The Biden Administration had better come up with a ‘Plan B’
Coronavirus dashboard for December 7: since further mass vaccination could only happen at gunpoint, the Biden Administration had better come up with a ‘Plan B, New Deal democrat
No significant economic news today, so let’s catch up a little bit with Covid.
There are still distortions in the 7 day average data, as States did data dumps of deaths and new cases throughout last week, after not reporting over the long Thanksgiving holiday. That should finally disappear over the next few days.
But since the same sort of Thanksgiving distortions occurred one year ago, it’s useful to take a YoY look at the data, which the below graph shows by US Census Region plus nationwide:
The South and West regions have less than half as many cases as they did one year ago right after the Thanksgiving weekend, while the Northeast and Midwest have between 80% to 90% of the case they did one year ago. This is particularly interesting since the South, of all the regions, has the lowest vaccination rate. It partially suggests the importance of weather, and partially recent outbreaks rushing through the susceptible part of the population.
A close-up of the last 8 weeks shows that the waves in the Northeast and Midwest started building near the end of October. Since the Delta wave from trough to peak in the South and West took about 2 months (similar to what happened in India, the UK, and now in the EU), this may mean that, except for the effect of Christmas gatherings, the peak in the colder regions is only a few weeks away:
Additionally, if we average the most recent 7 day average, with the 7 day average one week ago, and compare that with the 7 day average 14 days ago, we probably get closer to a true picture of the pandemic. And there, the news is better. In the South, West, and even the Midwest, the average of the past 2 weeks is about the same as the 7 day average 2 weeks ago. Only in the Northeast has there been an unambiguous increase.
But now, some pessimistic news.
Vaccinations among adults have slowed to a crawl. Here is the graph of full vaccinations per capita for the entire US population:
40% of the entire US population was fully vaccinated on May 16. 50% was fully vaccinated on July 22.60% was fully vaccinated on December 4.
It took 67 days to go from 40% to 50%.
Even worse, some of those new vaccinations were for teens and a few for children under age 12.
When we confine the data to only US adults, here’s what we get (note: no graph; data is from my “Weekly Indicators” compilations from the last 6 months):
50% of all US adults were fully vaccinated by May 30. 60% were fully vaccinated by July 30. Two more months later, by October 1, only 66.6% were fully vaccinated. 70% of all US adults were finally fully vaccinated by December 3.
In other words, the pace of vaccinations fell by 50% between late spring and the onset of winter – despite the Delta wave occurring in late summer.
Needless to say, this takes the prospect of beating Covid via vaccination alone in the US completely off the table.
And, as far as I can tell, the Biden Administration has no other plan. It has refused to enact mandatory vaccination requirements for air and train travel. Yesterday Jen Psaki actually sneered at the idea of mailing test kits to everybody (which has in fact been done both in the UK and Singapore). Rapid testing at pharmacies for free – available in many other Western countries – is a figment of the imagination here. Seroprevalence studies appear to have been largely suspended. Even the publication of infection statistics by vaccination vs. non-vaccination status by the CDC has never been implemented.
Since mass vaccination of the remaining US population could only happen essentially at gunpoint, the Biden Administration had better come up with a decent “Plan B” and fast.
“figment of the imagination”?. On Monday, I got a rapid test for free at Walgreens.
I don’t know if it should be valorized with the name “plan B”, but control of covid19 as an endemic disease is on its way (the facts that so many non-human animals can be infected, and that mutation rate is high, mean that it can’t not become endemic). Two new drugs that mitigate acute covid19 are about to be deployed.
In any event, without draconian social control, we will just have to accept that some people are too stupid to live, and that they are the natural prey of psychics and preachers and purveyors of holistic medicine
Plan “D” (for Deceit)
Start a rumor on social media that long Covid can induce Erectile Dysfunction or Erectile Reluctance. Say that some doctor thought he noticed some correlation in his patients — and after tirelessly tracking down the necessary data concluded on the connection.
The men will be out there at midnight to line up for morning openings — fights breaking out over places in line.
I (truthfully) don’t think this would be a good idea for anything but a joke — just to make the “intellectual” point. Pushing it as real would only cause major aggravation and more adamant reluctance when the truth came out.
Denis – it has already been done, I thought a real report. A side-effect of the clotting issues that SARS-CoV-2 causes, minor blood flow impairment. A correlation noted during treatment by doctors in one area. Almost immediately there were more reports that it was a minor issue and relatively rare – also far from the most serious problem for those with clotting issues. I can’t imagine that many men with Covid-19 are feeling frisky enough to notice before the illness and the problem go away.
Ventilation, temperature, and humidity could affect the spread
David Edwards, an aerosol scientist and Harvard University faculty member, told Insider it’s possible that the exhaled virus from the South African traveler could have slipped under the door and into the room of the person across the hall.
The person who arrived from South Africa tested positive for the coronavirus without symptoms on November 13, the report said, adding that he was taken to a hospital and isolated the next day.
The other man developed “mild symptoms” on November 17, the report said. He tested positive for the virus the next day and was also taken to a hospital.
Edwards told Insider that the ventilation in the hotel, along with the humidity and temperature in the corridor and the two rooms, could have affected viral transmission between the two men.
“Should the hotel be air-conditioned, and notably the relative humidity low, the exhaled droplets of the South African may have been even smaller [than one-thousandth of a millimeter] — and passage under doors and through hallways is easily achievable,” Edwards wrote in an email to Insider.
Imperfect ventilation in the corridor, or even a draft caused by open windows in the rooms, could add to the probability of viral spread from room to room.
In any case, more exhaled virus means a greater probability of tranmission. Better research with larger numbers of individuals will be needed to learn more about Omicron’s transmissibility, but Edwards pointed to a preprint he co-authored that noted a potential increase in aerosolized virus per exhale between the Alpha and Delta variants.
“Delta being significantly more transmissible than Alpha, it may be that Omicron variant infection leads to an even greater number of exhaled virions,” he told Insider.
The Omicron variant also has several mutations that have public health experts concerned the strain could be more transmissible than other variants, though more research is needed to be sure. It remains unclear whether Omicron could cause more severe disease than other variants of the virus.
the good news is that Moderna can have a vaccine that will target Omicron as soon as March:
this is pretty much in line with reports out of South Africa about the severity of the new variant: