Analysis – Saturday, 6 November 2021

Too Bad
[unbelievingly shaking my head]

The WHO just declared Europe to be, again, the centre of of the pandemic (PDF of Guardian article). Contrary to last year's winter surge, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal are not part of this rise. Yet.
Maybe Portugal and Spain can escape this fate for real but France and Italy still have a sizeable number of unvaccinated that can drive a renewed surge. Britain is ramping up its vaccine effort but it is probably too late.

Germany is like a fly that hits the window over and over again. Numbers are climbing at a frightening pace but because they are still rather low and because some people may think that 66% full vaccination is good protection (hint: it is not), indoor places with high risk of transmission are opening again. And everybody is unmasked there! A similar mistake as last autumn. While this re-opening is for the vaccinated and recovered only, there are numerous unvaccinated who get through and rarely are the caught.

Tunisia's numbers, spurred by vigorous vaccination, have been declining strongly since August but they are now showing the first signs of a halt. This would not be surprising because the pace of vaccination has slowed down considerably and the incidence could be going flat. If this were a true trend, the two other indicators, ICU (ITU) and death, should be following 3-4 weeks from now. Another bad sign is that the actual incidence, as estimated by IHME, is 10x higher than the reported one (it is 2x higher than reported in the other countries on my list).

The USA is being passed in vaccinations by Brazil. While Brazil has used vaccines that are far less effective, this should serve as another slap in the face of the greatest nation on Earth (by the worst metrics, including, per capita:  pollution, defence spending, hand guns, death sentences, and lack of health care access. The USA and Washington State are projected to have sustainedly high but wavering Corona-related numbers.