Written by Steven Hansen

The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 66.6 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 16.5 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. My question for today: How can you stop a pandemic if the vaccine being used is “leaky”? – which means vaccinated people can spread the infection. Google “leaky vaccines”.

Today’s posts include:

• U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 108,775
• U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 406
• Unraveling the Mysterious Mutations That Make Delta the Most Transmissible COVID Virus Yet
• The C.D.C. recommends indoor masking for the vaccinated — but only in some places
• To Achieve Herd Immunity, We Must Address Fragile Supply Chains
• Vaccine antibody levels start to wane at around 2-3 months
• US could again see 200K Covid-19 cases daily, former CDC director says
• As Virus Cases Rise, Another Contagion Spreads Among the Vaccinated: Anger
• Pfizer Gears Up to Issue Third COVID Shot; What We Know So Far
• CDC needs to start tracking all Covid breakthrough infections, Gottlieb says
• We Could Have Stopped the Eviction Wave That’s Coming
• Higher prices could be here to stay if the Fed doesn’t act soon
• Plus many more headlines …

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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 and Recovery News You May Have Missed

To Achieve Herd Immunity, We Must Address Fragile Supply Chains – Newsweek

It’s a full-court press to get the COVID-19 vaccine delivered and administered around the world. But there seems to be something wrong with the playbook.

At the time of publication, the U.S. had successfully vaccinated over 50% of the population. But dozens of countries and territories haven’t hit 10%. Many aren’t even at 1%.

With numbers like these, we’re a long way away from winning the game. The Biden administration has just pledged to share 500 million new vaccine doses with the COVAX program, but even that is still just a drop in the bucket when the goal is herd immunity for the world’s billions. Because even when vaccine doses do get delivered to the developing world, they often don’t get administered.

Both South Sudan and Malawi have had to destroy thousands of doses that expired before they were administered. The Democratic Republic of the Congo returned a massive quantity of vaccine doses — 1.3 million to be exact — that it could not administer. Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, had to give doses that it could not administer to Togo and Gambia. Outside Africa, Guatemala has admitted both the scale and cost of the effort are major problems.

The C.D.C. recommends indoor masking for the vaccinated — but only in some places. – New York Times

The C.D.C. has both a polarization problem and a communication problem.

Let’s start with the polarization problem: The parts of the country that would benefit most from a new crackdown on Covid-19 — including more frequent mask wearing — are also the places least likely to follow C.D.C. guidance. Many of these communities have been rejecting the advice of medical experts for months, on both masks and vaccines. Another C.D.C. announcement won’t change that.

Yet these are the communities that the C.D.C. is trying to influence the most. In its updated guidance yesterday, the agency did not recommend that all vaccinated people again begin wearing masks indoors. The C.D.C. said that only those vaccinated people living in “an area of substantial or high transmission” should do so and published a map online showing which areas qualify:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

As you can see, most of the Northeast and upper Midwest, as well as much of the West, have only “moderate” or “low” transmission. If that stays true, vaccinated residents in those places can generally remain unmasked, the C.D.C. says.

There are good reasons for this distinction. Breakthrough infections among the vaccinated appear to be only a modest reason that the number of new cases has been rising, as I explained in Monday’s newsletter. When vaccinated people do get the virus, they are less likely to pass it on to others — and much less likely to get very sick.

The chart below offers a snapshot of each state, comparing the share of residents who have received at least one shot with the number of people hospitalized per capita:

‘Less likely to succeed’

Who, then, is most likely to listen to the C.D.C.’s new request that vaccinated people wear masks indoors? People who live in the places where it will do the least good. These tend to be politically liberal, highly vaccinated communities where people have been willing to wear masks even more often than the scientific evidence calls for (outdoors, for example).

Dr. Aaron Carroll, the chief health officer of Indiana University, predicted that the new mask guidelines would be less effective than last year’s versions. “Leaning heavily on masking and distancing is what we did when we didn’t have vaccinations,” he wrote in The Times. “Today, such recommendations are less likely to succeed because they are more likely to be followed by those already primed to listen — the vaccinated — and to be fought and ignored by those who aren’t.”

Much of this reality is beyond the C.D.C.’s control. The country was polarized long before Covid. But the C.D.C. has not maximized its chances of being heard, either. That’s the communication problem I mentioned above.

Its announcement of the new guidelines was both vague and technical, making it hard for many nonexperts to understand. The agency did not make clear which parts of the country were affected or how that might change in coming days. Instead, officials used the phrase “high transmission” areas, as if it meant something to most Americans. President Biden, in a public statement, referred to “areas covered by the C.D.C. guidance,” leaving listeners to guess what they were.

The White House added to the confusion late yesterday by sending an email to staff members telling them they would again need to wear masks. The email explained that the C.D.C. had recently upgraded Washington, D.C., to having “substantial” transmission, from “moderate.” The online C.D.C. map, however, still showed the city as yellow, meaning it had only modest transmission.

All of which raises a question: Should Americans assume that the new mask guidelines will soon apply to almost the entire country — or will remain highly regional, focused on the south and other less vaccinated regions? I asked government officials yesterday, and they didn’t have a solid answer.

Higher prices could be here to stay if the Fed doesn’t act soon. – CNN

Back in March, people were freaking out about rising long-term interest rates and inflation fears. But now the 10-year US Treasury yield has fallen back again.

Does this mean: So much for inflation worries? Maybe higher prices are in fact, to cite Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s favorite word, transitory after all?

Not so fast.

There’s a growing chorus of experts who believe that the Fed may need to reverse course and start talking more aggressively about tamping down inflation. After all, consumer prices continue to rise. The stock market is near a record high. Wages are going up too.

After peaking around 1.77%, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury has fallen back to about 1.24%.

Fears about the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 leading to another economic slowdown seem to be on the back burner for now. If anything, spiking Covid cases could cause more supply chain shocks that would lead to more inflation.

That all should push bond yields higher again and potentially lead the Fed to consider an end, or tapering, of its bond purchase program that has helped keep rates artificially low. After that, an interest rate hike would be the next logical step.

In a report last Wednesday, one strategist paraphrased the old Semisonic song “Closing Time,” arguing it’s time for the Fed to turn out the lights on stimulus…even if it means a hangover for investors drunk on easy money. Bill Stone, chief investment officer of The Glenview Trust Company, thinks the Fed could announce tapering by the end of the year and raise rates in 2022.

The market agrees with Stone that the end of the 0% rate environment is on the horizon: According to the CME’s fed funds futures, traders are pricing in a 57% chance of at least one rate hike by the end of next year.

We Could Have Stopped the Eviction Wave That’s Coming. – Slate

Over the course of the pandemic, Washington allotted a lot of money to help tenants who couldn’t keep up with the rent: $46.6 billion. That’s almost twice as much as, and on top of, what the government usually spends each year helping low-income renters through the Housing Choice Voucher Program, better known as Section 8. The number was at least in the right ballpark to cover the payments missed by the country’s roughly 43 million renter households, many of whom lost jobs when the economy contracted last year.

But a safety net only works if you can get it set up where it needs to be, and all these months into the crisis, local jurisdictions are still not doing a very good job. As Annie Lowrey puts it, writing about government benefits more broadly, “little attention is being paid to making things work, rather than making them exist.” Of the $25 billion the U.S. Treasury doled out this February for rent relief, local partners had delivered just $3 billion by June 30.

That’s particularly important this week because the eviction moratorium enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last September expires on Saturday, July 31. That public health order has not given tenants ironclad protection, but it does appear to have kept evictions below pre-pandemic rates in jurisdictions without their own moratoriums, including cities like Cincinnati and Dallas and states like Indiana and Missouri, according to data from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.

In other words, beginning next week, millions of families may face evictions that should have been avoided.

Certain cities and states have done an especially disgraceful job. Los Angeles has spent $23 million out of $236 million, with more than 100,000 applications filed for more than $530 million in aid. Georgia has $552 million to spend and as of June 15 had disbursed just $7 million. New York state set aside $2.7 billion and, as of a couple of weeks ago, had given out just $117,000.

What makes this all the more discouraging is that it’s a replay of last year, when cities and states struggled to allot $2.6 billion in CARES Act money for rent help. Pennsylvania, for example, failed to give out $108 million of $175 million in federal rent relief money before the deadline—so most of the cash got redistributed to the state’s Department of Corrections. All in all, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, $1 of every $6 earmarked for rent assistance last year went toward some other public expense.

Why you may need to upgrade your face mask. – KHOU

There is a fourth wave of COVID-19 sweeping over the United States fueled by the Delta variant. It has the debate over mask heating up, again.

It turns out your old cloth mask might not cut it. Let’s connect the dots.

Delta variant more contagious

Any way you look at it, the Delta variant is a lot more contagious with evidence indicating it can travel from person to person in just seconds and with limited contact. Researchers have found people infected with Delta have a thousand times higher viral load than people infected with the original coronavirus strain. That has helped it race across the country and has public health officials asking even the vaccinated to mask up again.

Better masks N95 respirators

Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, recommends a high quality mask, such as the N95 respirators. Those are the medical-grade masks.

They provide more protection than cloth or surgical masks. Cloth masks can be problematic because they don’t filter out enough particles, and surgical masks don’t fit tight to your face.

Not for kids, focus on comfort

There is one group that should not be wearing N95 masks: children.

They have not been approved for use in kids, and more importantly, can be uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. Experts say it is better to find a mask that kids can wear comfortably to encourage use. And of course, your best protection is a vaccine shot.

Vaccine antibody levels start to wane at around 2-3 months. – Medical Xpress

Total antibody levels appear to start declining from as early as six weeks after complete vaccination and can reduce by more than 50% over 10 weeks, according to new data from UCL’s Virus Watch study.

These findings were consistent across all groups of people regardless of age, chronic illnesses or sex.

The findings, published as a research letter in The Lancet, include data from over 600 people and show antibody levels are substantially higher following two doses of the Pfizer vaccine than after two doses of the AZ vaccine. They are also much higher in those with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The authors highlight that although the clinical implications of waning antibody levels are not yet clear, some decline was expected and current research shows that vaccines remain effective against severe disease.

For Pfizer, antibody levels reduced from a median of 7506 U/mL at 21-41 days, to 3320 U/mL at 70 or more days. For Astra Zeneca, antibody levels reduced from a median of 1201 U/mL at 0-20 days to 190 U/mL (67-644) at 70 or more days.

Dr. Maddie Shrotri (UCL Institute of Health Informatics) said: “The levels of antibody following both doses of either the Astra Zeneca or Pfizer vaccine were initially very high, which is likely to be an important part of why they are so protective against severe COVID-19.

“However, we found these levels dropped substantially over the course of two to three months. If they carry on dropping at this rate, we are concerned that the protective effects of the vaccines may also begin to wear off, particularly against new variants; but we cannot yet predict how soon that might happen.”

Professor Rob Aldridge (UCL Institute of Health Informatics) explained: “When we are thinking about who should be prioritized for booster doses our data suggests that those vaccinated earliest, particularly with the Astra Zeneca vaccine, are likely to now have the lowest antibody levels.

CDC Director: Vaccine Passports ‘May Very Well Be a Path Forward’ in US – Epoch Times

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky suggested that vaccine passport-style systems might be implemented in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

When asked in a TV interview Wednesday about whether the United States would mandate a European-style “health pass” system for nightclubs or bars, Walensky said, “That may very well be a path forward.”

The director further said that “in some fully vaccinated venues,” it “is possible” for a fully vaccinated individual to transmit and pick up COVID-19 “in those settings” and added that federal officials have “seen that” during studies.

COVID-19 is the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Her comments came after the CDC announced Tuesday it would recommend people wear masks in some areas with high transmission. Vaccinated and unvaccinated children should also wear masks when fall classes start, the CDC also said, reversing guidance issued only a few weeks ago that suggested only unvaccinated children wear masks.

US could again see 200K Covid-19 cases daily, former CDC director says – CNN

The US could see nearly four times the current rate of Covid-19 cases in the next four to six weeks as the Delta variant spreads and the population hits a wall on vaccinations, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNN.

“We’re heading into a rough time. It’s likely, if our trajectory is similar to that in the United Kingdom, that we could see as many as 200,000 cases a day,” Dr. Tom Frieden said Monday, adding the US likely won’t see the “horrific death tolls” of earlier in the pandemic thanks to the number of vulnerable people who are vaccinated. Frieden was CDC director during the Obama administration.

But, he said, “You will see a steady increase in deaths, and these are preventable deaths.”

[editor’s note: also read Professor Neil Ferguson, the controversial epidemiologist who predicted there would be as many as 200,000 COVID cases a day in the UK if restrictions were lifted, is facing scrutiny after infections continued to drop for the 6th day in a row. and Something strange is happening in Britain. Covid cases are plummeting instead of soaring.]

As Virus Cases Rise, Another Contagion Spreads Among the Vaccinated: Anger – New York Times

As coronavirus cases resurge across the country, many inoculated Americans are losing patience with vaccine holdouts who, they say, are neglecting a civic duty or clinging to conspiracy theories and misinformation even as new patients arrive in emergency rooms and the nation renews mask advisories.

The country seemed to be exiting the pandemic; barely a month ago, a sense of celebration was palpable. Now many of the vaccinated fear for their unvaccinated children and worry that they are at risk themselves for breakthrough infections. Rising case rates are upending plans for school and workplace reopenings, and threatening another wave of infections that may overwhelm hospitals in many communities.

“It’s like the sun has come up in the morning and everyone is arguing about it,” said Jim Taylor, 66, a retired civil servant in Baton Rouge, La., a state in which fewer than half of adults are fully vaccinated.

“The virus is here and it’s killing people, and we have a time-tested way to stop it — and we won’t do it. It’s an outrage.”

The rising sentiment is contributing to support for more coercive measures. Scientists, business leaders and government officials are calling for vaccine mandates — if not by the federal government, then by local jurisdictions, schools, employers and businesses.

“I’ve become angrier as time has gone on,” said Doug Robertson, 39, a teacher who lives outside Portland, Ore., and has three children too young to be vaccinated, including a toddler with a serious health condition.

“Now there is a vaccine and a light at the end of the tunnel, and some people are choosing not to walk toward it,” he said. “You are making it darker for my family and others like mine by making that choice.”

[editor’s note: since it appears that the new CDC mandates are partially based on the fact that the vaccinated are spreading the virus too – one or more of the COVID vaccines is LEAKY – just like the vaccine for Marek. By studying chickens, researchers say they have proven the theory that more virulent viruses can evolve from so-called “leaky” vaccines.].

Unraveling the Mysterious Mutations That Make Delta the Most Transmissible COVID Virus Yet – Medscape

Upon first inspection, the mutations in the highly contagious delta covid variant don’t look that worrisome.

For starters, delta has fewer genetic changes than earlier versions of the coronavirus.

“When people saw that the epidemic in India was driven by delta, they did not suspect it would be so bad or overtake other variants,” said Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

But those expectations were wrong.

Delta has kept some of the most successful mutations found in earlier variants, but also contains new genetic changes that enable it to spread twice as fast.

Delta is more dangerous in many ways. It has an incubation period of four days, rather than six, making people contagious sooner. When the pandemic began, people spread the original coronavirus to an average of two or three people. Today, people infected with delta infect six people, on average.

As of this week, the delta variant had caused at least 92% of the new infections in the United States, according to covariants.org, a research firm in Bern, Switzerland.

Although delta isn’t necessarily any more lethal than other variants, it can kill huge numbers of people simply because it infects so many more, said Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.

[editor’s note: worth a full read]

Pfizer Gears Up to Issue Third COVID Shot; What We Know So Far – Newsweek

Pfizer released data on Wednesday that suggests a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine co-developed with BioNTech can “strongly” increase someone’s protection against the Delta variant.

The company posted the data online, which details how effective its vaccines are against the highly contagious coronavirus variant when a third booster shot is administered. The research finds that getting a third dose of the vaccine at least six months after the second dose produced significant amounts of neutralizing antibodies the work against the Delta and Beta variants.

Antibody levels against the Delta variant in people ages 18 to 55 who received a booster are greater than five-fold than after a second dose, according to the research. For people ages 65 to 85 who received a third dose, the data shows antibody levels are greater than 11-fold than following a second dose.

CDC needs to start tracking all Covid breakthrough infections, Gottlieb says – CNBC

• The CDC doesn’t have enough resources to properly track breakthrough infections in real time, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.
• Currently, the CDC website indicated that 5,914 Americans have either died or been hospitalized with Covid breakthrough infections.
• “The breakthrough infections, as rare as they are, have the potential to forward transmit with the same capacity as an unvaccinated person,” CDC Director Walensky said.

The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts

There are 401,032 people waiting in front of you”: South Korea’s lag in vaccinations is fueling despair.

U.S. gymnastics Olympian Simone Biles’ abrupt withdrawal from the Tokyo Games focused more attention on the psychological toll of elite-level sports.

Sydney, the largest city in Australia, extended an ongoing lockdown by 4 weeks, as cases in the city continued to surge.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson rescinded his country’s quarantine requirement for vaccinated individuals from the European Union and the U.S., saying he wants Americans to come to England and travel “freely.”

China’s continued resistance to more investigation into the origin of COVID-19 dimmed hope in the ongoing search for “patient zero.”

France temporarily banned prion research after two lab workers contracted Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.

Australia’s Vaccine Rollout ‘a Colossal Failure’, Ex-PM Turnbull Says

Democrats join GOP in pressuring Biden over China, virus origins

Quarantined Olympian calls conditions at hotel ‘inhuman’

Norway bumps US as best place to be amid pandemic

Tokyo’s COVID Cases Have More Than Doubled Since Olympics

The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts

Gov. Newsom Panics, Pulls Kids From Summer Camp After Maskless Photo Of Son Surfaces+

Students lost months of learning during the pandemic, with the largest losses among Black, Latino and Native students, data shows.

Biden said he was considering a vaccine mandate for federal workers. The Washington Post enacted one for its employees, and California State University did so for students and employees.

Infrastructure talks leave Biden’s entire agenda at risk

Religious Freedom Group to Challenge Veterans Administration’s Vaccine Mandate

Department of Justice Declares COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Legal

“Greatest Danger To National Security” – Ed Snowden Exposes The ‘Insecurity’ Industry

Water levels in Utah’s Great Salt Lake and Lake Powell have dropped to their lowest levels ever recorded

Mask mandates are coming back, including in Vegas. Tourists aren’t happy.

Home schooling exploded among Black, Asian and Latino students. But it wasn’t just the pandemic.

Global shipping industry disrupted again, this time by floods in Europe and China

Biden border policies rebuild that wall

Officials at Biogen reportedly withdrew a paper on Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab (Aduhelm) rather than agree to revisions requested by editors at JAMA.

Laboratory data shared by Pfizer suggest a third “booster” dose of vaccine could offer more protection against the Delta variant

Adolescent boys and young men infected were six times as likely to develop myocarditis from COVID-19 infection than following vaccination.

Newly proposed legislation would eliminate the so-called “birthday rule” of health insurance, which can sometimes leave new parents on the hook for huge hospital bills for their babies.

A survey of U.S. parents found that over half with children ages 3-11 were unlikely to allow their kids to get vaccinated, and most said they had not discussed the issue with their family doctors.

Delta-8 THC, a chemical relative of cannabis, continues to win fans as questions and controversy swirl around its legality.

Researchers investigate what motivates people to voluntarily wear masks

Google to require workers be vaccinated if returning to campus

DHS imposes mask mandate for employees

Lamar Jackson Tests Positive for COVID-19, Missing First Practice of Camp

As Eviction Moratorium Expires, Americans Owe $20 Billion in Unpaid Rent. More than 15 million people in the U.S. are at risk of being evicted when the nationwide ban on evictions ends on July 31, a new report has warned.

US Releasing Illegal Immigrants Who Test Positive for COVID-19: Texas Police

The C.D.C. now says fully vaccinated people should get tested after exposure even if they don’t show symptoms.

Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic and Recovery With Hyperlinks

Rail Week Ending 24 July 2021 – Year-over-Year Growth Continues to Slow As It Is Being Compared To The Improving Conditions One Year Ago

28 July 2021 FOMC Meeting Statement: Seems Like Securities Purchasing Is Under Review

Where Was Covid-19 Originated, Anyway?

COVID-19 Could Cause Male Infertility And Sexual Dysfunction But Vaccines Do Not

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