Fun with MA COVID-19 Reporting 01-Jul-2021 Edition

Remember when we used to want to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in MA?  Or how about those days when we at least pretended?  ~Sigh~

Reduction in cases has pretty much stopped now.  We had been reducing significantly in May but by the end of May were already seeing the drop-off in the reduction:

Week - Avg Cases Per Day (Avg Cases Per Day Per 100,000 people)
  • May 2-May 8     - 734.3 (10.7)
  • May 9-May 15   - 499.1 ( 7.2)
  • May 16-May 22 - 357.0 ( 5.2)
  • May 23-May 29 - 197.1 ( 2.9)
  • May 30-Jun 5     - 133.7 ( 1.9)
  • Jun 6-Jun 12       -   96.9 ( 1.4)
  • Jun 13-Jun 19     -   71.3 ( 1.0)
  • Jun 20-Jun 26     -   64.4 ( 0.9)
And so far, 2 of the 4 days being reported from this week are ALREADY higher than the same day last week.  I feel pretty confident that we'll see by mid-week next week that this week had more cases than last week did.

Why is this such a big red flag?  Because we're still seeing more cases per capita than many countries saw in their troughs before they saw increased spread and have gone back into lockdowns.  

Sure, we have gotten a lot of people vaccinated, but we're down to seeing only increases of 0.09% of the population getting the first vaccination per day and with the spread now potentially at the bottom of a trough, we clearly haven't reached herd immunity (herd immunity means the disease doesn't spread because it doesn't have sufficient places to go that carry it further).  And just to point this out, Israel, with a relatively close rate of vaccination is seeing their spread rise again.

And all this just before everybody goes traveling to gather with friends and family to celebrate July 4.  Speaking of gatherings, Social Gatherings have now overtaken Child Care to become the highest non-residential-based exposure setting for cases caused by the clusters in the setting.

Stay safe.  Stay informed.  And keep others safe.

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