I have several COVID-19 charts for you this morning. First up is our weekly vaccination chart:
Not bad! We performed nearly 3 million vaccinations on Saturday, getting us almost back to our growth trendline from early in the year. We have now vaccinated about a fifth of the population.
Here is our vaccination rate compared to the UK, until recently the best of the big countries:
The UK accelerated quickly, but then flattened out in early February and has even dropped a bit since then. The US has just kept getting better and better aside from the late February dip caused by bad weather.
This is all great news, but there's also this:
After the Thanksgiving and Christmas peaks, our case rate has plummeted. However, even now we're seeing 60,000 new cases per day, which is about the same as our previous peak in summer of 2020. We've still got a long way to go before we have things under control, so mask up, keep your distance, stay home as much possible, and persuade your reluctant friends to get vaccinated.
I don't know where the practical limit will be, but if we could keep the average daily number above 2 million, that'd be great.
Even at 2 million a day it will be almost a year before the whole country is vaccinated. I'd like to see it get a good bit higher than that.
Kids don't count.
that winter surge was unbelievable, but it happened, we averaged 83,000 deaths per month in December, January and February. Returning to "only" 58,000 deaths as we had in April 2020 will be a marked improvement and fingers crossed it happens this month. (we are on pace to be under it)
Cases and hospitalizations down about 70% from their highs, deaths around 60%--though reporting artifacts do make the latter a bit harder to judge. Vaccinations should keep deaths and hospitalizations dropping even if cases plateau. Of course the best thing is to stay masked up--no matter what certain governors say.
New case rates are looking promising ... but just wait until "Open Texas" cuts in. Plus, they have not been doing well there on vaccinations. According to Gov Abbott (&Costello), Texas is a "personal responsibility" state, so no masks, no vax, no problem-o! They put the "dumb" in "Freedom" there.
Kids don't count.
I am not going to celebrate our rate until I can get one.
The numbers I've seen indicate that about 10% of the US population has been fully vaccinated, not a fifth. Also about 30% have received at least one dose. I'm not sure where Kevin's getting that overall number.
I'm hopeful, though, that the infection rate will continue to drop like a stone.
NPR's tracker says that 17.7% of Americans have received at least one dose, 9.2% are fully vaccinated. So it looks like Kevin rounded the one dose number to ~20% (1/5th).
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/28/960901166/how-is-the-covid-19-vaccination-campaign-going-in-your-state
Hey, I was one of the 3 million on Saturday! My first dose.
One very relevent stat that is consistently missing from these articles is the number of previously infected (and thus with "natural" antibodies). This group is estimated somewhere around 20%. These people CAN be reinfected (I have personally (non-FB) met 2 different people whose sibling and close friend respectively were reinfected, so the odds are clearly not less than the 1% that I've seen mentioned in some preliminary studies. However, current scientific indications are that they seem more immune that those receiving a vaccine (possibly susceptible at closer to a 5% rate).
The fact that antibody positivity is not a factor in vaccine prioritization is a story worth pursuing.
I suspect that public health officials worry that calling attention to any policies or recommendations for antibody positives is too dangerous insofar as it might encourage either a round of "covid parties" or relaxing of a "we all need to do our part" attitude. Or a star-belly sneetch effect (why don't you post a video of yourself reading THAT one Keven McCarthy!)
> We performed nearly 3 million vaccinations on Saturday
No we didn't. The reports of nearly 3 million vaccinations arrived at the CDC on Saturday. The vaccinations were mostly performed during the preceding 3 days.