Here's the current mortality rate in the US compared to the same group of peer countries that I've been following for the past year:
The peak mortality rates during winter mostly ranged from about 5 to 10 deaths per million, so we're still quite a bit lower than that. Nevertheless, the US death rate is the highest in this group of countries and is heading straight up. This is all due to vaccination rates, which are higher in every single one of these countries than in the United States.
So get vaccinated, people! The fact that we have highly effective and incredibly safe vaccines easily available to anyone is nothing short of a miracle. It's crazy. Why are so many people spurning a gift from God?
How many epitaphs should read: "I really owned those LIBS"
Enough to almost certain turn Florida reliably blue before 2022. Texas may be on the brink, also.
Instead of overthrowing the election, maybe we should redo the census.
How?
Don't know much about Florida but Texas is unlikely to turn reliably blue in any of our lifetimes. From what I've been reading, the GOP has extremely sophisticated gerrymandering plans that will cage all of the big cities where the majority of people live and redesign rural districts so that there will be a greater number of even more sparsely populated but reliably Republican districts.
I've also read about seriously ramped up voter suppression legislation (this is related to the reason why the Democratic legislators fled the state). In the absence of any meaningful pushback from the Democrats in Washington D.C., there might be a few slender victories in statewide offices but the power of unchecked voter suppression and gerrymandering will eventually put a stop to that.
That plus the total disinterest by Democrats in securing the support of Latinos in Texas (and elsewhere, too) probably keeps the state as a Republican stronghold for generations.
Gerrymandering can keep the state legislature in Republican hands, but it can't change the outcome of a statewide election. Voter suppression aims to do that, but it only works at the margins. If Dems get voters to the polls, we win.
I don’t see why voter suppression only works at the margins, particularly if concerns about federal reactions are no longer relevant. But it’s also true that gerrymandering can change the effect and probably the outcome of a statewide election. We’ve seen in Wisconsin, Georgia, and elsewhere that Republicans have simply used the power of deeply gerrymandered state legislatures to strip Democratic governors or Secretaries of State of their powers.
We’re also seeing Republican state legislatures assert the power of overriding elections and that’s something Democratic leaders have been disinterested in opposing. Just as they can’t get it together enough to deal with the gerrymandering and voter suppression.
You can’t out organize gerrymandering and voter suppression. It doesn’t make any difference whether Democratic voters go to the polls or not if their votes don’t count.
Normally I'd say geez Mitch is always the glass is half empty guy and to lighten up. Unfortunately though Mitch is right about the voter suppression methods being attempted right now - because the guardrails have mostly been declared unconstitutional. We can try to outdo expectations but the headwinds this cycle are far stronger than they have been since the 1960s.
I know it's fun to think of your political opponents dying, but the numbers I have seen indicate that black and Hispanic people have the lowest vaccination rates and the highest death rates, so I'm not sure that the pandemic is going to shift America political outcomes perceptibly to the left.
Today we are all John Wilkes Booth burning to death in a barn fire.
(Allegedly.)
Heh. What a wimpy epitaph. Me, I'm going that traditional favorite, "Pity stayed his/her hand." And on real estate close to the road so when people drive by they'll say to each other, "Wotta guy!"
The vaccines are no more “a gift from God” than the virus.
Well, easily available to anyone in the United States… so is the US somehow special in the eyes of this God? …
Methinks KD couches his encouragement in phrases the unvaccinated would more likely respond to positively.
Yes, & more nimbly than the casting director for the Eyes of Tammy Faye, who seemed to think, in going for Jerry Falwell, he was casting Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a never released biopic of PGA Tour stalwart Tom Kite.
Ohhh, the tubs of humanity!
You must be new here. Kevin is an atheist, so any references to a divinity are strictly tongue-in-cheek.
Or else you're just trolling.
Not new, but perhaps overly credulous.
Many people in the US would say in the eyes of God, the US is the specialest.
Oldie but applicable:
A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help.
Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, "Jump in, I can save you."
The stranded fellow shouted back, "No, it's OK, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me."
So the rowboat went on.
Then a motorboat came by. "The fellow in the motorboat shouted, "Jump in, I can save you."
To this the stranded man said, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith."
So the motorboat went on.
Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, "Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety."
To this the stranded man again replied, "No thanks, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith."
So the helicopter reluctantly flew away.
Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, "I had faith in you but you didn't save me, you let me drown. I don't understand why!"
To this God replied, "I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?"
To which the man replied, “But Tucker Swanson Carlson wasn’t piloting any of those craft.”
????????????
Take your (multiple) choice:
American Exceptionalism
Ayn Rand et al.
The American frontier experience.
The Great Revival.
It's Frederick Jackson Turner's America; we're just living in it.
Actually I think it’s John C. Calhoun’s America and we’re just living in it until the Republican Party feels strong enough to up the level on the pogroms and start taking our stuff, too
FL has crossed the century mark--no really this time. But it was leap frogged by MS, and LA still in the lead (125.6 new cases/day/100K; MS at 110; FL at 101).
New cases have leveled off in MO, ca. 44.
In the UK, deaths in the Delta wave were about an order of magnitude lower than the wave around Dec. We're not doing so well.
The kids are alright...
https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/austin-texas-children-covid-risk.html
But still, wear your mask...
"Shorty, pull up your mask"
https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/baltimore-covid-vaccine-social-media-memes-derrick-debra-connor.html
Focus on trying to limit the collateral l damage to just Trump voters.
So Biden should be out there everyday imploring people to wear their masks and get vaccinated.
I hear Biden is going to give away all our vaccines! You better hurry and get yours before he takes it away!!!
No, vaccination rate is not the reason. Up until July 15th, the United States vaccinations were ahead of all of those other countries except for the U.K, but by then the American Delta wave was well under way and far more prevalent than in Europe.
So what has been the difference? Fear is always a powerful factor, and because Europe was having a strong resurgence of covid in March while the U.S. was on a relatively low plateau, Europeans were still wary as summer rolled in. Meanwhile, the United States was celebrating its Freedom, even tied up with Fourth of July. So now covid's on the loose in half-vaccinated America. That's one possible explanation anyway.
Vaccinations matter, and more Americans will get their shots as the deaths mount, but neither Europe nor America had done enough vaccinations before summer hit.
I think you're absolutely right about the vaccinations. But the same lack of self-discipline is true of all the Western countries. None of them could forgo any of their holiday gathering and each one turned into a super spreader event. Even Germany lacked the social cohesiveness and self-discipline to stay home and forgo family gathers over Christmas.
And yet, even with all that and the rightwing craziness in France, basically all of those countries have the virus more under control and have rising vaccination rates than we do.
I think those other countries have lower rates of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic conditions than the US does.
All true. Also, the kind of social cohesion that comes with not having Murdoch media or strong Russian allies in one’s country.
Merkel is a strong Russian ally, so that can't be it.
Possibly in the alternative universe where you seem to be living. But here on Earth, not so much.
Damn it, jerry.
You posted while I was typing my post and beat me to the main point ????.
Served me right I guess for a long post.
It was worth two people saying it. Everybody might think I'm nuts, but when a rational thinker says the same, I look better.
And when a Trumpist right-winger says the same, you look worse.
No, vaccination rate is not the reason.
Aggregated nationally, that's true.
But the way vaccinations rates have played out regionally in the US plays a role, I strongly suspect. America has allowed the emergence of low vax rate Covidstans -- hotspots where large swaths of the population haven't been vaccinated. By all accounts these areas are also home to larger-than-average numbers of residents who defiantly (often for reasons of political ideology) eschew basic pandemic safety measures. And in many cases such regions are likewise characterized by economies featuring low or very modest numbers of knowledge workers who can work from home. High regional obesity rates and resulting, elevated comorbidity factors are another worry. (Seattleites are a lot thinner than Tulsans).
So, sure, although the United States has slipped down the vaccination ranks vis-à-vis other high income countries, in the aggregate its vax numbers don't look terrible. But the national aggregates in America hide a great deal of regional disparity that's driving infection rates, I fear, and, ultimately, disease and death.
When your low vax rate population is geographically concentrated, you've essentially got high transmission sub-populations on your hands.
As described, these "covidstans" sound exactly like the urban nonwhite ghettoes of the northeast and midwest. Seattle lacks the nonwhite population (Asian doesn't count for this purpose) to produce a "covidstan."
Those seem like good points.
It's crazy. Why are so many people spurning a gift from God?
Cuz I don’t hafta do what some elitist smarty-pants “scientist” tells me what to do cuz first they said no masks an’ then they said masks so whadda THEY know, an’ anyway I feel fine an’ I never been sick a day in my life an’ this whole COVID thing is just a hoax cuz the gummint pays doctors more if they say someone’s got it, an’ I ain’t gonna be nobody’s guinea pig cuz I got RIGHTS an’ I don’t hafta do nothin’ I don’t wanna cuz yer not the boss of me so THERE!! [holds breath, turns blue]
Kevin's analysis is simply wrong.
First, all of the countries are not ahead of us in vaccinations. The country with the lowest death count is Sweden by far. And they are below the usa in being totally vaccinated which is what seems to count more. And many of the other like France and Germany are just barely ahead of us. Yes, they are now ahead in partial vaccinations and that helps a little ( because they are now vaccinating fast and have a lot waiting for the 2nd shot) so hard to say who is overall better vaccinated today. Plus some of them have a higher % with the weaker vaccines and that should be discounted.
And we know that death rates are a lagging indicator. Vaccination rates TODAY are not what counts as to how many are dying today ( and actually how many are reported dying today) so it really would be vaccination rates of maybe a month or two or even longer ago. And we were mostly ahead during that time.
Plus we should have greater natural immunity built up than most of these nations. Maybe not Sweden or uk. And that should be working too.
But we do have a higher death rate. Why?
It would be a function of how many cases and how many are dying when infected. Both are influenced by vaccination but other things too.
Re case number ( more like a few weeks ago) that is due to the rate of spread for a long period. Even if you got R below everyone else now, your cases will be higher if R was higher before so you started with more.
So case numbers today are affected by vaccination rates as far back as the beginning of vaccinations. And we had better vaccination rates throughout most of the relevant period.
And for death per case, the vaccination rate maybe like I said a month or two or even more is what mattered. And again we were generally higher.
So it is incorrect to say that other countries lower death counts today are due to them having a higher vaccination rate ( barely or even not ) TODAY.
The real question is why our death rate is higher today when our vaccination rate ( and natural immunity rate for all except uk and sweden maybe) was BETTER for the relevant period.
I will let others respond to that before I give my explanation.
Thank you, Rational. One explanation could be the higher fear in Europe because of their worse experience in the spring. Another factor could be Americans' greater tendency to gather indoors in summer time, which is influenced by climate.
Europe's covid death rate declined much further than America's in spring and summer 2020 as well.
But according to the information from Wikipedia I cited to above, Sweden is vastly ahead of the United States in the percentage of adults vaccinated. At that rate of vaccination, they are extremely close to the 90% immunity necessary to be safe (at least for the moment).
I think Sweden's advantage is that while they have a conservative government that refused to take the pandemic seriously, the people did take public health measures from more seriously than did their rather foolish government. There's every indication from following this issue in the press for the past couple of years to suggest that while the movie theaters were technically open, they were also mostly empty.
Mitch
Do not see your wiki cite.
Per CNN, usa is 50.1% fully and 58.9 partial and Sweden is 47.5 fully and 67.8 partial.
Given that we know that, with delta, you really need fully to be effective but partial does help a bit, I would call that close to a tie. Saying they are " vastly ahead " is just silly ( you do have a tendency to exaggerate your point). But sweden going up much faster than usa - they have a lot more waiting for their 2nd. Note a lot of use partially or not just waiting for the 2nd, they are never getting it.
But, as jerry and I noted, what matters is vaccination rate months ago not today with respect to current death rate.
Vaccination rate today will matter for deaths starting maybe in a month and may then matter for years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Sweden#cite_note-total-1
Every time I think Sweden is getting in trouble with covid, they surprise me. They have some ineffable Swedish factor working in their favor.
it's the fish
ABBA taught then how to survive Waterloo.
"Natural immunity" is a misnomer; it's nowhere near a substitute for the vaccine, especially with Delta. Masking also makes a big difference, and the same selfish stupid knuckleheads who refuse to get vaccinated also refuse to wear masks unless they're mandated. Also, European countries' population distributions are materially different from the US, and that also has a material effect on infection and hospitalization rates (look at the early days of the epidemic in the US, just for example).
Vaccination rate is a rough indicator at best. What is indisputably true, though, is that vaccination reduces infections, and to an even greater (truly astounding) degree, hospitalizations and deaths. And that is true not only for those who are vaccinated but for the people around them: vaccination is a social responsibility, every bit as much as safe driving. Anyone who denies, or even equivocates, on that point, is a stupid, selfish a$$hole.
And you say that natural immunity is a misnomer and is way less effective than vaccine based on what?
Therr have been a few studies that seemed to show that antibodies lasted better for vaccines. Other studies seemed to show different. But there are also other types of immunity response outside of antibodies being present including the memory to make antibodies and natural immunity may be better there. We do not know for sure.
But I then look at real world data and it just seems that the only explanation is that natural immunity has been a bigger factor than vaccine in reducing spread. If you compare counties, the disparity in R just cannot be explained unless you consider natural immunity to be as good or better than vaccine. But data too confusing to be sure. For example, here in los angeles, the biggest civic outbreaks were in hispanic areas- by far- in the winter. Now they have the lowest case counts - their R has been lower than in white areas for months . And with somewhat lower vaccination rates. Explain that.
And how did India's cases peak and then come down without a lot of vaccination without natural immunity being important? And how did cases drop so.dramatucally in ny late spring of 2020?
Note that saying natural immunity might be overall more effective than vaccine in slowing spread is not quite the same thing as saying it is more effective individually. If vaccine immunity is a bit better at stopping infection.and contagiosness if infected, but those with natural immunity are also those most likely to spread ( almost certainly true), then natural immunity can be more effective community wise.
I think you’re very much mistaken about Sweden’s vaccination rate. According to Wikipedia, “As of 13 August 2021, 81.1% of adults in Sweden have received at least one dose”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Sweden#cite_note-total-1
And, for completeness, 58.5 % of adults in Sweden had received two doses as of August 13.
And that is close to the cnn figure I quoted of 58.9. I assume cnn is one more day up to date.
Well, to be exact, in your quote from CNN it is the US that has 58.9% fully vaccinated. OTOH you mention below that the CNN percentage is with respect to total population, not just adults. So the number in your quote for Sweden, 47.5% fully vaccinated of total population, might be up to date as well (haven’t done the math).
That is adults . The comparative numbers from CNN are for total population.
As for vaccine differences....the mRNA vaccines are better at stopping infections, but all are good at stopping severe illness. Therefore, expect higher caseloads but not a correspondingly large increase in hospitalizations and deaths.
Of course, our outbreak is driven by those not vaccinated. Most of the most vulnerable are vaccinated, which has helped keep our death rate down. But the Delta variant in more virulent and the disease, at least anecdotally, strikes harder, leading to over taxed hospital systems. Oh, and idiots not wearing masks during an outbreak.
I'm ready to hunker down again and let the COVID ravage the unvaccinated. It's going to happen anyway. We can't stop it. These people are ready to take the risk so the only reasonable response from the rest of us is to stay out of the way as best we can.
The variants are evolving in other countries with limited access to vaccines. Delta came from India. It is foolish to allow this sort of international travel now. Everyone should just go back home and stay there. Anyone needing normal medical care from injuries or non-covid illness should get priority over the unvaccinated. If we are forced to ration hospital space / treatment, the unvaccinated should get treated last!
Agree, although as I have been reminded, an increase in the number of desperately ill and dying idiots also puts greater -- indeed increasingly intolerable -- strain on medical workers. Unless we can establish the modern equivalent of leper colonies -- where the idiots are left to wander maskless, infect each other, and die -- then it's not unalloyed.
Western liberal democracies are unwilling to institute actual quarantining - at least not on that sort of scale.
Yes, alas, we libruls actually take this "freedom" thing seriously, rather than using it as an excuse for stupid, selfish behavior.
The COVID Denialists in MAGAritaville have been pitching the idea of Pinochetist helicopter tours for the Left. Why not turn that around on them & airlift Trump Nationalists to the sea?
Why are so many people spurning a gift from God?
Because if they
a) tried to find out anything about anything they'd have to
b) find out how to do that
c) find out how to understand what they're finding, and
d) contrast that with their firm belief, and
e) there's no fun in that,
and also everyone else they know is an idiot and without other idiots to support them they'd be all alone.
Elsewhere in the world, the cumulatives:
Rank Population (millions) Country Cumulative Deaths/Million
1 32.51 Peru 6068
2 9.68 Hungary 3102
3 3.30 Bosnia and Herzegovina 2939
4 10.69 Czechia 2841
5 211.05 Brazil 2691
6 2.08 North Macedonia 2655
7 7.00 Bulgaria 2619
8 50.34 Colombia 2448
9 44.78 Argentina 2430
10 5.46 Slovakia 2299
11 11.54 Belgium 2191
12 7.04 Paraguay 2186
13 2.08 Slovenia 2133
14 60.55 Italy 2120
15 4.13 Croatia 2005
16 37.89 Poland 1987
17 67.53 United Kingdom 1942
18 127.58 Mexico 1939
19 18.95 Chile 1915
20 329.06 US 1887
21 11.69 Tunisia 1847
22 17.37 Ecuador 1834
23 19.36 Romania 1773
24 46.74 Spain 1765
25 3.46 Uruguay 1733
26 65.13 France 1730
27 10.23 Portugal 1715
28 512.50 EU w/o Brexit 1692
29 444.97 EU 1654
30 4.25 Panama 1634
31 2.76 Lithuania 1609
32 2.96 Armenia 1582
33 4.00 Georgia 1582
34 11.51 Bolivia 1577
35 4.04 Moldova 1558
36 10.04 Sweden 1460
37 1.91 Latvia 1343
38 58.56 South Africa 1309
39 2.49 Namibia 1308
40 43.99 Ukraine 1275
41 8.59 Switzerland 1271
42 1.81 Kosovo 1259
43 10.47 Greece 1256
44 8.96 Austria 1201
45 82.91 Iran 1167
46 6.86 Lebanon 1162
47 145.87 Russia 1138
48 83.52 Germany 1100
49 17.10 Netherlands 1065
50 4.88 Ireland 1036
51 5.05 Costa Rica 1032
52 10.10 Jordan 1008
53 1.33 Estonia 965
54 9.75 Honduras 859
55 2.30 Botswana 856
56 2.88 Albania 854
57 1.64 Bahrain 843
58 1.39 Trinidad and Tobago 837
59 8.77 Serbia 816
60 4.97 Oman 799
61 1.15 Eswatini 794
62 8.52 Israel 776
63 4.98 West Bank and Gaza 727
64 37.41 Canada 712
65 83.43 Turkey 634
66 17.58 Guatemala 626
67 18.55 Kazakhstan 582
68 6.78 Libya 571
69 4.21 Kuwait 566
70 10.05 Azerbaijan 510
A smaller country like Peru might top this chart because of having bad luck with a very large outbreak within their borders. So I scanned down looking for the big countries.
The heavyweight with the highest death rate is Brazil. In Europe, Italy stands out as the big country that has been hit hardest. In North America, Mexico edges out the United States.
It's still remarkable that the big countries of Asia and Africa didn't crack this list.
"Big countries of Asia" would include Turkey and Iran. I'm sorry to have overlooked them, though they are not near the top of the list.
No one really thinks of Turkey and Iran as being in Asia.
Well they are in asia the continent so of course anyone looking at a map is going to think of them as being " in asia".
But the valid point is that lumping all the countries of Asia together for comparison on something like this is meaningless because they are so different ( unlike say Europe where there is a commonality across the continent).
Makes more sense to look at sub continental regions like maybe midwest and central Asia, south Asia, southeast Asia and east Asia.
Same problem when USA thinks of " Asian " as a racial group.
Not sure how valid the comparison is for Africa. They are much younger and will have far lower deaths just because of that..but also they are not testing and reporting the way western and even latin American nations are doing. We are missing almost no covid deaths now but I expect actual deaths in most African countries to be 2,3 or 4 times higher than reported deaths.
That's a technicality that's really an historical artifact. Turkey and Iran are part of the Middle East and the general Islamic cultural zone and that's how everyone thinks of them.
I can't imagine anyone thinks of them as in the same cultural or geographic area as China or Vietnam, while India is a thing unto itself.
I guess I must be no one.
One big country of Africa that I should have noticed in the list is South Africa. Not the biggest, but anything over 50 million is big in my book.
or a few cities in Japan or China or India....
https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities
And here are the "How are they doing lately" numbers:
Rank Population (Millions) Country Deaths/Day/Million 7-dav Avg
1 2.30 Botswana 16.68
2 11.69 Tunisia 11.25
3 4.00 Georgia 10.90
4 1.15 Eswatini 9.58
5 31.95 Malaysia 8.00
6 11.33 Cuba 7.35
7 18.55 Kazakhstan 6.79
8 82.91 Iran 6.30
9 2.49 Namibia 5.96
10 270.63 Indonesia 5.85
11 21.32 Sri Lanka 5.74
12 58.56 South Africa 5.56
13 145.87 Russia 5.31
14 1.39 Trinidad and Tobago 5.12
15 44.78 Argentina 5.11
16 54.05 Burma 4.27
17 211.05 Brazil 4.13
18 127.58 Mexico 4.12
19 6.78 Libya 3.79
20 9.75 Honduras 3.71
21 7.04 Paraguay 3.33
22 50.34 Colombia 3.22
23 96.46 Vietnam 3.07
24 18.95 Chile 3.07
25 2.95 Jamaica 3.00
26 17.58 Guatemala 2.94
27 11.51 Bolivia 2.69
28 69.04 Thailand 2.63
29 14.65 Zimbabwe 2.61
30 36.47 Morocco 2.59
31 5.05 Costa Rica 2.46
32 1.18 Cyprus 2.18
33 4.25 Panama 2.15
34 2.08 North Macedonia 2.06
35 2.96 Armenia 2.03
36 32.51 Peru 2.03
37 329.06 US 1.96
38 4.97 Oman 1.95
39 10.47 Greece 1.76
40 6.45 El Salvador 1.73
41 7.00 Bulgaria 1.65
42 39.31 Iraq 1.65
43 8.52 Israel 1.59
44 108.12 Philippines 1.54
45 83.43 Turkey 1.51
46 163.05 Bangladesh 1.45
47 46.74 Spain 1.42
48 10.23 Portugal 1.36
49 2.13 Lesotho 1.34
50 67.53 United Kingdom 1.34
51 3.23 Mongolia 1.33
52 4.53 Mauritania 1.33
53 18.63 Malawi 1.27
54 6.42 Kyrgyzstan 1.18
55 10.10 Jordan 1.16
56 16.49 Cambodia 1.11
57 28.61 Nepal 1.10
58 10.05 Azerbaijan 1.05
59 9.45 Belarus 1.04
60 16.30 Senegal 0.99
61 43.99 Ukraine 0.95
62 4.04 Moldova 0.92
63 2.76 Lithuania 0.83
64 43.05 Algeria 0.81
65 2.35 Gambia 0.79
66 17.37 Ecuador 0.79
67 65.13 France 0.79
68 4.21 Kuwait 0.75
69 1.92 Guinea-Bissau 0.74
70 6.86 Lebanon 0.73
71 12.63 Rwanda 0.724
72 1.81 Kosovo 0.710
73 512.50 EU w/o Brexit 0.678
74 30.37 Mozambique 0.583
75 52.57 Kenya 0.581
76 444.97 EU 0.577
77 28.52 Venezuela 0.496
78 3.46 Uruguay 0.495
79 38.04 Afghanistan 0.454
80 60.55 Italy 0.453
81 17.86 Zambia 0.448
82 17.10 Netherlands 0.443
83 4.88 Ireland 0.439
84 3.30 Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.433
85 8.77 Serbia 0.407
86 12.77 Guinea 0.380
87 9.77 United Arab Emirates 0.366
88 216.57 Pakistan 0.358
89 1366.42 India 0.351
90 4.13 Croatia 0.346
91 1.29 Timor-Leste 0.331
92 34.27 Saudi Arabia 0.321
93 4.98 West Bank and Gaza 0.315
94 5.53 Finland 0.310
95 15.44 Somalia 0.305
96 44.27 Uganda 0.274
97 28.83 Ghana 0.258
98 19.36 Romania 0.236
99 11.54 Belgium 0.235
100 1.33 Estonia 0.216
101 32.98 Uzbekistan 0.208
102 2.08 Slovenia 0.206
103 8.59 Switzerland 0.183
104 31.83 Angola 0.180
105 11.26 Haiti 0.165
106 37.41 Canada 0.164
107 8.08 Togo 0.159
108 1.91 Latvia 0.150
109 2.88 Albania 0.149
110 5.77 Denmark 0.149
111 83.52 Germany 0.147
112 126.86 Japan 0.140
113 1.20 Mauritius 0.119
114 17.07 Syria 0.117
115 5.38 Norway 0.106
116 23.77 Sudan 0.093
117 51.23 Korea, South 0.089
118 8.96 Austria 0.080
119 25.20 Australia 0.079
120 5.46 Slovakia 0.079
A notable big country here is Indonesia. Their epidemic seems to be on the downturn, which is good to see.
And that's why Kevin stopped doing his daily graphs--he didn't want to have to re-scale them again 😉
Hi, I'm Ron DeSanity. You may remember me from the time I raped your sister then made it illegal for her to get an abortion anywhere in Florida, because of how much I love freedom.
https://www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-fox-news/
It's more like Ron de Santis is the Libyan disco bomber in Berlin, 1986.
Seems like only jerry is going to have a thoughtful response, so I will give my explanation.
Two issues have to consider. Number of cases and deaths per case.
Let me first look at germany France and Italy as somewhat similar to different degrees.
First, I do not think starting case numbers early in the year matter much. They would if this was still alpha. But now all delta. So what matters is when delta first got there and how fast it spread when it did. Delta got established here before it did in continental europe . They kept it at bay a bit longer. Why? Might have to do with luck. Simply one entrant who had delta could start the ball rolling. But Europe was tighter on border controls, and testing and quarantining entrants etc. than we were ( note all Biden time here not trump). And where did delta come from first. Originally india but for us and europe , quite possible we got it from the uk where it hit before. And the uk and usa have more connections and travel with India then cont Europe does, and today we have more connections with uk than cont Europe does ( note here brexit may have saved them). Even possible we had delta get here first from over the porous southern border but unlikely ( that might now be somewhat increasing the spread with delta established but unlikely it started it).
With above so far no role in vaccination rate.
But then once delta gets here, how fast does it spread? Here our vaccination rate and natural immunity at the time was higher so advantage usa. And there were periods where it was spreading faster in France Italy or Germany once it finally got there. But they did seem to be able to slow the increase more after a month or so. I think that there the far harsher social controls ( cannot even leave your house without a good reason ) of course limited spread rate.
And harsher social controls a month or two ago in Europe made more sense than here. Because they really were buying time to allow those who wanted to get vaccinated to do so. They were behind us on vaccine access. The usa has been at vaccine access to whoever wants for a while so all we could do is buy time to convince the stragglers.
None of the above applies to the uk. Obviously they got delta first and it spread rapidly and they are more similar to us than Europe in social controls.
So second factor is death rate. And surprised nobody else has hit on this.
Even though our vaccination rate was superior as % of population during the rekevant period ( to all but the uk), it was less effective at preventing deaths per infection.
Because what is most important there is vaccination rate among elderly - the group where the covid death rate unvacinated is truly significant. And we have been behind on that to most countries in europe for quite a while. They tended to vaccinate oldest first , which we did too. But the us had vastly more elderly vaccine resistors than in other countries.
And those are most of whom are dying today.
For that, yes, it is largely an issue of conservative Republicans . For total vaccinations and slowing the spread to all, many of you exaggerate the problem with conservative Republicans and minimize the issue with young minorities. And there young unvaccinated is more of a problem than old unvaccinated ( who have fewer contacts to potentially spread to). The problem with young unvaccinated is they contribute so much to community spread hurting all, not so much that they die.
For elderly unvaccinated, mostly Republican, that causes death . But the increase in deaths is in their own group
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Am I the only person who remembers conservatives and anti-maskers pointing to Sweden as the supposed model for Covid response? Now that Sweden has enthusiastically embraced vaccinations, we don't hear from those folks so much.
Let's talk about sweden. Fitst note they are so low can barely see them on the chart now.
But what were they doing last year. I will concede that, no matter what they say, herd immunity was part of the strategy. Maybe not as a goal but as a possible outcome they were willing to accept.
But the swedish strategy, to the extent it was thoght out ( and I think they were one of the few nations that actually tried to think of a rational strategy) may have been based on an assumption that, in the end , was false. And for that false assumption, maybe it was because they were listening to many Democrats last year and not trump who turned out to be right.
And this is when a vaccine would be available .
If a vaccine would not be ready for two or three years ( which is what you were hearing on cnn last summer because of course trump was being too optimistic) , then the swedish strategy of not trying extreme social control measures and leaving things more open would have been right.( and maybe still was). What is the point about doing costly measures ( both financial and quality of life) if in the end it would not accomplish anything . Because if no vaccine for three years, just not going to control the spread enough to not have to reach natural herd immunity anyway.
Social restrictions make sense if you are just trying to slow the spread enough in initial big wave to prevent overloading hospitals, which is the way it was sold at first. Or to buy time for a vaccine if it comes soon enough so that you can prevent enough spread and not have to have so many infections to get to herd immunity. If a vaccine is coming out in months not years, you can ask a society for that long.
I was very frustrated last year at both sides illogical position. Some Republicans trump supporters saying we do not need restrictions because we will have a vaccine soon and some democratic anti trump saying we need restrictions because a vaccine will not be ready soon.
Weird that an argument can be made that the Democrats were right and Republicans wrong on restrictions because the Democrats were wrong and Republicans right on vaccine timing.
If we did get no vaccine and also no delta, Sweden would be the great success story and places like Germany and Canada the failures.
This is actually one of the most insightful comments on the Swedish strategy that I have seen here. One of the core messages from the health experts in Sweden has been throughout that this would be a marathon, not a sprint. We had to find countermeasures that could be lived with for a very, very long time. Nobody believed there would be a vaccine anywhere near as soon as turned out, hence the idea was to find a way for individuals and the society to hunker down and just make it through in a way that would make the least harm as possible, taking as many parameters into account as possible.
Before this pandemic, most epidemiologists in the world were more or less in agreement that something along the lines of the Swedish strategy would be the way to go, but for various reasons only Sweden kept to that strategy. As it turned out, vaccines were developed in an unprecedented tempo, making some of the (Swedish) assumptions less valid.
As mentioned so many times before, including below, a major failure in Sweden was in protecting the elderly. The Health Agency told the government that this was what had to be done, but the government did not manage to perform on this. It was perhaps more or less impossible, given the horrible state of the elder care system, but the message from the Health Agency was still the correct one and the government was responsible.
A big advantage for Sweden is the extremely high willingness to get vaccinated among its people. As soon as vaccines were made available, people got them. And this appears to be true for all ages, even the youngest (vaccination down to age 16 opened up about a week ago) flock to the vaccination centers. Vaccine availability is still the major reason vaccine numbers rise slower than we would like.
So I guess the high vaccination rate is a major reason our death numbers are so low by now. At the same time, "restriction fatigue" is obvious and the delta variant is spreading. Our case numbers are going up and previously anticipated lighter restrictions planned for some time in September may not happen. Which is a problem for my family since our daughter is finally getting married in October (postponed because of the pandemic), and we don't know whether the limit on number of guests will still be 50 by then. Ah well.
God is fox news and hatred is his only gift.
A lot of our evaluation of a country's covid response focuses on country-wide restrictions, like border closures, lockdowns, and mask mandates.
I think we need to look more closely at smaller, more focused decisions by various countries. Sweden, in particular, failed to keep people in care homes safe. About half their deaths were in nursing homes, compared to about a third in the US. How well a country did with it's nursing home population is of outsized importance when looking at deaths.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN28P1PP
https://covidtracking.com/analysis-updates/what-we-know-about-the-impact-of-the-pandemic-on-our-most-vulnerable-community
Sweden did do some useful things. There was an attempt to reduce crowding in apartments by moving portions of extended families into separate apartments and doing research on virus spread among immigrants (and Sweden has a very large refugee population compared to other European nations). I would hate for the few useful things they did to be overlooked in future pandemic responses just because the bad choices swamped the useful ones.
Many people act as if Sweden did nothing to curb community spread, but they did focus on reducing crowding in restaurants and bars, which is really similar to what a lot of US states run by Democrats have done for most of the pandemic.
Sweden's death rate is right in between Minnesota and Wisconsin (for now). Both are states with Democrats in the governor's office. Minnesota, in particular, has joined Sweden in have extremely poor outcomes in nursing homes.
I am of the opinion that we have spent far too much time obsessing over lockdowns, because that is something we can all easily see, and allows us to smugly judge others. At the same time we have spent nowhere near enough time looking at the specific, though largely hidden, choices in our nursing care systems that have really juiced death rates.
Yes, agree with all.
I should have mentioned Sweden's failure in execution re nursing homes. If you have a strategy of accepting that spread among the young is inevitable, it makes sense to let that happen at a speed just below where it is too much for the medical system while trying to protect and isolate the vulnerable elderly temporarily until herd immunity allows cases to get to a low level. The idea being the longer you have to keep that up, the harder it is to maintain so best to not drag it out with restrictions slowing the spread.
But then of course you have to follow through and actually do protect the elderly in nursing homes and that failed there largely making their strategy pointless. If sweden had executed their strategy correctly, they would have significantly fewer deaths .
One thing I do commend sweden for is they came out and admitted they messed up there. Refreshing. Never see that here.
Sort of like Australia. If your strategy is severe restrictions and hard border closures at great social and economic cost to really keep cases down ( which was viable in Australia in a way not in most countries), the point should be to buy time to vaccinate everyone so you do not need to keep those terrible restrictions longer than needed. And, with next to no natural immunity, they need a much higher vaccination rate than we do.
So implementation of the isolation strategy- good that did keep covid at bay. But implementation on vaccinating asap which should be the whole point - poor. It is now going to be a race which they might largely lose although I think they may just make it.
The US didn't really have lockdowns. China did.
The argument here is over mask mandates and keeping bars and restaurants open. And after the initial scare, we've closed those only during major outbreaks.
There have been "work from home" mandates, except if you can't. And many places were exempt.
I'm late to the party here (busy day yesterday), so maybe nobody will read this. If anyone does, please comment.
I want to talk about the problems of "herd immunity" but I need to save that for a follow-up comment. First the groundwork:
Death rates per million by country is certainly a non-trivial statistic. However, I think that comparing countries is a tricky endeavor. It is worth while to do the analysis, but mostly for the purpose of learning more about the nature of the virus, it's effect on humans, the role of mitigation measures, the role of treatments, the role of vaccination. But comparing countries to see who has the most winning strategy is, to some extent, beside the point, because there are too many variables in how the pandemic plays out in any area.
First: Touched upon, but not with much depth in comments above, is the question of health care system differences from country to country. In the USA, the health care system is a) hybrid of profit-driven and non-profit; b) balkanized by state or even region; c) staffed privately with certifications by a mixture levels of localization [I think, not sure]. The health care systems of various countries have a huge role in the death rates. Similarly, the availability of staffing and treatments has a huge role. In India, for example, at times the shortages of oxygen bumped up the death rates. How do you compare "strategies" between countries where the health care systems and availability of health care resources vary so much between them?
Second: Different countries have different cultures, so a country without mask "mandates" could have vastly more universal masking in practice in their society than some other country that has strong and somewhat enforceable "mandates" but non-compliance at a high rate. We don't have much in the way of either measurement methods for masking or compiling the statistics. Same for social distancing and hand hygiene. In this vein, we can also throw in stuff like: "On public transportation, how many people are typically jammed into x square footage?" These factors more directly affect transmission than death rates, but excessive transmission (high prevalence) can lead to overwhelmed hospitals, which leads to reduced quality of care, which increases death rates. (I don't have stats on this; just using logic, and reporting coverage of hospital physicians raising an alarm.)
There may be other factors that vary from country to country.
So I think it is totally sane to look deeply at each and every country's approach. And to look at what each country's involved parties (government and medical system) have learned from their experience so far. That is how we, as a human race, can build our knowledge of this pandemic as quickly as possible. But it's not a horse race between countries. It's the human race versus a virus.
More on that in my next post.
All valid points. In particular this idea of a competition between countries/states is ridiculous. There are so many factors weighing in that it is impossible to do comparisons on that level. There are certainly things that can be learned from different parts of the world, however, and that is where the focus should be in order to prepare for the next pandemic. Which is inevitable, unfortunately. Just as inevitable as the fact that a pandemic is, by definition and by nature, something that affects the whole planet, hence cooperation should be on top of any agenda. This is certainly what I would wish to see more of in a future pandemic response.
Re cultures, one thing to notice is that " cool" cultures have done better than " warm" cultures.
If your culture is not as emotionally open and people have smaller social networks, smaller and more distant families, do not hug or kiss each other in greeting unless extremely close , talk to each other resevedly at a distance etc,. that is giving the virus less of a chance to spread.
While cultures with large family gatherings, extended families living in one house, hugging and kissing when greeting, talking close up and loudly, etc. the virus has more opportunity.
Regardless of govt policy or social restrictions, germany or sweden had an advantage over Italy just because of the nature of the culture. Japan has a big cultural advantage there ( partially offset by by being crowded).
Here in the usa, probably a cooler group is northern white Democrats ( especially the upper income elite) and more southern Republicans are on average a bit warmer. But you see a really big difference in ethnic groups. Latin American culture and hispanics here have a much warmer culture and they were always going to be more vulnerable to covid because of that.
I think "herd immunity" is a term which may have a very specific meaning among professional immunologists & epidemiologists, but which has too many misunderstandings among the general public. By that last phrase, I mean, for one example, that too many of our fellow humans think that "herd immunity" means that "once everyone has had it and recovered, then we're done with it." And I think that interpretation has flaws that are potentially deadly.
What we really seek, in the war between the human race and this particular virus, is to have community transmission so low that it never again becomes a threat to us. It is naïve to think that letting everyone catch it is a viable approach to this goal. Why do I say that? Because it is based on the shaky assumption that things are static. In the real world nothing is static, and in the case of this virus, it is not static. I submit:
In early 2020 we thought we the introduction of COVID-19 into the U.S. was the first strain (the "wild" strain). That was before it became generally accepted that Italy's 2020 crisis was actually a variant of the original strain. So then it was posited that it was really the "Italian" strain that entered the US through NYC. Okay. Subsequently there were 1 or 2 California variants, 2 New York variants, all under the watchful eye of the CDC. There was the UK strain (B.1.1.7) and the South African strain. Later the Brazilian strain. And as the UK strain was waning India produced the Delta strain. It's not static. In terms of traditional military warfare, you need to keep track of your enemy's capabilities. That's what military intelligence is for (no need to reply with the traditional jokes).
In mid 2020 epidemiologists were worried about whether "reinfection" could occur, even with just a few strains circulating. Data started showing that reinfections were extremely infrequent. But that was not guaranteed. And we don't have any guarantee that either "natural immunity" resulting from infection with one particular strain, or vaccine-induced immunity will protect against infection from newly emerging strains. The reality is that the virus will mutate. That is one of its capabilities. And among the things that public health organizations around the world track is whether a new variant shows reduced effectiveness of antibodies acquired by either infection or vaccination. They don't know until there is a track record.
The biggest threat this virus presents to the human race is future variability of the virus' infectiousness and lethality, both of which are completely unpredictable.
So, what is the most powerful weapon the virus has in this war? Having lots of hosts to maximize the number of replications. (We have to consider this when we think about using "natural herd immunity" as a strategy.)
What are the best weapons we have?
a) Surveillance testing, coupled with containment (quarantining) and contact tracing. Something the U.S. is woefully poor at.
b) Vaccination, as a continuously adapting measure (ie. use genomic information on variants to get enhanced boosters out).
c) Mitigation measures. (Masks; social distancing; testing). We require a negative PCR test before you get on an airplane. Do we require all staff and delivery personnel to do the same before setting foot in a health care facility, including nursing homes?
Bottom line: Take away safe harbors used by the virus to establish new replication factories.
Note: I'm not contending that "natural herd immunity" is pointless. It may very well have a strong role to play. But I do contend that it's a bit of a fool's errand to bet the farm on it when we understand the dynamics. If I'm wrong about then I celebrate its contribution to the effort. But I don't think we should think it can take the place of the other measures we have for reducing the opportunities the virus can have going forward. We can do both, and should.
First point. I do think it is not correct to say that the future variability of the virus is completely unpredictable. If you mean what variants we might see, absolutely not the case.
Mutations might be unpredictable but we only end up noticing the very few that have an advantage over the existing strain in overall transmissibility in the conditions in which it arises. And almost all mutations are disadvantageous that way - I think I have seen that it is way less than 1 in 1 trillion. But there can be a lot of viruses to mutate ( hard for humans to conceive of how small they are).
A disadvantageous mutation will happen almost every mutation, but you will never see it as it will not be able to reproduce and will go quickly extinct. It will never be a "variant " . Only that extremely rare advantageous mutation can become a variant. And, by definition, it MUST be more transmissible in the conditions where it arose . That is 100% predictable.
But with regard to causing sickness and death, that is not quite as predictable but it is more likely to see a less virulent variant than a more virulent variant. Because making someone sick enough to stay home and avoid personal contact makes it less transmissible. Any mutation that is exactly as contagious but causes more sickness will go extinct. Any successful variant that could be more virulent would only be because that was just a side effect of whatever caused it to be more contagious.
Now I will go to more speculation that not sure of.
I see three ways a variant can have an advantage. It can be easier for someone to catch, it can be easier for someone infected to spread, and it can get around some form of immunity ( which I guess is really a subset of being easier ti catch).
At this point, from what I can tell, I do not think delta actually is more advantageous in getting around immunity. Just seems that the fact that it cause more breakthrough cases than alpha is simply a function of it being generally more transmissible, not something specific to avoiding the immune response.
I am not sure that there are yet any variants that are really specific to have evolved to avoid immunity yet.
An immunity avoiding variant might require some sort of restructuring that makes it less transmissible for those with no immunity ( or a different type of immunity such as even a different type of vaccine). If you have a future population where all the immunity is from mnra vaccines focusing on the spike protein, and almost none from natural or other vaccines ( maybe future new Zealand), if their immunity wanes enough so the virus can get even a little established, a vaccine evading variant is easier to arise. So seems like using different types of vaccines, mixing and matching, and yes having also a good amount of natural immunity, is a good thing long term. Gives a more difficult target for a variant to defeat.
And I am not as worried about another variant on top of delta re general transmissibility now. This virus has had several successful mutations but it gets harder and harder for a mutation to improve further as it mutates more beneficially- it runs out of possible good changes. But still has room for a specific immune avoiding variant.
And you are correct that the process is dynamic. Clearly we can see that immunity does wane - not sure yet how much or so fast .
Re herd immunity, I cannot find a 100% standard definition. But I think of it as having a R below 1.0. If you keep it there, eventually it will drop off and go extinct. So any level of community immunity sufficient to get R below 1 is what you need to eliminate the virus.
Problem is how do you keep R below 1.0 to do that? And note by definition you first reach herd immunity when case numbers are at a peak. Yeah, you are at herd immunity when the pandemic just reaches the worst point and have a lot more sickness to go even if you keep R below 1.0.
What is more normal is that, as immunity wanes, R creeps up to above 1.0 and then you need more natural infections to get ot back down to 1.0. Vaccinations can substitute for natural infections. So more likely you reach an equilibrium where the case numbers, addl infections and addtl vaccinations, offset waning old immunity to keep R right 1.0 and case counts steady. Or a cyclical pattern like the flu.
Yeah I hear all that. Thank you.
I will push back a little on the notion that more virulent strains won't survive. And this is purely logical thinking, not a result of any study. In my mind they key factor is to what degree a variant causes significant pre-symptomatic spread. If a variant can be more highly transmissible pre-symptoms, then the "people will stay home" argument doesn't work. Virus don't have minds, consciousness and will, as we all know. So it's just about what randomness manages to produce. So, with the right combination of pre-symptomatic transmissibility with post-symptomatic lethality would result in the virus killing off the whole human race and then the virus would die our completely. That's just theory, but we do know now that among the reasons for Delta's surprising infectiousness is a combination of the short incubation period, the rapidity of replication pre-symptoms, and the duration of shedding pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic. We don't have stats on how many infections are pre-symptomatic, but we know it's possible.
Also, it doesn't have to be that an entirely different mutation needs to out-compete Delta, it would more likely be an enhanced version of Delta. I believe there is a Delta-plus out there that's being watched. And, of course then we would expect the natural immunity from recovering from Delta ought to work against the Delta-plus, but Delta could evolve in another way that includes a change to a different part of the sequence that gives it immunity avoidance. I haven't yet seen definitive determination of Lambda's escape capability, but the fact that's it's being watched tells me that evolution of that type is feasible.
Not really disagreeing with you that much, but I think you agree with the main points that I was making: a) the enemy is a changing entity (although you see more predictability, and I see more potential for the unexpected), and b) that overall the real goal is reduction of community transmission, however we can achieve that, and the sooner the better.
My view is that it is more important that we keep our eye on the ball and be adaptive, than it is to figure out "the best" approach as if it's a competition between nations.
Oh, and my extreme example aside, I think it would still be a bad thing if this pandemic only killed off everyone over the age of 60, or something like that. 🙂
Thanks for your thoughts!
Yes, I don't think we differ that much. I accept that there is always potential for the unexpected. But I am just saying there is a predictable more likely path.
You focus on contagiousness pre symptoms which wold include asymptomatic. To accomplish that, the virus has to manage to reproduce enough virus before causing symptoms. Much more likely then that this will also result in less sickness overall by that same mechanism. Now there are other possible ways a virus might be able to become more contagious and also more lethal but they are just less likely.
Especially since you would think the easiest things to change in mutation should have been most likely the ones that have happened and it should be getting more difficult to mutate in an advantageous way. As some of the possible "good"( for virus) mutations have already happened and been used, any new mutation is less likely to create an advantage.
You did mention natural immunity from a delta infection. I have not heard this discussed but it would make sense that natural immunity from a delta infection should be more effective against delta than natural immunity from and original or alpha infection. So whatever amount of breakthroughs we are seeing today from that older natural immunity should be less for any new delta immunity.
Given the dynamic nature however., I would say that, no, reduced transmission is not always best. Sometimes even at certain times you can get a better end result by having more transmission and more cases.
There is even an argument if there is a worry about variants with a highly transmissible virus, that the correct strategy ( if you are really trying to drive it extinct), is to manufacture vaccine but do not use it until you have a dose for every single human being on earth. While accepting that it will spread everywhere and just about everyone will catch it and develop natural immunity. Driving R down well below 1.0 and keeping it there long enough to drive down cases. Then when natural immunity has driven cases low but starting to wear off and R creeping back near 1.0 ( at a low level of cases) , wham you vaccinate everyone in the world as quick as you can , driving the R right back down and keep cases dropping to make it extinct. So only introducing the vaccine when cases are low so as to not give it enough chances to mutate. The US timing, vaccine right after we basically beat alpha with mostly natural immunity after winter wave, was real good. But useless as you have to consider the whole world.
And everything we are saying is based on one assumption that is likely but not certain. That , whether or not original covid was created in a lab, that the new strains are happening naturally and not being deliberately created