The U.S. tops 1 million Covid infections in 24 hours

Jim / Scott,

It seems that Swiss Covid infections already surpassed the 7-day rolling average peak by more than 2x.

Regards
James


Hi Jim,

Which article did Ezekiel Emanuel co-author? I usually don’t follow him but am aware of his influence.

James,

S Africa took about 2 months for the peak to turn and we are already seeing a decrease from the peak in several US states or territories, like Maryland, Ohio, Maine, & D.C. so the US could be close (? within a few weeks) to a peak.

Scott

Hi Scott,

I do not follow him either. I don’t want to pick on anyone. But can’t you tell who has actually seen a patient in say the last 2 decades? Some people setting policy have not been seeing patients or even been doing their own research for a while. Honestly, I will take (and actually have) treatment from a random doctor at an urgent care clinic over some of the people in charge of setting policy. I went to an urgent care clinic to get tested for Covid just to see if I should isolate (and tested positive). I saw a random practicing MD there and saw no need to see anyone else. A practicing MD automatically weighs risks and benefits and has some no-BS (practical) data at their fingertips. Not the first real case they have seen in the last few hours (not decades).

Also to the point of not wanting to single anyone out, I am not sure Dr. Emanuel does not have a pretty good point about what can be accomplish regardless of what I may think about the day-to-day implications of the affordable care act (I hate the extra administrative work to be sure).

Anyway this was just an editorial in JAMA that I read while looking at the abstracts. But this has been quoted elsewhere. And I see the CDC changing its position. For example, they are working on sorting out whether people in the hospital are admitted for the problem of COVID or whether they tested positive when they were admitted for another problem. Generally, a more relaxed position from the CDC, I think.

And while things change each news cycle it seems, I think the CDC wants to keep schools open today.

If I overstated Dr. Emanual’s political power (or anything else), please feel free to expand.

Link: JAMAnetwork.com. I hope (assume) you will not have problems with a paywall. I will cut and paste if you do. For now, the link works for me when I check it.

Best,

Jim

Jim / Scott,

According to this article, average hospitalizations soared to 131,370 over the past week, close to the peak of hospitalizations during the early days of January last year, according to Johns Hopkins University data. I will send you the whole article via email in case you don’t have a subscription to Barrons.

Regards
James

https://www.barrons.com/articles/u-s-covid-hospitalizations-near-january-2021-peaks-51641852248?mod=bol-social-tw

U.S. Covid Hospitalizations Near January 2021 Peaks

U.S. cases of Covid-19 requiring hospitalization are close to reaching the peak of last year, according to the latest data.

The average number of Covid-19-related hospitalizations nationwide soared to 131,370 over the past week, which is 96% of peak hospitalizations during the week of Jan. 4 to Jan. 10, 2021, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

That includes 22,125 coronavirus patients in intensive care beds nationally, or nearly 76% of the ICU beds needed in early January last year.

Almost 25% of hosptials are reporting “critical staffing shortages,” according to USA Today, citing data from the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s the most since the start of the pandemic.

The seven-day average of newly reported coronavirus cases has risen to 709,633, and is on pace to triple the coronavirus record set last January, when the U.S. averaged one-quarter of a milion daily cases, according to The Wall Street Journal’s analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

The U.S. reported 307,208 confirmed cases on Monday, and 330 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

[quote]

I would be careful about confusing rate of infection, R0, with herd immunity. They aren’t the same. At several times the R0 has dropped below 1. That’s what in fact happens when cases decrease which you know we have observed several times.
[/quote]You are correct of course. But isn’t it that way with every herd immunity? Imagine if you can reduce risk of transmission by 70% with vaccines and/or natural immunity in children, and another 70% by regulating super spreader events. You could then have a reduction in transmission of about 90%.

[quote]

[quote]
There are indications that natural immunity (unlike vaccines), lasts. This could make herd immunity achievable.
[/quote]Perhaps, although there is much documented evidence of reinfection of those with prior infections and even more so with Omicron, albeit Omicron does appear milder. Vaccines are maintaining a level of immunity which does decrease over time, but the data is also showing the same for natural immunity.
[/quote]Okay, so I have not been keeping up with more recent data, but based on the data I downloaded from the Israeli Ministry of Health a few months ago (they kept pretty good records), natural immunity remained at about 90% for months, while Pfizer vaccine induced immunity started off stronger but was dropping down to 70% or less after a few months.

[quote]
Typically as diseases adapt to a host they do become less deadly over time but this is a gradual and random process in the short term.
[/quote]That’s encouraging.

There are some indications that if the pharmaceutical industry was properly motivated to test existing treatments, we would have been able to lower the fatality rate by 90% or more by stacking different interventions.

See for example, COVID-19 early treatment: real-time analysis of 3,558 studies

Of course, this summary is only a starting point for research, but there are some promising interventions listed.

Jim,

Thank you for the article

Jim/James,

Ireland, Iceland and UK have had a drop in their peak number of cases or it appears that the O wave is starting to “roll over” there

Scott