Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Builds character.

 

A good explainer for why mutations aren’t an issue for the vaccines:

Vaccines are made with mutations in mind - Your Local Epidemiologist

 

Stain-
What's the arithmetic look like today?

 

Still looks great to me. Cases are plummeting week over week, but that might be exaggerated by the fact that last week was the catch-up week from the Christmas break. Hospital census is much more stable and easier to read, and it’s still clearly trending down about 5% over last week. The only other two times it trended down were in when we entered long decline phases in May and July.

And vaccinations are just barely kicking in. It takes a week or two to become protected after jabbed, and another week or two before you would have gone to the hospital but don’t have to anymore. So if this is being caused by vaccinations, it’s the ones from right after Christmas when distribution was much less than it is now.

To me, there doesn’t look like there’s any doubt that COVID as a life-changing pandemic is over in the United States by sometime between March and June, and I think the early part of that window is more likely.

I think the reason people doubt this is it because it feels like the US has done very bad (it has) and that therefore the pandemic will last longer. Pandemics have two ways they can be bad: they can kill (or injure) a lot of people and they can disrupt life for a long time.

But those are two different issues and in fact can work against each other. The pandemic in the US is really, really bad in terms of how many people it is injuring and killing, but because the universe isn’t fair, it’s going to end sooner for us because of how bad we let it get. We are one of the world leaders in immunity to the virus, which we paid for in a lot of deaths and injuries, but we got it. Now we are also using our big boy money to make sure we are at the front of the line for each vaccine.

I’m so confident that I’m actively trying to monitor all the ways I might be wrong. I think the headlines about all the variants are too confident and making it seem like they’re worse than they are, but the scientists I follow seem to be converting on the consensus that a few of the variants do appear to increase transmission by some amount and that they will begin to dominate US covid by mid March.

I don’t think that is going to ultimately hurt US recovery for a couple of reasons

1) By the time mid-March gets here, we should be most of the way through vaccinating 65+, who make up 60% of hospitalizations and 85% of deaths

2) We have so much immunity through infection built up and more is coming. We are already closing in on 30% infected and I wouldn’t be surprised if we are past 35% by then even with the current drops.

3) Like I said earlier, “more casualties” and “lasts longer” sometimes work against each other. For the US, more infections in the spring means more casualties but it doesn’t mean it lasts longer. It probably makes it end sooner.


But all that said, I’m still just an idiot retired sportswriter with an undiagnosed social disorder, way too much time on my hands and undergraduate level statistics knowledge. If I’m wrong, you get your money back on what you paid for my opinion.

 

You have talent to burn, dude. I appreciate you breaking it down.
And there hasn't been a thing in the last two months you called wrong.
Not easy to accomplish on this message forum.

 

Nah you’re probably right on. My only push back is how much the vaccines have to do with this. The people by and large who are getting it are the people who already know to do things like wear masks and limit contacts. Even without the vaccine, the spike was due to come down because we’re past heavy travel times and some changing behaviors. Now the effect of the vaccine is not zero and has to be helping with the seniors who are getting it. But we might be a month away from it being more than just behavior changes as the population at large gets it more.

 

LOL I hope you're wrong because that would for sure be spun by Trumpists as, "SEE HE TOLD YOU IT'D BE DONE BY EASTER!"

 

Fill those church pews!

 

Oh, I'd be surprised if it were opened back up by then nationwide. I think a stay home and shut up about it approach is coming, with money to make staying home go down easier.

As if money makes people feel purposeful.