Omicron

If you look at the graph of COVID-19 infections in the U.S., the “omicron wave” is rather obvious:

Yes, it’s that giant spike in the infection rate at the end, the one that has hit us this year.

Let me plot that data again, as a blue line, but reduced by a factor of 100. I’ll also delay it 20 days. That way, we’ll see what 1% of daily infections looks like, when it’s delayed 20 days. But I’ll expand the y-axis so that it covers such a small region, the huge “omicron spike” this year spills over the top of the graph!

That’s because I’ll also plot, as red triangles, the mortality rate, the number of deaths per day (per million population).

And that’s the point. UNTIL NOW, the death rate from COVID-19 in the U.S. has always been higher than 1% of the infection rate delayed 20 days. UNTIL NOW.

Advertisement

COVID loves Bars … and Churches … and Classrooms

COVID loves bars. Get lots of people together, indoors. Keep ’em together for hours. Love it! Go ahead, tell ’em to wear masks and practice “social distancing.” You did know they’re here to consume alcohol, right? How’s that “social distancing” workin’ for ya?

Hahahahahahahahaha!!! Yes, COVID loves bars.

COVID-19: Florida Schools

It’s refreshing to see an interview of an erudite, educated person, conducted by a well-prepared journalist.

Mask Up, America

Trump Lies about U.S. Mortality Rates

Yesterday, as the country was engulfed in a conflagration of coronavirus, Donald Trump had this to say:

“We have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere,” the president said before pivoting to an attack on Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee.

I went to Worldometer to look at how different countries are doing in their fight against COVID-19. In the table showing statistics for each nation, if you click on the header labelled “Deaths/1M population” it will sort the table by deaths per capita, in either ascending or descending order as you please. Deaths per capita — the total mortality rate — is an important clue who is doing best and who is doing worst.

Timeline: Trump’s COVID-19 Response

New York: The First Sensible Approach to School Re-Opening

The facts are in. When it comes to COVID-19, New York did it right.

COVID-19 Back to School: Is Georgia Ready?

In my opinion, schools should not re-open unless the case load (the number of new cases per day per million population) is under 40. I call this the “green zone.” At that level, effective contact tracing really works — that, and a mandatory mask order, is how you stay in the green zone.

The latest 7-day average for the state of Georgia (as of July 10) is 279. That’s in what I call the “red zone” (> 250). It means “red alert.”

COVID-19 in America

From CNN:

As the US plunges into an ever deeper coronavirus morass, setting record new infection rates and the death curve begins to rise again, there’s no prospect of the nightmare ending for months.

Delusion dominates an administration that perversely claims the United States is the world leader in beating this modern day plague. There are only contradictions, obfuscations and confusion from the federal officials who ought to be charting a national course.

The massive integrated testing and tracing effort that could highlight and isolate infection epicenters doesn’t exist. Attempts to reopen schools in a few weeks are already descending into farce amid conflicting messages from Washington.

Amid all of this, the coronavirus task force does not hold daily briefings, and when it does, they are an exercise in dodging difficult questions and self-congratulation.

Months into the worst domestic crisis since World War II, there is no sense that a fractured country is pulling together to confront a common enemy. People are still arguing about wearing masks — a tiny infringement of personal freedoms that represents one of the few hopes of easing the contagion. The one federal official who does seem to have answers, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has been banished to the podcast circuit by President Donald Trump, who was on Fox News Thursday night boasting about acing a cognitive test as the US hit another daily record of infections — over 60,000 — on a day on which more than 900 new deaths were reported.

COVID-19: Unhappy Swedes

Sweden’s experiment isn’t going very well.

It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself.