Here's the latest case rate of COVID-19 in the US and its peer countries in Europe. I'm not sure I can keep track of which wave we're in, but I think this is the fourth. Happy holidays, everyone.
60 thoughts on “Fourth wave of COVID-19 is now fully underway”
Comments are closed.
Pfizer has a pill coming out next year that is supposedly 89% effective in preventing hospitalization and 100% effective in preventing death if taken within 3 days of symptomatic Covid. I suppose it could change the course of the disease. I wonder if the Trumpians will refuse to take it.
Thats only if they get tested to confirm COVID within 3 days of onset of symptoms.
If the new AY Delta strain is even MORE contagious than original DELTA.
We need to vaccinate our young.
Thats for sure
It is also less symptomatic.
*giggle* the problem is, you have to believe in medical science, get the tests, follow the testing protocol (two tests, 3 days apart, so that you can catch late-incubating infections), and when the test reads "positive", get yourself to a doctor *posthaste* for the antiviral.
You can't start yammering about "I HAVE AN IMMUNE SYSTEM" and random rabid shit about Fauci. Etc, etc.
So I kinda suspect that the Branch Covidians won't .... uh .... "benefit" as much from this pill, as us reality-based folks.
Which is fine, fine, fine, by me.
They'll try to have Pfizer prosecuted for having developed it.
Because it's interfering with god's plan.
By making them look dumb.
Which they assume it does.
And no one can prove them wrong.
Because that's what always happens.
Why else did you think Ronny D was in Brandon, FL, today to say antivaxxx mandate into state law?
I feel like I'm supposed to want the fascists to not die, but I also think the only good fascist is a dead fascist. So, I'll just leave it at that.
We ain't seen nothing yet
I finally got my Moderna booster this past tuesday
I could have gotten it sooner but unfortunately I have been battling a nasty case of shingles which just make me uncomfortable as all get out
But It also give me max protection through Christmas.
I just have to keep in mind that the Moderna booster is 1/2 strength compared to the initial Moderna shot. I still mask up in crowded venues. We do not eat out, nor go to the movies.
My daughter in Mass is reporting that call outs due to sickness (Covid) are increasing again. Mostly young folks. And 9 CONN seniors died in an outbreak at a nursing home in New Canaan.
The EU is already imposing a lock down for the unvaxxed. That would NEVER happen here because we don't know who has NOT been vaccinated until it's too late.
Time to schedule your first Shingrix shot.
I had that vaccine this summer. No vaccine I've had has made me sicker - 4 days with a bad headache and a low fever - 2nd dose especially. I'm glad I got the vaccine though.
Would that be breakthrough shingles or did you not get a shingles vaccination?
Shingles is awful. Many countries do not immunize as a matter of course (I think the UK has just started to offer it to over 70s - last 3-4 years?).
I hope you recover soon.
US is wide open for another wave of Covid-19 which will be almost as bad as the previous waves. Perhaps it will finally scare people into getting vaxxed?
It was awful to be honest
I had chicken pox as a youngster. As I got older I remember my Dad struggling with a shingles case.
Like him, it wasn't debilitating but extremely un comfortable. It is a weird disease. I had a line of "sores" from the center of my chest, right through my right nipple, under the arm to the spine. Started with itching, then got sore to touch then finally blistered. There's not much they can do for it except for an Rx. The sores under my arm were the problem. Just swinging your arm during walking was irritating.
It's endemic. We'll just call it the Disease Season (can't just call Flu Season anymore).
Bingo.
Covid-19 is killing c 200 a day in the UK so say 70k a year.
Of any advanced country, we (England) are probably the furthest advanced in terms of removing all restrictions re gatherings, public places, masking etc (Scotland and Wales have been more circumspect). Since the summer, kids have been in school w essentially no protections (limited on ventilation, no masking rules).
So say 50k a year deaths as "normal".
Well flu kills less than 10k, and I don't think has killed more than that since the 1967-68 Hong Kong flu. The earlier one in (from memory) 1957-58 actually contributed to the government falling.
So Covid, if "normalised" will:
- kill 50k a year at least
- unlike the flu, will have a substantial element of deaths of people of all ages who were just "unlucky"
- again, unlike any flu since 1918-19, will have the side effects of Long Covid on mass scale (perhaps 10% of all those infected)
That's some flu. I don't think popular opinion or public policy will manage to fully "normalise" that?
You underestimate my fellow citizens, they can normalize anything.
(also I think you may be undershooting the numbers of flu deaths...)
For the UK sounds about right, or perhaps a bit high. In the US at its worst the flu kills about 60K per year, but typically is about half that.
Right, that's the number I was thinking...
CDC gives a range from 12K to 52K for the decade.
Astra Zeneca is a shitty vaccine like J&J, though still better than Chinese vaccines. So when everyone gets MRNA numbers if deaths will go down.
Pills will help until virus becomes immune. Average of 50k deaths in US each year due to flu. 90k on really bad flus or when they fuck up the vaccine. Proportionally that will be eclipsed if you multiply pop of England (assuming just England right?) by 5x.
Lol what??l JJ was better than Pfizer and only a little behind Moderna in stopping hospitalization. Your mrna vaccines are overrated trash.
Thought we called it the Cild and Flu season: https://youtu.be/zLwpcb2feCM
They are starting to use the e-word in Europe: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/11/19/europe/europe-covid-vaccination-rates-fourth-wave-cmd-intl/index.html
That's the fact, Rick.
Such an underrated movie
More like the sixth wave.
Yeah. You could call waves in Spring 2020, Summer 2020, Fall/Winter 2020, Spring 2021, Summer 2021, and now Fall 2021. They blended together, though. Someone else might say the first wave didn't end until June 2021, and now we're still in the second.
I only count 3 waves and we are in the third, original, alpha and delta.
Most places had only three actual clear waves as I describe. The appearance of 5 waves nationally is just because the 1st original and 3rd delta were going way down in some places while just starting in others. Creating what looked like a dip in the middle. But really two bell curves separated by enough time and geography that there is a low gap in middle ..
Initial march-may
Summer August-Sept
Winter Nov-January
Summer Delta (South) July-October
Winter Delta (North) Nov...?
So I say either 5 or 4 if you count the summer surge as this one only switched regions.
There was also a resurgence in cases in March and April 2021, in all parts of the United States, but strongest in Michigan. Deaths in April and May seemed to be close to level in all regions after falling more rapidly in early 2021, but in Michigan deaths peaked near 7/million/day at the beginning of May, far above where they'd fallen to in March.
It would seem there is more to COVID than is dreamt of in terms of countries and states.
Covid has been increasing rapidly here since October, though not yet at last year's level.
Virtually no one wears a mask anywhere.
I blame Ralph Northam.
& you wonder why Glenn Yungkins won in a landslide.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area most people wear masks all the time. It’s weird to go elsewhere and see people without them.
NYC similar.
Not close to last year at this time
I count this as the fifth wave: Spring '20, mid-Summer '20, late Fall - Winter '20/'21 (the worst one), and late Summer '21. So this looks like a fifth wave that we are entering. We'll see how big this one is, but with a vaccination rate of around 58% of the entire population and the rate needed to really put a dent in this thing is around 86%, I am not looking forward to what is going to happen.
59%, 70% of adults. Don't tell me about cases, tell how many people are sick sick.
Adult vaccination rate in the UK is over 80% and nearing 90% (at least first vax, both shots is over 70%).
We have been much slower about approving for & vaxxing 12-18 year olds and have not started on children as yet.
About 9.5m have had booster shots (population is between 65 and 70 millions).
We have been running nearly 200 deaths a day. Hospitalisations are about 1/5th of the peak (8k v 40k - I think that might be an England & Wales only number) but we are entering into the NHS's busiest times - the Christmas and post Xmas periods.
There are essentially (in England) no social controls on gatherings, masking in public etc.
There will be all those family reunions at Xmas. Plus office socials and other gatherings.
It's going to be a long winter.
Yeah...
CA seems to bouncing around 13 new cases/day/100K, just a littler higher than its low.
TX is going up (slowly), now at 12.3
FL has leveled off at 6.8
NY is going up, now at 29.7
PA is now over 40, at 40.1, higher than its Sept./Oct. high (vaccine data being redone in CovidActNow. Note: CDC data doesn't seem to line up with the state data)
IL is up to 28.1
OH is going up too, now at 42.3
and GA is bouncing around 10 right now...
California has almost 40 million people. Last year was large. This year, not so much.
As I live here , I follow ca closely. We did have a small bump up clearly and now are going down slightly. Seems somewhat correlated with weather as we had a bout of cool rainy weather in October ( with cases going up a few weeks later)and had a string of nice warm days in November ( and after cases down).
Covid spread just seems frighteningly sensitive to weather and sunlight hours. Was hard to tell up till now as new variants also hit at same time as weather changes and could not seperate out effects. As this is still delta, can tell more now.
But this is bad news if true going into December.
Also you mention fla . Still lowest of any state and should stay there or near there though winter, I expect. But yes their decline has stalled . And that seems to happen everywhere when cases get down near that 5 level. Or is it that the decline after a wave , which is very fast with covid, sure stalls out after a few months just consistently everywhere.
And this to me indicates that natural immunity is extremely strong, way better than vaccine, in very short term of maybe 2 months. But tails off quickly. Then I expect that vaccine immunity is better mid term 2 to maybe 5 months but then drops badly afterward. I guess that longer term after 6 months natural immunity is better but hard to tell and neither is very effective. Note this is re spread not stopping you from getting sick where both natural and vaccine seem OK long term.
But overall seems depressing. Looks inevitable we will have another winter wave. Not near as bad as last year but we have more suffering to go.
The obvious driver here (UK) has been when the schools reopened.
You get a huge surge in cases about 2 weeks later.
Most of the people I work with, who have been infected, were infected via their children.
Certainly everyone I know who has been offered the booster, even if they have had Covid already, have taken the booster. An exposure to the original variant or Alpha (the British variant which broke out Dec 2020) seems to offer little protection against an exposure to Delta, now.
Only people in high risk groups or over 50 have had the booster, although I believe they have just opened up to the over 40s. Typically your first shot, if over 45, was Astra Zeneca. The boosters are all Pfizer, currently - I don't think we are as yet doing Moderna boosters.
The evidence on boosters is very encouraging. Taken 6 months after last vax shot, they appear to boost antibody levels to above the level from the first vaccination and, for the first few months at least, this is sustained.
Look at ILI Influenza surveillance -- https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
If the tracking matched 2020-2021 season, the experts would be uniformly confident that we wouldn't have a bad winter wave in the US. It's matching up to the 2019-2020 season, meaning, a lot of people have stopped using masks.
This could be an extremely bad winter in the US with the concurrent spread of Influenza and COVID-19. For example, New Mexico is the one state with high Influenza activity level and that matches its rapidly rising COVID-19 infections.
If I were part of the Biden administration, I would immediately ask Congress for $ to buy out the remaining allocated shots for Americans, then using the same framework as COVID vaccinations, give them out for free to all Americans.
As I've said many times, we can hope for the best but we must plan for the worst.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/health/2021/11/15/flu-rips-through-university-michigan-campus-brings-cdc-campus/8622063002/
Influenza is sweeping the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus, with 528 cases diagnosed at the University Health Service since Oct. 6.
The outbreak is so sudden and large — 313 cases were identified the week of Nov. 8 alone and 37% of flu tests that week were positive — that it has drawn the attention of federal health leaders.
Flu shots are already free for almost all as covered 100% by insurance.. as it should be as savings from preventing flu costs is more than the vaccine cost .
Flu shots are not generally deterred by cost here. So a fed govt program to pay for Flu shots would just mainly add to insurance profits.
Unless the fed govt actually paid you to get vaccinated.
Still expect this Flu season to be weaker than normal by a bit . Bad side is our natural Flu immunity is low as so few cases last year and Flu vaccinations lower than normal. Good is that flu cases are lower than usual still for this time of year..and there is still enough covid restrictions and masking to slow Flu spread. Although I think masking is mostly not very effective in stopping covid ,,I think it works well re Flu. As this wave increase and scares people again , masking will increase. And I bet that prevents more flu deaths than covid deaths. So still good .
But , if we have another low Flu season this year and covid controlled next year , then we will really have a Flu problem next year.
One issue is the flu vaccine is a "guess" re predominant strains, based on what was going on during the concurrent winter in Southern Hemisphere - manufacturing lead times up to 6 months.
Since Australia didn't really have a flu season in 2020 we are a bit in the dark as to what the dominant strains will be.
D_Ohrk
"For example, New Mexico is the one state with high Influenza activity level and that matches its rapidly rising COVID-19 infections."
This is the furthest south that I've seen outbreaks this early
Keep this in mind for you geography nuts out there.
Most of Europe sits along the same latitude as Canada.. Los Angeles sits along the same lat as parts of Saudi Arabia !!! We tend to think that the UK, and Europe are similar to us in this regard but they are much further north than we are. So any outbreak here in the U.S. is further south than European outbreak would be.
What we are seeing is a virus that started off with weaker variants and we got used to them. We thought "it would be gone by Easter" so to speak, That was wrong of course because Delta started here in July and raged for quite some time.
MOST of what we are seeing is that the stronger the viral load the faster it spreads and Delta and Delta+ showed that this virus could spread in any weather conditions - meaning proximity to others and especially in confined areas.
The viral load of Delta also has affected children who may have NOT been affected by exposure to native, Alpha or Beta variants.
If Faucci and the Professor are right about a vaccine evading mutation we may have a problem because then we will need better treatments of the symptoms if we cannot stop the spread and subsequent new mutations.
A neighbor of mine owns a roofing company, and is a rabid republican. His business has been going gangbusters for almost 3 full years. ANY disruption to his crew strength hurts his bottom line and as he says good help is hard to find but I FORCE my employees to get vaccinated and get boosters or they are gone because I cannot take the chance of some mutation coming through and by passing all the vaccination protections and decimating my crews. (He has 2 crews). He's a great guy and a very caring individual. WE had a beer out in the back yard a few months ago on a Sunday night and I asked him what changed his mind about the vaccines and taking COVID seriously and he said that a few of the contractors had actually LOST jobs due to covid exposures ripping through their work forces. Some potential clients have actually begun asking if he and his crew are vaccinated. Not that he, or his crew inter-act with all his clients face to face, but, the questions are out there, and being asked.
When I see business owners worried about absenteeism just as much as serious illness or death you know that this is going to impact our economy for the next year or so at the least.
But to get back to my original point. If there are states as far south as NM having out breaks we need to be extra vigilant
If we have indeed entered a new wave, it would be our fifth, per my reckoning, if we count the smallish one in mid summer of 2020. IIRC:
1st: April 2020 peak (covid arrives)
2nd: August 2020 peak (US re-opens to quickly)
3rd: January 2021 peak (the end of the Trump presidency)
4th: September 2021 peak (delta)
I'm going by deaths, not new infections.
There was a separate peak of cases and deaths in Michigan in April 2020. That was interesting because it never really spread out of state.
Hooray for my home state of Michigan! We are in the lead now. Lots of folks where I work have had to quarantine because their kids are spreading it. Mild cases since nearly all are vaccinated due to my employer's requirement. (Just like Aaron Rogers). Still, these are breakthrough infections. Most of us were vaccinated in January to March.
The only person I know who was hospitalized could not get vaccinated.
I received my booster a few weeks ago. I think it's time to hunker down for the winter.
Looming material shortages could affect supply. Syringes, diluent... other basic stuff. Not good. This is part of the problem with all these suggestions to increase vaccine production in other countries. (Dean Baker is particularly clueless on this topic) To heck with that... make the supplies needed to produce and administer the vaccine instead.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-warns-shortage-1-2-bln-covid-vaccine-syringes-2021-11-09/
Austria is now going in to FULL LOCKDOWN with mandatory vaccinations required, They COULD pull it off being so small but politically they have some factions in their country that don't want that. Their current vaccination rate is very low. Just keep in mind a few things here. People are going INDOORS for the winter in Europe. The air is "confined" and recirculating. Air dispersal of COVID just doesn't happen indoors. It has NOTHING to do with being out of the UV rays of sun as UV-C is the ONLY wavelength that can sanitize and those rays are absorbed by our atmosphere. They are also not powerful enough
The other thing to remember is that Delta and Delta+ are affecting a whole different set of candidates. Sure the unvaccinated are prime - but now it's going after working aged people and children, UNLIKE previous variants did. (This is a whole 'nother story in itself)
Both Faucci and others are now saying that by spring we will have a vaccine resistant variant on our hands, which means that the new versions will evade the "normal" T-cell memory of the virus. The pharma companies will have to come up with something different, in a hurry to fight off the new variants.
As the CEO of Enochaian Bioscences (And Georgetown University Professor) said
“The faster we get boosted, the better off we’ll be for the next couple of months,” he said. “Sadly, every prediction I’ve made has pretty much come true. I hope I’m wrong this time, but I think by March, April, May, we will have a fully vaccine-resistant variant. There’s simply no way you can have such low rates of vaccination around the world with the virus ping-ponging between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. I’m an immunologist. The probability of us seeing a vaccine-resistant strain is very high.”
I don't think we're endemic yet.
But no matter what - with COVID variants ping-ponging around the world how much damage with this do to the worlds economy? If wave after wave comes here?
National waves or series of regional waves?
Any given area is in their third or forth wave, and that number can vary depending on who the wave that hit last holiday season is counted.
Yes exactly
golack-
A short timeline
DELTA identified in India in late 2020
It was NAMED the delta variant in May 2021 (a 6 to 7 month time frame)
Because the transmission involves close proximity to infected people the waves are determined by how much exposure you have between people.
It exploded here in the U.S. from June 7 2021 when 7 day case avaerages were at 12,000 per day. By july 27 we were at 60,000 on the 7 day moving average. It took just 60 days
Now here we are in November and we've already had 60 different strains of Delta having been sequenced. The waves are just that - measures of exposure to people who have it.
We are trying to measure something that is alive, and growing. A very hard thing to do
Two things .
It was only named the delta variant after 6 months . But that had less to do with the time needed to identify it and more to do with political correctness in not wanting to refer to it as the Indian variant. Before that, we knew it was a variant and just called it the Indian variant.
And delta was exploding well before June. It started in spring. But then the delta cases were starting very low and the vast majority were alpha which was declining . So initially overall cases were dropping nicely , but it was just alpha dropping fast and a small number of delta was exploding. June was just when the delta % age of cases had increased enough that it made the overall change positive and people finally noticed.
But all the signs were there in spring when the drop in overall cases started leveling off due to delta.
I have been mostly on the sceptical side of the restrictions and masking side . But it was in April and may , when everyone was happily stopping restrictions and cases were low, that I was on the other side and wanting them . We were still trying to get all those who wanted vaccination their shot and a good reason then to slow a new bad variant.
The most crucially important time for things like masking was in April and may when we stopped.
Well. I check the CA numbers every day, and its just about enough data to compare the main things we are attempting (1) shutting stuff down, (2) masking, and (3) vaxinations.
There is a lot of evidence that (1) and (2) only get you so far. Shutting stuff down only works if you really shut all stuff down, which the US has not done since the very, very beginning.
CA was in some sort of a "partial shutdown" last year at this time, and had no population wide anti-mask situation, yet, CA had the same spike as pretty much everywhere.
I thought at the time that was really a big factual point. CA weather cannot really be blamed, obviously. But what does happen in November and December is holiday get togethers of people from different households, indoors, for more than an hour or two.
Now, you could say it was a different variant in November and December of 2020, and OK it was, but there are going to be different variants coming along all the time it seems.
The main difference this year is vaccination. With CA levels of vaccination, it can be more or less totally open (just using proof of vaccine for entry into indoor events but not cancelling them) and couple that with population wide masking and you appear to have control.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the last high point, Mid August, was about thirty days in to totally opening the state up, and at the time there was about 70% vaccinated.
We only have moved up to 77% now, and I don't now if that 7% is important, but what may be important is that there is some natural immunity among the 20%, which would explain an approximately 30 day increase after opening up followed by the steady decline for the last three months.
Also, schools are now fully open, and there was no spike caused by that.
Its all speculation, because you simply cannot scientifically account for all the human variables, from gatherings to masking, that really are critical in spread of an airborne virus that starts out asymptomatic.
I am in agreement with pretty much all you said and seems you are seeing the same things I do in the ca data. I will go through a few things I might disagree with a bit , or maybe just clarify your meaning. But I will not go through all I agree with so take anything I do not discuss as just agreeing with you.
Re ca having the same spike as everywhere last winter wave . Bay area not so much. They had a winter wave but it was not nearly as bad as most of the USA. But la area - here we were just about as bad as anywhere . And that was with covid restrictions legally as tough or tougher than most of the bay area through most of the pandemic. Still hard to fully understand why we got hit all that bad but a few things .
A) clearly restrictions just are not all that effective, as you say. But , to the extent they are , la area compliance with restrictions as compared to legal mandate was worse than bay area . Even if at times the legal masking requirement was a bit tougher here, actual practice was not ( but still way more than most of the usa).
B) la area is heavily Hispanic, more than bay area , and many tend to have large family units with many people living under one roof . I think this factor has not been analyzed enough.
C) la area has a weather advantage in winter ( large to most of usa and some re bay area). But it is lowered because we are cold weather wimps. A December day with a little rain and Temps in the 50s will have people inside because it is cold . In northeast, that is a great day to be outside. And , especially in the valleys , it does get somewhat cold..
Re November and December, yes , there is more family gatherings and chance to spread . But I think the difference is concentrated in the marginal covid restrictors, those who do support restrictions but not fanatically. Those who only do things if legally required are getting together with friends and family all year and holidays just increase a bit . Fanatic covid restrictors are not changing behavior for anything. But the soft restrictors may make an exception and give in for the holidays. And covid grabs that chance. Someone who had been doing little for the last year, especially if unvaccinated, most likely already had covid and have some natural immunity, so what they do at Xmas adds less risk. It is those that have been careful most of the year and loosen up who drive the holiday increase.
You say 77% are vaccinated and say the remaining 20% likely have " some " natural immaturity. When you say " some " do you mean there original natural immunity has waned or that some have had covid? My guess is the huge majority of unvaccinated in the USA have already had covid and recovered, although many had no or few symptoms and do not know they did. Given the number of verified cases and how many are not picked up in testing, and that vaccinated less likely to get it ( due to both vaccination and their other behavior) , you have to think that infection rates among unvaccinated are 80% or more. Those with zero immunity are now a real small group most places . But clear that both natural and vaccine immunity wanes fairly quickly at least for stopping spread.
And I think using 77% is wrong . That is first shot number , right? Which is worth near crap by itself ( paired with natural probably good ) . In fact , now big factor is going to be % of triple with booster. The gap between one and two shots has stayed persistent too high . Who are these people who got just one shot and stopped? I can understand resisting getting any but that seems stupid.
It's a wave alright -- of the unvaccinated. That doesn't make it any easier on hospitals and health care providers, unfortunately. Until a lot more people 1. get vaccinated, 2. recover from Covid (possibly with long-term side-effects), or 3. die, this isn't going away. And as long as Covid doesn't go away, it will continue to mutate into new strains that will require new vaccines. Wash, rinse, repeat.
With respect to those getting infected and spreading, I think saying it is a wave among unvaccinated is wrong . And really should be re unvaccinated who never got infected and have zero natural immunity either. For both vaccine and natural immunity, it wanes too much and way too many breakthrough cases. Those are likely now driving the bulk of the wave .
But re who is getting hospitalized and dying, that is still concentrated more among the unvaccinated and uninfected with zero immunity. With this final significant delta wave , it is eating up the small remaining number of those. And , after it , there will be only a scattered few left for any future wave.
Future waves will be almost all breakthrough cases and mortality rate will be far lower. I am hopeful LESS than the flu ( but maybe more cases per year than flu ).
https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/data-point-americas-covid-19-immunity-waning-rcna6044
{snip}
While about 6 in 10 Americans are fully vaccinated, more than half received their last shot more than six months ago, the threshold currently recommended for those getting a Moderna or a Pfizer booster. When combined with the 100 million unvaccinated people, about 60 percent of the population is heading into the winter months with reduced protection against the coronavirus.
{snip}
and
{snip}
“What we’re starting to see now is an uptick in hospitalizations among people who’ve been vaccinated but not boosted,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday in an NBC News interview.
{snip}
The numbers will get worse.
60% of the population is going into winter with little to no protection. We are just a scant 2 months away from the vaccine roll out anniversary (IN quantities).
Be careful out there
Pingback: A year from now, which countries will look best on COVID-19? – Kevin Drum