The Pandemic Blog

Regarding Covid cases, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that total reported new cases are coming down as expected. The bad news (well, one piece of bad news) is that total new cases on Sunday, Jan. 30 would have been a pandemic-long record just three weeks ago, meaning total cases are still far too high. And adding to this the fact that there are certainly a large number of non-reported cases, given the widespread use of at-home tests now, it’s hardly time to talk about not wearing a mask indoors and not getting vaccinated and boosted. Regarding deaths, there’s bad news and good news. The bad news is that average daily deaths last week were 2,570, which is a record since last February (when we were coming down from the third wave, the worst yet) – and of course they’re going up each week. When will deaths start to come down? The omicron variant has been much less deadly so far per infected person, and if that relationship continues, deaths will peak 3-4 weeks from n...

Note from Tom 1/28/22: On June 27, 2020, I published two emails that had been sent to me by Jude Gamel; I reproduce the post in full below. Jude remains a reader of this blog, and a recent conversation with him made me go back and read this post – and realize how powerful and relevant it is. I think you’ll agree.   Note from Tom 1/27/20: Jude Gamel, a recently retired critical care nurse who lives in Kentucky, started corresponding with me a few weeks ago about this blog. We hadn’t discussed his own experiences (and those of his former colleagues, whom he keeps in touch with regularly) treating Covid-19 patients previously. But yesterday, he was inspired by that morning’s  post , which focused entirely on deaths from Covid-19, to describe, in two emails, what “successful” outcomes are – i.e. when the patient survives. In many cases, the patient might well wonder whether the physical, emotional and financial toll on them were actually better than dying. And there’s also a h...