Except that coronaviruses mutate. A lot. And, sure it would be nice if they mutated into less lethal strains, but we don’t really know if/when the next lethal strain will pop up/leak out of a lab. ([/s])
Good news is that fewer people (mainly unvaccinated types) are going to ICUs and/or dying.
And it looks like we are back here in Minneapolis/Hennepin county.
Didn’t dig into this website’s methodology
I went to Canada last week, for the first time since the pandemic started. It was nice to see a higher incidence of mask-wearing (still mandatory at the time in the province I visited)…although masks were mostly not worn by patrons in the venue where we had dinner. Have the sniffles today, probably either due to allergies or a cold shared by someone I met with. Tested negative this morning.
This weekend I’m supposed to be taking my first plane trip since the USDOT mandate was overturned. I’m planning on masking, but I expect to feel socially awkward doing so. For short-duration visits to indoor public venues, I’ve relaxed to “follow local customs”. My wife and I are both double-boosted and have had COVID before (with my wife still having long-term effects), so I’m not particularly paranoid about the prospect of another round of the 'rona.
Still, as a matter of risk tolerance (and, perhaps, germaphobia aggravated by the pandemic), I’m still not particularly interested in spending unnecessary time in crowds indoors (aside from the air travel I have booked in the next couple of months, which I’m considering a necessary evil to address having gone stir-crazy at home). We are, however, going to a local USL fixture in a couple of weeks, and I am going to an MLB game in a month and a half…so, we’ll see how that goes.
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Ohio, too:
My ZIP Code has twice the acceptable rate of positive cases.
PA, too:
Good news is that even with the high Covid numbers we are seeing across the country, ICU usage due to Covid is very low.
From a guy I follow on twitter who is good with data and doesn’t put much opinion into his observations:
- For every 1000 reported cases at this time in 2021, the ICU census two weeks later was about 190-200.
- For every 1000 reported cases today, the ICU census two weeks later is about 25.
The US Covid-19 ICU census has been rising for more than 7 weeks, yet we’re still ~25% below the lowest number we saw during the entirety of 2021.
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Here is the epi curve published from my state Friday. The most recent wave is increasing at a much slower rate and appears to already be on the down slope. If this is what future waves look like, then I really do think we’ll be mostly out of the woods.
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I would guess that the current wave is at least 5x higher and closer to 10x higher than reported cases due to at home testing being so available. So factoring in that with the super low ICU we seem to be in a good place as long as future variants cooperate and we don’t get another nasty one like Delta.
Omicron was actually quite nasty – it’s just that exposure to a prior variant, either via vaccination or infection, significantly protected people with normal immune systems from the most serious outcomes.
(Omicron was more likely to blow up in the upper respiratory track, and less likely to immediately hit the lungs, but a lot of the most serious effects have always been the impact when it gets into the blood vessels and the brain. If everything else keeps working, the lung infection can be treated.)
Also, the people who have died from Covid (assuming they were an at-risk group) cannot die again.
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7 day rolling death total is now at its lowest since mid March 2020 in the US
I thought it still is a tick above last July. But extremely low (relatively).
Yup. My mom has perfect infection-acquired immunity from future strains of covid. No viruses reproduce in the ashes of dead people.
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To your point, here’s another reason why testing data can be unreliable. The data published Wednesday showed cases clearly on the down slope. But, it turns out, total number of tests was down due to the long holiday weekend. The percentage positive is actually fairly unchanged.
And yes, there is a 1 week reporting lag for testing. I don’t know why they don’t just hire an actuary to calculate testing completion factors.
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According to the CDC guidelines, they recommend indoor masking in 6 WA counties. However, none of the 3 most populous counties are on that list. It’s almost like high vaccination rates and taking precautions if you’re high risk or exhibit symptoms prevents spread in areas with higher population density.
Or, DUH!!
My mother-in-law is hospitalized after her pulse ox went down to 84. She supposedly got the covid drug after visiting the ER Tuesday night. She is not especially sickly. Maybe slightly overweight but no high blood pressure or anything.
Sis-in-law has only “flu like symptoms”, thankfully.
I wonder if this is Omicron or some other variant. They believe they were exposed on Saturday and tested positive Tuesday. The guys in the house didn’t get sick. But the kids probably would have retreated to their game room if it was a typical family gathering. And my brother-in-law would have spent a lot of time outside smoking the meat and stuff.
I’m glad I didn’t go. I would have been in the crowded indoors.
BA.5 (now or soon to be dominant omicron strain) seems to be causing more respiratory issues than other omicron variants.
Hope your family is better soon.
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Why are we still on omicron? Why have we not moved to pi, rho, sigma and so on?
because there would be too many annoying facebook status updates from wannabe mathematicians and actuaries if we moved on to pi, thus we are sticking with omicron.
and for that, i’m grateful.
That’s a more logical explanation than any other I’ve heard, so I think you might be on to something.
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