While case numbers are still being reported, and recognizing that any case numbers out there are under-counted, can 600,000 be far behind? On Thursday, there were some 585,013 new cases in the US. The usefulness of case numbers continues to be debated. Says one expert, "Once you have accepted the virus is endemic, just like influenza, then you never track cases because we never screen like this for any other viruses, we track what is causing disease and getting people hospitalized." On the other hand, there are experts saying that case counts remain important because they prevent the public from over- or under-reacting. In Nova Scotia, a senior medical officer says the government would no longer focus on daily case counts. Both the Philippines and Singapore will stop posting case updates on social media. I'll keep reporting them as long as I can find them in a reputable source.
The US seven-day average for pediatric hospitalizations went up 58 percent to 334 between December 21 and December 27. Contributing to this is that less than 25 percent of US children are vaccinated. The infection rates in people between the ages of 18 and 29 is over eight times higher than one month ago. For people in their 30s and 40s, there are six times as many cases than there were one month ago. Some scientists are saying that Omicron may peak in the US in mid-January at 2.5 million new cases per week, a number that could go up to 5.4 million. Either number would greatly strain hospitals. The current average number of daily cases is 386,000, though we know that's under-counted. The average ICU occupancy rate nationwide is currently 79 percent. We'll be in real trouble if the expected post-holiday peak takes place.
I read some comments on the book The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir by Mark Woolhouse. He argues that looking at the coronavirus for the world or people as a whole was the wrong approach. The coronavirus has always been worse for certain groups of people making the general lockdown morally wrong and highly damaging. He claims it was done "to protect the NHS from a disease that is a far, far greater threat to the elderly, frail and infirm than to the young and healthy." I wonder, though, if we went back to those early days, would we find that we knew at the time just how differently the virus would affect different groups? The general lockdowns put in place were designed to protect as many people as possible based on the knowledge on hand at the time.
And there soon were different responses for different sub-populations. I'm not the only person I know with a parent in a long-term care situation who could not visit that parent for over a year given the extra restrictions put in place by the facility. To say we made things up as we went along may well be an accurate description, but hindsight is always 20-20. We'll probably respond better to the next pandemic, which I daresay will come sooner than the 100 years between "our" pandemic and the previous one. I just hope today's kids have learned from what today's adults have done this go-round.
2 comments:
In less than twenty years time we will know exactly what thinking went into the first lockdown because the National Archives will get its hands on all the documentation under the twenty year rule. The thing I would most like to know is whether the lockdown rules that were given live to the nation but weren't in the legistlation were a slip up or intentional, I can wait.
The data from the Zoe symptom reporting app shows that if you have a cold at the moment it's more likely that it is covid. The local case rate of 1855 per 100,000 people sounds terrifying but the reality is that it will be much bigger than that with the people who haven't been tested because they think they just have a cold. If I need a test to distinguish it from a cold then I've lost all fear of this thing now. The case numbers impact on service provision because of the numbers in isolation but now that vaccination has broken the link with serious illness it is no longer the portent of doom that it was.
Our family (minus me) tested before Christmas because we'd all had cold symptoms within the past month, but all tests taken were negative (I didn't have symptoms at that time but figured if my husband, on day 4-5 of symptoms, tested positive I'd test too; he was Covid-negative). Not every cold is Covid 19.
Post a Comment