Forecast Of Rollercoaster Until Younger Ones Are Vaccinated
The current rise in incidence in some countries does not come as a surprise. It is still the consequence from the botched initial response in February 2020 and authorities have never caught up with the virus since then.
Just two fatal errors led to this disaster: we underestimated the virus because only a fraction of the infected showed symptoms and we took the relatively slow spread for linear growth.
Remarkably, it took just one week from loosening of the restrictions in Germany to the re-surge. It took two months a year ago. This is probably owed to the new, more proliferative (and more deadly) variants. And it should really frighten us.
But there is more. Other than the British variant, which is seen in the vast majority of the new cases in Europe, a variant from Brittany (Bretagne) was just discovered, which seems to evade detection by common PCR tests. Furthermore, the South African and Brazilian variants are waiting for a traveller to carry them north.
Europe has missed its chance to prevent another surge and the U.S. could be next. Some U.S. states are currently committing the same mistake that led Europe into the current disaster.
Also, it seems as if herd immunity will not be achieved this year and possibly never in some countries. Front runner Israel is moving through quicksand after having passed the 50% full vaccination mark. Their initial success was easy to be gained but now they are facing the Orthodox Jews and the usual refuseniks that are inherent to any society, and even more so to those societies infected by a virus called social media.
As I mentioned before, due to the top-down vaccination approach (older first, younger last), death numbers will go down for good. But the French are demonstrating to the world what it means to keep your schools open: their incidence has been growing when other countries' went down. So, until the children and young adults are vaccinated, the rollercoaster will continue.
Lastly, my former home, Seattle, is doing a great job fighting the pandemic (thank you, Malika, for pointing this NYT article out to me). Seattle is the city with a high number of PhDs working as baristas and with a high rate of book-ownership. But Seattle and other cities are islands in a sea of rednecks in Washington State. These will probably make sure that numbers will not go down too fast.
| Daily Infections | Daily Deaths | Daily Pos. Rate | R value | Average Excess Death | Projection | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 34.5 ↗︎ | 1.034 ↗︎ | 1.10 ↗︎ | 19.7% | ↗︎↘︎ | |
| USA | 16.4 ↘︎ | 0.324 ↘︎ | 04.0% ↓ | 0.99 ↘︎ | 17.8% | ↘︎ |
| USA -3 | 16.1 ↘︎ | 0.308 ↘︎ | 04.6% ↓ | 0.99 ↘︎ | 17.0% | ↘︎ |
| California | 06.7 ↘︎ | 0.415 ↘︎ | 01.6% ↘︎ | 0.86 ↓ | 18.5% | |
| New York | 36.6 ↘︎ | 0.311 ↘︎ | 03.3% ↗︎ | 0.88 ↓ | 24.0% | ↘︎ |
| Washington | 09.9 ↘︎ | 0.103 → | 03.7% ↗︎ | 0.96 ↗︎ | 09.6% | ↓ |
| France | 40.7 ↗︎ | 0.394 ↘︎ | 07.7% ↗︎ | 1.12 ↗︎ | 15.9% | ↗︎↘︎ |
| Britain | 07.9 ↗︎ | 0.144 ↓ | 00.4% → | 0.70 → | 19.1% | ↓ |
| Tunisia | 05.0↘︎ | 0.213 ↘︎ | 13.9% ↘︎ | 0.88 → | 11.3% | ↘︎ |
| Sweden | 44.9 ↗︎ | 0.164 ↘︎ | 10.5% ↗︎ | 1.18 → | 13.5% | ↗︎↓ |
| Germany | 15.0 ↗︎ | 0.271 → | 05.9% ↗︎ | 1.24 ↑ | 07.3% | ↗︎↘︎ |
| Rhein-Neckar | 12.3 ↗︎ | 0.122 ↘︎ | 06.6% | |||
| New Zealand | 00.0 → | 0.000 → | 00.0% ↗︎ | 0.92 ↓ | 0.01% | → |
Remarks On (Vaccine) Nationalism
The U.S., through the WTO and world patent laws (TRIPS), has a tight grip on the world pharmaceutical market, which essentially makes it impossible for a vaccine with U.S. intellectual rights to be produced elsewhere in factories that are not related to U.S. companies. These foreign companies have large production capacities (e.g. in India).
In addition, the Biden administration has forbidden the export of any vaccine and is stockpiling millions of doses of the J&J vaccine, which has currently no approval in the U.S. The EU is both a recipient of that policy (in lack of sufficient production capacity and intellectual rights) and a perpetrator because Brussels has in turn forbidden the export of the vaccines produced on their soil. This is currently hitting Britain, which will see significantly fewer doses in April. Not to be outdone, Russia is attempting to use their Sputnik V to push their foreign policy at a time when they are unable to produce or deliver enough for their own people (partially vaccinated: 3.8%). And lastly India, which had promised their home-made vaccine to lots of lower-income countries, is also pondering an export stop.
Covid is thus bringing out the worst in us by furthering nationalist tendencies (my people first, let the world go to hell, who cares if it might hurt us later), as well as neo-imperialistic and neo-colonial causes (the former and the modern-age colonies have no production capacity and are at the mercy of their former colonial powers).