Coronavirus

Many governors in the USA are insisting that they cannot mandate vaccines or mask usage (as in GA), or are actively obstructing localities that try to do so (FL and TX).  Their claims rely on rampant misinformation that kids do not get COVID-19 - or that if they do, they get very mild cases and do not spread it easily, and rarely do they die from it.  This was questionable earlier this year with the initial variants and has become very misleading in the last two months as the extremely contagious and ferocious Delta variant has spread to constitute 99% of all cases in the USA.  It is increasingly clear that the Delta can and does seriously infect school children, especially those under 12 who cannot be vaccinated yet.  Recent anecdotal stories from Florida have raised alarm and now strong statistical evidence has emerged that reopening schools without mitigation measures may be extremely dangerous to the health and futures of millions of kids while also  encouraging the continued sprea

The Florida Department of Health (FL-DOH) convinced the CDC to accept an alternative method for reporting COVID-19 cases and deaths this week that made things less transparent and more confusing at a critical junction of the pandemic.   The FL-DOH has done well in tracking actual and reported dates for deaths and cases but now it has switched the two up in its reporting to the CDC and the public.   The CDC appears to have accepted the new actual date reporting from FL without questions or explanations while most of the other 49 states are still sending the CDC “as reported date” information.   At the end of the day, the two data series wind up in the same place because cumulative cases and deaths must total to the same numbers at all times, but in the interim, there is the potential for misleading conclusions and bad policies.     report date Cum case calc diff pre wk case cum death calc diff pre wk deaths

President Biden and the CDC are hoping that the US COVID-19 death rate will be better for this current surge.   We are optimistic but have doubts.   The reasons are complex.   For one, the US continues to test much less thoroughly than other best-in-class countries such as the UK.   Thorough testing can identify and stop outbreaks before they become serious surges.   Moreover, identifying a higher number of asymptomatic and mild cases causes the measured case fatality rate (CFR = deaths/cases) to improve, since the denominator increases and the ratio decreases.   In the UK, the CFR appears to have improved significantly from 2.1% for the last wave in January to 0.3% for the current Delta surge.  Part of the reason for the improvement is that the majority of Brits were vaccinated in early 2021 and the death rate for the vaccinated is much lower than for the unvaccinated.  The US hopes that a similar improvement will be observed.  Unfortunately, this appears to be unlikely for a number

The Delta variant of COVID-19 is a very contagious and virulent beast.  When better data is required to understand this rapidly evolving virus CDC tracking of COVID-19 cases has gotten worse.   For breakthrough cases due to the Delta variant, only the bare minimum is available.   Nevertheless, they do track total cumulative weekly hospitalizations and deaths in the US (with many caveats).   These data allow us to track incremental weekly data by subtracting the previous cumulative total from the current week’s cumulative total.   The trend is disturbing. Week Ending Cum BK Hospital Cum BK Deaths 7-day BK Hosp 7-day BK Deaths 7-day total Hospital 7-day total Deaths % of hosp % of deaths 8/2   7,101   1,507      862      244   10,000      2,868     8.5%      8.5% 7/26   6,239