The medical community (including Dr. Fauci) believes that the next 6 weeks are crucial in terms of fighting the new variants.
First, the good news: New daily cases nationwide continue to drop; about a 40% decline in the last 3 weeks. Numbers of people hospitalized on a given day have also decreased by about 35% during this period. Deaths have declined modestly by around 5% during this period. Vaccinations are mostly holding steady at around 1 million doses administered per day.
The concerning news is that daily hospital admissions are only down 4% during this period. Many (tens of thousands) people who are no longer hospitalized have died (we lose about 3k every day). Yet, a troubling number continue to be admitted. The other unsettling news is that B117 is doubling every 5-7 days in the U.S. We don’t do much genomic sequencing of cases – we rank 43rd in the world – but based on what we do sequence we’re seeing robust increases in the B117 variant. The South Africa and Brazil variants have also been detected in the U.S., though in much smaller numbers These can escape the vaccines’ neutralizing ability. They can also combine forces with B117.
B117 is now the dominant variant in the Netherlands. It took a mere 3-4 weeks for the percentage of B117 cases to increase from 1% to 67%. Fauci and others are wrong, in my opinion, when they say B117 will be dominant by the end of March. I believe B117 will be dominant much sooner, perhaps even by the end of February. Look at Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and of course the U.K. and Ireland. All these countries are enforcing and extending strict lockdowns while vaccinating as many people as possible, similar to Israel.
Our (U.S.) approach is curious. We have no lockdowns and really have never had one like the ones in Europe. The restrictions we have put in place have been loosening, not tightening. In fact, no state is tightening restrictions at this time.
It’s good old American know how – sob!
No idea why but public policy has never seemed to be able to evolve to proactivity in this country. At this point we aren’t even reactive anymore. See covid, climate change, economic instability, cyber security….. we are just paralyzed.
We are also really good at making the short game as short as possible. See Congress….
C-19 for 2-4 is ready.
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The medical community (including Dr. Fauci) believes that the next 6 weeks are crucial in terms of fighting the new variants.
First, the good news: New daily cases nationwide continue to drop; about a 40% decline in the last 3 weeks. Numbers of people hospitalized on a given day have also decreased by about 35% during this period. Deaths have declined modestly by around 5% during this period. Vaccinations are mostly holding steady at around 1 million doses administered per day.
The concerning news is that daily hospital admissions are only down 4% during this period. Many (tens of thousands) people who are no longer hospitalized have died (we lose about 3k every day). Yet, a troubling number continue to be admitted. The other unsettling news is that B117 is doubling every 5-7 days in the U.S. We don’t do much genomic sequencing of cases – we rank 43rd in the world – but based on what we do sequence we’re seeing robust increases in the B117 variant. The South Africa and Brazil variants have also been detected in the U.S., though in much smaller numbers These can escape the vaccines’ neutralizing ability. They can also combine forces with B117.
B117 is now the dominant variant in the Netherlands. It took a mere 3-4 weeks for the percentage of B117 cases to increase from 1% to 67%. Fauci and others are wrong, in my opinion, when they say B117 will be dominant by the end of March. I believe B117 will be dominant much sooner, perhaps even by the end of February. Look at Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and of course the U.K. and Ireland. All these countries are enforcing and extending strict lockdowns while vaccinating as many people as possible, similar to Israel.
Our (U.S.) approach is curious. We have no lockdowns and really have never had one like the ones in Europe. The restrictions we have put in place have been loosening, not tightening. In fact, no state is tightening restrictions at this time.
It’s good old American know how – sob!
No idea why but public policy has never seemed to be able to evolve to proactivity in this country. At this point we aren’t even reactive anymore. See covid, climate change, economic instability, cyber security….. we are just paralyzed.
We are also really good at making the short game as short as possible. See Congress….
C-19 for 2-4 is ready.