The Pandemic Blog

I’ve decided that I shouldn’t be so dogmatic in saying that all unvaccinated people need to get vaccinated. And I say this despite the fact that your chances of death from Covid are ten times higher if you’re not vaccinated and you get sick, than if you are vaccinated (that increases to 40 times higher if you live in Texas). Yesterday I saw an interesting questionnaire, which is based on a study published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results (a favorite academic journal of ex-President Trump’s, BTW). Answering these four questions can tell you whether you need to get vaccinated or not: 1.       Do you continue to believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election? 2.       Are you an obsessive Fox News watcher (Fox News’ policy is that all employees be vaccinated or take daily Covid tests – no exceptions. Fortunately, they don’t recommend that any of their viewers follow this policy. And they do this even though that...

It was interesting to see that, sure as shootin’, some GOP Senators and Congressmen are talking about shutting the government down this Saturday, unless Biden withdraws his vaccination mandates (which are now stayed by federal judges anyway). And just like the last big GOP shutdown in 2013, when Ted Cruz convinced his colleagues to shut the government until Obamacare was repealed, what gets these loonies riled up the most is the idea that government just might make the public’s health better. In 2013, they were mad about the idea of extending insurance to people who didn’t have it (which of course included no Senators or Congressment). In the current case, it’s the idea of vaccinating the public against a virus that has killed 800,000 people, and is now threating a new wave that could be even more deadly – for those who aren’t vaccinated – than the previous waves. But I must say that I’m beginning to agree with their position. There’s no question that vaccination is a threat to our...

I’d say we’re in the fifth wave now – and we never got out of the fourth one. Just a little perspective: ·         The week of July 4, there were 234 Covid deaths per day. That figure stayed below 1,000 until late August. It hasn’t gone below that level since then. ·         In early October, we hit the high so far for the fourth wave: 2,225 deaths per day. ·         Since then, deaths per day have been generally declining. Last week, we were at 1,110/day. ·         However, in the seven days ended Sunday, deaths per day jumped to 1,475. ·         Given that daily new cases are again on an upward trend, and that we have cold weather and the holidays starting, there isn’t much likelihood that new deaths will go back down anytime soon, and they may well keep increasing. Of course, the great majority of ...