Coronavirus dashboard for September 22: the Delta wave rolls out?
Coronavirus dashboard for September 22: the Delta wave rolls out?
At last, it appears that the Delta wave may be receding, as for now, the US is on a definite downslope in cases. As of yesterday, the US recorded 135,000 cases, a 31,000 decrease from the peak only 20 days before:
Deaths have continued to rise but may peak out below the 2400 level I identified previously as the low end of the range for a likely top by the end of this month.
A look at the regional breakdowns shows that the Northeast and Midwest have continued to rise, albeit slowly, and may or may not be peaking. The West has declined, mainly driven by California. But the big news is that in the South, where Delta hit early and severely, cases have declined by 30%:
Further, when we look at the 10 worst jurisdictions for cases, only South Carolina is from the Deep South. Aside from Guam, we have 3 States – KY, TN, and WV – from the Appalachians, and 5 – AK, ID, MT, ND, and WY – sparsely populated States in the northern West:
Needless to say, all of these States are among the lowest vaccinated.
An issue is whether the opening of the school year in the North will drive cases to a new peak. Since schools have been open over 2 weeks, and given the fast transmissibility of Delta, we ought to be seeing not just an increase, but an acceleration of that increase, within the next week, if school spread is enough to cause a renewed Delta wave.
In that regard, let me just showcases and deaths in Israel, which has a similar vaccination profile to the US, with a similar anti-vaxx religious component:
Cases and deaths are both down about 1/3rd from their recent peak there, even with schools open.
An even better example is India, where the Delta variant first struck:
Cases and deaths have totally reverted to background rates, declining by more than 90% from the peak – and I hear tell that there are schools in India, so that doesn’t seem to have precluded the decline.
If by the end of this month we don’t see a big increase from the reopening of schools in the North, then I expect the Delta wave to continue to ebb until cold weather arrives.
as is clear from the second graph above, the drop in US cases is mostly a story of the South, where the August surge was most pronounced, and to a lesser extent to the West, and that in turn was due to the turnaround in the high population states like Florida and Texas that led the surge….the seven day average of new cases in Florida, for instance, has fallen from a 21,693 at the end of August to 6,372 this weekend; that drop alone is enough to take 10% of the national average..
meanwhile, new cases in the Midwest and Northeast remain near their peak…i don’t know what’s going on in most of those states, but i have a few articles that might give us a clue:
this is from a week ago
and this is from Friday:
last week i had this article for Ohio, reflecting Ohio data from two weeks ago, when Ohio infections were at their peak:
so that’s anecdotal evidence from just three states…but if the current surge is mostly in the schools, then what’s happening in Israel might give us a clue what’s in store for us: from Science.org Sept 21st:
ok, i know NND’s graph above holds out Israel as a county that’s beating Delta, but even though their new infections are down by a third from the peak, their new cases per capita are still close to the highest in the world, with only Serbia, Cuba and the UK in the same range among countries with sizable populations, and that’s despite almost a third of Israel’s population having received three shots…and that’s also despite an R0 number that’s fallen slightly below 1..
so what’s going on there? as the Science article explains:
what has happened in Israel suggests that we’re likewise setting ourselves up for a similar surge come the holidays when the generations mingle, should the widespread infection rates continue in the school systems, vaccines notwithstanding…
NB: to be continued..
the potential for a holiday surge that i mention above is further exacerbated because most of the vaccines that we’ve already administered are losing their effectiveness…..57% of the vaccines administered in the US were Pfizer, and the effectiveness of Pfizer vaccines starts to wane after 4 months:
the Moderna vaccine also wanes over time, but not as quickly:
and the loss of protection for those who are vaccinated is worse for older people
the US vaccination rate peaked in mid April and the vast majority of our vaccines were administered by the end of May, and by July, vaccine uptake by Americans had slowed to a trickle….hence, most of those who received the Pfizer vaccine are at increasing risk of contracting a more severe form of Covid than we’ve come to expect in the so-called “breakthrough” cases, and those who got the Moderna vaccine won’t be far behind……my calendar shows that that Thanksgiving is now less than two months away…..while Israel might be able to administer 3rd doses of the Pfizer vaccine to a third of their population in 2 months, there’s almost no chance that the US could pull off the same…