The continual drop in virus cases had been slowing in the last few weeks….
It now has begun to climb…..
The virus shots ARE climbing…..
And with that, the number of people vaccinated….
Washington Post…
In the past week in the U.S….
Among reported tests, the positivity rate was 4.6%.
The number of tests reported fell 29.9% from the previous week.Read more
Since Dec. 14, more than 130,473,000 doses of a covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the U.S.
More than 46,365,000 people have completed vaccination, or about 13.97% of the population. Read more in our vaccination tracker….
Wash Post.…Link...
Axios….
The big picture: The U.S. is in a race to vaccinate as many Americans as possible before variants of COVID-19, fueled by quick reopening, can cause a new wave of rising caseloads.
By the numbers: The U.S. is now averaging about 53,000 new cases per day — essentially unchanged from last week’s average. Cases have been holding steady in this range for several weeks.
- 19 states saw their average daily cases increase over the past week, and 14 states saw their numbers fall. The biggest improvements were in Arizona and Nevada, both of which saw new cases drop by about 45%.
- Michigan, on the other hand, took the biggest step backward, with a 50% rise in new cases.
What we’re watching: The U.S. has administered an average of 2.5 million vaccine doses per day over the past week, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.
- Vaccinations are growing a whole lot faster than cases, and will ultimately bring about the end of this pandemic. But it will require non-vaccine interventions — like masks and social distancing — to avoid another wave of rising infections while vaccines continue to roll out….
Axios.…Link
No surprise here.
Trump Republican Ted Cruz showed what we are up against when asked to put a mask on answered with some snarky remark.Ted is what he’s always been,a piece of S.
And hopes of getting to herd immunity will be considerably slowed by the fact that as manyy as half of all Republicans say they won’t take the vaccine.
The Republican Party 2021
FoxNews and Wall Street Journal Medical commentator ,Dr Marty Makary ,says that herd immunity is near and that Fauci and others aren’t properly accounting for the numbers of those previously infected.He notes that despite some reinfections the overwhelming number of previously infected people ahave substantial immunity from reinfection.Combing those with vaccinated people would come close to herd immunity according to him.
Makary , in a previous WSJ article ,claimed that Covid would “mostly be gone” by the end of April.
None of the many media “experts “have taken that position ,although a few are saying that by the summer case numbers will be substantially lower.
Makarey is a well respected physician from Johns Hopkins.I found it odd though that he would give a specific date for the ending of the pandemic ,rather than the more generic”soon” or “in a few months.”
The more traditional Fauci for his part says that we are “at the corner” but haven’t “turned the corner.”
You might want to check this post and it’s link out…
Also….
I had this in comments on Monday….
Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Perhaps instructive that, amidst a very sharp decline in cases overall as it’s now fully vaccinated 50% of its population, Israel also had a couple of plateaus that lasted 10-14 days at a time where its progress stalled out.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=40..latest&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=total_cases&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=~ISR
Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Replying to
@NateSilver538
I guess my somewhat nuanced takeaways here are that:
1) We should perhaps expect a bumpy landing, especially if there are inequities in who’s getting vaccinated
2) Nonetheless, a plateau or a small rise doesn’t necessarily portend a “4th wave”
3) Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate