Bad news and *relatively* “good” news about the Delta Wave
Coronavirus dashboard for July 6: bad news and *relatively* “good” news about the Delta Wave
In the near future, there appears to be bad news and *relatively* “good” news for the US. The bad news is that the “delta wave” is spreading, and we should expect a real outbreak on the order of last summer’s by early August. The *relatively* “good” news is that the death rate is likely not to be nearly so bad, if the experience in the UK is any guide.
First, here’s the bad news, graphically. Of the 25 US States with the highest rate of infections, only 5 do not show an increase: declines in CO, NM, OR, and WA, and steady cases in DE:
Of the 25 States + DC with the lowest rate of infections, 5 have started to trend significantly higher:
In other words, the uptrend in new cases has spread to 1/2 of all US States so far.
The *relatively* “good” news is founded on the experience of the UK with its “delta wave.” The U.K. experience is a bellwether for where the US is going to be in about 4 weeks. There, the outbreak is now the worst except for last winter’s, and has quintupled in that time. BUT, while deaths typically lag cases by 4 weeks, even a quintupling in the rate of deaths in the UK would put it at perhaps only 10% (!!!) of the level during the first wave of spring 2020:
Here is the same graph for the US as a whole:
If the US follows the same trajectory as the UK, the daily death count might “only” go up to about 600 or 700 cases by Labor Day or so, compared with 1000 or more during most of 2020.
there was good long piece about the UK over at NC, i’m excerpting to get right to the punch line…
The UK Is Running a Dangerous Covid Experiment That Represents a Threat to the Rest of the World –
This is near latest data on new Covid cases, comparing the UK and Europe, and using data from the FT:
The UK is aberrational: remember the EU is five times the size of the UK in population terms.
So who gains? As far as I can see two interests gain. One is the ideologue: finally, Ayn Rand will have her day. That is what Javid, most especially, wants. We must suffer the consequences of life without state support. That is Javid’s plan. Life in the raw is to be unleashed on us. He believes it for our own good that we must suffer.
And pharmaceutical companies gain. They are already guaranteed billions and maybe trillions in profit from Covid as a result of vaccine manufacture. The US and EU have refused to open up vaccines for all, for free: market interests have already come first. And now it seems that the aim is to make sure that new variants can develop. This will perpetuate demand for vaccines as any possibility of controlling and effectively containing Covid is abandoned. This then will create a demand for updated vaccines when an elimination strategy would remove this source of profit for the pharmaceutical companies.
So, we are to suffer the raw harshness of market-based logic so that some in that market, with rights reinforced by the state, can profit unduly. I find it very hard to offer any other explanation for what is about to happen in the UK.
the UK was averaging 2,009 Covid cases a day during the week ending May 8th; now it’s at 30,144 cases a day, a 1500% increase…
here’s some more good news / bad news…
Pfizer and BioNTech will test a vaccine against the Delta variant. – Pfizer and BioNTech announced on Thursday that they are developing a version of the coronavirus vaccine that targets Delta, a highly contagious variant that has spread to 98 countries. The companies expect to launch clinical trials of the vaccine in August.
who’s getting Delta? first, the kids; most are unvaccinated, and this variant spreads among them like wildfire…then, as many as a third of those who are vaccinated, with some of those cases asymptomatic and most of them mild. that’s a problem because those mild cases are still very virulent; one sneeze from a vaccinated Delta carrier infects a whole room of those who aren’t vaccinated, and they’re susceptible to getting the most severe cases…
we don’t have a handle on how many of those vaccinated Delta carriers there are because the CDC is not counting them as infected…