Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
- 02 May 2021 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 02May 2021
- 02 May 2021 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 02May 2021
New US cases of the various manifestations of Covid-19 during the week ending May 1st were down by 14.9% from the week ending April 24th and are now at their lowest since the second week of October…US deaths attributed to the virus were down 2.7% week over week, and at the lowest since the second week of July. Deaths this week would be reflecting the surge of US cases early in April, so we can probably expect them to fall more rapidly as the decrease in new cases works its way through to final outcomes. Data from the CDC, current through April 29th, reflects that; Covid hospitalizations are down 6.4% from the prior seven days.
Global new cases have also just turned negative week over week, but only by a half a percent so far. Amazingly, new cases in 18 of the 20 most infected countries are either stable or falling, but another small uptick of new cases in Brazil and the ongoing surge in India are holding the global case counts steady. With deaths in India now up 53% week over week, global deaths are still rising, and were 5.2% higher this week than the prior week.
About 40% of the US adult population is now fully vaccinated, and over 55% have received at least one dose, but the vaccination rate appears to be slowing; there are reports that Kansas and Iowa are turning down additional doses from the Feds on that account, and another report suggests about 5 million of us have not followed up after one dose. The 3 vaccines now in use appear to be equally effective against the now dominant UK strain (B.1.1.7), but there continues to be sporadic reports of new infections with Covid mutations that are more successful against both vaccinated and previous infected populations. Included among those are a handful of cases of the relatively new B.1.617 variant, aka the “double mutant”, that is infecting India. New cases of that variant are making inroads in Israel, where 62% of the population is fully vaccinated, including 90 percent of those most at-risk.
Some of the COVID-19 graphics presented in the articles linked at the beginning of this post have been updated below.
Summary data graphics:
Below is a copy of today’s graph of new US cases from WorldOMeters so you can get a visuallization of what the growth and decline of this thing looks like (data through May 4):
New cases globally continue to increase. (See Johns Hopkins graph below.) This graphic shows the daily global new cases since the start of the pandemic up through 04 May.
Globally deaths are rising again. (See Johns Hopkins graph below.) This graphic shows the daily global deaths since the start of the pandemic up through 04 May.
Here’s the week’s environment and energy news:
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