Two words:
Hope-
Simpson
In Connecticut, the positivity rate never returned to summertime lows, and has been ticking back up.
I assume that this is the result of people returning more towards their pre-pandemic patterns of behavior, due to some combination of fatigue from restrictions, premature relaxation as vaccines roll out (all adults eligible starting next week), and/or low-risk folks making the decision that their risk isn’t great enough to justify the inconvenience.
I’d expect there was a fair share of people who were avoiding COVID because of a family member, and that family member is now vaccinated, so they are accepting more risk.
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Is that what happened when these same states saw fall case “surges” too?
Or this is just the expected seasonal uptick of an endemic seasonal respiratory virus and we should stop moralizing people’s behaviors wrt a virus virusing.
Those are great numbers. Honestly when we’ve vaccinated the at-risk (old and otherwise) we’ve basically solved it. The risk of hospitalization and mortality is so low for younger people the notion that we should continue to accept significant economic/educational pain is crazy.
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Your post makes no sense:
Seasonal respiratory virus uptick in the fall and winter, not as we go into spring.
This is still a novel virus for a large share of the population, it is far from endemic.
We now have a vaccine and most people can get it within the next month or two if they want it, and many people are still waiting to get there.
Come July this starts to make sense.
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I don’t think talking about behaviors that have mortal consequences for many is “moralizing”. For age groups like 75+ we are talking about 0.09 qx. That is huge. But that discussion about behaviors and economic impact is not just one sided. Like N(D) mentions, if the most vulnerable are protected, greater freedoms should be permitted. In my state hospital usage is back down to mid April 2020 levels (less than 20% of peak), and transmission rates have dropped significantly. One thing that counsels a slow return to normal is the delay in getting information about a spike or change in trxm/death rates. We still have a nontrivial % of elders unprotected.
I think one weakness of the pandemic response we’ve seen in the US is just how little cost:benefit analysis has been done. Closing schools is a great example. We’re making a large wealth transfer from young to old by keeping schools closed to reduce the spread. If it’s only a minority of the old who are left to still be vaccinated it becomes even less compelling to ask children to pay the price.
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We are still seeing ~1000 deaths a day from it and the 60-70k new cases each day suggests we will still be seeing 1K deaths a day in a month from now. That is still pretty far from the endzone.
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You’ve never had a spring cold, Mr. President?
And when seasonal respiratory virus ticks up depends on where you are, at least according to Hope-Simpson:
You are right that having an uptick in March should be unusual for the northeast states, where we’re seeing it now (I’ll note these are mostly the same places we saw March/April “surges” last year).
But it has been hitting largely regionally, regardless of neighboring states’ differing responses to the virus. Just look at the virus case curves for states that share colors on this map:
Not sure if you can extrapolate deaths from trxm rate given vaccination bias toward the highest qx groups. Deaths lag a bit too. I don’t see trxm rates by age group, so I have no idea if only the ones who have low qx are the people driving the rates today. Hopefully, that is the case.
Last I checked all of the US was in the northern hemisphere other than a few relatively small islands. That would be in a a solid downward trend right now.
Yes, anecdotal colds happen throughout the year.
Good point about the temperature variation across the US. Sure, the south can open up sooner than up north. You can also factor that in with state level responses and fatality rates between somewhere like Michigan and Florida.
What I hope to see some time soon is that even as positive tests go up, deaths and hospitalizations stay flat or decrease. In my county, over 80% of 65+ have received at least one dose. I feel like that’s about enough to start moving the needle on severe infections, at least.
Israel has pretty much won at this point:
The US is at 14% vaccinated and 26% partially vaccinated, which seems to indicate our final inflect point will be in 3-4 weeks if it goes similarly to Israel.
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Isn’t Britain past that point? Perhaps there might be an analogous plot?
FWIW, in today’s local news was a feature of a local woman who had received her second dose of Moderna a month ago…and has since caught COVID via her kids having brought it home from school.
Not hospitalized, but she reported the usual symptoms of a moderate case, including loss of taste and smell.
that’s concerning
why? the vaccine is X% effective. She was 1 - X%. this why everyone needs to be vaccinated so the exposure becomes minimal and failures become infinitesimal
The UK is prioritizing 1st dose — they are at 55% / 6%.
yeah, i suppose so.