Fun with COVID-19 reporting in MA (and elsewhere)

It's really tiring to keep seeing people say that ending mandates is an indication that things are getting better or that we're going to be able to return to normal. The pandemic continues. We're continuing to improve on the backside of a wave, yes, but we're not even to low transmission and already appear to be stalling out on our progress based on, well, pretty much every indicator.   This isn't over.   The relaxing of restrictions is not an indication of things getting better in the future, it is the best indication you have that we're going to start increasing the spread again in a few weeks. This was the case in 2020. This was the case in 2021. This is the case in 2021. Somerville, for example, is still at rates that are higher than pretty much any time from February 2021 through the end of November 2021. Our ending our mask mandate doesn't change that. And our ending our mask mandate doesn't mean that there is any part of the calculation tha...

"if not [removing the mask mandate] now, when?"... "How about when we get to levels that are on par with what we saw last summer, or roughly 1/10 of what we see today, so that spread continues to drop and we get out of the CDC's highest level of transmission before determine that we will no longer try to reduce further? How does that sound? Or maybe when we get the death rate down to single digits per day again? Even if we're not going to aim for 1 death per day perhaps we can aim lower than low double-digits per day (currently at about 40 per day but dropping)? How about we wait until cases per day fall to a much more reasonable count (right now we're at around 30 times what we were last summer and still in the ballpark of the first wave's peak... and that's without all cases being reported since home-testing isn't in those figures unless the person then goes and gets tested more formally)? How about when hospitals aren't still crowded a...

A few thoughts on what happens if COVID-19 becomes endemic.... So, first off, vaccination rates.  You may be thinking that as we live with COVID-19, people will accept the vaccines and accept that COVID-19 is a serious enough illness to take, you know, seriously.  I would argue that after a year and a half, if people aren't taking it seriously yet, it's unlikely they'll start.  So what could potentially increase our vaccination rates if people refuse to take it seriously?  Well, one option is mandates.  We're seeing more and more requirements around people being vaccinated in different settings, and these may continue to increase.  Yes, people balk at them and raise hell over their rights, but some will use it as an excuse to get vaccinated when it's not socially acceptable to do so otherwise.  Having the vaccinations be required for college settings will help too given the idea that is prevalent that with youth comes less risk, but if you need to get ...

Barely a week in and we've already got a couple classes going into quarantine. Meanwhile, Baker's decision is that, since vaccinations are available for 12+, we should just let COVID-19 run its course. This is pointing to wanting to cause enough harm that those still holding off on getting the vaccine end up getting it due to the harm.... much like the lottery, this seems unlikely to work. All you have to do is look at other states to find that the rate hasn't ticked up much despite 100 cases per 100k people per day. It also ignores those that can't yet get vaccinated or are immunocompromised. https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/09/08/melrose-quarantine-baker-remote-school?fbclid=IwAR3EVBQudtaem7GOeOD4yARJUbO5MFd5w_HeWs8zm48AO0uHObKi03SI-N0

I recently heard someone say that this was the new normal.  I've heard this a lot recently and there are 2 responses that are quite distinct.  One group of Left leaning friends has said that because the current situation is the new normal, we should just go back to the old way of doing things and not try to do things to minimize the harm.  But that's not what this person, the new Governor of NY, was saying.  Instead, they were saying that we must adapt... not return to life as usual but find a way to deal with the new normal in a way that minimizes the threats we face. That's right, this post is about comparing COVID-19 to climate change.   There are long term efforts and short term efforts that can be applied to each.  At this point we can't just work on the long term efforts to reduce the harm of climate change.  We have to also focus on mitigation of the changing patterns.  Places like New York need to accept that there will be a lot of floodin...

Ok, elephant in the room time... Baker has decided that we can stop all precautions meant to stem the spread of COVID-19.  This is because we have been driving down cases and because the vaccines are readily available. Ok, except... Past is prologue - we've seen cases drop and rise before.  We pushed cases down last summer to under 200 cases per day in MA and, while starting to re-open, saw the spread increase.  Past is prologue, we didn't close anything down until we saw cases way surpass the first wave's peak. It's not all about those who choose not to be vaccinated... we still have kids who just recently were made eligible and have a month to go before they would be eligible to be fully vaccinated AND we still have younger kids who aren't yet eligible to get vaccinated at all.  Essentially you're saying that those kids can be damned because it's time to re-open.  Essentially you're saying you're fine with the kids that will die and the many more t...

The CDC recently came out with guidance saying it is ok for fully vaccinated people to go maskless in most outdoor spaces and some indoor spaces (no, not all outdoor spaces and certainly not all indoor spaces as it has been simplified by the news and individuals to suggest). This makes sense because it is indeed safe for the person who is vaccinated in that they are protected from severe illness by the vaccine(s).  It also makes sense because we want as many people to get vaccinated so the more incentives we can give people the better.  The vaccines appear to reduce spread and with less spread comes fewer impacted by long-haul illnesses, fewer immunocompromised getting severely ill, as well as fewer chances of mutations that the vaccines are less effective at protecting us against. So there you have it, the CDC guidance makes sense. Oh, did you think I was going to explain how the downsides of the CDC guidance shift? Did you think I was going to point out that the CDC guidance...

I want to predict that this summer will see daily case counts averaging lower than last summer.  That we'll continue to see the current trend downward continue through June like we did last year and potentially only slowly increase again in July and August. I would not be completely unreasonable for predicting this either, for a variety of reasons. I want to predict this but it is just so far from a foregone conclusion.   A year ago, we were still (for the most part) actively trying to do less risky activity.  We still had some businesses closed.  We had many restrictions on those businesses that were open.   There was a sense that we were improving, and many in late May/June started to say that things were indeed better and gleefully announcing the top-page reporting numbers since they were suggesting the situation was much better than if you took more than a minute to look at it.  But this sense was tampered among many and the restrictions caused many to ...

In case you were thinking that the 1,626 average daily cases from the week of Mar 14 was an aberration and that we were actually still seeing lower case counts, Monday through Wednesday of this past week each had over 2,000 cases, single-day count that we had seen reached only once before going back through Feb 12... and this past week's numbers are still increasing.  And even counting Thursday's count which is absolutely not where it will end up, the first 5 days currently have an average of 1,804 cases per day, bringing us back to where we were in early February.  I fully expect the past week to end up being a 3rd straight week of increased cases.  We likely won't reach the 2,366 average from the week of Jan 31, but I predict we'll be over the 1,793 average from the week of Feb 7. Deaths are also looking likely to be on the rise again.  After slowing the decrease in daily deaths for weeks, going from 47.6 to 43.7 to 38.9 to 32.7 the weeks of Feb 14 through Mar 7, w...

Ok, I've been commenting on case counts... and it continues to look bad with last week now seeing a 14% increase week over week from the preceding week and the cases still coming in. But today, I'd like to take a moment to talk about hospitalizations. We've continued to reduce the headcount at hospitals, which is certainly good, but the degree to which we've been doing so points to a problem in our near future.  We went from decreasing the headcount by 30+ each day in January and early February to 23-28 per day in mid/late February, down to 13.6 per day for the first week of March... and are now averaging in the single digits.  This trend of increasing cases per day and reducing the decline in hospitalizations suggests that we're going into our next wave of cases. MA reopening right now has absolutely nothing to do with us being safer.  We have higher spread now than we did when we started to reopen last summer with nearly twice as many cases per day as we had back ...

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  The decline in cases appears to have ended with last week having more cases than the week preceding it.  We'll see in about a week if this was a blip but I had previously pointed out that the decline in cases had already slowed to a trickle as of last week so there is no real surprise that we're not climbing again.   Why are we climbing when we've been vaccinating people for 3 months?  Well, there are a few things to consider: 1) We've only vaccinated just under 9% of our population in those 3 months.  While we can expect the rate to have improved over that time and to continue to improve, that's a far cry from quick. 2) Gov Baker relaxed restrictions so we would expect people to have followed his intended lead in engaging in the risky behaviors he's pushing for. 3) The same relaxing of restrictions mentioned in the second point also means that more people think that things are better now.  This messaging is dangerous as c...

I'm excited! I'm excited! I still have an A1C above 10% (6.5% being the cut off to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetic) but I got down below the 20% I jumped up to recently after doubling my A1C. As a result of my decline in A1C, I'm going to stop exercising and watching what I eat, even though in the last couple weeks my efforts have shown less progress than they had a month ago..... what? you think that's a bad plan? You think I should keep working toward my goals and not let up, especially with cases not reducing as quickly with the current restrictions as they were just a few weeks ago and that I should be cautious about the plan to re-open further and then go to phase 4 in March even though the schedule for vaccinations doesn't have us even reaching the general population by then? Sorry, did I confuse you with my shift in topics where at first you thought I was talking about weight loss and now you understand that I'm talking about the fact that we're still...

 The country has been in the process of re-opening for a month now and you might have a variety of thoughts on it ranging the gambit... It's right to re-open fully because  it's a hoax it only effects the old so they can shelter in place while the rest of us enjoy our lives "there are worse things than dying" (Texas Lt Gov) It's right to re-open a little because  I want to support my local businesses and buy things from them. it's safe enough for us to do a little as long as we're cautious we should find the happy medium between lockdown and completely open It's wrong to re-open because we're not ready yet and we're going to see cases spike we're putting people at risk by re-opening too soon we should be prioritizing essential services as we re-open rather than the cosmetic  I would argue that it's absolutely the wrong time to re-open but it's far worse than what is indicated as reasons above.  So, first, there's the obvious thi...