dan11295

https://covariants.org/per-country Here is some data showing variant percentages in some countries. Many of the countries where Delta has become dominant are seeing increases in cases. e.g. UK, Portugal, Russia, Indonesia, even though it is summer in the NH. Latter two countries on this list (Russia, Indonesia) are seeing notable increase in deaths, and are also lagging in vaccinations. Finland and Canada however are still seeing declining cases so far.

Next test for the US is when Delta is responsible for >50% of cases here. That is when numbers began going back up in the UK. But that wont be for another 1-2 months. Also am watching mortality in the UK. If mortality stays very low there like it is currently, its means the vaccines are doing their job.

Reminds me of a weather channel report a long time ago during a snowstorm where they had Cantore on the ground in Natick. The front desk was going to the live report and said "Cantore is in 'na-tick' (instead of 'NA-tick') and he immediately started shaking his head.

Had my 2nd Moderna this past Saturday. Had soreness and redness on the arm for a couple of days, plus a bit tired. not too much else beyond that. 7-day case average here in Mass is now under 100. Delta variant in the fall is still a bit of a wild card. Still a bit of a guessing game what things look like mortality-wise compared to say a "typical" flu season.

We have seen enough slow moving storms in Texas the past few years.

Exactly Over 100 million doses have been administered in the U.S. at this point.

The uptick in the UK is quite notable given the time of year (outside of when seasonal coronaviruses usually spread). One current positive sign from the UK is their 21-day lagged CFR is very low (~0.5%) which is likely indicative of most cases being among the younger populating which hasn't been vaccinated.

This was the second earliest 5-day heat wave in Boston. The earliest was in 1925.

Obesity is one factor affecting mortality rates. Suggesting it is the "the" primary factor is a bit disingenuous. Average population age, amount of mitigation done, compliance of population wrt following health measures, health care capacity, availability of critical supplies (esp. oxygen), how Isolated a location is are all factors. Also while excess mortality is not available for many countries, for those that report is, it is a much better estimate than the official reported deaths. We know certain countries (e.g. Mexico, Russia) are significantly under reporting.

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/05/15/there-have-been-7m-13m-excess-deaths-worldwide-during-the-pandemic https://covid19.healthdata.org/global Both the Economist and IHME have estimated the total excess mortality worldwide due to the pandemic, both coming up with a number of 7.5m+ to date.

Someone at work had Bell's Palsy (facial paralysis) following 2nd dose. Testing revealing he had Lyme disease which never really manifested symptoms before. Sometimes these affects are the result of underlying conditions. the media does tend of focus on any time an apparent major reaction occurs. Risks in reality are much less from the vaccine than Covid itself.

Barring a variant that has high levels of vaccine escape, which the virus may not even be capable of without it weakening itself, i don't anticipate a major winter surge in the US.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames_history.shtml This page has the new alternate naming lists replacing the Greek letters.

The currently Excess Mortality number from the CDC is 690k. But due to time lagged data that doesn't account for ~40k in the past 7-8 weeks. The CDC excess mortality numbers don't factor in in ~25k flu related deaths that didn't occur last winter (CDC hasn't released their 2020-21 flu burden estimates yet though). IHME probably factored both of these things in assuming most net excess deaths were due to Covid itself as opposed to delayed care, etc. the IHME numbers still looks a bit high maybe, and of course their estimate is subject to some revision. Worldwide IHME estimates actual Covid deaths to be approximate double the official numbers, with Russia, India and Mexico responsible for a lot of the under counting.

Very probable that the breakthrough cases that get hospitalized in particular are people who are immunocompromised. i.e. people that have to very careful about viral infections in general, not just Covid.

Nationwide numbers continue to be encouraging. No reason to believe cases wont continue to drop now as we head into Spring. Daily deaths should begin dropping noticeably in 1-2 weeks (its been stuck in the 700-750/day range for a while). Btw, the spring wave in Michigan has enough data to show the clear benefits of vaccinations. Both winter and spring waves peaked at about the same daily case load and hospitalizations, yet daily deaths were 125/day in December vs 70/day now. (1.5% vs 0.9% CFR).

Getting nice drops in cases and positivity now nationwide. For Michigan the 21-day time lag CFR is down to ~1% compared to ~1.5% in December. Good sign the vaccines are working.

The virus can only mutate so much. All of these variants are targeting the same 3-4 portions of the spike protein. The virus changing so much that suddenly it can reinfect a significant part of the population again in a short time frame is just not going to happen.

Cases and positivity are dropping again nationwide I think its not unreasonable to start seeing some solid drops in the coming weeks with spring+increased vaccination numbers.

Actually, much of central/eastern Europe is seeing a significant downturn in cases. The worldwide average is still spiking primarily due to India. India has effectively lost control of the situation there. Delhi yesterday had 25,000 cases w/30% positivity! I am guessing people there started to buy into the "natural herd immunity" idea or that they had stronger immune systems due to more exposure to other pathogens.

Regarding Brazil, It actually looks like their caseload is starting to go back down. Still bad there regardless, going to pass US in per capita deaths next week. https://www.covid19india.org/ India current positivity is 15-16%. Was only 8-9% at peak last summer. Both countries had initial spike in one area, Manaus for Brazil and Maharashtra state (which includes Mumbai) for India which quickly spread to the rest of the country. Both countries also have worse spreads than in their initial waves last year. Unlike with the US this winter their isn't a clear seasonal explanation.

AFAIK the P1 variant is not a high percentage of cases anywhere in the U.S. Michigan is mostly B.1.1.7. Canada (BC in particular) has had more P.1 cases. Very likely the P.1 variant is also responsible for the major surge in many South American countries.

Lockdowns have had varying degrees of success depending on the country. In reality they were never going to be a viable solution for the U.S. due to the size of the country, nature of our governmental system, differences in political beliefs, and number of entry points. They were most effective in countries which were smaller, more isolated, limited entry points, had a strong central government to enforce strict national measures and/or movement control orders. Additionally, they acted when case numbers were very small AND were able to provide support for the population while stuff was shut down. Examples: NZ, Australia, Malaysia. Other countries, particularly in Latin American (e.g. Argentina, Peru) also attempted this but failed miserably (Peru has the highest excess mortality or any country for which we have data). In these cases, often not enough planning was done and too much of their economies were "informal" and dependent on frequent person-to-person interaction. (e.g. many people don't have refrigerators so needed to visit markets daily). Bottom line is there is not one plan fits all for all countries. A place like Australia IMHO has done really well with strict lock downs. In a country with a poor, very young population (e.g. many African countries they would probably do more harm then good.

Michigan is now at peak hospitalizations (and has over 10% of all those hospitalized in the U.S.). Only positive thing is average age of those hospitalized is much younger, which means higher survival rate. 21-day time lagged CFR is also down to ~1.2%, compared to ~1.6% in December. Comparing the peak mortality of this wave versus the last will be a real world test of impact of the vaccines.

I agree that schools, especially at the primary and secondary level have not been major sources of spread. IIRC France kept the schools open back last November and cases still fell. Given the the impacts to child development especially at the younger age groups, plus the parenting hassles, I agree that they should be in person if at all possible.