Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 9. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.
26 thoughts on “Coronavirus Growth in Western Countries: July 9 Update”
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Cats, charts, and politics
Cats, charts, and politics
Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 9. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.
Comments are closed.
With the delta variant and others being created all over the world, why are we still allowing international travel? It’s too soon.
Because in this pandemic we have "opened up" too soon at every opportunity. It's the American way!
As soon as it looks like the pandemic is starting to recede, we retrench our efforts, and it bounces back. Rinse and repeat.
Honestly, everyone has done pretty much the same thing. For instance, every holiday here and in Europe has been marked by a significant uptick in Covid-19 cases. Even in a very sensible European country like Germany, there was an immense wave that came right after Christmas—even in spite of Merkel pleading with Germans to stay home for just one Christmas in their lifetimes to spare the country from death and plague. And they couldn't.
There's very strong projections about a 4th wave in France, perhaps start now but almost certainly starting in the Fall. And one of the harbingers will be the next spike in infections and death expected after the July 14th holiday.
I have been looking at England very closely because I am supposed to go there in the middle of August. But now there's projections of another huge wave spurred on by a combination of the new Delta variant but also by the finals tomorrow. Wembley will be packed. There's screens being set up in Trafalgar Square and throughout the country so that people can see the finals together and make sure that there's another huge wave.
As far as I can tell, every holiday in every Western country has been marked by a huge spike in the spread of the virus. You're right that we can't seem to control ourselves but no other Western country can, either.
You are quite right that this seems to be true in Europe as well.
On please. What pandemic???? Hospitalized are so low and spread out, it's a nonevent. Vaccines will show real value in the fall.
So many people are running all over the place taking vacations and so… ok. I get the desire for release. Many traveling are vaccinated so that’s good. The rest? I was in a small restaurant to meet a friend for lunch last week and there were probably 30 people in a pretty small place. It was… interesting. We stayed because both of us are vaccinated but there is no way most of them were. Fortunately the daily case count in my county is less than 5.
I won’t do that again.
With respect to the delta variant, not much point now. It is already becoming the dominant strain in the usa and any ban on foreign travel will have minimal impact.
For possible variants which do not yet have much of a foothold here, or potential new ones, there stopping foreign travel could help possibly. Maybe hopeless to expect we can dead stop any variant , but slow it down enough to give us time to catch up on vaccines, get a booster vaccine ready for a new variant, or maybe eventually have a new variant which is even more contagious ( so drive out others) but way less deadly. Which is the way the Spanish flu got resolved.
Given what the uk looks like, have some hope that the delta variant might be the first step in that mutation.
So for any fairly trustworthy and modern nation ( mostly western), not much point of banning foreign travel as long as no indication they have a new bad variant endemic. For other nations, banning or limiting travel might make more sense simply because you cannot trust their reporting and may have a mutation not yet publicized. And that is not blaming a poorer nation for that - they do not have the resources we do.
The variant I might watch that we know about is the south African one as that has not yet gotten much of a foothold here.
Don’t go to England. This is the problem as I see it. People think they can do that. I have the same debate with my sister who wants to run all over the world traveling. Just don’t go. Sorry. Life is not back to normal yet.
And international travel ought not be a normal thing in the future anyway. Just don’t go.
I don't see the UK travel as that big a risk to the nation as a whole. Yes, their case counts are getting higher but still nowhere near what it was both there and here last winter. Yes, travelling there might slightly increase the chance of catching covid and bringing it back here, but the net impact on case counts here will be very marginal and not a huge factor. In fact, the extra risk is probably due to travel per se rather than it being to the uk.
Months ago, when the delta variant was starting to become widespread in the uk but not yet in the usa, that was the window to consider banning uk travel. If you want to restrict foreign travel, need to react at the first sign of trouble or do not bother as too late.
It’s never too late. The first sign of trouble was a year and a half ago.
The UK uptick is now quite noticeable.
the new scale helps
No it isn't
Go back to the old scale and it's barely a blimp
The uk uptick in deaths is noticeable on the new scale because their deaths dropped way so low before. If the current level of uk deaths continued on at that level, not really much of a problem. The issue in the uptick is if it is a sign of a continuing accelerating trend, not so much its actual level now.
And the same goes for the small uptick recently in cases here. This level not a huge worry but a concern if it keeps accelerating ( like maybe where we were last late october early november).
What still looks hopeful to me re uk is how small the uptick in deaths is when you look at the much larger increase in cases. Even if you consider lag in reporting, and factor in vaccines helping stop deaths in those who catch it, the uk death #s still seem too low. Unless the delta variant actually is less deadly.
An evolution of the virus to more contagious and less deadly is what you would eventually expect as most likely. Maybe it is happening?
The Good Year is an early 2010s comedy film about birding starring Owen Wilson, Jack Black, & Steve Martin.
Not saying it is too late to do anything. With respect to things like masking and social distancing, it is arguable whether they are now worth the cost, but not "too late" to help reduce or slow the spread at least.
What I was saying is that restricting travel to the uk or other developed countries due to fear of the delta variant is almost pointless by now. Once the delta variant is the dominant strain, too late to do much. If the UK cases were higher than ours by a huge factor, might be a small benefit. But not now.
If we were germany or Canada where case counts are lower and only yet clear if delta will become dominant, then there would be an argument. But we are not those nations. Arguing that germany should be the one restricting travel with us makes more sense.
With less developed nations whose testing and monitoring for variants is less trustworthy, there is a better reason as they may have a variant that we do not know of.
If we see a new more dangerous variant is appearing in the uk, then restricting travel right away before it can get here makes sense.
But realistically that is not real world. To do it right, you have to act with incompetent info and take the chance you will look stupid if it turns out the reaction was unnecessary. And politicians will not act until there is enough public consensus and then will always be too late.
Ok… I guess my thinking is that new variants are being created wherever there is an outbreak among unvaccinated. This is particularly true in countries in Asia and Africa. I can’t travel to India and they can’t come here so that’s good. To me it just makes no sense to have people flying all over the place for vacation or business no matter their status.
I’m not going to travel. Period. And certainly not to places in the US like Missouri or the Deep South. Good luck. I’ve done my part to help save the world from this awful thing… far more than most. And I’m still doing that every day.
I assume you are vaccinated? If so, I would think that never travelling is maybe being overly cautious as it does seem the vaccines work pretty good.
But that is a personal decision weighing your own risk tolerance as well as how much you value travel. So nobody should judge that personal decision.
But my point was not about travel itself. It was just about banning foreign travel. Banning foreign travel to Europe or most of east Asia, while allowing it for domestic travel, seems sort of silly. Banning all discretionary travel would be somewhat more arguable.
And the bigger distinction is in a personal decision vs. a govt mandate. In order for the govt ( presumably the majority) to impose their will on a minority and take away liberties, the case for that action should be strong and really compelling. Maybe we were there at the height of the pandemic ( and hopefully never will be again) but not there now.
And seems pretty clear that, whether you like it or not, there is a majority in the nation that wants the restrictions still lifted . So not even the majority imposing their will on the minority. It is the minority doing that to the majority. Even if you are correct, just not going to happen in a democratic republic.
from CovidActNow....
Only 2 states in the green (<1 new cases/day/100K): MA and VT
PA and ME still heading in that direction (now at 1.3 and 1.5 respectively), MD, SD and DC hold just above 1 (1.1, 1.3 and 1.5), though some worrying signs out of SD (high positivity now)
and 17 states now under caution--either 10+ new cases/day/100K or infection rate at 1.1 or greater. Both if they're really doing bad.
Big three: state, cases, infection rate and vaccination (% total population, first dose)
CA 4.2 1.22 62%
TX 5.6 1.13 49%
FL 12.5 1.22 54%
and the states having a hard time, FL plus:
AR 20 1.30 43%
MO 17.6 1.16 46% outbreak has been going on for a while
LA 14.0 1.29 39%
NV 13.9 1.12 51%
UT 11.8 1.10 49%
honorable mentions:
WY 12.6 1.08 40% has been above 10 new cases/day/100K for a while
MS 8.1 1.24 37%
AL last state in Sunbelt to still be ok, but positivity is up to 6.1% so.....
Even if vaccinations are high, there are still pockets of uninsured--and they will get hit.
I meant un-vaccinated; but insurance probably correlates with vaccination levels.
Nice summary. In short: this isn't over.
The uk uptick in deaths is noticeable on the new scale because their deaths dropped way so low before. If the current level of uk deaths continued on at that level, not really much of a problem. The issue in the uptick is if it is a sign of a continuing accelerating trend, not so much its actual level now.
And the same goes for the small uptick recently in cases here. This level not a huge worry but a concern if it keeps accelerating ( like maybe where we were last late october early november).
What still looks hopeful to me re uk is how small the uptick in deaths is when you look at the much larger increase in cases. Even if you consider lag in reporting, and factor in vaccines helping stop deaths in those who catch it, the uk death #s still seem too low. Unless the delta variant actually is less deadly.
An evolution of the virus to more contagious and less deadly is what you would eventually expect as most likely. Maybe it is happening?
US has already entered the next wave. Delta's hitting hard with cases rapidly increasing.
Delta's R0 is 2-3x higher than the original Wuhan strain.
We have to review all those mitigation strategies previously thought to be less-effective, as they might be functionally important, if not now, then in the near-future. The natural progression of mutations will prefer higher infectiousness without regard to deadliness.
Lol, nope. by late July cases will be falling.
"By Easter 2020, it will just disappear..."
Where did you see anything saying the delta variant's r0 is 2 to 3 times the original. I have heard more like maybe 2 times but not 3. And comparing to original variant is maybe looking back to far. The alpha variant had taken over well before and appears like delta r0 maybe 50% more than alpha. Also all I have seen is it expressed as " transmissibility" and not sure that is referring to r0 or r after restrictions or r after vaccinations at x% or both. Have you seen estimates of r0 itself?
Not sure if r0 itself is useful to compare ( i.e if nobody was abiding by any caution and no vaccinations). I would want to know r after what restrictions remain and with current vaccination level.
Even possible that the r0 is not as much higher than original but delta gets around restrictions and vaccines easier. Not sure it is easy to distinguish.
Also wonder whether any extra transmission estimates are taken into account that in many places rise of delta coincided with reopening. Maybe part of what looks like more transmissibility is just due to removing restrictions. Although my guess more the opposite and many are blaming reopening more than correct if most of the rise is just delta taking over.
And another thing that could be hopeful or worrying is whether the transmissibility advantage is greater in the winter or less. Maybe delta's main advantage is having characteristics that avoid the summer disadvantage of the virus. After all, it seems to have started in India and spread here in summer.
If it has a summer relative advantage more, not near as worried. Summer still helps and I really doubt a wave in summer that is truly bad. But what about winter? If it turns out that delta actually has more of a relative advantage then, we are in trouble.
And normal likely evolution is , like you said, to greater transmissibility. But also should tend to less deadly not neutral. Killing the hosts or even making them sick is a disadvantage to a virus. A successful variant would be one where almost all are asymptomatic or very mild ( a little cough or sneezing is great for the virus) .
But maybe the biggest evolutionary incentive now is vaccine avoidance.