Drilling down into pandemic reality
Recovery requires that we stop the continuing surge first, while the data shows that we aren't even starting to reverse the course.
While the United States has the most tragic COVID-19 outbreak, even countries that previously had good control are struggling. The rate of new cases is surging fastest in Great Britain, to the point that 1 out of every 50 people in the United Kingdom is thought to have been infected and prompting a harsh lockdown that began today.
If vaccinations are given to millions more people every day, the necessary “community immunity” (the new phrase being offered in place of “herd immunity) might be achieved during the summer. Or, it may take longer. Keep using those masks, please.
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/
Some of this may be explained by the emergence of increasingly virulent strains of the novel coronavirus, while much of the ongoing surge can be attributed to lax or lapsed public health precautions. As noted yesterday, epidemiologists forecast many thousand more deaths in the USA, even if more people started wearing masks, because the virus is finding its way to more vulnerable people at the very time hospitals are overflowing.
And that is one of the key points from the latest data. Although the overall rate of COVID-19 deaths is down somewhat, the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 has gone up steadily and sharply since September - with no signs of slowing down. There are now more than 130,000 people in US hospitals with COVID-19, and the number keeps climbing at the same time as hospitalizations typically increase for normal reasons, like severe flu.
Other key points:
While new cases are rising nearly everywhere, the Southeast United States is re-taking its place as the hotspot. In Alabama, the percentage of COVID-19 tests coming up positive is now over 35%, according to BamaTracker.
The FDA says it will not permit use of half-doses of COVID-19 vaccines unless there is solid data to support it. NIH and others are conducting a trial to determine whether smaller doses of the Moderna vaccine could trigger sufficient immune responses.
A hospital in northern California vaccinated 850 people in less than 3 hours after a refrigerator failed.
Security officers escorted “COVID deniers” out of a British hospitals where they were taking photographs purporting to show that there was no COVID surge, according to the BBC.
Chart by Doug Levy with data from CovidTracking.com.
The CDC now says that anyone who has had a severe allergic reaction within four hours of any vaccination should not receive either the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. The agency also says people who have had allergic reactions to polyethylene glycol (PEG) and polysorbate should avoid them. “Polysorbate is not an ingredient in either mRNA COVID-19 vaccine but is closely related to PEG, which is in the vaccines,” says the CDC.
China appears to be delaying a scientific team’s visit to study the origins of COVID-19.
Stay safe and stay warm.