according to the CDC.

Boulder County COVID-19 Death Statistics:

As of January 27, 2022, the total number of people who have died with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic is 389, according to Boulder County and the Daily Camera. Info below is from Boulder County Coroner.

Bouler Statistics by Year

• From Jan 1, 2021 to November 2021:
  • 78 people died of COVID-19
  • This represents fewer than 3% of deaths by all causes.

• In 2020:
  • 219 people died of COVID-19, accounting for 7.1% of deaths by all causes (3077), according to the Boulder County Coroner
  • For context, in 2020, 130 people died deaths of despair (ie to suicides and drug/alcohol overdose.)
  • No one under the age of 30 died of COVID-19.
  • 78 of those who died from COVID-19 in Boulder County were not registered as Boulder County residents.

Most Boulderites Are Immunized: Naturally, With Vaccine, or Both

Like most Americans, the majority of Boulderites have antibodies, T-cells, or B-cells against COVID-19 through natural immunity or through vaccination.

87% of Boulderites are vaccinated

According to Boulder County Health, 87% of Boulder residents over the age of 5 have had at least one vaccine.

Among the most vulnerable, the vaccination rate is nearing 98%. According to the New York Times 98% of people living in Boulder over the age of 65 have been vaccinated as of January 27, 2022.

Nearly 80% of Boulderites have Natural Immunity to COVID-19.

In Boulder County, there have been  56,155 reported cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, as of Jan 27, 2022. For each reported case, there are at least an additional 4.7 people who have been infected who don’t even know it, according to the CDC. This means that around 263,000 people or around 80% of those living in Boulder are naturally immunized. (326,000 call Boulder County home.)

According to a large Israeli study, “Natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.”

Natural immunity is equal or superior to existing vaccines, according to over 140 studies showing the effectiveness of natural immunity to Covid-19.

As of January 2022, 74 million American’s reported cases of COVID-19 as of January 26, 2022. ( In January 2021, over 30% of all Americans had natural immunity to COVID-19, according to Nature.)

Nationally, there are 74 million reported cases of COVID-19 as of Jan. 26, according to Statista.

COVID-19 kills sick people

The vast majority of those killed by COVID-19 were severely ill before contracting the virus. According to the CDC, >94% of those who died from COVID-19 had on average four comorbidities, Because CDC fails to distinguish between those dying with COVID-19 and those dying from COVID-19, the percentage who die from comorbidities may be even higher. Furthermore, many hospitals do not report obesity as a comorbidity. If obesity were included, the percentage of deaths due to comorbidity may be higher yet.

COVID-19 kills sick people who happen to be old.

As people age, many become ill and more susceptible to COVID-19. While some believe that COVID-19 kills everyone, facts reveal a different story.

The average age of people killed by COVID-19 is older than the expected average lifespan (79 in the US). This is also seen in the UK, where the average life expectancy is 83 and the average age of people killed by Covid is 84. 93 percent of COVID-19 deaths nationwide have occurred among those ages 55 or older, according to data from the CDC.

“As of December 2, 2021, around 28 percent of total COVID-19 deaths in the United States have been among adults 85 years and older, despite this age group only accounting for 2 percent of the U.S. population.” according to Statistica.

COVID-19 does not kill young, healthy people. The CDC reports that 542 children under the age of 18 have died with a COVID-19. According to research conducted by Johns Hopkin’s Professor Dr. Marty Makary, all of the children they examined who died of COVID-19 had a preexisting illness.

Notes

In addition to the bad news about COVID-19, we now know enough to protect people, including the most vulnerable without implementing draconian measures. We can also find reassurance to know that in Boulder County, no one under the age of 30 has died of COVID-19 and that we can give extra care and protection to those most vulnerable. Data also shows that many people have natural immunity which is up to 27 times more effective than vaccines.

If the social and economic disruption was necessary to prevent a Black Death type of pandemic, it would have been worth it. Data shows that the COVID-19 pandemic was orders of magnitude less deadly. We need to make sure that the cure is not more deadly than the disease.

What if we put COVID-19 into perspective? Would we be so afraid? Would we allow others to mandate lockdowns, masks, vaccines, vaccine passports, and government overreach? Could we save more lives? Would we allow the transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthiest 0.0001 percenters?

REFERENCES

Boulder County Health Dept COVID web page https://www.bouldercounty.org/families/disease/covid-19-information/covid-19-data-stats/covid-19-data/

New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/boulder-colorado-covid-cases.html

CDC- Boulder County – https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view?list_select_state=Colorado&data-type=&list_select_county=8013

John Hopkins – https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Johns Hopkins Dashboard – https://bao.arcgis.com/covid-19/jhu/county/08013.html

Colorado COVID Wastewater Monitoring Data – https://cdphe.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/d79cf93c3938470ca4bcc4823328946bhttps://cdphe.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/d79cf93c3938470ca4bcc4823328946b

Colorado Department of Health – https://covid19.colorado.gov/