*Updated 3/26 with Hospitalizations numbers for 3/24.
March 25, 5:38 pm:
Flat Cases, 14-day change. Last night I predicted that another two, maybe only one, day of 5k increases in Cases would send the 14-day average into positive territory. It took the first step, moving out of negative to flat.
We're going to break our format and keep it here on Cases.
57,333 Cases, 7-day daily average. UP. That is almost a 3k increase in the daily average March 18-24.
79,513 new Cases March 24, 23k more than March 23! POJO was asked today in his press conference when we could expect action on immigration, gun control, voting rights, DPRK, etc.--all the other issues. He answered that his entire focus to date has been on the twinned COVID/economy issue. With his eye on these numbers he's not going to lose that focus. It has been over one month now that Cases have been plateaued, but now a tremendous increase. He's got to re-double his focus. States have opened up too soon. People have relaxed--just look at those thousands of unmasked kids on South Beach over the weekend. Those are all unvaccinated. A curfew just forces them indoors, in closer contact with other unvaccinateds. The risk to their health is comparatively mild. It's the older people who staff the hotels and bars, who they interact with in stores, the police, residents, their parents and aunts and uncles who they will go back to eventually, who they jeopardize. This is the longest goddamned spring break in the history of the world and it is going to be a super-spreader of this virus.
On to the other categories:
14-day changes
Hospitalizations, Down.
Deaths, Down.
7-day daily averages (Through March 24 unless indicated)
39,625 Hospitalizations. Down.
1,060 Deaths. Up.
2,510,755 Vaccinations March 19-25. Up.
2.67% Deaths-Hospitalization rate. Up.
Daily numbers March 24 unless indicated)
39,333 Hospitalizations. Down.
1,591 new Deaths March 24. UP 56% over March 23's total. The second straight day it has risen.
This is becoming a catastrophe.
2,831,442 Vax March 25. Up. Both good, of course. But you're using a Volkswagen in a road race against a Ferrari trying to outrun this thing with vaccinations. You can't vaccinate that quickly. We've vaccinated 26.5% of the country's population of 328.2M. 240.9M are not vaccinated. When do we reach herd immunity? Take the highest informed estimate, 90% (either vaccinated or with the antigen). At a pace of 1.69M daily vaccinations, the number, for some reason, that the NYT uses, it will be July 29 before 90% of the country has been vaccinated. Well, it's always been the summer, hasn't it? From memory it has always been June, July when a sufficient percentage of people are immune that it's safe to reopen completely. The problem is we're reopening now. Restrictions all over the country are being lifted: travel restrictions, school distancing, dining limits. People are ignoring more and more the masks. Those who have acquired immunity naturally and have the antigen, an unknown number to me, would push the July 29 date forward, but there is still so much about this virus that we do not understand. You can get it twice. There is some, again unknown to me, shelf-life to antigen protection. Is there a shelf-life to the vaccine? I at least don't know.
Hospitalizations data are not available at post time but the data we do have are too important to wait.
President Biden's Grade: F
