We are just about at the point where things went up last year, with the prevailing theory being that the virus moved back north as we moved back inside more. There is no sign of that happening this year yet, and we do have large numbers vaccinated, so we may properly be hopeful that this time, when the spike goes down, it stays down.
Alaska is a massive contraindicator. I expect when the weather goes all bad all the time across the northern tier of states, we will see cases rise again. Delta is just that damn infectious.
At my work, we were able to keep original Covid out of the factory for 15 months. We've had 2 cases of Delta in 3 months, despite vaccination rates of 70%+ in the community. Make of that what you will.
Alaska is remote enough that it could also be a lagging indicator.
Locally to our county we still haven't had a death since last January, though we went through the Delta wave obviously in the statistics. In fact Delta was infectious enough that it surpassed the January surge in cases per reporting period, but nobody died.
My county of about 23K people has had a steady trickle of deaths every month, half a dozen or so. Our vaccination rate, though, is very high, above 70% not only for the senior population but for the entire population over 16. My wild guess is that it's a pretty elderly population without much access to good medical care. My unconfirmed impression is that the deaths are occurring in the unvaccinated residents of a certain age and medical condition.
John Hussman, an investment analyst and fund manager who I think is pretty smart, has been devoting some of his time to Covid data analysis and modeling. See the 'public health note' at the end of this post:
I always ask, "How many of the Covid deaths were secondary to an underlying condition?" Stage IV cancer, advanced heart failure, all those other things that will kill you? I'd wager that there is a large corralation between the two, especially for older, vaccinated people. Older being in their 70s-80s. The same people who would have a lot of problems during a bad flu season are probably having a lot of Covid problems, vaccinated or not.
We are just about at the point where things went up last year, with the prevailing theory being that the virus moved back north as we moved back inside more. There is no sign of that happening this year yet, and we do have large numbers vaccinated, so we may properly be hopeful that this time, when the spike goes down, it stays down.
ReplyDeleteAlaska is a massive contraindicator. I expect when the weather goes all bad all the time across the northern tier of states, we will see cases rise again. Delta is just that damn infectious.
ReplyDeleteAt my work, we were able to keep original Covid out of the factory for 15 months. We've had 2 cases of Delta in 3 months, despite vaccination rates of 70%+ in the community. Make of that what you will.
Alaska is remote enough that it could also be a lagging indicator.
ReplyDeleteLocally to our county we still haven't had a death since last January, though we went through the Delta wave obviously in the statistics. In fact Delta was infectious enough that it surpassed the January surge in cases per reporting period, but nobody died.
My county of about 23K people has had a steady trickle of deaths every month, half a dozen or so. Our vaccination rate, though, is very high, above 70% not only for the senior population but for the entire population over 16. My wild guess is that it's a pretty elderly population without much access to good medical care. My unconfirmed impression is that the deaths are occurring in the unvaccinated residents of a certain age and medical condition.
ReplyDeleteJohn Hussman, an investment analyst and fund manager who I think is pretty smart, has been devoting some of his time to Covid data analysis and modeling. See the 'public health note' at the end of this post:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc210912/
I always ask, "How many of the Covid deaths were secondary to an underlying condition?" Stage IV cancer, advanced heart failure, all those other things that will kill you? I'd wager that there is a large corralation between the two, especially for older, vaccinated people. Older being in their 70s-80s. The same people who would have a lot of problems during a bad flu season are probably having a lot of Covid problems, vaccinated or not.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1