What's the best measure of the spread of COVID-19? That's a hard question to answer these days, but I think that hospitalizations have emerged as everyone's go-to metric. So here it is:
The good news is that just about everyone has peaked and is starting to come down. The only exception is France, which is hard to read right now.
Hospitalizations are a trailing indicator. Case count tends to lead hospitalizations by a few weeks and deaths by a week or so more. We are already seeing rising case counts in various areas, particularly COVID leading areas like the NY. Watch for rising hospitalizations in NY as May approaches. Since growth is exponential, it is hard to gauge the peaks before they come in. They may be limited if enough people start taking precautions again. We're already seeing the vaccination rate rising, most likely because people are getting boosters, but also because sensible people are feeling nervous.
(Since COVID immunity, natural or induced, seems to wane significantly in four or five months, we're seeing a twice a year cycle in most places. The big difference is that vaccines cut the hospitalization and death rates. They also cut transmission rates by cutting case duration and intensity. We've been saving our travel for lulls in the epidemic, so we're following the next wave carefully.)
Agreed. I personally think the best indicator is cases per 100K of population. (10=pretty safe, 20-30=not that safe but not that dangerous but think about wearing a mask indoors, above that, stay home). It's the one that I've been using to gauge my risk in my neighborhood and also for traveling (which I'm not doing at the moment, especially to England and France). It seems more uniform and it also seems to give a better picture of the current situation.
I also have been looking for windows of opportunity to travel but the two places I normally visit have really had horrific increases in cases per 100K. It looks to me like there's another wave building but since we've abandoned vaccines and vaccine passports (and we allow unrestricted access to travel and airplanes for the unvaccinated), I think the next wave is going to do a lot more damage in places like NY and SF than we're currently assuming.
Why do you think NY and CA will see a lot more damage?
I’m mostly just guessing but I think the almost universal choice to do away with restrictions (especially vaccine passports) means increasing exchanges between areas of high and low prevalence. Which, in turn, practically guarantees a lot more cases of the two new variants; the number of severe cases will certainly be a lot lower in places like NY and SF but the abandonment of vaccine passports and the push for near universal vaccination means that there’s a much greater risk of coming in contact with someone who is contagious.
I’m looking at the wave in Europe and England and it’s very clear that the governments have essentially made the decision that the control measures necessary to suppress the virus (especially vaccine passports and mandatory vaccination) are too politically costly so we’re all going to take it on the chin (which was always the preferred choice in the USA and the UK).
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that most all governments at all levels have chosen to lift containment efforts. Partly due to public pressure, I'm sure. But also, equally important I think is the fact that we are entering the endemic stage of COVID.
The original virus has mutated many times. And, as virus's do, it has become more transmissible and less lethal. It has to, that's the only way it can propagate. It can't kill off all of its hosts.
From here out I believe it will behave like the influenza virus. Mutating along the way, but not becoming significantly more lethal. I would guess we will also find ourselves getting an annual COVID vaccine along with the flu vaccine.
I sure hope this is how it goes.
Two points to remember:
First, it’s only analogous to flu for people who’ve been vaccinated. Which is not most people and there’s immense social and political pressures now to resist all vaccines and public health measures. Also, in terms of long term damage Covid is in an entirely different class from ordinary flu.
Second, it’s important to remember that mutations are basically random. It’s the same odds that a variant develops that’s deadlier and completely escapes the vaccines as it is for the next dominant variant to be more infectious but also more benign. Western society has essentially chosen to play a game of Russian roulette with humanity’s future in order to appease conservatives.
It’s the same odds that a variant develops that’s deadlier and completely escapes the vaccines as it is for the next dominant variant to be more infectious but also more benign.
Do we know this to be the case? I may be engaged in wishful thinking, but, from an evolutionary standpoint, viruses in general would be advantaged by some combination of greater infectiousness and lesser lethality (because greater lethality kills their reproduction machinery). So, while other combinations do indeed arise from time to time, I'm not sure these other combinations are equally likely, even if, frighteningly, they are possible.
Needless to say, science isn’t my strong suit but I don’t think these viruses evolve in that sense. My understanding is that each time the virus reproduces there’s a random chance that something will go wrong, the copy will be flawed, and a mutation with potentially different characteristics is created. Those characteristics are equally random.
If the virus happens to be more contagious, like the Delta variant, it can become dominant and spread quickly throughout the population. But the virus isn’t strictly speaking evolving—the more contagious mutation is randomly created and is not selected in the way that we associate with evolutionary biology.
Consequently, it’s just as likely that a variant which can escape the vaccines comes into being, gets lucky in finding early hosts, and begins reproducing. From everything I’ve read, it’s all basically a roll of the dice.
Mitch-
"Agreed. I personally think the best indicator is cases per 100K of population. (10=pretty safe, 20-30=not that safe but not that dangerous but think about wearing a mask indoors, above that, stay home)"
While I agree in general with you on THIS point we need to keep in mind that home testing is now rendering government statistics useless. How many will test at home and NEVER reveal the results? How many would still go to work with a mild case? (Either for political or financial reasons.)
Home testing has rendered government stats useless.
@ Jasper
"because greater lethality kills their reproduction machinery"
Each wave has either been more transmissable or caused more serious symptoms. Now that we know the animal kingdom can harbor the disease and spread it amongst themselves it RAISES the odds that a new wave could be both more contagious and cause more serious symptoms. This disease has sought out hosts from different living creatures besides humans
What is escaping everyones thought process is that the virus is still evolving. WE have much better understanding of the flu because we know more about it. Compared with COVID which even after 3 years is still a "new" virus as far as pandemics go.
We have NOT gotten to the point where we can say its endemic. In the last 5 months alone, going back to Dec 10 we have had 2 waves. Omicron and BA2.
That is not endemic. We had a decrease in Delta starting in July and Omicron made its debut in very late Nov to early Dec. Now a scant 4 months later we have another wave
You hit the square on about home tests. That’s part of the reason why hospitalizations have become the preferred metric.
Hit the nail square on
I think you have a good point about the cases per 100K. It is certainly of declining utility but Bob Wachter is still using it and it’s probably the only consistent metric across countries.
The problem I have with hospitalization (in putting together my personal life and activities like travel) is that, as others have noted, it’s very much of a lagging indicator so if you use it to gauge the safety of activities or travel, by the time you know it’s getting bad, it’s also too late.
You really are a retard. To appease conservatives???? Give me a break. It ain't the Bubonic plague moron. It ain't even low infection rates measles. This disease was here in 1889-99 called OC43. But a moron like you really is close to trolling. Socialist reeducation would serve you well. It would make sure your ignorant approach would change.
Read that the antibodies are a very poor match gor omicron ba2 so you'll get sick but likely recover.
Then again I've seen no rise in cases in some places. Even if testing is not adequate we know there's an increase of some sort if the numbers rise. That said it makes little sense to impose restrictions on areas that have no rise yet. So the best option is still to monitor, mask up indoors and try to avoid large gatherings.
Cases have been creeping back up in spots, e.g. New England, New York, New Jersey (New Mexico may be joining soon so we get all the "New"'s ), and a number of other states. Hospitalizations starting to follow, but not deaths. There was a disconnect between cases has hospitalizations with the last wave--probably hold for this one though I'd suspect testing won't ramp up.
Spring break and the dropping of masking requirements means some bump up expected. New BA.2 variant here now too--but nothing rocketing up, at least not yet. Please get vaccinated and boosted. Second booster--if you need it.
It's the same pattern like last year, but weaker.
Cases have been going up for several weeks here, but hospitalizations continue to decline. The latest rolling 7-day average for daily hospitalizations is 22 which is pretty good for a city with 15,000 hospital beds.
Arrgh - 'here' is New York City. Which is getting back to its former self, but still with lots of prudent masking. We lived through April, 2020. We're no fools.
Interesting if this variant of coronavirus completely dies out during the May/June timeframe.
A lot of people are saying hospitalization rate does not mean what it seems to. It's a rate of how many people in the hospital test positive for Covid, regardless of if they are in the hospital for Covid or because of some other illness or procedure.
It's still a better gauge of how many infections there are in the community than the total number of reported positive tests, because people in the community are not tested in any consistent way. Confirmed cases can go up and down for reasons that have nothing to do with how many people are getting infected. But people going into the hospital, I would guess, are either all tested or are consistently tested according to fixed medical criteria.
I would agree with that criticism. It doesn't tell us much about how Covid-19 is spreading. But, more importantly from my perspective, it's not telling us very much about prevalence (the odds that the person standing next to you at the bar or sitting next to you on the airplane is contagious). And, again from my perspective, that's really the critical thing.
Based on the more than 50 people at that Gridiron Party getting Covid, I’d say the current version is pretty contagious.
Indeed, everything I’ve read says that it and the forthcoming XE are significantly easier to get and that prior infection offers significantly less immunity. This is the problem with a libertarian approach to infectious diseases. If we’d taken a month or two and really tried to deal with Covid-19, we’d be in infinitely better shape and perhaps we could’ve achieved zero Covid-19 with mandatory vaccination or exclusion of voluntarily unvaccinated from nonessential activities.
Your analysis is right, but there is just no way this country would have ever taken measures that could lead us to zero COVID.
The libertarian streak in this country transcends political beliefs. At its heart this country is a federation of states, sometimes rowing in the same direction, but mostly not. I live in the SF Bay Area, one of the most liberal areas in the country and we'll follow guidelines when they make sense. Luckily, people here mostly live in a fact-based world, so we know how COVID works, how it's transmitted, and how to protect ourselves.
The contrarian libertarian way of seeing the world (like pestilence and evil) has always been with us. But, in the past, Americans were also creatures of civic virtue with an understanding of the importance of public health. We reduced all forms of disease over the years, improved sanitation and had extremely widespread, near universal acceptance of vaccines. We eradicated smallpox.
There’s no reason why we couldn’t have defeated Covid-19 except that conservatives want everyone to get it, liberals are too weak to stand up to conservatives, and moderates are sanctimonious facilitators of evil.
Being a federation of states, there's no way liberals have control over all of the states, or even most. So, I don't see how we could have defeated COVID.
Hahah. No we didn’t. The US reaction to the Spanish flu looks remarkably like what we did with Covid. Good try, but no.
But, in fact, we did. We no longer have widespread dysentery outbreaks, or cholera outbreaks, or worry about the bubonic plague. Until recently, measles and mumps were largely things of the past. Why? Because we implemented basic public health measures and required vaccination for most activities like attending school or traveling.
What’s broken down now (and what broke down during the Spanish Flu) was adjusting or abandoning public health measures and vaccination requirements that we know are effective in order to appease conservatives—who have historically been the greatest menace to public health.
"We no longer have widespread dysentery outbreaks, or cholera outbreaks, or worry about the bubonic plague. Until recently, measles and mumps were largely things of the past. Why? Because we implemented basic public health measures and required vaccination for most activities like attending school or traveling"
All of your examples took decades to implement effectively, and were done so only spottily, if at all in a lot of places.
So, er, no. Americans have not been particularly good at handling public health measures not paragons of "civic virtue" in the past.
Overall, I think the West has historically done pretty well. Nothing happens overnight, that’s true. But even so, until the ascendency of movement conservatism and Rupert Murdoch, most of the infectious diseases and public health menaces were fading.
Various other potential pandemics were handled reasonably effectively. Now, of course, we’re marching backwards to the glorious Middle Ages.
Lol, nope. You aren't defeating a infectious disease like this unless you have real vaccine. Ignorant slobs like you need fingers snapped for that ignorant approach.
The libertarian streak in this country transcends political beliefs.
I'm massively skeptical that principled libertarianism is what's driven the bulk of anti-public health behavior in the United States. Although I live abroad, I happened to be stateside (stranded, as it happens, couldn't get permission/flight to return to Asia) for the critical period: January—October, 2020.
My distinct memory is: 1) Trump didn't want to spook the stock market so he tried to downplay the seriousness of the disaster barrelling toward us; 2) therefore, ignoring the pandemic quickly became the pro-MAGA, own the libs default; 3) this dovetailed with general anti-vaxerism in 2021, given the fact that boosting vaccination rates after January, 2021 would mean helping an America that was now led by a Democratic president (these days Republicans are in distinct "sabotage the country" mode when a Democrat is in the White House).
For every Rand Paul or Thomas Massie (lunatics to be sure, but I have no doubt they're true believers) there are a thousand Bubbas with a ninth grade understanding of the world who just want to open-carry assault rifles, bash immigrants, tell Black people jokes, and own the libs. They'd have followed Trump over a cliff if he asked them to (they pretty much have, already). ERGO, if a "resolute, fight against the ChinaVirus" (masks, lockdowns, health kit passports, etc) approach had been what Donnie ordained in the early going, they'd have fallen in line.
If they want to bash immigrants, why do they vote for a party that loves illegals and legals??? Are you a retard jasper?? Your muttering dialectical nonsense. Keep on serving wall street elites. Just like the 9th grade morons.
How would that do it? BA.2 did not originate in the US so even if we did it would be doing the same thing.
Also considering omicron has shattered China's zero covid approach.
My point was that, particularly after the development of the vaccines, it was probably doable to shut the pandemic down by following the same protocols as New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, and others followed. Basically, a couple months of lockdown and mask wearing coupled with universal vaccine mandates would probably have shut down original Covid and the Delta variant might not have gained any traction.
And unvaccinated travelers counties like Russia or states like Texas, South Dakota, and Florida which refused to address the virus could have been required to undergo real quarantine. There was a lot we could have done but chose not to do.
Also considering omicron has shattered China's zero covid approach.
It's a little early to say that approach has been "shattered." I just talked to a friend in Shenzhen: much of that city was in serious lockdown mode three weeks ago. But the lockdown is over. I think this is a key that most of the breathless Western reportage is missing: the lockdowns are draconian, to be sure (although I'm not so sure we'd have found them all that objectionable in, say, April of 2020), but they're definitely not interminable. They end once the numbers are down.
China's main failings from what I can see are: 1) no plausible exit strategy* and 2) failure to license or develope MRNA vaccines. These two are obviously related.
But the "dynamic clearing" (that's what they're calling it now) strategy isn't obviously failing from a technical standpoint, no matter how many are rooting on this outcome.
*There are tedious restrictions and inconveniences to be sure: online shipments of imports have slowed to a crawl, mandatory weekly covid testing in many residential communities (including my own), significant travel restrictions, especially for Beijingers. No country can endure these things indefinitely. So, the Party needs to get its act together, for sure. I'm just saying a lot of the reporting is hyped. Serious, Shanghai-style lockdowns are affecting no more than about 2-3% of the population at any one time. Domestic travel is relatively easy to engage in. And day-to-day life (shopping, going to the cinema, restaurants, riding the subway, etc) is mostly unaffected for the overwhelming majority of Chinese people. Maybe this latest spike will relentlessly undo the the country's pandemic strategy in the weeks ahead. We'll see! But I wouldn't count on it. Foreigners have zero idea of how thorough Chinese society is when it comes to pandemic control. And that really is the key: it's not anything involving advanced technology of amazing cleverness: it's just very high levels of thoroughness when it comes to things like masking, use of health status passport software, regular virus testing and so on. And some of it is indeed annoying! (I have no idea when that organic Western peanut butter I ordered will arrive, dammit!). But it's not clear to me the overall strategy is failing, given utterly massive disparities in death levels between China and most other countries, combined with (yes) the relatively normal condition of daily life for hundreds of millions of people.
That reads like an assertion that anything is OK if it only affects a small fraction of the population at a time...
That reads like an assertion that anything is OK if it only affects a small fraction of the population at a time...
If so, it was unintended. There's a deadly, relatively new pathogen about that kills people (and has killed millions globally already). I don't believe any place on earth is truly "OK" wrt the coronavirus, and likely won't be (at least per my estimate) for a number of years. But I do think context matters, and, while this may not apply to you, my impression is outsiders think daily life in China has decenced into a black hole. But for most (90%+?) people in China, things are relatively normal (if they can tolerate masking, regular covid tests and slow deliveries). But sure, I also think (and stated above) it's possible the much vaunted "dynamic clearing" strategy will unravel in the weeks ahead. It could happen! It does seem the country is at something of an inflection point AND the lack of MRNA vaccines is a troubling factor that doesn't lend itself to a "full" (Western-style) return to normalcy.*
*To the extent several thousand excess deaths a week (still!) in a country like the US can be considered "normalcy."
I don't share your confidence in that. As examples of why, I will point at South Korea and New Zealand and their current rates of deaths per million per day. And for that matter, we can see that China, which basically controls the horizontal, the vertical, the volume, and the channel, has not itself actually achieved zero COVID-19.
The one thing all of these countries that enjoyed early success seem to have in common is that they were slow to adopt and promote the vaccines. It’s hard to be a little island of non Covid-19 in a world where it’s mostly a policy of “taking it on the chin”. But all of the countries you name are still better off in terms of both deaths and cases than we are.
As for China, I would look at Jasper’s analysis. He seems to have really nailed it. Their problems are entirely related to their political/social situation and their poor choices coming out of the situation—starting with the unwillingness to abolish human consumption of exotic animals, etc.
I am assuming you mean strict lockdowns as the way to really deal with the Covid. If that is what you meant, you could not be more wrong. That approach has been used by China for the last two years. How are they doing?
But South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, imposed public health measures and enjoyed both great success and the earliest (and lest deadly) returns to normal. All of those countries continue to do better than ourselves and England
As I’ve said the two flaws all of these countries approaches had in common were their vulnerability to choices make in the rest of the world to embrace the virus and allow it to wash over their populations.
As we are seeing in many other contexts, the libertarian approach doesn’t work in a pandemic. The vast increase in the prevalence of the virus has overwhelmed everyone and allowed the constant spawning of new variants.
The second mistake was in not embracing the vaccines early on so as to capitalize on their earlier success.
As for China, I again refer you to Jasper’s analysis of the situation in China which I believe explains why they’re an outlier.
The wastewater testing happening in many cities seems to be a pretty accurate measure of how much virus is in a community, and isn't affected by peoples' desire to get tested.
Is that data publicly available? And if so, why hasn't it replaced other metrics that seem to be getting less useful?
You have to look for it. For example, this site aggregates info for the SF Bay area and Sacramento and includes a breakdown of Delta versus BA.2
https://soe-wbe-pilot.wl.r.appspot.com/charts
I've been following this for some time. The data seems pretty noisy -- look at Palo Alto for example. There, it's looked like a surge was starting twice in the past several weeks only to drop back down again. But, yes, if you look at past history it shows a mounting surge a week or so before testing does. Also, the latter is less and less reliable, in part due to the wide availability of home testing -- this keeps many milder cases out of public case rate statistics.
A very interesting (potential) trend has emerged as some countries which had apparently escaped a lot of infection have had huge peaks recently. This is best shown in the cumulative cases graph:
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=gbr&areas=eur&areas=kor&areas=aus&areas=sgp&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnh&areasRegional=uspr&areasRegional=usdc&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usmi&cumulative=1&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-03-02&values=cases
It begins to look like most countries might be converging at a total infection rate of at least 30%. Most of the countries which have had huge recent peaks - South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, etc. - have very high vaccination rates and should have been protected. There are still many countries which have lower rates, but for some the infection rates may be under-reported and others (Japan) may not have opened up and been exposed to all the variants. Anyway it appears that the initial high efficacy rates for some vaccines was misleading, whether because they did not work for later variants or for other reasons.
But the death rates are still very low for the countries which did isolate and vaccinate, so in that sense the vaccines are apparently doing their job. In the linked Financial Times tool, you can easily switch between deaths and cases.
Isolate until you can vaccinate (or at least treat) seems to be working--cases went up, but hospitals were not completely swamped and death rates were relatively low. Vietnam seems have done pretty well.
China apparently has low vaccination rates in areas and their vaccines are not at effective, though still good, as some others--and the newer variants are spreading in spite of "zero cases" policy.
In my County, San Mateo which is very highly vaccinated and boosted, and which adheres to protocols like masking pretty well, the number of total cases from January to today went up over 100%. But total deaths went up less than 20%. Hospitalizations which were pretty low in December went up quite a bit but never overwhelmingly so, and have recently returned to pre-Omicron levels.
So apparently Omicrom wasn’t as deadly (and/or the vaccine made it less deadly), but much more contagious.
I think those countries are still benefiting from the low prevalence. But I’ve noticed a serious lag in some of those countries on taking up the vaccines. Add to that a lack of background immunity because they were temporarily successful at suppressing the virus.
Essentially, the least careful and responsible people were given the right to veto the measures to fight Covid-19. So, in the long run, England, Europe, and the USA chose for the world. And now everyone will be infected. Partly because nobody in Europe and America was willing to give up a single holiday or sporting event. And partly because the Republicans allied themselves to the virus.
I see the Doom Brigade is out with the usual tactics: Surge Coming! Some Places Bad! Wastewater Scary!
Folks, it’s over. “Pandemic” is as much a political as it is medical designation and those politics have long since sailed, even for most Democrats. The world is going back to regularity and panicking over every little spurt isn’t going to play any more, especially when deaths and hospitalizations are down really low.
Calm down.
I see the Ignorant Brigade is out with the usual tactics: Nothing to worry about! Just like the flu! It's all political fake news!
Folks, it ain't over. The real epidemiologists will tell you that the pandemic is resolving into endemic. The politics of denialism has sailed, even for most Republicans. The world is unwilling to do what is necessary to curb suffering, death and the next variant.
Ignore the trolls.
Oh, dude, come up with your own schtick. It’s embarrassing.
US hospitalizations are down to pre-pandemic levels, deaths are down to near that level, and all you p*ssies can wibble on about is wastewater. Eek!
Let me know when things actually go up again, and, no, faffing about with “lagging indicators” doesn’t cut it, because y'all never highlight that when it suggests things will be going down. Doom Brigade, indeed.
US hospitalizations are down to pre-pandemic levels, deaths are down to near that level
If, by, "near pre-pandemic" you mean an extra 150,000* deaths annually, then sure. (Not to mention several million cases of debilitating long covid).
I agree society shouldn't panic. That never helps. And there is cause for optimism (new improved vaccines, more therapeutics, greater herd immunity). But there's also ample cause not to engage in lazy happy talk.
*That's about double what the US sees in a very bad flu year, and at current death levels that's what we're up against: the death associated with an extra two very bad flu outbreaks.
Now, it's possible the actual total between now and the end of the year won't be anything like this. But that's far from guaranteed, and it's certainly likely we're going to see another spike. Indeed, evidence suggests we're heading into one now.
So sure, let's be hopeful. But let's give "hope" a helping hand by being smart about this shit: get vaxxed and don't be stupid: vaccinations, testing, masks (at least some of the time, in high-risk situations) and plain old not being an idiot or a selfish prick isn't that disruptive unless you're a MAGA snowflake. And it saves lives.
MAGA?? Please. You need a nostril rip and detachment much like jew boy Trump.
“If, by, "near pre-pandemic" you mean an extra 150,000* deaths annually, then sure.”
I was imprecise -- hospitalizations are at the lowest they’ve been since the start of the pandemic, back in March 2020. Deaths are close, though not there yet.
“But there's also ample cause not to engage in lazy happy talk.”
There’s also a strong case not to engage in misleading doom-laden rhetoric -- it’s bad analysis, it creates bad polices, and has bad consequences. We lost two years of schooling for a lot of children because places stayed remote even after it was clear that in-person schooling wasn’t really a major issue.
“Oh, look, another troll”
When someone pulls out the “troll!” label, it’s always a sign they just have no idea what response to make.
There’s also a strong case not to engage in misleading doom-laden rhetoric -- it’s bad analysis, it creates bad polices, and has bad consequences. We lost two years of schooling for a lot of children...
I agree closing schools for extended time periods must be subjected to rigorous cost-benefit analysis. But I'm not sure why you think urging people to get vaccinated and take basic precautions amid a still very deadly pandemic constitutes "doom-laden rhetoric." That seems to be something you're conjuring. Public health tools—most especially vaccines—are our ticket back to living our lives normally—urging their use is a very different animal from "doom-laden rhetoric."
Oh, look, another troll. Dude, come up with your own schtick. It’s embarrassing. Leave your droppings somewhere else, m'kay?
It's over fool. A beat down would serve you well.
I'll play for a little while. Do you also discount leading/lagging indicators in other areas? One big area for that would be climate change I suppose. Is that one where you would want to be let to know when it really got there?
One of the COVID tropes is "the US always lags Europe by a couple of weeks." But looking at your chart, it's clear that wasn't the case Omicron.
And there's a lot of area under the US line until very recently. Which makes me wonder how close we are to effective herd immunity, and how well that will transfer to other variants, especially if people don't continue with their booster shots. I'm getting my 4th shot on Monday.
No, it's the sun angle progression which is slow in the high latitudes like the northeast us and Europe.. We saw this in 2021. Don't be a ignorant fool.
An interesting anecdote about waning vaccine immunity. My two young 20s sons traveled to Chicago for a concert last weekend with 4 other friends and shared an Airbnb for the weekend. All were vaccinated but my youngest and his girlfriend had gotten the J&J while the others the mRNA + booster. The 2 J&J recipients both tested positive and got quite ill this week. The others have been testing daily and none have tested positive.
Lol, nope.
Since the only certainties are death and taxes, in in the vein of "What have you done for me lately?" The Johns Hopkins figures through April 8th for deaths per day per million (7 day trailing average) as computed in: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vPxCBqCXsRvjR3PdLn0vXdJQF3wao-Ry5bS3Fe_9Qxs/edit?usp=sharing
Rank Population (Millions) Country Deaths/Day/Million 7-dav Avg
1 67.53 United Kingdom 8.88
2 10.47 Greece 6.19
3 51.23 Korea, South 6.03
4 1.18 Cyprus 4.48
5 8.96 Austria 4.20
6 5.46 Slovakia 4.06
7 5.53 Finland 4.03
8 5.38 Norway 3.96
9 4.78 New Zealand 3.43
10 2.76 Lithuania 3.42
11 5.77 Denmark 3.42
12 83.52 Germany 3.39
13 9.68 Hungary 3.11
14 512.50 EU w/o Brexit 3.08
15 1.91 Latvia 3.07
16 7.00 Bulgaria 2.67
17 4.13 Croatia 2.63
18 1.33 Estonia 2.48
19 18.95 Chile 2.40
20 60.55 Italy 2.38
21 2.08 Slovenia 2.34
22 4.88 Ireland 2.25
23 10.69 Czechia 2.22
24 10.23 Portugal 2.21
25 444.97 EU 2.20
26 11.54 Belgium 2.12
27 1.39 Trinidad and Tobago 2.05
28 1.20 Mauritius 2.03
29 145.87 Russia 2.01
30 10.04 Sweden 2.01
31 65.13 France 1.65
32 329.06 US 1.63
33 69.04 Thailand 1.36
34 37.89 Poland 1.31
35 11.69 Tunisia 1.25
36 31.95 Malaysia 1.10
37 8.52 Israel 1.06
38 25.20 Australia 1.05
39 19.36 Romania 1.01
40 8.77 Serbia 0.98
41 2.08 North Macedonia 0.96
42 4.04 Moldova 0.88
43 3.46 Uruguay 0.83
44 32.51 Peru 0.80
45 211.05 Brazil 0.75
46 17.10 Netherlands 0.75
47 5.80 Singapore 0.66
48 4.00 Georgia 0.64
49 2.95 Jamaica 0.63
50 9.45 Belarus 0.62
Given some of the past lauding, the presence of come countries in the top ten is on the interesting side.
And for the "How have you done overall? (at least thus far)" question using the same data source:
Rank Population (millions) Country Cumulative Deaths/Million
1 32.51 Peru 6534
2 7.00 Bulgaria 5241
3 3.30 Bosnia and Herzegovina 4766
4 9.68 Hungary 4721
5 2.08 North Macedonia 4435
6 4.00 Georgia 4195
7 4.13 Croatia 3791
8 10.69 Czechia 3730
9 5.46 Slovakia 3578
10 19.36 Romania 3366
11 2.76 Lithuania 3245
12 2.08 Slovenia 3140
13 211.05 Brazil 3134
14 37.89 Poland 3051
15 18.95 Chile 3005
16 329.06 US 2994
17 1.91 Latvia 2975
18 2.96 Armenia 2914
19 44.78 Argentina 2863
20 4.04 Moldova 2834
21 50.34 Colombia 2775
22 1.39 Trinidad and Tobago 2705
23 11.54 Belgium 2686
24 10.47 Greece 2676
25 7.04 Paraguay 2659
26 60.55 Italy 2651
27 43.99 Ukraine 2556
28 127.58 Mexico 2536
29 67.53 United Kingdom 2523
30 145.87 Russia 2493
31 11.69 Tunisia 2431
32 512.50 EU w/o Brexit 2397
33 444.97 EU 2377
34 65.13 France 2214
35 46.74 Spain 2194
36 10.23 Portugal 2139
37 3.46 Uruguay 2074
38 17.37 Ecuador 2041
39 4.25 Panama 1925
40 11.51 Bolivia 1902
41 1.33 Estonia 1875
42 10.04 Sweden 1844
43 8.77 Serbia 1809
44 8.96 Austria 1805
45 1.81 Kosovo 1733
46 58.56 South Africa 1709
47 82.91 Iran 1695
48 2.49 Namibia 1612
49 8.59 Switzerland 1584
50 83.52 Germany 1577
Damned Word Press limits responses to posts which completely throws a discussion off the rails/
Regarding hospitalization - they are indeed a lagging indicator but not in the context many people here think
Substitue COVID for measles
"Oh Tommy next door got so sick with measles after playing with our son who had a milder case." "Yes dear I saw that there was 1 reported measles case according to our local hospital reporting in the newspaper."
If this scenario took place and an additional 5000 kids had contracted measles schools would/should shut down
Hospitalizations do NOTHING to prepare us to avoid catching COVID - especially when we can "home test" and not have to reveal the results which is what makes them dangerous as a metric
It also allows for the virus to spread until it "hits" someone who may be particularly susceptible to that particular variant.
All before someone goes to the hospital
We can look BACK and see how bad it WAS but hospitalizations are a lagging indicator of how fast the virus is spreading