At what point would you lock down again?

[regentrude]

9 hours ago, madteaparty said:

You have to test to get back into the Us. Now, the test is up to three days old and you could have supposedly caught it on the meantime. But yeah, they check. You can’t board. 

I am fully aware of that - for international travel. There is NO test required for domestic travel. That's what I was referring to. (In the posts preceding mine, people had mentioned specifically travel to theme parks)

Edited September 5, 2021 by regentrude

[cintinative]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/05/1034210487/covid-surge-overwhelming-hospitals-raising-fears-rationed-care?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&fbclid=IwAR3mMrr-uWWqIrbyt0xM_pzMAv6SQA3YTywskRNmM95mYp5F8g5TmGcR1IY

But in many other parts of the country, hospitalizations are likely to keep increasing, the researchers say, with the U.S. projected to hit a peak of about 116,000 people in the hospital by mid-September.

According to the model, ICU capacity will be under "extreme stress" in states like Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Hawaii, Georgia, Delaware and Wisconsin.

 

[happi duck]

I tried church today because they were advertising that everyone would be masked even the readers etc.

*Maury Povich voice* I quickly determined that was a lie.

I'm so disappointed 😞

The readers etc should especially be masked.

[kbutton]

14 minutes ago, happi duck said:

I tried church today because they were advertising that everyone would be masked even the readers etc.

*Maury Povich voice* I quickly determined that was a lie.

I'm so disappointed 😞

The readers etc should especially be masked.

This was one of the death knells for us breaking with our old church. They advertised masking and distancing for MONTHS but it wasn’t true. No attempt was made to shift to, say, one masked service followed by a mask optional service, etc. They just left the lie up on their site for months. 

[ktgrok]

54 minutes ago, kbutton said:

This was one of the death knells for us breaking with our old church. They advertised masking and distancing for MONTHS but it wasn’t true. No attempt was made to shift to, say, one masked service followed by a mask optional service, etc. They just left the lie up on their site for months. 

I fully admit to pausing and scanning the livestream of churches to look for masks. 

The one we have chosen I saw masks on everyone, although the pastor takes it off during certain times, but only when is what looks like 15 feet or more away from the first pews of the church. 

[Spryte]

1 hour ago, happi duck said:

I tried church today because they were advertising that everyone would be masked even the readers etc.

*Maury Povich voice* I quickly determined that was a lie.

I'm so disappointed 😞

The readers etc should especially be masked.

I’m so sorry.

But your Maury Povich voice made me smile.

[mommyoffive]

Covid Deaths Surge Across a Weary America as a Once-Hopeful Summer Ends (msn.com)

 

Health officials keeping "very close eye" on new COVID variant (msn.com)

 

Hospitals in crisis in least vaccinated state: Mississippi (msn.com)

 

 

[mommyoffive]

[KSera]

15 hours ago, KSera said:

Yeah, I almost commented that I thought they relied on a couple lousy sources in that article (besides Battachayra, also the person who said Covid is no longer a medical problem 🤨). I think they were aiming for being balanced, but doing that by having people make untrue statements isn’t balance to me. A lot of people reading will take them at their word. As long as we have this many people dying every day (do people who think it’s over realize we have over 2000 Covid deaths a day in the US right now? Almost all of them preventable.) and hospitals overwhelmed so much that people can’t get normal care and some people are dying for lack of a bed, it’s crazy to say we are past the pandemic portion of this. 

Looks like we’re not the only ones going 🤨 over that Washington Post piece (thread):

 

[Laura Corin]

21 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

If I’m remembering correctly, the Obama/Biden administration put a lot of effort into pandemic planning. I have no idea how much funding may or may not have gone into resources for it, but a plan existed.  And I do believe plans, to various degrees, existed before that.  
They just didn’t get implemented in the way that the National Preparedness System (for the US, at least) was designed to operate.

Okay, I took a minute to google. Official planning efforts began in 1976.

The UK also had a plan - in fact a friend of mine was involved in writing it. It was based around flu, so that even to the extent that it was implemented,  it was undermined by deadly differences in transmission. 

[Eos]

On 9/5/2021 at 5:17 AM, madteaparty said:

t’s a lot of work to travel in the timE of covid..

 

 

Many restaurants have closed for a few days for covid among staff, they reopen and everything just goes on.  The cognitive dissonance is close to overwhelming.   

 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Eos

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

6 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

The UK also had a plan - in fact a friend of mine was involved in writing it. It was based around flu, so that even to the extent that it was implemented,  it was undermined by deadly differences in transmission. 

We’ve had flu pandemic drills on a county level as long as I’ve been a paramedic.  Mostly it was mass vaccination drills.  Unfortunately, pandemic plans were all built around flu(which can certainly cause pandemics) and not a super contagious, virulent, unknown pathogen. 

[Faith-manor]

Under the Obama administration the National Pandemic plan for the later part of his last term was not based on flu, but on computer modeling for a pandemic of a much more transmissible, much more deadly virus of unknown origin and no known treatment options because the WHO was warning that zoonotic diseases were increasingly a threat due to too much proximity with human populations.  It was a scenario very similar to what we are actually experiencing. There was a whole playbook for it, and a national response team created in case it occurred. That playbook was tossed out the window and the pandemic response team including numerous expert epidemiologists and public health experts fired when the administration changed.

Dd when she was a medic participated in several catastrophic drill preps. Most were related to weather disasters like tornado/hurricane, fires, massive multi vehicle freeway accidents, and even simulated plane crashes. But one was for a pandemic and the EMS director set it up to be "what about a new, very deadly, airbornne virus". She said it was totally depressing because it mostly centered around how to be in hazmat suits for days at a time and work on patients while wearing them, setting up mobile morgues, triaging patients and stealing ones nerves for leaving a LOT of them without any medical attention and dying alone, lack of supplies and supportive pharmaceuticals, etc.  She had a really hard time with that one because she was pretty young medic at the time. She said a bunch of them went off to the pub to drink the pain away, but she drove home and cuddled up with her dad and cried.

[mommyoffive]

State of Affairs: Sept 6, 2021 - by Katelyn Jetelina - Your Local Epidemiologist (substack.com)

Well, we may have peaked in the United States. Acceleration continues to slow down (second graph), which is a great sign. Cases are incredibly volatile right now, though, so let’s hope this trend continues.

This is about on track when we compare our Delta curve to other countries. It looks like everyone peaks between 40-60 days and we are coming up on 60 days.

We have six states with decreasing cases. The South’s fire is slowly but surely fizzling out. Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana (but we can’t trust their numbers due to Ida), Missouri, and Arkansas have decreasing 14-day averages.

Unfortunately, the national average is now being offset by a mid-Atlantic hotspot. South Carolina is now the national leader in COVID19 cases (106 per 100K), followed by Tennessee (100 per 100K) and Kentucky (99 per 100K).

Maine (136% 14-day change), West Virginia (113%), and South Dakota (99%) have the fastest growth rate in the country.

Also notice how case trends, by age, are rapidly changing. I pulled a graph from the CDC website and selected different time frames: The first graph is the Winter wave; the second graph is the Delta wave. The order of colors is drastically different. Before Delta, kids were at the bottom. During Delta, 12-17 years olds are at the top. Followed closely by 5-11 year olds.

[ktgrok]

1 minute ago, mommyoffive said:

State of Affairs: Sept 6, 2021 - by Katelyn Jetelina - Your Local Epidemiologist (substack.com)

Well, we may have peaked in the United States. Acceleration continues to slow down (second graph), which is a great sign. Cases are incredibly volatile right now, though, so let’s hope this trend continues.

 

I hate to say it, but I think cases have peaked in certain states. I think the North East and other areas have not had theirs yet. Hopefully due to increased cautiousness and mitigation the wave there will be smaller than ours down here in Florida. 

But with Labor day today and people traveling, way too early to say it is over. 

[TexasProud]

One county I stradle has a rate of 237 / 100,000 and the other one has 117.  But life is normal.

[Faith-manor]

8 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I hate to say it, but I think cases have peaked in certain states. I think the North East and other areas have not had theirs yet. Hopefully due to increased cautiousness and mitigation the wave there will be smaller than ours down here in Florida. 

But with Labor day today and people traveling, way too early to say it is over. 

We will probably have a big spike due to Labor Day. It is a big thing here! We went out on the sailboat yesterday and what we saw were tons of parties on larger boats, pontoon boats, etc. Just shoulder to shoulder drinking parties, then the marina restaurants packed, RV resorts on the water hosting big parties, one looked like 200 people crammed together. Being outside and having fresh air flow simply can't overcome that mess. Boy was I glad it was just Mark and I alone on our little boat. My nephew headed out to an inland lake to kayak with his wife, but turned around and came home because the launch was packed, so they put on their masks while they waited their turn, and were accosted and physically threatened by a group of men for wearing masks! I could easily just grab our mothers, the kids, son in law, grandsons, and the nephew and niece in law we have a great relationship with, and head to some remote wilderness or island, forsaking humanity and civilization. Humans aren't humane, as a group, and calling the U.S. civilized at this time is a joke!

[catz]

17 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I hate to say it, but I think cases have peaked in certain states. I think the North East and other areas have not had theirs yet. Hopefully due to increased cautiousness and mitigation the wave there will be smaller than ours down here in Florida. 

But with Labor day today and people traveling, way too early to say it is over. 

I agree.  I think a lot of scientists are thinking NE/Midwest are going to get ours after labor day now.  However, a lot of these areas have higher vax rates and everyone is masking in our areas indoor again, so I'm hoping that will reflect in the numbers we get.  I'm a lot happier if our hospitals aren't completely overwhelmed.  Crossing fingers.  And maybe this epidemiologist is inferring she don't think things will be as bad in some of these areas.  I'm worried about our hospitals being overwhelmed by people transferred in from more rural areas as well even if things don't go too crazy in the pockets with good vax rates with indoor masking.  They were already saying that was an issue.  We had patients from Tennessee, etc in our upper midwest hospitals.  

I am on a big 10 college campus this weekend.  Where there was a football game, new students moving in, life going on as normal.  That said, this campus has a 90% vaccine rate.  The county it is in is one of the best vaxed in the country and the county has an indoor mask mandate again.  We will see.  I definitely ventured outside my normal covid comfort zones this weekend though I was always masked indoors and a lot was moved out doors for what I had to do here.  

I wish they would start rolling out boosters already!

Edited September 6, 2021 by FuzzyCatz

[mommyoffive]

Director of Harvard Global Health Institute says we are 'going to see more variants' (msn.com)

 

ICU Nurse Slams 'Ignorance' Of Anti-Mask Movement In Viral Twitter Thread (msn.com)

 

Mu COVID Variant, Possibly Vaccine-Resistant, Most Prevalent in These U.S. States (msn.com)

[Faith-manor]

2 minutes ago, FuzzyCatz said:

I agree.  I think a lot of scientists are thinking NE/Midwest are going to get ours after labor day now.  However, a lot of these areas have higher vax rates and everyone is masking in our areas indoor again, so I'm hoping that will reflect in the numbers we get.  I'm a lot happier if our hospitals aren't completely overwhelmed.  Crossing fingers.  And maybe this epidemiologist is inferring she don't think things will be as bad in some of these areas.  I'm worried about our hospitals being overwhelmed by people transferred in from more rural areas as well even if things don't go too crazy in the pockets with good vax rates with indoor masking.  They were already saying that was an issue.  We had patients from Tennessee, etc in our upper midwest hospitals.  

I wish they would start rolling out boosters already!

That is what happens here. The rural areas party like there is no tomorrow and then turf all their patients to the city hospitals and overwhelm them. At some point, if it hits Michigan hard again, I would not be shocked if some hospital administrator demanded the triage of patients by zip code or simply told the band aid station hospitals that they will not accept patients from them. It is going to maim and kill a lot of people again. But judging by the 50+ person party the neighbors across the street had Friday night, my guess is they don't give a damn. I also know them well enough to know they will be the jerks that if they get it, will expect the rest of us to be gushing with sympathy. The local faith not fear, masks are a sign of the anti-Christ, pastor got covid along with his own family. His wife and two of their kids were dangerously sick. He is still preaching his drivel, and the church still runs around 200 every Sunday with no protocols and monthly potlucks in the gym. This is the kind of crap we deal with out here that has cascading effects on a when times are good, very poor, not very robust medical system. Bunch of selfish punks!

[Not_a_Number]

38 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I hate to say it, but I think cases have peaked in certain states. I think the North East and other areas have not had theirs yet. Hopefully due to increased cautiousness and mitigation the wave there will be smaller than ours down here in Florida. 

But with Labor day today and people traveling, way too early to say it is over. 

That’s what happened last year. A small summer peak in the South, a much bigger fall and winter peak in the colder parts of the country. Except that with school reopening, I don’t even know if it’ll look like two peaks as much as going down a tad and then going right back up. 

[Faith-manor]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

That’s what happened last year. A small summer peak in the South, a much bigger fall and winter peak in the colder parts of the country. Except that with school reopening, I don’t even know if it’ll look like two peaks as much as going down a tad and then going right back up. 

True. Where there is not such a vast difference in weather between summer and fall and year round school vs. a traditional school schedule with kids out of school from beginning or middle of June to late August or  labor Day like Michigan, I could see it really looking like just a small dip in a continued wave. Here it is going to look ghastly by numbers because it really went down a lot this summer since so much of our population embraces the great outdoors, but when kids go back to school and so many rural districts have old buildings with poor ventilation, and most of them also are zero masks, and very high student to teacher ration, jam packed into classrooms and gymnasiums. It isn't going to be a true wave.

[Carrie12345]

I don’t want to dedicate a thread to this, so I’m gonna squish it here.

My mom isn’t in the best of health. Not terrible, but typical closing-in-on-70 stuff. My stepdad recently completed chemo and radiation. They have (from what I’ve been told) been pretty cautious.

My sister, who lives near them, was so upset last night because our parents are apparently dumb@sses who think reality is whatever they decide it is. Sister and her young kids, and our other sister and her tween, had a bbq at our parents’ house. Sister and her kids had to stay outside, except for masked bathroom trips. Smart, right? But other sister and her kid roamed the house maskless.

Think it’s a vax (eligibility) issue? No. Our parents are leaving for a vacation with our stepbrother’s family, including young, unvaccinated kids. From out of state. To a third state.

And they’ve been eating inside restaurants since cancer treatment finished, so surrounded by maskless strangers.

But one family member (and kids) are considered risks?

Pick a view!

[Corraleno]

Does anyone know what the explanation is for the weirdness in the UK graph? There was a steep 6-week climb followed by a precipitous 2-week drop, and now it's been climbing back up for the last 4 weeks. Was there a sharp shutdown and then release? Data backlog? 

[Not_a_Number]

26 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Does anyone know what the explanation is for the weirdness in the UK graph? There was a steep 6-week climb followed by a precipitous 2-week drop, and now it's been climbing back up for the last 4 weeks. Was there a sharp shutdown and then release? Data backlog? 

I assume it's the fact that they got rid of all restrictions, so things didn't go back down. I wasn't surprised, frankly. 

[Acadie]

28 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I assume it's the fact that they got rid of all restrictions, so things didn't go back down. I wasn't surprised, frankly. 

So without restrictions in place do you think the UK is going to look like Israel and Qatar, in terms of breakthrough Delta infections? 

[mommyoffive]

New York went red on CovidActNow today.

[Not_a_Number]

24 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

New York went red on CovidActNow today.

Uh-oh. Manhattan is currently trending down but I see that the whole state is not…

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I assume it's the fact that they got rid of all restrictions, so things didn't go back down. I wasn't surprised, frankly. 

I'm wondering what caused the sudden precipitous drop, though. I looked up the date of the reopening and it was literally at the very peak of the Delta spike, yet in the two weeks after so-called "Freedom Day" cases dropped dramatically — from a high of 54K to 27K. That was actually cited by the government as proof that reopening was the right thing to do and that the UK was past the worst of the pandemic because it was assumed that cases would continue to drop. But then cases started going up again, although more gradually than the initial spike, and now they're back up around 40K.

So why did cases seem to plummet just as the country reopened? Did a significant percentage of the population panic about reopening and more people stayed home than usual in the first couple of weeks? Was there a drop in testing requirements when they reopened, so the case numbers no longer included most asymptomatic or mild cases?

It's a very strange pattern that has not been replicated in any other country AFAIK — and it's also not reflected in the death rate, which has increased slowly and steadily with no sharp drop that would correlate with the huge temporary drop in cases.

[Danae]

22 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I'm wondering what caused the sudden precipitous drop, though. I looked up the date of the reopening and it was literally at the very peak of the Delta spike, yet in the two weeks after so-called "Freedom Day" cases dropped dramatically — from a high of 54K to 27K. That was actually cited by the government as proof that reopening was the right thing to do and that the UK was past the worst of the pandemic because it was assumed that cases would continue to drop. But then cases started going up again, although more gradually than the initial spike, and now they're back up around 40K.

So why did cases seem to plummet just as the country reopened? Did a significant percentage of the population panic about reopening and more people stayed home than usual in the first couple of weeks? Was there a drop in testing requirements when they reopened, so the case numbers no longer included most asymptomatic or mild cases?

It's a very strange pattern that has not been replicated in any other country AFAIK — and it's also not reflected in the death rate, which has increased slowly and steadily with no sharp drop that would correlate with the huge temporary drop in cases.

Looking at the graph the drop looks similar to the one from the top of the winter peak. I wonder if the results of “Freedom Day” hadn’t hit yet and if the same precautions had been maintained the drop would have continued more like the spring one. 

[Drama Llama]

...

Edited October 28, 2021 by Nothingtoseehere

[Carrie12345]

2 minutes ago, BaseballandHockey said:

I guess what I am saying is if you feel that they are generally loving rational people, I would assume they’ve put thought into this decision, and if, on the other hand, they have a history of favoritism I would assume it’s that.

I don’t want to use the word favoritism, but I guess I can’t think of an alternative. There are no real special circumstances involved that would need exceptions. They’ve just decided a week with one set of kids is an acceptable risk and an evening with another is too risky. And then that that same evening, two families with no major differences had different rules.

(My opinion is that they’re nuts and should be protecting themselves from *everyone!)

[Drama Llama]

...

Edited October 28, 2021 by Nothingtoseehere

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

My retest just came back negative. 

I’m glad we’ve been able to keep DS safe, for now at least. Those pediatric vaccines cannot come soon enough!

DH is so lonely. He’s an extrovert who deeply needs physical touch. We’re all used to him being gone on trips, but its not at all comparable. He’s home, but not. Can hear us going about our days, playing games, watching shows - but can’t be a part of any of it. I know it could be far, far worse… and we’re immensely grateful… but still.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Shoes+Ships+SealingWax

[ieta_cassiopeia]

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Does anyone know what the explanation is for the weirdness in the UK graph? There was a steep 6-week climb followed by a precipitous 2-week drop, and now it's been climbing back up for the last 4 weeks. Was there a sharp shutdown and then release? Data backlog? 

Do you mean the first one or the second one?

The first one was the build-up to Christmas, where there was lots of talk of removing restrictions for Christmas for 5 days (that eventually ended up 3, but some people had committed to 5 days together and didn't change their plans), followed by one (1) day of children going back to in-person school after the Christmas/New Year holiday (one of the oddest decisions I've seen all pandemic) and a strict lockdown.

The second one was the Euros/experimental mass gatherings (which didn't just cause infection at mass gatherings, but also in pubs that were having their first major event since being allowed to re-open) followed by children starting the summer holidays (and entire families quarantining - to the point of skipping the last fortnight of school and two extra weeks of work - in order to ensure they didn't get a positive test and miss out on summer holidays abroad). Bear in mind that the all-UK statistics are dominated by English cases, not just due to population but due to the devolved governments (Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) generally being more cautious than the English one. I remember the first week after Freedom Day to be quieter in town than during most of lockdown, simply because people did not want to get reinfected. So while Freedom Day was not a lockdown, you could say a lot of people locked themselves down.

The climb back up is most likely because after those holidays (an unusual number seem to have been taken at the start of the 6-week summer holiday), children have been mixing together and adults have increasingly been summoned back to in-person work (because Christmas preparation has begun in some industries). Finally, people have seen that everyone did not in fact keel over on Freedom Day and have therefore dropped their guard a little.

I expect an increase in positive test results in the next 2 weeks, because most English students return to school at some point between today and Wednesday.

Edited September 6, 2021 by ieta_cassiopeia

[Corraleno]

9 minutes ago, ieta_cassiopeia said:

The second one was the Euros/experimental mass gatherings (which didn't just cause infection at mass gatherings, but also in pubs that were having their first major event since being allowed to re-open) followed by children starting the summer holidays (and entire families quarantining - to the point of skipping the last fortnight of school and two extra weeks of work - in order to ensure they didn't get a positive test and miss out on summer holidays abroad). Bear in mind that the all-UK statistics are dominated by English cases, not just due to population but due to the devolved governments (Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) generally being more cautious than the English one. I remember the first week after Freedom Day to be quieter in town than during most of lockdown, simply because people did not want to get reinfected.

Ah, I see — so if the "pointy bit" of the spike above the dotted line was largely attributable to one-time, short-term things like the Euros and school holidays, it would make sense that without them the curve would have continued where the dotted line is. Thanks for explaining that!

[Spryte]

1 hour ago, Shoes+Ships+SealingWax said:

My retest just came back negative. 

I’m glad we’ve been able to keep DS safe, for now at least. Those pediatric vaccines cannot come soon enough!

DH is so lonely. He’s an extrovert who deeply needs physical touch. We’re all used to him being gone on trips, but its not at all comparable. He’s home, but not. Can hear us going about our days, playing games, watching shows - but can’t be a part of any of it. I know it could be far, far worse… and we’re immensely grateful… but still.

Glad your test was negative! May it stay that way!

I am behind on the boards, is your DH positive? I’m so sorry. I hope he feels better soon. I understand the loneliness. Waving from modified basement quarantine. 

[Carrie12345]

2 hours ago, BaseballandHockey said:

But I guess I am asking if this is part of a bigger pattern? 

Not that I’m personally aware of. But I’m 800 miles away.

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

59 minutes ago, Spryte said:

Glad your test was negative! May it stay that way!

I am behind on the boards, is your DH positive? I’m so sorry. I hope he feels better soon. I understand the loneliness. Waving from modified basement quarantine. 

He is. We made our only recreational trip in 18mo a couple of weeks ago. We are both vaccinated, but DS is too young. We masked while traveling, masked at the event we attended, & all attendees were required to be vaccinated or have a negative test. Had a great time. Then he stayed behind to finish his trip (he’s a pilot). 

He returned a few days later, & a couple of days after that we both started not feeling well - though with different symptoms. We cancelled DS’ extracurriculars, got tested, & received one + result (him), one - result (me).  

He hasn’t been terribly ill, but has been symptomatic (fatigue, loss of smell, lots of coughing). I bounced back almost immediately from whatever had me not feeling great & retested yesterday to confirm my previous negative. We’re thinking, given the circumstances, that he must have picked it up at work after we came home. He may even have picked up multiple things & passed something to me… just not Covid. Thankfully.

[Spryte]

1 hour ago, Shoes+Ships+SealingWax said:

He is. We made our only recreational trip in 18mo a couple of weeks ago. We are both vaccinated, but DS is too young. We masked while traveling, masked at the event we attended, & all attendees were required to be vaccinated or have a negative test. Had a great time. Then he stayed behind to finish his trip (he’s a pilot). 

He returned a few days later, & a couple of days after that we both started not feeling well - though with different symptoms. We cancelled DS’ extracurriculars, got tested, & received one + result (him), one - result (me).  

He hasn’t been terribly ill, but has been symptomatic (fatigue, loss of smell, lots of coughing). I bounced back almost immediately from whatever had me not feeling great & retested yesterday to confirm my previous negative. We’re thinking, given the circumstances, that he must have picked it up at work after we came home. He may even have picked up multiple things & passed something to me… just not Covid. Thankfully.

I hope he just gets better and better from here on out!

 

[Not_a_Number]

4 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Ah, I see — so if the "pointy bit" of the spike above the dotted line was largely attributable to one-time, short-term things like the Euros and school holidays, it would make sense that without them the curve would have continued where the dotted line is. Thanks for explaining that!

I'm honestly not sure it's that simple. I think we tend to forget that these numbers are aggregates of lots of very different situations. Half the time, these peaks go down because the virus runs out of fuel -- wherever it was raging locally doesn't have any more people to infect. That doesn't mean that it has infected everyone, but it may have infected everyone in the communities where it was actually reproducing at a rate of above 1 (which is not all communities.) 

So, for example, in NYC, there are some communities where simply everyone's had COVID. If I had to guess, some Black communities are like that and some Orthodox Jewish communities are, too. When everyone in the community has had it and the other communities aren't spreading it as fast (often for reasons of being protected, like the fact that white collar workers aren't going to work), things die down. 

This is why I assume that unless there's a variant which TOTALLY evades immunity (possible but I hope not), this is the last serious wave. It's transmissible enough and people are DONE enough that everyone is simply going to get it. It's only only going to run out of fuel when every single person has antibodies. And then it'll become endemic but much slower burning is my guess. 

Of course, I am not absolutely sure about this. That's just my guess. 

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

22 minutes ago, Spryte said:

I hope he just gets better and better from here on out!

 

Thank you. Fortunately his case has been very mild - the isolation has been harder than the illness. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

6 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Uh-oh. Manhattan is currently trending down but I see that the whole state is not…

And school hasn’t even started up here yet. It begins this week. For whatever reason the state has basically shut down the possibility of virtual school as a choice for parents. Everything is five days a week face to face.

[melmichigan]

15 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

And school hasn’t even started up here yet. It begins this week. For whatever reason the state has basically shut down the possibility of virtual school as a choice for parents. Everything is five days a week face to face.

That's the way it is in here in Michigan.  Five days face to face.

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

And school hasn’t even started up here yet. It begins this week. For whatever reason the state has basically shut down the possibility of virtual school as a choice for parents. Everything is five days a week face to face.

Yep, here too. It's nuts, especially for the kids too young to be vaxxed.

[mommyoffive]

Mu variant: Should you be worried? - by Katelyn Jetelina - Your Local Epidemiologist (substack.com)

 

There are 17 mutations on Mu with 6 mutations on the spike protein. There is considerable interest in this variant because, as the WHO stated, it has a “constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape”. In other words, there are number of changes on the virus in which our treatments and vaccines may not recognize, and, thus not work.

Should we be worried?

Probably not, but it’s worth watching. There are three broad ways in which a virus will mutate:

More transmissible

More deadly

Escape vaccine immunity

It looks like Mu is mostly #2 (as seen in nursing home deaths in Belgium) and #3. So it’s more deadly and could escape vaccines and medical treatments. Importantly, though, it doesn’t look to be more transmissible than Delta. Because of this, Delta is holding strong and isn’t being pushed away. In fact, the global prevalence of Mu is decreasing, which is a great sign.

If Mu can’t compete with Delta, it will remain in pockets and won’t have dominant global spread. The WHO made it very clear that it’s closely watching how Mu competes with Delta in Colombia and Ecuador.

[mommyoffive]

US coronavirus: How to protect children under 12 from Covid-19, according to Fauci (msn.com)

 

Judge denies woman’s request to force hospital to use ivermectin on her COVID-infected husband (msn.com)

[Carrie12345]

Our local numbers are VERY jumpy this 7 day period. Maybe people from places of employment are all testing on the same days. Or schools!

I genuinely don’t know how those of you dealing in multiples of what we’ve got are coping. Everything is listed as critical for us, at 34.8/100k (and much before that.). Overall, about 10% of our population has had reported COVID. We’re still under 50% for fully vaxxed people.

Ive managed to lose 8lbs of pandemic weight, and have this weird fear in my head that it’s all going to come back if the curve doesn’t start coming down soon. 😝. (I don’t actually think the curve will come down soon. At least, not soon enough.)

[ieta_cassiopeia]

12 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm honestly not sure it's that simple. I think we tend to forget that these numbers are aggregates of lots of very different situations. Half the time, these peaks go down because the virus runs out of fuel -- wherever it was raging locally doesn't have any more people to infect. That doesn't mean that it has infected everyone, but it may have infected everyone in the communities where it was actually reproducing at a rate of above 1 (which is not all communities.) 

So, for example, in NYC, there are some communities where simply everyone's had COVID. If I had to guess, some Black communities are like that and some Orthodox Jewish communities are, too. When everyone in the community has had it and the other communities aren't spreading it as fast (often for reasons of being protected, like the fact that white collar workers aren't going to work), things die down. 

This is why I assume that unless there's a variant which TOTALLY evades immunity (possible but I hope not), this is the last serious wave. It's transmissible enough and people are DONE enough that everyone is simply going to get it. It's only only going to run out of fuel when every single person has antibodies. And then it'll become endemic but much slower burning is my guess. 

Of course, I am not absolutely sure about this. That's just my guess. 

A couple of points, which I think fit with your "half the time" theory:

92% of people in the UK had antibodies near the beginning of this wave. Cases have been rising through the last half of the summer holidays and now there is talk of an October/November lockdown in England (complete with official denial cycle that looks exactly the same as the one last year that preceded a similar lockdown). We do have specific factors for both the increase and the decrease in the two major peaks, which gives reason to believe these numeric changes are in the "other half".

 

Local numbers, on the other hand, often are to do with lack of fuel - I suspect the fact my area's cases are going down during the last two weeks while the UK as a whole continues to see an increase may be partly due to this.

Mu is being monitored, with 55 cases in the UK so far.

[mommyoffive]

Fauci says US is 'perilously close' to doctors having to prioritize people for ICU beds (msn.com)

 

California Leads Mu COVID Variant Cases As 167 Infected in L.A. County (msn.com)