Complete, 4/27, 9:36 a.m.
There has been no Fourth Wave. There has been a ripple that you may have missed had you not been told it was supposed to be a Wave and even Hospitalizations appear to have crested on April 20. Cases clearly crested, on April 14, and have been clearly down since, and Deaths too crested on the 14th. They have had a more shimmying, but still an obvious, descent. All of that is good, of course. None of it means we won't have ripples in the future, for we are not beating this thing. We may "flatten the curve"but we're not going to flat-line COVID. We're running out of arms to inject shots, some people are blowing off their second shots, Herd Immunity Day is retreating away from us faster than we are running to catch it. The virus is faster than we are, humanity.
In the last little over one year COVID has mutated at least three distinct strains, the British strain more vexsome to us in the States than the South African strain, and the new Indian strain the most diabolical yet. Two sets of mutations. Cases in India are over 300k/day, a world record, despite India doing pretty well with the original. You cannot keep a virus rampant in a nation of 1.3 billion people from infiltrating a nation 29% the size. Impossible. We're going to have to deal with the Indian mutations in addition to the original and the South African and British variants.
How? We have no idea if the current vaccines will work against the Indian mutations, hell, we don't even know how long the three vaccines used in the U.S. last! The scientists' best estimate is that those in the U.S. who have been fully vaccinated will have to be revaccinated in about a year. The vaccines protect others from getting the virus from you, a vaccinated person, exceedingly well. Like masks. Remember what Dr. Fauci and the rest said? They protect others from you. Of course both masks and the three American-used vaccines offer you, a vaccinated person, ENORMOUS protection, ~90%, as well. Dr. Fauci and the other experts said that too. As they did that there is substantial evidence that both masks and vaccines lessen the virus load if you do get infected. That's why, again, the experts advise even the fully vaccinated to continue to wear masks around large groups of people. This is a new contagion and its behavior and the rules for us in dealing with it are being studied as it infects us.
All of the foregoing informs the following: We are not going to reach Herd Immunity Day for years.
-16% Cases.
+5% Hospitalizations.
-3% Deaths.
7-day daily changes through April 25
58,353 Cases. Down.
45,027 Hospitalizations. Down. Ooh, nice little dippity-do there on the H-number 7-day graph.
707 Deaths. Down four.
1.57% D-H rate. Down.
2,750,656 Vax. Down.
Herd Immunity Day
August 31. Oof. Further and further away.
President Biden Grade C. Incomplete (likely D).
( August 18. SFCD. One day later.)
