COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[pbrower2a]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 7/1-7/7/2021 per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

From March 2020 to mid-July 2021, I kept track of COVID-19 numbers daily. Now that there's a light at the end of the tunnel and states are staggering their daily updates, I am switching to a mid-week to mid-week model (Thursday to Wednesday).

Wednesdays are ideal for weekly updates since holidays don't usually fall in the middle of the week, and most states would have reported some update by that day each week.

New Legend:

Δ Change: Comparisons of Weekly Growth or Decline of COVID-19 Spread/Deaths

Σ Increase: A week's contribution to overall percentage growth of COVID-19 cases/deaths.

• IE:What's the overall change in the total?

You may access the archive of daily reports below, with the last daily update at the end, which was on 7/6/2021.

Day-to-Day Archive from 3/26/2020-7/6/2021
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6/16-6/22: <Baseline Week>

• Cases: 34,433,696
• Deaths: 617,864

6/23-6/30: <Last Week>

• Cases: 34,544,094 (+110,398 | Σ Increase: ↑0.32%)
• Deaths: 620,237 (+2,373 | Σ Increase: ↑0.38%)

7/1-7/7: <This Week>

• Cases: 34,641,189 (+97,095 | ΔW Change: ↓12.05% | Σ Increase: ↑0.28%)
• Deaths: 621,851 (+1,614 | ΔW Change: ↓31.98% | Σ Increase: ↑0.26%)

I thank you greatly. I have used these numbers in arguments on other Forums, often to swat down those who trivialize or deny the effects of COVID-19.

HIV/AIDS may not be a perfect analogy, but there was a huge amount of politically-loaded misinformation about a dangerous disease. Misinformation on something so dangerous as HIV/AIDS in its time or COVID-19 literally kills people.  That the Religious Right was consolidating a hold on many Americans as HIV/AIDS ravaged largely gay men and IV drug users that the Religious Right saw as pariahs damaged the appropriate response. Maybe gay men could clean up their acts, but IV drug users needed some help -- like needle exchanges.

We have plenty of cranks telling us that government promotions of injections are compromises of freedom. Well, laws against drunk driving are compromises of freedom, too. Last week I reported an erratic driver for possible DUI in full knowledge of the legal consequences in which he was caught. Maybe he got where he was going anyway. I hope that he reads the local paper and notices  a police call that says "possible drunk driver at (time) on (name withheld) Road... southbound". Or maybe he crossed the state line and got busted in a town that has rigid traffic-law enforcement.

New infections and deaths are going down. At one point I had a grim log comparing the death toll as I ticked off cities whose population are comparable to the death toll that you show. On one day when the death toll was about half what it is now I was able to mention Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis on the same day because those three cities have similar population numbers.

Wikipedia has a list of US cities by population:

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

317 cities in the fifty states (this includes Washington, DC) and five in Puerto Rico have populations of 100,000 or more. There are eight Census-designated places that have somehow avoided incorporation. The grim toll just passed Louisville (29th) at 618,338, and in that area on the list the cities get scarcer (Milwaukee at 30th is at 589,067 and Memphis at 28th is at 649,705). There is some bunching between 656,751 (Portland, Oregon is 27th and Nashville, Tennessee is 23rd with such places as Oklahoma City, Detroit, and Las Vegas intervening.

I am using 2018 Census estimates. 

If I never get to compare the total to Memphis, I will be delighted. I did my share to keep from becoming a statistic.

It was easy to remind people of how dangerous COVID-19 was when the death toll was 3000 or more in a day (that is roughly the toll from the 9/11 attack).  In less than two weeks we could have the usual death toll from motor-vehicle collisions, which have tended downward to about 30,000 a year. Of course we rebuild highways to reduce the death toll. Of course we have state police setting up radar traps for speeders and set up enforcement zones for DUI. I have no problem with that.

The death toll is slowing down, and the general assumption at this stage is that cultures that show no respect for scientific expertise are largely the ones contracting COVID-19 and dying of it.   

I'm guessing that at some point it will be necessary to get a Census-like accounting of who got sick from COVID-19 and who died from it, with statistics showing Census tracts and such statistics as ethnicity and income. Maybe by Census tracts we will find connections to political orientation and death from COVID-19. Timing will matter.

There will be political consequences. Indeed, if COVID-19 hit minority communities harder than white communities before the 2020 election, then we may have some idea of how Donald Trump could come close to getting re-elected. But if since then the toll has been of reactionary white people, then we may see consequences as early as 2022.

And, yes, I see Donald Trump culpable in negligent homicide on a large scale, if not genocide. 

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1413595082238873607

There's no bottom with these people.  There really isn't.

[SnowLabrador]

Trump needs to be imprisoned for genocide.

[pbrower2a]

The spread of the Delta variant in relatively unvaccinated parts of the U.S. is getting worse.

Nationwide, the number of new Covid-19 cases is holding steady. But that steadiness hides two dueling realities, in two different Americas.

In many urban and suburban communities, Covid continues to plummet. The rate of new daily cases has fallen below three per 100,000 residents in large cities like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington. As a point of comparison, the national rate of new daily cases peaked last winter above 75 per 100,000 people.

But in less populated areas — which tend to be more politically conservative and skeptical of vaccines — the virus is now surging, largely from the contagious Delta variant. The states with the worst outbreaks are Arkansas and Missouri (each with more than 16 new daily cases per 100,000 people) followed by Florida (10), Nevada (10), Wyoming (nine) and Utah (eight).

If these outbreaks were concentrated among younger people, it would be less worrisome, because Covid, including the Delta variant, is overwhelmingly mild for children and young adults. Yet even many middle-aged and older adults are not vaccinated in parts of the U.S. They are catching the virus as a result, and some are dying.

There is a clear relationship between a state’s Covid death rate over the past week and its overall vaccination rate:




(You can look up any state’s data here.)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210707&instance_id=34704&nl=the-morning&regi_id

Preventable deaths

The biggest tragedy is that this situation is avoidable. Highly effective vaccines are available to virtually any American adult who wants one — a privilege that residents of many other countries do not have. Hundreds of U.S. clinics, including in rural communities, offer immediate, walk-in shots.

Still, only 54 percent of adults in rural areas have received at least one vaccine shot, according to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, compared with 72 percent of urban residents. Kaiser found that vaccination rates were also below average for Americans under 50; Black Americans; Republicans; and people without a college degree.

“It is the unvaccinated people who are dying,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi’s state health officer, said, according to the television station WLBT. “The unvaccinated people who are going to the hospital. The unvaccinated people who are getting diagnosed, for the most part.”

Tricia Jones, a 45-year-old mother of two in Grain Valley, a small city in western Missouri, did not get the vaccine because she was concerned about the side effects. Her mother, Deborah Carmichael, had felt sick after getting a shot, and Jones decided to wait.

This spring, Jones caught the virus. She was hospitalized May 13 and died June 9. Now, as Sherae Honeycutt of Fox4 in Kansas City writes:

Her family is praying people will see Tricia’s life as a call to action to get their vaccine — if not for themselves, for the ones they love. “Please take this seriously. You don’t want to see a family member you love go through this,” Carmichael said. “You have a way better chance of coming out OK than if you don’t.”

“I really miss you. I miss you a lot,” Adriana [Jones’s 18-year-old daughter] said.

Marc Johnson, a University of Missouri immunologist, told The Missouri Independent that he expected the state’s outbreak to continue worsening for much of July. In some communities, the Delta variant has only recently arrived, suggesting a coming surge.

Despite the rise in caseloads and deaths, many Republican politicians have declined to offer a full-throated call for vaccination. Instead, state legislators in Missouri have warned hospitals not to require employees to get vaccinated. And Gov. Mike Parson has sent mixed messages.

“You’re gonna have to take responsibility, to take the vaccine, if you so choose to,” Parson said last week. “But you know, I think it’s important to understand that there’s risk involved.”

A few Republican governors have taken a different approach. “We’re in a race against this Delta variant,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said on Sunday. “The solution is the vaccinations.” Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia was blunter: Anybody who is not vaccinated, he said, has entered “the death lottery.”

For more:

To reach unvaccinated Americans, President Biden said the government would set up clinics at workplaces and urge employers to offer paid time off.
I want to thank you for spending time with The Morning today. Subscribers to The New York Times make this newsletter possible, and I hope you’ll consider becoming one of them. You can do so here.

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Is there any surprise?

[Calthrina950]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1413595082238873607

There's no bottom with these people.  There really isn't.

This unqualified fratboy is a disgrace to the United States Congress. I continue to regret having defended him at one point.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I saw an article earlier (I think it was CNN) that said 99.96% of new cases in Los Angeles County were among the unvaccinated. I'm flabbergasted that anyone is still trying to reinstate masks or lockdowns for people who are already vaccinated.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Would it have been possible for the US Congress to literally declare war on the coronavirus, so that people spreading false pro-virus propaganda could be charged with treason?

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1413595082238873607

There's no bottom with these people.  There really isn't.

Bibles? Joe Biden is a devout Catholic!

[Holmes]

I saw an article earlier (I think it was CNN) that said 99.96% of new cases in Los Angeles County were among the unvaccinated. I'm flabbergasted that anyone is still trying to reinstate masks or lockdowns for people who are already vaccinated.

Wasn’t aware there was anyone still trying to reinstate the lockdown.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I saw an article earlier (I think it was CNN) that said 99.96% of new cases in Los Angeles County were among the unvaccinated. I'm flabbergasted that anyone is still trying to reinstate masks or lockdowns for people who are already vaccinated.

Wasn’t aware there was anyone still trying to reinstate the lockdown.

Israel is about to reinstate theirs.

[Holmes]

I saw an article earlier (I think it was CNN) that said 99.96% of new cases in Los Angeles County were among the unvaccinated. I'm flabbergasted that anyone is still trying to reinstate masks or lockdowns for people who are already vaccinated.

Wasn’t aware there was anyone still trying to reinstate the lockdown.

Israel is about to reinstate theirs.

We don’t live in Israel.

[It’s so Joever]

I saw an article earlier (I think it was CNN) that said 99.96% of new cases in Los Angeles County were among the unvaccinated. I'm flabbergasted that anyone is still trying to reinstate masks or lockdowns for people who are already vaccinated.

Link?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I saw an article earlier (I think it was CNN) that said 99.96% of new cases in Los Angeles County were among the unvaccinated. I'm flabbergasted that anyone is still trying to reinstate masks or lockdowns for people who are already vaccinated.

Link?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/citing-rise-delta-variant-los-angeles-reports-165-percent-increase-n1273552?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

99.4%, but close enough.

[Hammy]

I saw an article earlier (I think it was CNN) that said 99.96% of new cases in Los Angeles County were among the unvaccinated. I'm flabbergasted that anyone is still trying to reinstate masks or lockdowns for people who are already vaccinated.

Link?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/citing-rise-delta-variant-los-angeles-reports-165-percent-increase-n1273552?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

99.4%, but close enough.

That seems like an extremely high effectiveness rate considering something like 60-70% of the county is vaccinated, depending on if you count one dose or only fully.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/senior-health-official-israel-headed-for-another-lockdown-if-no-change-in-govt-policy/

Senior health official: Israel headed for another lockdown if no change in gov’t policy

This sounds more like a worst case scenario warning to spur government action rather than anything thats "about to happen".

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Yeah, right now all I've seen is Israel reinstating some limited mask mandates.

[Pericles]

This data is from England and a few days old, but I think it shows the risk that the health system gets overwhelmed is pretty minimal. Unfortunately due to the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy (in the US) there will be unnecessary deaths, but the justification for an outright lockdown was to protect the health system. Now that the vaccine is available, people will just have to take personal responsibility for their health. Mask mandates are pretty costless so a few limited restrictions to save lives are justifiable. And in countries like NZ that eliminated rather than tried to suppress the virus, we may be able to try a different strategy for our full return to normal.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Delta variant now accounts for more than half of the new coronavirus cases in the United States —52%. Almost all of the new cases — 99.7% —are among people who have not been vaccinated.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-covid-19-cases-united-states-almost-all-among-people-unvaccinated/

[Hammy]

..Unfortunately due to the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy (in the US) there will be unnecessary deaths, but the justification for an outright lockdown was to protect the health system...

I think the case can be made for some stringent measures in places like Missouri, where hospitals are once again becoming overwhelmed. When that happens, it puts everyone at risk because if you need to go to the hospital for some non-covid related reason, there's no room.

The graph though is yet another compelling visualization as to why people should still get vaccinated even if mild symptomatic case immunity is reduced.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

The Delta variant now accounts for more than half of the new coronavirus cases in the United States —52%. Almost all of the new cases — 99.7% —are among people who have not been vaccinated.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-covid-19-cases-united-states-almost-all-among-people-unvaccinated/

This means the U.S. has only 55 cases per day among the vaccinated.

Fifty-five. In the entire country.

[pbrower2a]

The Delta variant now accounts for more than half of the new coronavirus cases in the United States —52%. Almost all of the new cases — 99.7% —are among people who have not been vaccinated.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-covid-19-cases-united-states-almost-all-among-people-unvaccinated/

This means the U.S. has only 55 cases per day among the vaccinated.

Fifty-five. In the entire country.

For the vaccinated, drunk drivers are more of a hazard now. For the unvaccinated, COVID-19 remains a grave menace.

I reported one of those vehicular scum this week. I hope that that fool got caught. He was close to the state line, headed out of Michigan into Indiana. Out-of-state drunks typically get the book thrown at them. 

[jamestroll]

ooooo and covid proved that hospitality workers.. many of them are lazy as ****. They are almost as bad as teachers in refusing to go back to work.

Come october they will be begging to get their jobs back. hahahahaha

Vaccines for kids under 12 are not yet approved, it'd be stupid to reopen all schools.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/10/world/covid-19-coronavirus-updates/the-cdc-urges-schools-to-fully-reopen-even-if-they-cannot-follow-all-covid-19-guidelines?smid=share-live-control

CDC disagrees with you.

Thank goodness. Great news! That means no major suburban reversion to the GOP in NJ and VA this November. VA Gov from toss up to Lean D and NJ Gov from Likely D to Safe D.

[emailking]

This data is from England and a few days old, but I think it shows the risk that the health system gets overwhelmed is pretty minimal. Unfortunately due to the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy (in the US) there will be unnecessary deaths, but the justification for an outright lockdown was to protect the health system. Now that the vaccine is available, people will just have to take personal responsibility for their health. Mask mandates are pretty costless so a few limited restrictions to save lives are justifiable. And in countries like NZ that eliminated rather than tried to suppress the virus, we may be able to try a different strategy for our full return to normal.

I don't get why NZ hasn't been vaccinating more. You have no virus but don't you want to get rid of all the international travel restrictions & isolation?

[morgieb]

This data is from England and a few days old, but I think it shows the risk that the health system gets overwhelmed is pretty minimal. Unfortunately due to the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy (in the US) there will be unnecessary deaths, but the justification for an outright lockdown was to protect the health system. Now that the vaccine is available, people will just have to take personal responsibility for their health. Mask mandates are pretty costless so a few limited restrictions to save lives are justifiable. And in countries like NZ that eliminated rather than tried to suppress the virus, we may be able to try a different strategy for our full return to normal.

I don't get why NZ hasn't been vaccinating more. You have no virus but don't you want to get rid of all the international travel restrictions & isolation?

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

I think availability is a bit of a question mark as well?

[Pericles]

This data is from England and a few days old, but I think it shows the risk that the health system gets overwhelmed is pretty minimal. Unfortunately due to the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy (in the US) there will be unnecessary deaths, but the justification for an outright lockdown was to protect the health system. Now that the vaccine is available, people will just have to take personal responsibility for their health. Mask mandates are pretty costless so a few limited restrictions to save lives are justifiable. And in countries like NZ that eliminated rather than tried to suppress the virus, we may be able to try a different strategy for our full return to normal.

I don't get why NZ hasn't been vaccinating more. You have no virus but don't you want to get rid of all the international travel restrictions & isolation?

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

I think availability is a bit of a question mark as well?

That's basically it, we're using all the vaccines we have. And at least we are ahead of our own targets so while slow by international standards, hopefully this means the rollout will go smoothly through the rest of the year. Maybe we could have bought more, but that would have taken supply from countries that need it more.

[jamestroll]

For those of you people who think I do not care about people's deaths and did not care of the pandemic:

I voted for Biden as early as I could... specifically due to the pandemic:

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=395038.msg7585237#msg7585237