Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 20.9 % LOWER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 11.3 % LOWER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 29,017
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 559
- U.S. Coronavirus immunizations have been administered to 80.3 doses per 100 people.
- The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases were little changed and deaths were little changed
- Essential workers raise concerns about new CDC mask guidance; mask mandates fall in some states, remain in others
- Here’s why the C.D.C. changed its mask advice.
- Hormone Drugs May Disarm Coronavirus Spike Protein and Stop COVID-19 Disease Progression
- Why should we take an experimental mRNA vaccine for a virus that 99.7% of people outside of nursing homes will easily survive?
- Honor system, paper cards won’t cut it for COVID vaccine verification, experts say. ‘Vaccine passports’ are coming
- Everyone agrees that the global supply of coronavirus vaccines needs to greatly expand
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Hospitalizations Are The Only Accurate Gauge
Hospitalizations historically appear to be little affected by weekends or holidays. The hospitalization growth rate trend continues to improve.
source: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/COVID19_3.html
Historically, hospitalization growth follows new case growth by one to two weeks.
As an analyst, I use the rate of growth to determine the trend. But, the size of the pandemic is growing in terms of real numbers – and if the rate of growth does not become negative – the pandemic will overwhelm all resources.
The graph below shows the rate of growth relative to the growth a week earlier updated through today [note that negative numbers mean the rolling averages are LOWER than the rolling averages one week ago]. As one can see, the rate of growth for new cases peaked in early December 2020 for Thanksgiving, and early January 2021 for end-of-year holidays – and it now shows that the coronavirus effect is improving.
In the scheme of things, new cases decline first, followed by hospitalizations, and then deaths. The potential fourth wave did not materialize likely due to immunizations.
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
Econintersect today published two summary articles for coronavirus news this past week:
Everyone agrees that the global supply of coronavirus vaccines needs to greatly expand – New York Times
But no one can agree on how to do it.
Only 0.3 percent of the vaccine doses administered globally have been given in the 29 poorest countries. Several solutions have emerged: vaccine manufacturers stepping up production; waiving patent protections to allow more manufacturers to copy existing vaccines; and wealthy countries donating and exporting more of their stock. All of these carry risks — and there is no consensus. Above, a vaccine station in Johannesburg.
As vaccines flow in rich countries, these charts show how the pandemic has split in two, with zero deaths in some cities and thousands in others. In Brazil, Covid-19 appears to be killing babies and small children at an unusually high rate.
Mask mandates are being struck down by some states and businesses across the nation following a shift in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that says fully vaccinated Americans can discard masks outdoors and, in many situations, indoors.
It’s a landmark change that has generated praise, criticism and confusion. Just a few months ago, the CDC doubled down on mask guidance, touting the effectiveness of double masking as more contagious variants of the virus spread.
But the change in federal guidance was motivated by the effectiveness of vaccines that are now widely available across the nation. Cases in the U.S. have plummeted to their lowest rates since September.
The nation’s response to the the shift has been both swift and fragmented, with some states quickly matching the federal guidelines and others keeping mask mandates in place for now. Shoppers across the nation will also encounter stores with differing rules, as some retailers have kept mask mandates in place.
… Essential workers are raising concerns about the new CDC guidance on masking.
Earlier this week, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million food and retail workers, said the guidance “is confusing and fails to consider how it will impact essential workers who face frequent exposure to individuals who are not vaccinated and refuse to wear masks.”
“With so many states already ending their mask mandates, this new CDC guidance must do more to acknowledge the real and daily challenge these workers and the American people still face,” Marc Perrone, president of the international union, said in a statement.
Among union workers in the U.S., the union estimates hundreds of frontline, grocery and meatpacking workers have died, and more than 150,000 have been infected or exposed.
[editor’s note: also read Largest Nurses Union Condemns New CDC Mask Guidance: ‘Not Based on Science’]
This question alone usually explodes the heads of vaccine cultists. Most of them for some reason still believe the death rate of covid is “3% or more”. Why do they peddle this nonsense? Well, I would note that the mainstream media NEVER discusses the death rate of covid; they instead let people make assumptions based on things they have heard in the past from entities like the World Health Organization or the CDC.
The 3% stat appears to have come from PREDICTIONS made by the WHO in January of 2020 before the virus had fully hit the US, as well as a preliminary study by Lancet. These predictions were pushed forward by the Imperial College of London, a globalist institution which created the complex mandate and lockdown models that nations across the world are now using to control the public. Their models were so utterly wrong that it is bewildering to anyone familiar with statistical theory or medical management.
As it turns out, the death rate for covid is a mere 0.26% of those infected (it was never 3%) and we have known this for quite some time. Nursing home patients with preexisting conditions make up around 40% of all deaths. Over 80% of all deaths were people over the age of 65. And, according to the CDC, at least 30% of all covid hospitalizations were due to complications associated with severe obesity.
So, if you are not over 65 and you are not a disgusting fat-body, then you have very little to worry about from covid statistically. If you are over 65 and you are fat, then you have around a 0.26% chance of dying if you become infected. If you are over 65, fat, and live in a nursing home, then maybe you should be worried.
Here’s why the C.D.C. changed its mask advice. – New York Times
Advice from federal health officials that fully vaccinated people could drop their masks in most settings came as a surprise to Americans, from state officials to scientific experts. Even the White House got less than a day’s notice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the press secretary, Jen Psaki, said at a news briefing on Friday.
“The C.D.C., the doctors and medical experts there, are the ones who determined what this guidance would be based on their own data, and what the timeline would be,” Ms. Psaki said. “That was not a decision directed by or made by the White House.”
For months, federal officials have vigorously warned that wearing masks and social distancing were necessary to contain the pandemic. So what changed?
Introducing the new recommendations on Thursday, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C. director, cited two recent scientific findings as significant factors: Few vaccinated people become infected with the virus, and transmission seems rarer still; and the vaccines appear to be effective against all known variants of the coronavirus.
There is no doubt at this point that the vaccines are powerful. On Friday, the C.D.C. released results from another large study showing that the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are 94 percent effective in preventing symptomatic illness in those who were fully vaccinated, and 82 percent effective even in those only partly vaccinated.
“The science is quite clear on this,” said Zoë McLaren, a health policy expert at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Mounting evidence indicates that people who are vaccinated are highly unlikely to catch or transmit the virus, she noted.
The risk “is definitely not zero, but it’s clear that it’s very low,” she said.
One of the lingering concerns among scientists had been that even a vaccinated person might carry the virus — perhaps briefly, without symptoms — and spread it to others. But C.D.C. research, including the new study, has consistently found few infections among those who received the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.
“This study, added to the many studies that preceded it, was pivotal to C.D.C. changing its recommendations for those who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19,” Dr. Walensky said in a statement on Friday.
Other recent studies confirm that people who are infected after vaccination carry too little virus to infect others, said Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“It’s really hard to even sequence the virus sometimes because there’s very little virus, and it’s there for a short period of time,” he said.
Still, most of the data has been gathered on the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, Dr. Krammer cautioned. Because Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was authorized later, there are fewer studies assessing its effectiveness.
Hormone Drugs May Disarm Coronavirus Spike Protein and Stop COVID-19 Disease Progression – SciTechDaily
A new Penn Medicine study shows how anti-androgen drugs disrupt key receptors required for viral invasion of cells.
Hormone drugs that reduce androgen levels may help disarm the coronavirus spike protein used to infect cells and stop the progression of severe COVID-19 disease, suggests a new preclinical study from researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and published online in Cell Press’s iScience.
Researchers show how two receptors — known as ACE2 and TMPRSS2 — are regulated by the androgen hormone and used by SARS-CoV-2 to gain entry into host cells. Blocking the receptors with the clinically proven inhibitor Camostat and other anti-androgen therapies prevented viral entry and replication, they also showed in lab studies.
The findings provide more insight into the molecular mechanisms of the virus but also support the use of anti-androgen therapies to treat COVID-19 infections, which are currently being investigated in clinical trials and have produced promising results. They also support data showing increased mortality and severity of disease among men compared to women, who have much lower levels of androgen.
“We provide the first evidence that not only TMPRSS2, which is known to be regulated by androgen, but ACE2 can also be directly regulated by this hormone,” said senior author Irfan A. Asangani, PhD, an assistant professor of Cancer Biology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “We also show that the SARS-CoV-2 spike relies on these two receptors to impale and enter cells, and that they can be blocked with existing drugs. That’s important because if you stop viral entry, you reduce the viral load and disease progression.”
Camostat is a drug approved for use in Japan to treat pancreatitis that inhibits TMPRSS2. Other anti-androgen therapies, including androgen deprivation therapy used to treat prostate cancer, serve similar functions.
No shirt, no shoes, no vaccine — no service.
That’s the future critics of “vaccine passports” fear as Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 can safely live more normal lives, now including spending time in most indoors settings without a mask.
The notion that a “passport” could separate the vaccinated from the unvaccinated has sparked fears of a dystopian future where a person’s health decisions would limit where they could travel, where they could shop, what events they could attend and whether they would be asked to wear a mask.
Many states have taken a stand against that possibility.
Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming have all moved to restrict the use of “vaccine passports.” Even more states have signaled they’re not interested in launching any such program.
… But many public health experts are exasperated by the controversy, given that Americans have long been expected to provide proof of vaccination in some circumstances.
“It’s not a new idea that you would document whether or not you’ve been vaccinated and share that information at certain points,” said Rebecca Fielding-Miller, a professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at the University of California, San Diego.
“This is something we already do,” she said.
Schools typically require students be vaccinated and proof of vaccination has long been a staple of international travel.
While critics fear the technology could be used to restrict the daily freedoms of Americans, few health experts expect or want that.
[editor’s note: this is a good article on this subject and worth a full read. Also read The new mask guidance relies on an honor system. Do we trust each other enough to make it work?]
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
51-person Everest expedition abandoned due to COVID-19 outbreak on climbing team
‘Dead’ COVID-Infected Woman, 76, Wakes Up Minutes Before Her Cremation
Indian Police Crack Down on Dumping of Bodies Into Ganges as COVID Soars
Australia’s first repatriation flight from India returns half empty.
Greece opens its doors to international tourists.
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Coronavirus variant first found in India discovered in Maine
Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Costco will not require customers who are fully vaccinated to wear a mask, but none will require proof of vaccination. Starbucks is making face coverings and masks optional for vaccinated customers starting Monday. Other major major retailers and restaurant chains, like Target, CVS and Kroger, are keeping their mask requirements for now but said they will reevaluate policies.
Travelers are booking flights in record numbers
Baby Becomes World’s Youngest Person to Get 2 Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Doses
Schools in the U.S. should continue to use masks, C.D.C. advises.
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 16May 2021
Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 16May 2021
Inflation Expectations Increase Mildly
Warning to Readers
The amount of politically biased articles on the internet continues. And studies and opinions of the experts continue to contradict other studies and expert opinions. Honestly, it is difficult to believe anything anymore.
I assemble this coronavirus update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts (mostly from CNN, New York Times, and the Washington Post) and can usually find unslanted posts on that subject from other sources on the internet. I wait to publish posts on subjects that I cannot validate across several sources. But after all this extra work, I do not know if I have conveyed the REAL facts. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions.
Analyst Opinion of Coronavirus Data
There are several takeaways that need to be understood when viewing coronavirus statistical data:
- The global counts are suspect for a variety of reasons including political. Even the U.S. count has issues as it is possible that as much as half the population has had coronavirus and was asymptomatic. It would be a far better metric using a random sampling of the population weekly. In short, we do not understand the size of the error in the tracking numbers.
- Just because some of the methodology used in aggregating the data in the U.S. is flawed – as long as the flaw is uniformly applied – you establish a baseline. This is why it is dangerous to compare two countries as they likely use different methodologies to determine who has (and who died) from coronavirus.
- COVID-19 and the flu are different but can have similar symptoms. COVID-19 so far is much more deadly than the flu. [click here to compare symptoms]
- From an industrial engineering point of view, one can argue that it is best to flatten the curve only to the point that the health care system is barely able to cope. This solution only works if-and-only-if one can catch this coronavirus once and develops immunity. In the case of COVID-19, herd immunity may need to be in the 80% to 85% range. WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to COVID-19 when recovering from COVID-19. Herd immunity does not look like an option as the variants are continuing to look for ways around immunity.
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
- There are at least 8 strains of the coronavirus.
What we do or do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal, from studies with limited subjects, or from studies without peer review.
- How many people have been infected as many do not show symptoms?
- Masks do work. Unfortunately, early in the pandemic, many health experts — in the U.S. and around the world — decided that the public could not be trusted to hear the truth about masks. Instead, the experts spread a misleading message, discouraging the use of masks.
- Current thinking is that we develop at least 12 months of immunity from further COVID infection.
- The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have an effectiveness rate of about 95 percent after two doses. That is on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. The 95 percent number understates the effectiveness as it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure.
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission? Research early in the pandemic suggested that the rate of asymptomatic infections could be as high as 81%. But a meta-analysis, which included 13 studies involving 21,708 people, calculated the rate of asymptomatic presentation to be 17%.
- The accuracy of rapid testing is questioned – and the more accurate test results are not being given in a timely manner.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus? [current thinking is that they are a minor source of the pandemic spread]
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- Air conditioning contributes to the pandemic spread.
- It appears that there is increased risk of infection and mortality for those living in larger occupancy households.
- Male patients have almost three times the odds of requiring intensive treatment unit (ITU) admission compared to females.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
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