Tag Archives: covid cases

Good News About Covid

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On Saturday, Just the News posted an article about the declining number of Covid cases in American states.

The article reports:

The sharp upward trajectory of cases in this country appears to have turned in mid-July and has been falling ever since. At that time, the daily average case numbers stood around 800,000; they have since fallen to just over 300,000.

Deaths attributed to the virus are continuing to rise; a lag between case rates and deaths from the virus has generally been observed throughout the pandemic.

Some states are following the encouraging news by lifting restrictions such as mask mandates and event bans.

Vaccination rates in the country largely stalled last year and have been increasing only at a very slow rate since then. Less than a third of the U.S. has received a booster shot against the virus.

Covid is a virus. Vaccines against viruses are very tricky. Viruses mutate. We are seeing a combination of these factors work together to bring the number or Covid cases under control. It seems as if Covid may be wandering down the path that previous viruses have taken.

Good News Out Of Africa

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On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about what is happening in Africa with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The article reports:

Daily Covid cases in South Africa have fallen again by 22 per cent compared to last week’s figures, fuelling hopes that the country’s Omicron wave is over. 

South Africa, whose scientists detected the variant, recorded 21,099 new cases in the last 24 hours, down by nearly a quarter on the 26,976 infections confirmed last Wednesday.

A fifth fewer people were tested for the virus in the last 24 hours compared to the same period last week, but test positivity — the proportion of those tested who are infected — has been trending downwards for nine days.    

…The falling case numbers come despite only 25 per cent of South Africans being double-jabbed and boosters not being dished out in the country. 

It raises hopes that the UK’s Omicron wave will also be short-lived, with Britain also having a layer of protection in its booster programme.  

…The data from the country suggests the outbreak is fading around a month after it was first detected, while ministers and scientists in the UK are panicking about the impact the wave will have over the coming weeks.

…The rise of Omicron is out of step with gloomy Government modelling that predicted the mutant super-strain was doubling every two days and could lead to a million infections per day by the end of the year. 

Meanwhile, latest hospital data shows there were 813 admissions across the UK on December 18, marking an increase of just five per cent in a week. Deaths dropped 15 per cent week-on-week to 140. 

Hospital admissions are rising more slowly than in previous waves and a growing body of evidence suggests Omicron is causing milder illness. 

The article concludes:

Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline that Mr Johnson had made the right decision because cases ‘look like they’ve peaked’. 

He said: ‘It’s not all doom and gloom, it does look like Omicron has stopped growing. The numbers over the last few days seem to have plateaued and maybe even be falling.

‘It’s a bit too soon to be absolutely sure about that, but if it is the case Boris Johnson will breathe a sigh of relief. We have to be a little bit careful because it’s only a few days.

‘And because we’re getting closer to Christmas there is nervousness that people may not come forward for testing because they don’t want to test positive and miss out on meeting relatives.

‘Omicron overtook the other variants around December 14 so most of any changes from there on would be down to Omicron. So if it was still doubling every two days that would have shown and we should have been at 200,000 cases yesterday and certainly more than 200,000 cases today.

‘But the fact it has been around 91,000 raises the point that it might actually have peaked. But it will probably take until at least Wednesday to get an idea of a day that is not affected by the weekend. But I am more optimistic than I was a few days ago.’ 

There were 1.49million tests conducted today which is down from 1.56 million last Wednesday, but Professor Hunter said the ‘relatively small drop’ in testing would not hide a virus truly doubling every two days.

Test positivity is slowly increasing though with 13 per cent of samples positive for the virus by December 15, up from around 9 per cent the month before.

Latest hospital figures show there were 847 Covid admissions across the UK on December 17, up only 7 per cent on the previous week. There were a further 172 Covid deaths today, up 14 per cent.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It includes a number of graphs illustrating the impact of the coronavirus in Britain.

Follow The Science?

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The Conservative Review is reporting the following today:

Many of the most vaccinated states in the U.S. are currently experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, while the least vaccinated states are seeing their number of cases and hospitalizations trending downward.

The puzzling revelation comes at a time when the Biden administration is urging all Americans over the age of 50 to receive booster shots of the vaccine.

The seven most vaccinated states in the country — Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey — have been hit hard over the past two weeks, according to New York Times tracking data.

In five of the seven states, both cases and hospitalizations are up by double digits. The only two outliers are Vermont and Maine. And in those states, while cases are down over the last 14 days ending on Nov. 29., hospitalizations are up 24% and 19%, respectively.

So why in the world is the Biden administration encouraging people to get vaccinated?

The article concludes:

According to the Times data, each of the seven states with the lowest vaccination rates — West Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Louisiana — are reporting significant declines in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations over the last 14 days.

Of course, there are outliers to the apparent inverse relationship. In Washington state, where residents are 65% vaccinated, both cases and hospitalizations are down by double digits. Conversely, in both Missouri and Indiana, where just 51% of the population is vaccinated, both cases and hospitalizations are up by double digits.

It could be that the virus is plaguing certain regions of the U.S., such as the Northeast and the Midwest, to a greater degree than the Southeast without regard to the level of vaccination in those areas.

Though if that were true, it would indicate that the vaccine is relatively ineffective at stopping the spread of the virus and bringing down the number of hospitalizations, both of which have been touted as reasons to get the vaccine by public health experts.

The issue of vaccination could face another hurdle in the coming months amid the potential rise of the Omicron variant, which some fear may be resistant to current vaccines.

If we were following the science (the available data), I doubt the government would be encouraging people to get vaccinated until we figure out whether or not the vaccine actually does what it is supposed to do.

Maybe The Rules Weren’t Only For The Little People

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There was a bit of a ruckus recently about former President Obama’s birthday party. Americans were told it was scaled down from the original numbers, but the leaked photographs didn’t really look very scaled down. However, in a free society, anyone is entitled to have any birthday party he chooses as long as he is willing to accept the consequences of his decision. Well, the consequences arrived.

Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail reported that 74 people on Martha’s Vineyard have tested positive for Covid-19 since former President Barack Obama’s 60th birthday on Saturday. Actually, testing positive isn’t that big of a deal–a lot of our test results are not accurate. The article also notes that as of now there is no connection between the sudden spike in cases and former President Obama’s party. If there were a connection, would we know?

The article reports:

But some of the island’s residents scoffed at the measures to create a COVID-free zone, given that partygoers were circulating between various events and locations, in a town raging with a Delta strain that spreads quickly. 

Even vaccinated individuals aren’t immune. Of the 48 people who tested positive last week, more than half were vaccinated, according to health officials.

‘I wouldn’t have gone to the party even if I was invited,’ one resident of Edgartown, who had a friend working at the party, told DailyMail.com. 

‘I’m sure some attendees went home with some extra luggage they didn’t pack or see. Stay tuned.’

It seems that we may need to re-evaluate the vaccine. Given the fact that the majority of the attendees at former President Obama’s birthday party were under the age of 70, I suspect there will be few, if any, hospitalizations or deaths. When we examine the extreme measures that the government has taken in reacting to this disease, it might be a good idea to consider that the vast majority of the deaths from Covid-19 occur in people over the age of 70. The rest of us, if we are basically healthy, have a very limited risk of serious complications from the disease.

The Past Six Month In Charts

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Issues & Insights posted an article today about President Biden’s first six months in office. The article included eight charts to illustrate what the first six months has brought us.

Here are the charts:

Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

The article concludes:

It is true that Biden has been in office for only six months. It’s also true things could turn around. But we don’t see that happening unless Biden changes course.

We have no doubt that Biden was very much hoping one day to tell the public how he killed COVID and saved the economy (just as he once bragged that “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive” while he and President Barack Obama where in the White House).

The way things are going right now, Biden might one day have to admit that “the economy is dead, but COVID is alive.”