Be careful out there

June 14, 2021June 13, 2021Michael 6 Comments

Deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Let me type that again. Deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Globally. If you are in the US, Canada, UK, pick a country that last year was locked up tighter than Marley and Scrooge’s backroom safe and you are going out later today without a mask on, that means there are places this year that make what you went through last year look like you were just trying to stay ahead of getting a really bad cold. One more time. Deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Globally

WorldDeaths According to data generated by the Johns Hopkins University, about 1,880,000 deaths from COVID-19 were recorded in 2020. As of the first week of June 2021, less than halfway through this year, about 1,883,000 deaths due to COVID-19 have been reported. Globally.

Globally. That sort of is important because we are a global world. Planes are back in the air with all seats filled, crossing borders. Ships are at sea again stopping at ports not always in the same country as the previous port of call. Students, vacationers, businesspersons are moving to and fro, free as can be. Give or take.

In the United States, the total reported cases, not deaths, for the single day, June 11 (the last full weekday before this was written) was 26,006, the running seven day average cases was 14,768. The last time a seven day average of less than 15,000 was reported at week’s end was on Friday, March 27, 2020 at 12,127. Then, seven day averages were increasing; now, they are declining. Proof that mitigation and vaccination worked and is working. It’s questionable that mitigation without vaccination would have eventually gotten us to the current case load, and certainly not by the end of May. By the end of 2020 with only mitigation, seven day average case totals routinely ran greater than 200,000 and peaked in January 9, 2021 with a single day case total of 300,779 and a seven day average of 259,615 cases. Widespread vaccination and continuing mitigation have since reduced both single day and seven day averages continuously to where we are today. The lowest single day reported cases for 2021 was May 31 at 5,557 with a seven-day average of 17,171. The last time previous to that when a single day case load less than 6,000 was reported was on March 20, 2020, with 5,619 cases.

UScases

Interestingly, since May 31, the daily totals and seven day averages of cases reported in the US have consistently increased. Also, since May 31, have the majority of states relaxed or eliminated mitigation requirements. It would not be unreasonable to ask if vaccination without mitigation is and will be working. Certainly not wanting to cry wolf, but I will type once more, deaths due to COVID-19 in 2021 already have surpassed the total number of deaths in all of 2020. Globally.

Let’s be careful out there. There’s a lot of virus still out there.

Happy Anniversary?

January 21, 2021Michael 1 Comment

It’s not every day we see two momentous anniversaries. Actually that has to be untrue. I am certain a bazillion things happen every day that are momentous to somebody. Today there are two that are momentous to me. I’m sorry, that’s an untruth also. One I could care less about but it makes for an interesting contrast to the other.

On this date in 1972 the world’s first Star Trek convention was held in New York City. Wait, also untrue. On this date in 1972 the first “major” Star Trek convention was held in New York City. Who determined “major” I do not have a clue. I suppose “major” like “beauty” is in the eye of the beholder. Or the Spock ears. I enjoyed Star Trek but not so much that I made a trip to the Big Apple in full Star Fleet regalia. Apparently 3,000 people did enjoy it to that extent and showed up for it. No data regarding how many were in uniform. That’s a lot of people to pay homage to a TV show that had been off the air for 3 years by then and seven years before the motion picture would spawn an entire new crowd of crazies, errr fans. Remember that number though. We’ll get back to those 3,000 people in a moment.

January 21 commemorates another obscure occurence. It was in this day in 2020 (that was last year for those with short memories) that the first case of SARS-CoV-2, better known now as CoViD-19 was diagnosed in the United States. Since then 2,438,723 cases have been confirmed (as of Jan.20, 2021). That averages to over 6,000 cases per day. Twice as many people every day on average(!) get CoViD (that we know of) as those who flocked to NYC in their version of starship NCC-1701.

If you are having trouble picturing 2.4 million people that’s about the population of Chicago (2.7 million) or more than twice as many people in all of Rhode Island (1.1 million). That’s also about how many people have died from CoViD in the world since it worked it’s way into people some 14 months ago (2.06 million).

Let’s go back to the first Star Trek convention. Picture those 3,000 people milling about, some in Spock ears, and now imagine each person’s best friend who couldn’t make it to New York and is waiting back home. Now you have all 6,000 people in your mind. Well, that’s how many people die every day (on average(!)) from CoViD in the last year – in this world.

Do you think you could wear your mask now please? Spock ears optional.

Eight Million Ways to Cry…Times 2.

December 14, 2020December 13, 2020Michael 5 Comments

I heard over the weekend the United States topped 16 million CoViD-19 cases, 16.3 million when I read it on Sunday. It took 252 days to record the first 8 million cases and 87 days to tally up the second. Sixteen million cases, more than any other country in the world. Well, it’s a big country some might think. (Some might think we should have slowed the testing down. Similarly some might have thought we should stop counting votes. Both thoughts quite wrong but that’s a post for a different day.) (Maybe.) (Will see.) Anyway…

Back to those 16 million cases in such a “big” country. Canada is a big country too. There they have recorded just over 460,000 cases. Of course it is less populated. Canada has a population of 37.6 million people compared to the US population of 328 million. That means the US is getting CoViD four times faster. Well, clearly Canada is not as densely populated so they won’t have as high a rate as the packed in like sardines cities of the USofA. Hmm, well, let’s look at India where there are 9.8 million cases. That’s almost as many as America’s 16 million. But India has 1.32 BILLION people packed into a smaller area. India has 382 people per square kilometer, over 10 times the density of the. 36 people per sq km in the USA yet the US case rate per population is over 7 times that as crowded India’s.

So back to those 16 million. The borough of Manhattan in New York City boasts a population of 8.7 million people. There are probably not many people reading this who remember the TV drama “Naked City.” It ran from 1958 through 1963 and each episode ended with a phrase you may remember even if you don’t know the show, “There are 8 million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.” Those 8 million stories ostensibly were the 8 million people of Manhattan posing as that naked city. In 1982 Lawrence Block wrote his hardboiled detective novel “Eight Million Ways to Die” again paying a sort of homage to the 8 million people of Manhattan. (In 1986 Oliver Stone with a few others adapted the book to a movie of the same name, with the lead character of the same name but everything else was different, even the city! It was horrible. But that’s a post for another day!) (Don’t see the movie, read the book.) Where was I? Oh yes, the 8 million people of Manhattan and those 16 million CoViD-19 cases.

I remember reading Eight Million Ways to Die shortly after its release. I remember remembering I never thought about how many people lived in Manhattan and thinking wow that is a lot of people. I grew up in little suburbia with about 20,000 people and our tallest building outside of church steeples was a 5 story department store. It was far from Hooterville but probably just as far from Manhattan. Eight million. That’s still a lot of people. But sixteen million. That’s 8 million times 2!

Sixteen million CoViD-19 cases, almost twice the current population of that island in New York. They say the recovery rate right now is around 48% so that works out to be 8.3 million active CoViD cases. They could easily swap into Manhattan for the 8.7 who live there now. Close the bridges and tunnels and we could have a quarantine community. Kind of like the Kalaupapa Peninsula. (Look it up.) I doubt anybody would be willing to make the big switch and we can’t be sure that there are only 8 million active cases because we don’t know how many people are running around with the disease who have never been tested. (Apparently some people actually thought I was a good idea to slow the testing down. Yeah, yeah, another post for another day. I’m keeping track.) So then, umm, right, 16 million people with CoViD-19.

Sixteen million people. Eight million times two. Not 8 million ways to die though. Only a couple ways. If they were among the unlucky 300,000 who had died, people who died from CoViD may have from acute respiratory failure, heart failure, blood clots, kidney failure, or a syndrome of a collection of symptoms called a cytokine storm including blood leaking out of its vessels. Ugh.

Yesterday, vaccines were loaded into trucks in Kalamazoo heading for the airport to be shipped across the US. That doesn’t mean the number stops at 16,300,000. It is probably going up as you read this. Actually it is definitely going up as you read this. Will it get to 8 million times 3? Likely yes. Maybe even 4 and 5 and perhaps 6 before the vaccine does what its supposed to fo which is circulate through the immune systems of every American regardless of where he, she, or it stood on testing and counting.

Sixteen million people. Eight million reasons to cry. Times 2.