The US may have crossed an important vaccination threshold
The US may have crossed an important vaccination threshold
On Monday I noted that in Chile, where there had been a severe renewed outbreak of coronavirus despite an aggressive vaccination program, cases had plateaued, and this had occurred “when over 35% of the population had received at least one dose of vaccine, and 20% were fully vaccinated.”
Well, the recent upturn in cases in the US also seems to have plateaued:
And guess what? The plateau in the US started to happen about 10 days ago, when the US also reached 35% of the population having received at least one dose of vaccine, and 20% were fully vaccinated:
N [number of examples] = 2, so take with a few bucket-loads of salt. But while we can’t be sure that neither in the US nor in Chile will there be renewed upturns in cases, it’s at least a reasonable hypothesis for consideration, that both countries may have crossed an important vaccination threshold sufficient to blunt new outbreaks.
This is what one would expect. Vaccines went to targeted populations first, so people at higher risk of illness and spreading were protected up front. We also still have had a partial shutdown with large venues closed or limited. Most of the re-openings of theaters and restaurants have been recent, so we don’t know what the impact will be for another few weeks.
Depending on how vaccination continues, I wouldn’t be surprised by a small bump in infections in late spring or early summer. I’m guessing also a bump in late September or October after schools reopen in earnest and people spend more time indoors. There’s always a wildcard variant, but 2021 is unlikely to be another 2020.
P.S. It helps that we now have national coordination, a lot more knowledge about the disease and leadership willing to use it. There’s still the COVID party which is all about everyone else having to sew on name tags, but we now stand a much better chance.
If we learned anything from our COVID year, it is that technology isn’t going to solve the problems of education. Video conferencing is tedious and demanding for both teachers and students. Zoom’s “Hollywood Squares” format does not make it easy for a teacher to read the room. For students, the video can be distracting and invasive. The kids who do well with it are the one’s already committed to education and supported in doing so by their families. An awful lot of kids don’t have that level of commitment or backing. A lot of them don’t even have a computer or internet access.
I agree that the schools have been required to take on more and more functions and that we should be spending more on them so they can perform them and improve the quality of teaching. We’ve always had poor people, but jobs that pay enough to afford a safe place to live, eat regular meals, and get proper health care are less and less common. Two incomes and multiple jobs, often with unpredictable hours, are necessities even with government aid.
Despite a billion vaccine shots given, Covid-19 runs rampant in much of the world.
A global coronavirus surge that is driven by the devastation in India continues to break daily records and run rampant in much of the world, even as vaccinations steadily ramp up in wealthy countries and more than one billion shots have now been given globally.
On Sunday, the world’s seven-day average of new cases hit 774,404, according to a New York Times database. That is a jump of 15 percent from two weeks earlier, and higher than the peak average of 740,390 during the last global surge in January.
Despite the number of shots given around the world — more than one billion, according to a New York Times tracker — far from enough of the world’s estimated population of nearly eight billion have been vaccinated to slow the virus’s steady spread.
And vaccinations have been highly concentrated in wealthy nations: 82 percent of shots worldwide have been given in high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to data compiled by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. Only 0.2 percent of doses have been administered in low-income countries. …
Despite a billion vaccine shots given, Covid-19 runs rampant in much of the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/26/world/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cases#despite-a-billion-vaccine-shots-given-covid-19-runs-rampant-in-much-of-the-world