Daily COVID-19 cases reached an all-time high in February and then descended as rapidly as they had surged, with the Omicron variant in full swing. Mask rules were eased as the media featured reports of double-digit percentage decreases in infections and hospitalization, implying that Omicron infections may be less severe than with the previous Delta variant. Meanwhile, vaccination rates remained stalled in some recalcitrant states, and thoughts of a 4th booster program appeared. Who knows what evil still lurks in the heart of the virus?
COVID-19 vaccinations
Public health, in much of this country, is in crisis. Hospitals are overwhelmed and understaffed, vaccination is widely resisted, state governments present mixed messages -- and COVID-19 is out of control and headed for a 4th wave. The more-contagious Delta variant has been spreading rapidly and may challenge the efficacy of our vaccines. We address this situation with population-based statistics in two modes: progression over time and geographic variation.
After a short gestation period, COVID-19 vaccines arrived throughout the nation and became part of the daily scene. Questions about which vaccine to get have diminished replaced with concerns about who is getting shots and who is not. Here is what the latest statistics tell us.
As the Delta variant becomes THE primary source of COVID-19 infections there’s a growing body of knowledge to explain why this is happening. Let's consider two new studies and a fact we may have forgotten.
As our government begins to take a partial victory lap and we begin to concentrate on the vaccine-hesitant we would do well to take a global view – after all, when we speak of herd immunity the herd is global.
You would think that healthcare workers, those in “the business,” would be jumping at getting a COVID-19 vaccine – you would be wrong. Here are a few of the facts.
For those who want to short version: the more things change, the more they stay the same – especially the percentages. Here are some quick details.
Good, better, and best. We seem to be better, but a long way from best.
This week things are looking up, just not as much as we might like. We’re vaccinating more than a million people a day, but we continue to be plagued by operational problems that prevent scaling up immunization rates at a quicker pace. What does the data tell us?
A weekly look at how the national and global vaccination programs are going. We're improving at getting vaccines into arms, but not improving as quickly as we should.
I admit I wandered down the rabbit hole on deplatforming free speech with three articles, all with different viewpoints. And then a piece on vaccinations, it is not about central control as much as centralized communication.
There are several websites compiling data on the vaccination roll-out. As was the case for tracking the spread of COVID-19, some metrics are more helpful than others. Here is our initial guide, and like COVID-19, subject to change.