The gap widens
Continued easing for the rich countries and continued suffering for the poor
Western countries who failed to act swiftly in February of 2020 have resigned to learn to live with the disease. Numbers will ultimately reach a low plateau which will be determined mostly by the degree of vaccination. We possibly see this in Britain where the ICU occupancy (ITU in Britain) is going flat at a relatively low level (0.2 per 100K) and deaths seem not able to fall below 0.01 per 100K. Britain's incidence rebound is caused by a premature ease of restrictions and it is possible the cause of a slight increase in daily deaths.
Tunisia will fare poorly for several months to come. Actual daily death numbers are 3 times higher than reported and, given a very high test-positive rate, their actual incidence is probably a lot higher too.
France is on a good path, but given that its numbers have been consistently higher than those in Germany, I expect them to plateau at a higher level as well. This means that future life on the left bank of the Rhine will be slightly more perilous than on the right bank.
The USA are on a good path but, given a falling testing rate and stalling vaccination, their new normal will probably be higher than in Europe. Washington State, where incidence and ICU occupancy have never really gone to very low levels, is probably one of the examples of what to expect.
This is the last week that Sweden, India, Brazil and New Zealand will be featured on this blog. See remarks below.
| Daily Infections | Daily Deaths | Daily Pos. Rate | R value | Average Excess Death | Death Projection | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 30.6 → | 0.802 ↓ | 1.04 → | 26.7 % | ↘︎ | |
| USA | 04.4 ↘︎ | 0.132 ↘︎ | 03.1 % ↓ | 0.78 ↓ | 16.5 % | ↘︎ |
| WA State | 08.5 ↘︎ | 0.122 ↓ | 08.3 % ↓ | 1.20 ↑ | 09.1 % | ↘︎ |
| France | 11.6 ↘︎ | 0.133 ↘︎ | 02.9 % ↗︎ | 0.84 ↗︎ | 15.9 % | ↘︎ |
| Sweden | 12.1 ↘︎ | 0.100 ↘︎ | 04.2 % ↓ | 0.01 ↓ | 12.3 % | ↓ |
| Britain | 06.0 ↗︎ | 0.012 ↗︎ | 00.3 % ↗︎ | 1.10 ↗︎ | 16.2 % | → |
| Germany | 04.2 ↘︎ | 0.136 ↘︎ | 02.8 % ↓ | 0.88 ↑ | 07.3 % | ↘︎ |
| Tunisia | 12.5 ↗︎ | 0.468 → | 24.4 % ↗︎ | 1.07 ↑ | 14.2 % | ↗︎ ↘︎ |
| New Zealand | 00.1 → | 0.000 → | 00.0 % → | 0.76 ↓ | 00.1 % | |
| India | 10.5 ↘︎ | 0.226 ↘︎ | 06.1 % ↓ | 0.73 ↓ | 04.4 % | ↘︎ |
In April of last year I added Sweden to this blog because the country had explicitly refrained from a lockdown and I was curious what this would do to their numbers. It turned out that Sweden's death rate grew much higher than that of their Scandinavian neighbours, and officials have since acknowledged that it was a mistake to sacrifice their elderly population. Now, with the pandemic morphing into an endemic disease (in the rich countries), I am going to remove Sweden from my blog.
I added India a little over a month ago to denounce the hypocrisy of the mass media's daily outcry. While the situation remains critical – mostly owed to the poor state of their health care system – numbers are falling and the press is moving on to other sensations. India, too, will therefore disappear from this blog with next week's update.
Brazil was added as an example for a poorly-performing country and numbers have never been promising. But Brazil is doing a good vaccination effort and the long-term prospect is therefore good. Covid will become endemic but manageable, particularly in regions with poor infrastructure.
In April of 2020 I added New Zealand as an example for a country with excellent management of the pandemic. I originally used China but my Western friends hedge a deep mistrust in their numbers. Combined with a century-old feeling of US/European superiority, it led them to believe that China cannot possibly fare as well as portrayed. Another false impression was that "Asians" were perceived as just better with the mask thing and with being herded (which is partially invalidated by the Japanese numbers).
New Zealand, together with other Pacific Eastern countries, acted swiftly in the earliest hour of the pandemic and it has therefore seen a negligible number of deaths. This comes at the price of continued surveillance and tight border controls. Whether this can be maintained over a longer period needs to be seen. But because other Western countries have given up on the idea of zero deaths, New Zealand is no longer an example for a goal to be reached. As a consequence, this week is the last time we see its rather boring graph.
