Europe’s starting a new Covid wave. Do you believe the US will avoid it? If so, do you also still believe in the Tooth Fairy?

Europe is now experiencing a new Covid wave as infections rise in many countries, including the UK, France and Italy. Last week, cases were up 104 percent in Portugal and 42 percent in Switzerland. And it’s not just Europe. Daily reported new cases were up 44 percent in Singapore last week, and they were up in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

What’s driving these waves? Will you be surprised if I tell you that it’s more Omicron subvariants? You shouldn’t be, since this has been the case all year. Singapore’s wave is driven by the XBB subvariant, which “jumped from a 22 percent share of local cases to 54 percent over the course of a week.”

Of course, we’re no longer at the mercy of each new subvariant, since now there’s a booster that targets Omicron subvariants in general. That’s the good news, but here’s the bad news: Even though the booster was made available starting on Labor Day weekend, only 4% of the eligible US population has received it – 8 out of 200 million.

In both articles linked above, experts were quoted as saying that the US might not have anywhere near the same level of infections and deaths as in previous winters of the pandemic, if enough people get the booster. However, my guess is that “enough people” is a lot more than 4 percent!

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, October 16.

Month	Deaths reported during month/year	Avg. deaths per day during month/year	Deaths as percentage of previous month/year
Month of March 2020	4,058	131
Month of April 2020	59,812	1,994	1,474%
Month of May 2020	42,327	1,365	71%
Month of June 2020	23,925	798	57%
Month of July 2020	26,649	860	111%
Month of August 2020	30,970	999	116%
Month of Sept. 2020	22,809	760	75%
Month of Oct. 2020	24,332	785	107%
Month of Nov. 2020	38,293	1,276	157%
Month of Dec. 2020	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb. 2021	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March 2021	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April 2021	24,323	811	64%
Month of May 2021	19,843	661	82%
Month of June 2021	10,544	351	53%
Month of July 2021	8,833	287	84%
Month of August 2021	31,160	1,005	351%
Month of Sept. 2021	56,687	1,890	182%
Month of Oct. 2021	49,992	1,613	88%
Month of Nov. 2021	38,364	1,279	77%
Month of Dec. 2021	41,452	1,337	108%
Total 2021	492,756	1,350	158%
Month of Jan. 2022	65,855	2,124	159%
Month of Feb. 2022	63,451	2,266	96%
Month of March 2022	31,427	1,014	50%
Month of April 2022	13,297	443	42%
Month of May 2022	11,474	370	86%
Month of June 2022	11,109	370	97%
Month of July 2022	11,903	384	107%
Month of August 2022	16,199	540	136%
Month of September 2022	13,074	436	81%
Total Pandemic so far	1,090,536	1,137

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday:          1,090,536

Average daily deaths last seven days: 375

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 431

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.2%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 98,850,125             

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 289,859 (41,408)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 305,607 (43,658)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.3% (0.3% last week)

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