Looked at my local data... dating back to June 27...
See basically the same picture...
Cases are up, but from a very low base... with new cases at 10 per 100,000... 0.001% per day... and no evidence yet of a much larger ramp occurring... but the reported increase in cases over 14 days is up 52%, which coincides exactly with another step change in the relaxation of closures... as we're now fully open.
Of those new cases reported... 3 in 40... have been hospitalized... hospitalizations up 84% over 2 weeks...
And, of those... none have died.
Total mortality rate thus far... for cases tested and reported positive... is just under 1.2% of total cases.
That sounds bad... but when doing comparative statistics of one pandemic vs another, the comparisons are reported not as a % of cases, but as a % of the total population...
Here, that computes as a mortality rate of 0.1%... which is roughly the same as what is reported to be typical of an annual flu bug... The Delta variant, along with the Gamma variant, that are both present here now... have not yet contributed anything to the mortality rate...
Seems clear based on observation over time... including the imposition and lifting of controls... that most of the mortality was early on, before they learned how to manage the associated symptoms with proper medical responses... but the data they have presented does nothing to allow parsing variables like that...
Now, with the vaccinations that have been given... you might see a higher rate of transmission, and should, given vaccines that do not confer immunity, but you should still expect to see lower mortality rates...
The vaccination rate is reported at just over 50%... but that's overly imprecise... as that is the rate for "all ages," while the rate for "18 and up" is 59%, and "65 and up" is 79%...
That means a lot of children have been immunized... which seems pretty stupid...
Doesn't mean anything about what might happen later, this fall, or into winter...
But, by then, vaccination rates will be higher... and at some point they'll probably come out with a vaccine that is technically correct in being labelled as a vaccine... one that might work to prevent infections rather than only suppress symptoms temporarily ?
No reason I see in the local data to change any policy to be more restrictive...
As I am not vaccinated, I'll sustain more restrictive policies that I impose on myself... and not behave as if the risks have been managed... knowing they have not been...
But, also see no reason to be any more concerned about current risks than I am about exposure to the annual flu bugs... as far as short term mortality risks. Covid has other risks that I'm more concerned about as long term concerns... than I am about the immediate risk of death...
That makes me a rational analyst of my risks... while others have been whipped up into a frenzy of fear... on the basis of media hype... that has nothing that I can see supporting it in the data....
Other place may be different... the southern hemisphere in winter now...
Seasonal variation is apparent in the charts over parts of two years with overlapping data now...
What in media is showing any of that pattern in seasonality vs northern or southern hemispheric risks ?
|
