The View from the Hermitage, Day 354

Progress against covid-19 appears to have stalled. In the past week, the US averaged just under 65,000new cases per day, unchanged from the week before. Before that, we had six weeks of double-digit declines. Mississippi and Texas are ending mask mandates and opening all businesses at their full capacity. It's interesting then that Mississippi had the largest increase last week over the week before, at 62 percent. It was the only state to have a growth rate over 50 percent. Nine states plus the District of Columbia had increases between 10 and 50 percent: South Dakota, Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maine. The other states were either the same or lower, with Virginia being one of the states where the case rate was declining. Many European countries are either keeping or tightening their lockdowns. The WHO has cited a resurgence of cases in Central and Western Europe and a rise of new cases in several Western European countries. I guess they know something we're in many cases ignoring. 

There is a silver lining to Texas's ending its mask mandate; businesses are allowed to keep the ones they impose. So far in Texas, Target, CVS, Starbucks, and Kroger will continue to require that anyone inside their store wear masks. Albertson's will encourage customers to wear masks while requiring them of employees. Alabama will keep its mask mandate in place for another month, until April 9.

Although the biggest factor in the covid death toll is age, the second largest is body weight. Covid death rates continue to be high in countries with more overweight people such as the UK, US, and Italy. Covid death rates are 10 times higher in countries in which more than half the adults have BMIs of more than 25, the point at which normal becomes overweight. The US is 8th on a list of countries ordered by decreasing percentage of overweight people. The top six are Belgium, Slovenia, the UK, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Portugal. Whenever I see BMI, though, I have to remind myself of its drawbacks. Both The Sons are considered overweight according to BMI, but their weight resides in muscle tissue not fat.

As noted above, the biggest factor in covid death rates is age; seniors account for 81 percent of covid deaths. Despite that, half of seniors here in the US have yet to get even one vaccination. This includes 36 percent of those over 75 and 54 percent of those 65 to 74. While seniors have received vaccinations at far higher rate than the general population, that half have not yet gotten even one shot surprises me. I know that around here, seniors were the first group vaccinated along with front-line health care workers. Pretty much everyone I know over 75 has gotten at least one shot, and most have gotten two. Most of those people, though, have Internet access and are able to get themselves to the site at wihch the vaccinations are being given, two factors whose lack might deter someone from getting the shot.  

Mother Nature is getting seismically antsy again. Besides the volcanoes in Iceland, Indonesia, and Italy, there has been a plethora of earthquakes of late. One of strength 7.3 (according to New Zealand scientists) or 6.9 (according to the US Geological Survey) struck 11 miles north of the island at a depth of six miles. Tsunami warnings were issued, though I have not heard that any have happened. Yesterday, a 6.2 earthquake rocked central Greece. And on February 27, there was a 7.1 earthquake nine miles north of Anchorage, Alaska. What comes next? A super-early start to hurricane season? An abnormally active tornado season?A late-season blizzard or perhaps a derecho? Only Mother Nature knows, and so far, she's not talking.