We can’t wait for everybody to do the right thing

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I’ve of course read the many stories about Covid cases rising when they should still be falling. The primary reason for that is the large number of unvaccinated people, especially in certain areas (mostly rural and in Southern states). But I didn’t realize how much cases are rising until I compared the 7-day rate of increase as of Sunday -  1.1% - with the historical rates. The last time the rate was this high was the week ending May 2. In fact, just a week ago it was .3%, meaning that we’ve jumped from 16,000 cases a day two weeks ago to 54,000 cases a day in the past week. In case you don’t realize it, that’s a bad trend. It’s close to the rates of increase we were having last March and April.

However, deaths haven’t yet followed suit. The 7-day rate for deaths remains at .3% - where it’s been for a month. However, given all the reports of hospitals filling up in Florida, Arkansas, Southwest Missouri and other places, it’s inevitable that the rate of increase in deaths will soon start rising as well, even though it probably won’t match the rate of increase in cases (since some cases are occurring among vaccinated people, but the likelihood of hospitalization and death is much lower for them than for unvaccinated people).

In previous posts, I’ve stressed the need to get vaccinated, but to my great surprise, this didn’t lead to a mass rush for the unvaccinated to get vaccinated. This great story in the Atlantic (of course, saying “great story in the Atlantic” is an oxymoron) says it all just by the title: “Vaccinated America Has Had Enough”. It’s time for Vaccinated America to take measures to protect ourselves (and at least salvage what we can of economic growth, which will inevitably take a hit because of the lack of vaccinations. That will get worse as the weather gets colder and people move indoors again).

However, a national vaccine mandate just isn’t going to happen, so we should stop worrying about that. There’s plenty that can be done short of a national mandate; moreover, a lot of it is starting to be put in place already. This includes state, municipal and private mandates such as:

·        All health care workers should be vaccinated, period. In fact, everyone who works with the public as part of their job should be vaccinated.

·        All students and staff at schools and colleges need to ve vaccinated, period.

·        Unvaccinated people should be banned from dine-in restaurants.

·        There should be national (or at least state-level) mask mandates. Since there’s no good way to distinguish unvaccinated from vaccinated people (which of course was the fatal flaw in the CDC’s guidance that just unvaccinated people now need to wear masks – an error that will undoubtedly be looked at as a big cause of this entirely unnecessary run-up in cases and, soon, deaths), these mandates need to apply to everybody while indoors anywhere except their own homes, or with people who you can be verified as vaccinated.

·        Vaccination should be required for air travel, period. Same for buses, trains, subways, etc.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, June 6.

Month	Deaths reported during month	Avg. deaths per day during period	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
Month of March 2020	4,058	131
Month of April	59,812	1,994	1,474%
Month of May	42,327	1,365	71%
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
Month of July	26,649	860	111%
Month of August	30,970	999	116%
Month of Sept.	22,809	760	75%
Month of Oct.	24,332	785	107%
Month of Nov.	38,293	1,276	157%
Month of Dec.	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb.	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April	24,323	811	64%
Month of May	19,843	661	82%
Month of June	10,544	351	53%
Total Pandemic so far	626,907	1,224

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of last Sunday: 626,907

Average deaths last seven days: 262

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.3%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 35,251,453

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 377,820 (= 53,974/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 1.1%  

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.