Analysis – Saturday, 27 February 2021

Death numbers are falling and will remain low
New infections flat or on the rise

Projections of the last three weeks have been consistent in that death numbers are coming down, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but after a few skirmishes over the coming weeks, they will be no longer relevant as an indicator for the gravity of the pandemic. 

This drop in death numbers will be permanent because it is owed to the vaccination of the 70+ population, which has had the biggest share of the deaths. But infections will continue to spread among the younger ones, which is already pushing the daily incidence numbers up, particularly when more infectious variants are spreading in a population.

In the US minus 3, Washington State and California, daily infection numbers continue to fall but I expect numbers to succumb to upward pressure from premature openings and the variants. New York State's drop in new infections has slowed down considerably, which makes it similar to European countries, as it has been throughout the epidemic.

Germany's incidence has turned around just at the time when some federal states are allowing more businesses to open. Needless to say, that this will not drive these numbers down. In France, incidence has come down very nicely from its October high but the downward trend was abruptly halted by a foolish easing of restrictions over Christmas. Again, this and the recent wave of winter holidaymakers are no recipe for combatting a pandemic. As a consequence for this reckless behaviour, the Gauls are now pondering another national lockdown. Sweden is seeing a new upswing in incidence, which might even set a new record in a few weeks. Britain's very remarkable and steep decline in new infections has slowed down, which might be helped by the relatively high vaccination rate (although, the majority of people received only the first jab). Tunisia might see an upswing in new infections, too.

While, as mentioned above, these new "cases" will have an ever decreasing effect on mortality, they will affect the middle-aged population (45-65) that is most commonly found in the ICUs. It should therefore be advisable to fully ease restrictions only when that vulnerable segment of the population has been thoroughly vaccinated.