In "Recommended Reading," FDA leaders are quitting in frustration with administration interference over vaccine protocol approval. At the same time, politics aside, at last the CDC has begun to release some partial statistics comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated populations. Looks like the probability of an infection leading to hospitalization is about 12 times greater for the unvaccinated.
Covid-2019
Covid-2019
Thursday, September 2, 2021
A shocking story in "Recommended Reading" from "The Atlantic". Australia embraces its history as a penal colony with an app that randomly pings citizens day or night, forcing them to biometrically identify themselves and be geo-located, facing arrest if they are not in compliance with mandated quarantine orders. And for all that, it's not even working: having once been celebrated as one of the countries that "got it right," Australia is one of the only in the world now where cases are at all-time highs.
Covid-2019
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
The US finally passes the 60% mark for vaccinations as a share of the entire population. That only brings us up to the median among the countries we track every day. We had such a head start, and (it must be said) just a few short months ago there was so much triumphalism about the president's goals for it...
Covid-2019
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
It's hard to see in the aggregate new-case numbers, but our leading indicators just get better and better: we're up to 25 US states in declining test-positivity trajectories, and 6 in declining case trajectories. Our most-reliable lagging indicator, days-to-double fatalities, is still rising, meaning the growth rate of fatalities is sub-exponential (and this indicator in the US is better than the world on average, by far).
Covid-2019
Monday, August 30, 2021
In "Recommended Reading," an interesting article from today's New York Times, showing how difficult it is for elite opinion-shapers to process the new public mood about Covid. After months of snarling put-downs of the vaccine-hesitant, this is a sympathetic story. The Times doesn't approve when Texans say this -- but when elite European tennis players say it, the risk-return thinking seems less neanderthal: "I'm not very scared of Covid, actually... My basic philosophy is: 'If you’re afraid of it, you get vaccinated; if not, no.' It's still a choice." That's a word -- choice! -- that we haven't heard from the Times in quite a while.
Covid-2019
Sunday, August 29, 2021
In "Recommended Reading," a new observational study from Israel shows that immunity is stronger in those who have already had Covid, versus those who have not but have been vaccinated. That's not remotely to say you shouldn't get vaccinated. But it is to say that schemes that favor the immune, such as "vaccine passports," should include those previously infected.
Covid-2019
Saturday, August 28, 2021
Today we introduce format changes to our large charts of countries and US states, to deal with the data-density that has accumulated over time, and the increasing unreliability of daily case data. We are now highlighting the 7-day moving average of new cases, and downplaying daily new cases, in order to suppress visual noise and make the short-term trend more apparent. All the same data is still there -- all that has changed is the color-scheme and the emphasis. Let us know what you think!
Covid-2019
Friday, August 27, 2021
In "Recommended Reading"... First, in the sanity department, the US Supreme Court overturns the eviction moratorium in which landlords were taxed for the benefit of tenants in the name of Covid abatement. Second, in the insanity department, a large US employer announces if will effectively fine employees who are not vaccinated (that company's name, appropriately enough, is Delta).
Covid-2019
Thursday, August 26, 2021
Another round number achieved -- now 13% of US adults have tested positive for Covid since the beginning. There may be some double-counting, but not very many people were infected twice. That means more than one out of eight people have had it. Question for readers: is that consistent with your personal experience? If you have not tested positive yourself, have one out of eight people that you know?
Covid-2019
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
We're now almost two months into the Delta wave of new cases, the fourth wave in the US. Fortunately cases are not matched by fatalities, after all this time. The case-fatality ratio is at all-time lows. Test-positivity is now downward trending in 20 states, cases in 6. The number of states was zero about two weeks ago. The leading evidence is that the wave has crested.