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US COVID Numbers Seem to be Anti-peaking

In other words, we may be seeing a minimum. The daily new infections number dropped a bit yesterday after being about the same for a week much like the death rate. I'm hoping we are not going to see a reversal as has happened several times before.

If this continued dramatic drop from the holiday peak is due to vaccination, I would expect it to continue to numbers near zero allowing track and trace to be done effectively... if there isn't too much push back from those who can't understand the value in the tool.

I am concerned by this plateau as it may be a result of the more infectious strains making the rounds in the 50% of the population not previously infected or vaccinated. I found a page where the CDC is tracking three varient, B.1.1.7, B.1.351 and P.1. I'm surprised at how low the numbers are, 20915, 453 and 497 respectively. Seems the Indian Delta B.1.617.2 variant is not present enough to bother reporting or maybe still at zero in the US. I do see reports that the L452R mutation found in the Delta variant is very present in California.

I'm presently in Puerto Rico where they generally treat the virus more seriously than in many places. In San Juan no one walks around without a mask and they take temperatures and provide hand cleaning at the entrance to every shop. To enter the island you have to have a negative test result within 72 hours or be doubly vaccinated. They were seeing a spike in late April, but by mid May it was completely under control. That sort of result could be achieved everywhere in the US if we were willing to actually work to that goal.

Reply to
Rick C
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Over 10,000 daily new cases would normally scare most other countries into shutdown and lockdown. But the great American vaccine guinea pigs are invincible. I don't oppose reopening, but keep distancing and masking, despite what CDC says.

Reply to
Ed Lee

It is not clear what you are saying. Should we bother to try to understand?

Reply to
Rick C

Seems like this bottom is pretty hard having gone on for nearly two weeks. The good news is there's no sign of an uptick.

It seems the vaccinations are becoming even more important with the Delta variant spreading in the US. It's now around 10% of the cases and will become the dominant strain in due course being the most contagious variant of this virus we have seen. The Delta variant is reported to cause a more severe disease with viral loads rising faster and persisting longer.

It seems pretty clearly we are not out of the woods yet with this pandemic. The virus is just taking a breather with our half way efforts only slowing the virus while it gathers strength. It is fortunate that the US vaccines seem to be effective against these new variants. However, if we don't continue to vaccinate the general population, we are creating selection conditions for the virus to become even more contagious and potentially more deadly.

The US just has too many who don't understand the nature of a pandemic and/or don't care about anyone other than themselves and their silly beliefs that their personal liberties are being trampled. This is a public health emergency. This virus needs to be wiped out before it mutates into even more dangerous forms. Just like typhoid Mary, those who put the all of us at risk should be separated and not allowed to mix with the general public. Otherwise, come next fall we may see another half million die.

Reply to
Rick C

The virus is just taking every chance it can get to infect new victims and multiply. Ever time it reproduces it has a new chance to mutate - usually into something less effective, but more infective strains do appear from time to time.

The selection conditions as just the same as they've always been - if the virus can find new victims to infect, where it can reproduce and occasionally come up with a new variants it's eventually going to come up with a more infectious strain. There's no selection to make it deadlier, but it can happen just by random chance.

The analogy with Typhoid Mary is false - she could host the typhoid bacterium in her gut indefinitely without getting sick. People who are careless about getting infected with Covid-19 are showing the same kind of irresponsibility but don't have the chance to be as dangerous for as long as Typhoid Mary was.

Reply to
Bill Sloman

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