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Coronavirus Growth in Western Countries: February 22 Update

Published on 8 Comments on Coronavirus Growth in Western Countries: February 22 Update

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through February 22. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

8 thoughts on “Coronavirus Growth in Western Countries: February 22 Update”

  1. Brett

    UK, poster child for the benefits of rapid vaccine rollout and a better lockdown than our own. Less than half their death rate per million in the space of about a month. They might be effectively "done" with COVID by May 1st.

    But almost everyone is doing good. Even the US will probably be more or less "open" by July. I'm really holding out hope for a good fireworks show and summer movies. I want to have a big family BBQ.

    I feel a bit bad for the Swedes. They had it more or less under control (albeit much worse than their neighboring countries) for the longest time, but then slipped up and it took right off. Reinforces my belief that the virus is heavily dependent on super-spreader events to get going early on before it can really run wild, like a forest fire that needs dry brush/trees and lightning strikes to start up.

  2. D_Ohrk_E1

    A lot of people are suggesting the near-uniform decline in cases/deaths is likely seasonality. I'm not so sure.

    The same people who would likely ignore mitigation would also ignore the Influenza vaccine. Furthermore, the mitigation methods against COVID-19 are the same against Influenza.

    Yet, we can see from CDC data that the Influenza season is the mildest on record.

    As such, would you consider charting additional southern hemisphere countries with good data?

    1. Jerry O'Brien

      I think you're suggesting t's not seasonality, it's mitigation efforts having an effect. And mitigation against covid is even more effective at suppressing the spread of influenza. This makes me wonder whether we should keep up with the masks as an anti-influenza measure, even if covid should become a relatively minor threat by next year.

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        Well, I'm suggesting that COVID-19 mitigation efforts were, as I speculated last summer, useful against Influenza.

        But also, I'm hinting that, globally, we're moving rapidly towards herd immunity through the confluence of a steep increase of previously infected people, vaccinations, and mitigation that lowers the % needed to reach herd immunity.

        If we have plots of many more southern hemisphere nations, we'd be able to tease out whether or not seasonality was what we were seeing or the effects of other factors that are bringing us closer to herd immunity.

  3. golack

    Two states now at/below 10 cases/100K/day levels: OR and ME. But they seem to holding just below the 10 cases/100K level. ND and WA were below 10 for a little bit too--but jumped up a little bit.
    Weather still affecting numbers, esp. out of TX.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      In both OR & ME, it's a struggle of homeopathic left &/or sociopathic right Antivaxxxia against reality.

      Appears Antivaxxxia may be afraid to kick reality.

  4. ey81

    Vaccination rate has been dropping for nine days now. NBC reports that the Biden administration is aiming to do the opposite of whatever the Trump administration did. It doesn't seem to be working.

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