In my work I always try and spot patterns. It’s not easy, as economics is about as unpredictable as … well, the weather in Southern New England.
With Covid-19 it’s a bit easier to spot patterns as epi-curves – I’ve learned – share some commonality. Infectious diseases behave similarly, historically.
Overall, the trend appears to be fairly good. In one month case numbers have dropped by more than 60%. Hospitalizations have gone down by around 40%. And deaths have dropped by 20% or so.
What’s troubling this week, however – and we saw inklings of this last week – is a pattern I’ve observed in European data where B117 has become dominant. The precipitous drop in hospitalizations has stagnated. Still declining, but not by as much as we would have thought by now. Deaths are still alarmingly high. I can attribute some of this to lags in reporting. But, I believe something else is happening, and it has to do with B117 and other variants (which we’re barely testing for, but have certainly seeded themselves in many regions): They’re causing longer infections and more mortality. B117 is NOT yet dominant here. But once it is, we may see the case numbers plateau at a high level – like their current 70k per day – or increase. Across the Great Plain states this week, we’ve begun to see some pretty unsettling increases in cases, including a 147% rise in cases in North Dakota. Remember, it was in the Great Plains where the fall surge began.
The good news is we have vaccines and are vaccinating at a fairly high clip. Also, more people are now immune to the virus than before through natural immunity. However, as the Czech Republic is showing this week – cases and hospitalizations in ascent again – this pandemic ain’t over yet. Even in Israel – with its very high vaccination rate – cases and hospitalizations have barely decreased. Deaths have gone down, especially in the elderly, but they’re still experiencing about 35-40 deaths a day. Clearly vaccination alone is not an efficient strategy. They’re still really struggling with close to 900 people in the ICU in a country the size of Massachusetts; population-wise.
Unlike Europe we’re not doing much mitigation, which may fuel B117 even more, and possibly the other variants. I believe the vaccines will do a number on all the variants, to varying degrees. Yet, there still is some uncertainty.
I very much appreciate these updates! I don’t write on this section often but I read daily.
C-19 for 2-19 is ready.
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Your no-hype southeastern New England weather blog!
In my work I always try and spot patterns. It’s not easy, as economics is about as unpredictable as … well, the weather in Southern New England.
With Covid-19 it’s a bit easier to spot patterns as epi-curves – I’ve learned – share some commonality. Infectious diseases behave similarly, historically.
Overall, the trend appears to be fairly good. In one month case numbers have dropped by more than 60%. Hospitalizations have gone down by around 40%. And deaths have dropped by 20% or so.
What’s troubling this week, however – and we saw inklings of this last week – is a pattern I’ve observed in European data where B117 has become dominant. The precipitous drop in hospitalizations has stagnated. Still declining, but not by as much as we would have thought by now. Deaths are still alarmingly high. I can attribute some of this to lags in reporting. But, I believe something else is happening, and it has to do with B117 and other variants (which we’re barely testing for, but have certainly seeded themselves in many regions): They’re causing longer infections and more mortality. B117 is NOT yet dominant here. But once it is, we may see the case numbers plateau at a high level – like their current 70k per day – or increase. Across the Great Plain states this week, we’ve begun to see some pretty unsettling increases in cases, including a 147% rise in cases in North Dakota. Remember, it was in the Great Plains where the fall surge began.
The good news is we have vaccines and are vaccinating at a fairly high clip. Also, more people are now immune to the virus than before through natural immunity. However, as the Czech Republic is showing this week – cases and hospitalizations in ascent again – this pandemic ain’t over yet. Even in Israel – with its very high vaccination rate – cases and hospitalizations have barely decreased. Deaths have gone down, especially in the elderly, but they’re still experiencing about 35-40 deaths a day. Clearly vaccination alone is not an efficient strategy. They’re still really struggling with close to 900 people in the ICU in a country the size of Massachusetts; population-wise.
Unlike Europe we’re not doing much mitigation, which may fuel B117 even more, and possibly the other variants. I believe the vaccines will do a number on all the variants, to varying degrees. Yet, there still is some uncertainty.
I very much appreciate these updates! I don’t write on this section often but I read daily.
C-19 for 2-19 is ready.