Yes, Daily New COVID Cases Still Are Increasing But Should Begin To Decrease Around The End Of August By Extrapolating The Decline Of The Rate Of Growth
Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 18.5 % HIGHER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 28.3 % HIGHER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 43,818
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 177
- Can the vaccinated develop long Covid?
- Iceland has been a vaccination success. Why is it seeing a coronavirus surge?
- How This Pandemic Will End.
- COVID-19 Hospitalizations for 30- to 39-Year-Olds Hit Record High
- Infection-enhancing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies recognize both the original Wuhan/D614G strain and Delta variants. A potential risk for mass vaccination?
- Fauci Downplays New COVID-19 Vaccine Study
- Obtained SARS-CoV-2 immunity, naturally or via vaccination persists 12 months
- America’s failure to pay workers time off undermines vaccine campaign, according to surveys, policy experts
- US Workplace Regulator Says Vaccinated Workers Should Wear Masks
- 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
Can the vaccinated develop long Covid? – New York Times
Despite concerns about the Delta variant and breakthrough coronavirus cases, it’s clear that the vaccines are protecting us from hospitalization and death. Typically, breakthrough infections result in mild to moderate symptoms or no symptoms at all.
That’s good news. But it doesn’t answer one big question: What’s the risk of so-called long Covid after a breakthrough infection?
While most people recover from mild to moderate Covid-19 in a few weeks, long Covid is a perplexing set of symptoms — brain fog, fatigue and muscle pain, to name a few — that can persist for weeks or months after the active infection has ended. And it doesn’t happen only to people who had serious illness; sometimes long Covid affects people who had mild illness or no symptoms at all. And while many viruses, like influenza, also can lead to long-term fatigue and other symptoms, long Covid appears to be more common, although more data is needed. Several studies suggest that 10 percent to 30 percent of adults who catch the virus may experience long Covid.
But most of what we know about long Covid comes from people who were infected before vaccines became available.
What we know
Much of what we know about long Covid in fully vaccinated people comes from a single study of antibody levels in Israeli health care workers who had breakthrough infections. Among 36 health workers with breakthrough infections, seven (19 percent) had lingering symptoms after six weeks, including loss of smell, cough, fatigue or trouble breathing.
But even the study’s own authors say the study wasn’t designed to assess the risk of long Covid. “It was not the scope of this paper,” said Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, the study’s senior author and the director of the infection prevention and control unit at Sheba Medical Center in Israel.
While we can’t draw conclusions about the risk of long Covid from the experiences of seven patients, the finding confirms that long Covid can occur after a breakthrough infection. It isn’t clear, though, how common it might be or when those who have it might recover.
What we don’t know
Several physicians and scientists have told me they are frustrated that we don’t have more data about the risk of breakthrough infections and the course of illness that follows.
“If mild breakthrough infection is turning into long Covid, we don’t have a grasp of that number,” Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine, told me.
One of the reasons we know so little is that the C.D.C. collected nationwide data on all breakthrough infections for just four months before ending the practice in May. Now the agency tracks only breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death. The C.D.C. director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, defended the decision last month, noting that the agency was collecting additional data from more than 20 cohorts, including groups of medical workers and people in long-term-care facilities.
“We are absolutely studying and evaluating breakthrough infections in many different sites, many different people across the country,” Dr. Walensky said. “We are looking at those data on a weekly to biweekly basis, and we will be reporting on those soon.”
The bottom line
In some ways, the fact that we know so little about long Covid after breakthrough infection is good news. The fact that doctors haven’t seen large numbers of post-vaccination cases of long Covid suggests that breakthrough infections are still relatively uncommon, and long Covid after vaccination remains a relatively low risk.
Fauci Downplays New COVID-19 Vaccine Study – Epoch Times
White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci on Aug. 15 downplayed a recent study from a prominent medical research center that deemed the Pfizer vaccine less effective than the Moderna vaccine.
The Mayo Clinic and Cambridge-based biotech company nference, found in the study that both mRNA COVID-19 vaccines’ effectiveness dropped in the month of July. The researchers, while saying the vaccines provided good protection against the virus, found that Moderna’s vaccine effectiveness was 76 percent, as compared with Pfizer’s 42 percent.
“That study … is a pre-print study, it hasn’t been fully peer-reviewed,” Fauci said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” of the recent Mayo-nference study’s findings, which was published on the website medRxiv.org. The study gathered data from about 25,000 Minnesota residents from January and July.
“I don’t doubt what they’re seeing, but there are a lot of confounding variables in there, about when one was started, the relative amount of people in that cohort who were Delta versus Alpha,” he said, referring to two COVID-19 variants. He didn’t elaborate.
Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine should be used as booster shots, he said.
“Right now, if we get boosters … it’s clear we want to make sure we get people, if possible, to get the boost from the original vaccine,” Fauci said.
[editor’s note: Is it following the science when you decide which study you want to believe?>
NIH director sees ‘no signs’ of a Delta peak – Politico
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins warned on Sunday the continuing rise of Covid-19 cases propelled by the Delta variant could return the nation to the worst days of the pandemic.
“This is going very steeply upward with no signs of having peaked out,” Collins said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Covid-19 cases have been rising again due to the Delta variant’s highly contagious nature. The nation is seeing more than 129,000 new cases a day, which is up more than 700 percent from the beginning of July. Those numbers could leap up to over 200,000 new cases a day, which were levels unheard of since the deadliest months of January and February, Collins said.
“Here we are with [the] Delta variant, which is so contagious, and this heartbreaking situation where 90 million people are still unvaccinated, who are sitting ducks for this virus, and that’s the mess we are in,” Collins said.
“We are in a world of hurt,” he said, “and it’s a critical juncture to try to do everything we can to turn that around.”
[editor’s note: The rate of growth of new COVID cases continues to fall. To say there is “no signs” is misinformation]
Iceland has been a vaccination success. Why is it seeing a coronavirus surge? – Washington Post
The island nation that has been praised for its coronavirus response and its world-leading vaccination rate is now seeing its highest levels of infection since the start of the pandemic.
Just one month after the government scrapped all covid-19 restrictions, masks, social distancing and capacity limits have returned. And U.S. authorities last week warned Americans to stay away.
Vaccine opponents have gleefully pointed to Iceland as proof that the shots are a “failure.” But contrary to online misinformation and conspiratorial social media posts, infectious-disease experts say Iceland’s outbreak actually illustrates how effective the vaccines are at preventing the virus’s most severe impacts.
Many of the country’s recent infections have occurred among vaccinated people, but they’ve been overwhelmingly mild. So even as new cases multiplied, Iceland’s rates of covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths have remained low. Of the 1,300 people currently infected, just 2 percent are in the hospital. The country hasn’t recorded a virus death since late May.
Iceland, the experts say, is providing valuable information about breakthrough infections in the fully inoculated. Yet it also remains a vaccine success story.
Without vaccines, Iceland’s outbreak “would be catastrophic,” said Pall Matthiasson, chief executive of the country’s largest hospital.
The evidence from Iceland comes at a precarious point in the pandemic. The more contagious delta variant is fueling rising cases in countries that have barely begun to vaccinate their populations, as well as in countries where the pace of inoculation is leveling off. Even highly vaccinated communities have been surprised to find themselves becoming virus hot spots.
Iceland stands out as one of the world’s most vaccinated countries, with nearly 71 percent of its population fully inoculated, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.
Infection-enhancing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies recognize both the original Wuhan/D614G strain and Delta variants. A potential risk for mass vaccination ? – Journal of Infection
… Antibody dependent enhancement (ADE) may occur in people receiving vaccines based on the original Wuhan strain spike sequence (either mRNA or viral vectors) and then exposed to a Delta variant. Although this potential risk has been cleverly anticipated before the massive use of Covid-19 vaccines 6, the ability of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to mediate infection enhancement in vivo has never been formally demonstrated. However, although the results obtained so far have been rather reassuring 1, to the best of our knowledge ADE of Delta variants has not been specifically assessed. Since our data indicate that Delta variants are especially well recognized by infection enhancing antibodies targeting the NTD, the possibility of ADE should be further investigated as it may represent a potential risk for mass vaccination during the current Delta variant pandemic. In this respect, second generation vaccines 7 with spike protein formulations lacking structurally-conserved ADE-related epitopes should be considered.
America’s failure to pay workers time off undermines vaccine campaign, according to surveys, policy experts – Washington Post
As federal policymakers search for ways to boost America’s vaccination rates, a lack of paid sick leave is playing a role in deterring low-wage workers from taking time off to get vaccinated, according to surveys and policy experts.
The shortcomings are playing an underreported role in vaccine hesitancy in the country, particularly among lower-income populations. Workers who do not get paid time off to get the shot or deal with potential side effects are less likely to get the vaccine, research by a Kaiser Family Foundation study shows.
About two out of ten unvaccinated employees said if their employer gave them paid time off they’d be more likely to get vaccinated, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 1,888 adults conducted from June 8 to June 21.Three vaccine clinic representatives said in interviews that the time-off issue was one of a handful they commonly hear from vaccine hesitant people.
… Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said in an interview that he had not seen the data about the issue, but that he thought it was crucial for employers to give workers paid time off to get vaccinated.
“You should want your employees vaccinated,” he said. “Pay them for the day and give them an opportunity. And if they don’t feel good afterward, given them a couple days pay if you can.”
However, not everyone agrees how big of a role paid time off policies play in overturning vaccine hesitancy.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, a GOP policy expert who led the Congressional Budget Office during the Bush years, said he was skeptical of the idea that a lack of paid leave is hurting the vaccine push.
HOW THE PANDEMIC NOW ENDS – The Atlantic
… Delta is transmissible enough that once precautions are lifted, most countries “will have a big exit wave,” Adam Kucharski, an infectious-disease modeler at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told me. As vaccination rates rise, those waves will become smaller and more manageable. But herd immunity—the point where enough people are immune that outbreaks automatically fizzle out—likely cannot be reached through vaccination alone. Even at the low end of the CDC’s estimated range for Delta’s R0, achieving herd immunity would require vaccinating more than 90 percent of people, which is highly implausible. At the high end, herd immunity is mathematically impossible with the vaccines we have now.
This means that the “zero COVID” dream of fully stamping out the virus is a fantasy. Instead, the pandemic ends when almost everyone has immunity, preferably because they were vaccinated or alternatively because they were infected and survived. When that happens, the cycle of surges will stop and the pandemic will peter out. The new coronavirus will become endemic—a recurring part of our lives like its four cousins that cause common colds. It will be less of a problem, not because it has changed but because it is no longer novel and people are no longer immunologically vulnerable. Endemicity was always the likely outcome—I wrote as much in March 2020. But likely is now unavoidable. “Before, it still felt possible that a really concerted effort could get us to a place where COVID-19 almost didn’t exist anymore,” Murray told me. “But Delta has changed the game.”
If SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay, then most people will encounter it at some point in their life, as my colleague James Hamblin predicted last February. That can be hard to accept, because many people spent the past year trying very hard to avoid the virus entirely. But “it’s not really the virus on its own that is terrifying,” Jennie Lavine, an infectious-disease researcher at Emory University, told me. “It’s the combination of the virus and a naive immune system. Once you don’t have the latter, the virus doesn’t have to be so scary.”
Think of it this way: SARS-CoV-2, the virus, causes COVID-19, the disease—and it doesn’t have to. Vaccination can disconnect the two. Vaccinated people will eventually inhale the virus but need not become severely ill as a result. Some will have nasty symptoms but recover. Many will be blissfully unaware of their encounters. “There will be a time in the future when life is like it was two years ago: You run up to someone, give them a hug, get an infection, go through half a box of tissues, and move on with your life,” Lavine said. “That’s where we’re headed, but we’re not there yet.”
Obtained SARS-CoV-2 immunity, naturally or via vaccination persists 12 months – News-Medical
The existence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern that may better evade immunity established by vaccination or past infection by the wild-type form of the virus has been noted since early in the pandemic, with mutations to the receptor-binding domain and spike protein already having been seen to increase transmissibility in some lineages.
The duration of protection conferred by the currently available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines or previous infection, particularly in the face of newly developed variants of concern, has also not yet been clearly established given the insufficient time frame.
In a research paper recently uploaded to the preprint server medRxiv* by Havervall et al. (August 12th, 2021), neutralizing antibody titers towards wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and several variants of concern in individuals having either been vaccinated or infected with mild COVID-19 one year earlier are assessed, finding a reduced neutralization capacity against some strains.
COVID-19 Hospitalizations for 30- to 39-Year-Olds Hit Record High – WebMD
Hospitals are reporting record numbers of COVID-19 patients in their 30s, largely due to the contagious Delta variant, according to The Wall Street Journal .
The rate of new hospitalizations for ages 30-39 reached 2.5 per 100,000 people last week, according to the latest CDC data, which is up from the previous peak of 2 per 100,000 people in January.
In addition, new hospital admissions for patients in their 30s reached an average of 1,113 a day during the last week, which was up from 908 the week before.
“It means Delta is really bad,” James Lawler, MD, an infectious disease doctor and co-director of the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, told the newspaper.
The age group mostly avoided hospitalization throughout the pandemic because of their relatively good health and young age, the newspaper reported. In recent weeks, however, those between ages 30 to 39 are contracting the coronavirus due to their active lifestyle — for many in their 30s, these are prime years for working, parenting and socializing.
Hospitalizations are primarily occurring among unvaccinated adults, the newspaper reported. Nationally, less than half of those between ages 25-39 are fully vaccinated, as compared with 61% of all adults, according to CDC data updated Sunday.
US Workplace Regulator Says Vaccinated Workers Should Wear Masks – Reuters
The U.S. agency that regulates workplace safety issued guidance on Friday urging employers to require many fully vaccinated workers to wear masks to protect unvaccinated colleagues and customers, amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommended that workers wear masks “in areas of substantial or high community transmission,” such as manufacturing plants, meat processing facilities and retail establishments, unless they have medical conditions that make it difficult to wear a face covering.
Employers should also consider staggering the times workers clock in and out of work and take breaks to prevent large groups of people from congregating, OSHA said. High-volume retail businesses should ask customers to wear masks and consider requiring them. The agency had made similar recommendations last year, early on in the pandemic.
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
China first country to acknowledge Taliban win in Afghanistan
Biden team surprised by rapid Taliban gains in Afghanistan
The Taliban entered the capital city of Kabul, effectively sealing the insurgency’s swift takeover of Afghanistan two decades after the U.S. invaded.
The death toll from a major earthquake that struck Haiti on Saturday rose to nearly 1,300. Tropical Depression Grace, expected to dump rain on the island today, may complicate rescue efforts. Florida also braced for Tropical Storm Fred.
“I’m the only surgeon over there,” said Edward Destine, MD, referring to a corrugated tin operating room set up in Les Cayes, Haiti, and highlighting the country’s physician shortage after an earthquake on Saturday killed at least 1,300 people.
While South Africa waits for vaccine supplies, J.&J. doses made there are sent to Europe.
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Nearly a third of U.S. workers under 40 considered changing careers during the pandemic
The number of Americans younger than age 50 hospitalized with Covid has hit a pandemic high.
The Texas governor can ban mask mandates — at least for now — after the State Supreme Court on Sunday temporarily stayed a ruling that would have allowed schools to mandate face coverings.
‘Named & Shamed’ – IRS Lists The Record Number Of Wealthy Americans Becoming Ex-Americans In 2020
While some welcomed pandemic puppies, others used the shutdown to say goodbye to aging pets
Over 1,900 U.S. kids are currently hospitalized for COVID-19 — a record number — amid surging cases from the highly transmissible Delta variant.
Direct evidence in hamsters shows SARS-CoV-2 is airborne
Utah warns of Delta variant eroding COVID vaccine effectiveness
UC Davis joins with Pfizer for COVID-19 booster vaccine trial
Over 1,000 Nashville Students, Staff Quarantined After Four Days of School
Mississippi COVID Cases Double As Vaccine Rate Remains Lowest in U.S.
Fauci Says U.S. Can Offer Third Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine ‘Very Quickly’
Babies and toddlers spread the virus in homes more easily than teens, a study finds.
Pfizer submits data to FDA for authorization of Covid vaccine booster shot for general population
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic and Recovery With Hyperlinks
August 2021 Empire State Manufacturing Index Significantly Declines
Mexicos Economic Growth Improves In Second Quarter
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 update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts. This daily blog is not an echo chamber for any party line – and will publish controversial topics unless there are clear reasons why the topic is false. And I usually publish conflicting topics. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions. It is not my job to sell any point of view.
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.
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
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 remains 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.
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