New virus variants are delaying recovery
Without adherence to even stricter distancing and mask-wearing, the positive impact of vaccination could be nullified or even turn around
The new, more proliferative virus variants are having a negative impact on the statistics. As a consequence, the new IHME projections are worse than the ones from last week. While they still show a decrease in daily deaths, the curves will no longer reach 0.1 per 100 000 within the projection period. In addition, two new scenarios were included: "rapid variant spread" and "worst case" (vaccinated people displaying greater mobility). Both scenarios would be pushing the curves up a little. The latter could actually push daily death numbers up in the U.S. by mid April.
Knowing the bad U.S. track record with masking rules, is very likely that U.S. Americans will allow themselves greater personal freedom after they had been vaccinated. This will counteract the positive effect of the vaccination and could in some states actually push death numbers up again by April. The latter is certainly true for California in all IHME scenarios, with Los Angeles county as the driving force. The Golden State prediction is for more deaths after a short period of reprieve. Washington State would escape this wrath: death numbers are expected to decrease in even the worst of the scenarios. New York State is on a good path as well.
Britain's extremely high daily death numbers could be at a turning point if they were to follow the decreasing incidence. Let's hope that people will not see the improving incidence as a reason to open to soon. France, on the other hand, has both incidence and deaths growing and they have just closed their borders. Germany's incidence continues its nice decrease and some politicians are already discussing easing the measures, which would be fatal with daily death numbers just barely showing signs of a decrease. Fatality-wise, Sweden is ahead of Germany, having peaked and showing signs of a decline. Tunisia's incidence has probably peaked and the death numbers should go down in a couple of weeks too. Until then, the health system will continue to be taxed beyond capacity.
| Daily Infections | Daily Deaths | Daily Pos. Rate | R value | Average Excess Death | Late April Projection | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 24.8 ↘︎ | 0.492↘︎ | 17.3% | ↗︎↘︎ | ||
| US minus 3 | 43.8 ↘︎ | 0.920 ↗︎ | 09.4% ↘︎ | 0.90 ↘︎ | 15.3% | ↘︎ |
| California | 52.0 ↘︎ | 1.378 ↗︎ | 07.4% ↓ | 0.77 ↓ | 15.0% | ↘︎↗︎ |
| Washington | 22.0 ↘︎ | 0.334 → | 06.9% ↘︎ | 0.91 ↘︎ | 09.1% | |
| New York | 63.6 ↘︎ | 0.830 ↘︎ | 05.3% ↘︎ | 0.91 → | 24.0% | ↘︎ |
| France | 30.3 ↗︎ | 0.633 ↗︎ | 07.0% → | 1.09 → | 14.9% | ↗︎↘︎ |
| Britain | 44.7 ↘︎ | 2.018 ↗︎ | 05.8% ↓ | 0.90 → | 18.3% | ↘︎ |
| Tunisia | 18.2 ↘︎ | 0.734 ↗︎ | 28.1% ↗︎ | 1.21 ↗︎ | 10.2% | ↗︎↘︎ |
| Sweden | 28.0 ↘︎ | 0.829 → | 17.1% → | 1.30 ↘︎ | 13.5% | ↘︎ |
| Germany | 14.2 ↘︎ | 0.864 → | 10.2% ↓ | 0.93 ↓ | 06.3% | ↘︎ |
| New Zealand | 00.0 → | 0.000 → | 00.0% ↘︎ | 0.78 ↗︎ | 00.1% | → |
| Rhein-Neckar | 10.8 ↘︎ | 0.367 ↘︎ | 06.3% |
Remarks On Australia
At a recent tennis match in Adelaide, Australia, 4000 spectators were allowed to watch and they did not wear masks. Risky? No, because Australia has slowly returned to a normal life with a 7-day average incidence of 0.04 per 100 000 (Germany had that incidence or below between June and October of last year and currently has 14). New Zealand, Taiwan, China, Vietnam and some others, all in the Pacific East region, have reached that point even earlier.
Envious? I bet.
We, who live in Europe or the Americas can only dream. We will get there eventually and this spring and summer will give those on the Northern Hemisphere a sneak preview. But spectators at sports events, and maskless the more, must probably be relegated to later in the year.
