Predicting a final bump in new infections
Provided that 1. the new variants remain susceptible to the vaccines, 2. the pace of vaccine rollout outperforms that of new infections and 3. protective measures remain in place, there should be a final roar of the slowly dying beast in April, after which numbers should go down steadily (except for Brazil).
Britain is doing a great job with lockdown, testing and vaccinations and in spite of a slowing decline of the incidence, numbers are going down fast. Thank you, Boris the apostle. But there was once Boris the non-believer and we should not forget that his initial inaction was possibly one of the reasons for the more harmful British variants to develop. A British gift to the world.
Brazil's still not-converted Bolsonaro, in combination with poor infrastructure, is giving the world, and his own people, possibly even more dangerous variants. And thus the country's numbers became the exact opposite of Britain's. Why are people still allowed to travel without quarantine? They are the ones disseminating the variants.
The U.S. is situated between these extremes. California and Washington are looking more like Britain and New York State is siding with the EU countries, which all have renewed difficulties getting their numbers down. Incidences are on the rise again and the EU is anticipating a third peak. Italy is even planning another lockdown over the Easter holidays. While France and Sweden are doing worse than Germany, the latter's numbers are not falling as nicely as they could and the testing rate remains far too low. My district of residence (Rhein-Neckar) is doing a lot better than the German average but things could turn around pretty fast between phased reopening of the economy, warmer weather and people being increasingly weary of the various measures.
Tunisia is the only country in my list without any vaccine rollout but their numbers are still coming down nicely. The price? An economy in the ICU and the risk of a state collapse.
Interestingly, New Zealand's R-value is above 1 and its daily positive rate is increasing (albeit at a level too low to fit my table), which is a stark reminder of the virus' continued threat in spite of a very low incidence and no new deaths for months.
| Daily Infections | Daily Deaths | Daily Pos. Rate | R value | Average Excess Death | Projection | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 33.6 ↗︎ | 0.839 ↗︎ | 1.06 ↗︎ | 19.0% | ↗︎↘︎ | |
| USA | 20.3 → | 0.446 ↘︎ | 05.2% ↗︎ | 1.02 ↑ | 17.9% | ↘︎ |
| USA -3 | 20.5 → | 0.422 ↘︎ | 06.6% ↑ | 1.03 ↑ | 17.1% | ↘︎ |
| California | 09.8 ↘︎ | 0.626 ↘︎ | 02.0% ↘︎ | 0.91 ↗︎ | 18.6% | |
| New York | 36.1 → | 0.363 ↘︎ | 03.1% → | 0.97 ↑ | 24.1% | ↘︎ |
| Washington | 08.7 ↘︎ | 0.120 ↓ | 03.3% ↘︎ | 0.93 ↗︎ | 09.7% | ↓ |
| France | 33.3 ↗︎ | 0.393 ↗︎ | 07.3% → | 1.02 ↘︎ | 15.9% | ↗︎↘︎ |
| Britain | 07.3 ↓ | 0.277 ↓ | 00.4% ↓ | 0.70 ↓ | 19.3% | ↓ |
| Tunisia | 05.1 ↘︎ | 0.240 ↘︎ | 14.2% ↓ | 0.88 → | 11.3% | ↘︎ |
| Sweden | 39.0 ↗︎ | 0.202 ↗︎ | 10.1% ↓ | 1.19 ↘︎ | 13.6% | ↗︎↓ |
| Germany | 11.4 ↗︎ | 0.257 → | 05.0% → | 1.09 → | 07.3% | ↗︎↘︎ |
| Rhein-Neckar | 07.2 ↘︎ | 0.024 ↓ | 06.6% | |||
| New Zealand | 00.0 → | 0.000 → | 00.0% ↗︎ | 1.17 → | 0.01% | → |
Remarks On Psychology
The psychology of the current vaccination effort is interesting. There is a prevailing sentiment in the EU that things are not going fast enough and we are way behind.
But people seem to forget that:
(a) current vaccine development is like a ride on a high-speed train compared to the horse-drawn carriage of old-school vaccines and their old-school testing;
(b) the countries EU citizens are eyeing with envy had either been a testing ground for the vaccine and paid more money for it (Israel), cut some corners by foregoing the second jab, have a centralised health care system and paid more money for the vaccine (Britain) or had an existing infrastructure for producing enough of the vaccine, don't share it with their neighbours and paid more money for it (USA); and
(c) most countries in the world still are doing a far worse job vaccinating their citizens because of lack of funds and lack of infrastructure. These countries are becoming a breeding ground for new variants that will come to haunt the rich counties in the foreseeable future.
Thus, a slowdown in rich country vaccinations combined with a spreading of the vaccines across the worlds might yield a better long-term outcome than short-sighted egotism. The latter, alas, is a better fit with the current nationalist world tendencies.