COVID Transmissions for 11-9-2020
Good morning! It has been 358 days since the first documented human case of COVID-19. We are one week short of a year.
There was some big political news over the weekend; hopefully this means that the period of political uncertainty will be short so that we can focus on fighting the pandemic again soon.
Focusing on one headline today; things are looking bad in the US, and the pandemic did not end with the election. In fact, the virus doesn’t care about the election at all.
As usual, bolded terms are linked to the running newsletter glossary.
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Now, let’s talk COVID.
COVID in the US is getting worse
Look at recent trends in cases in the US:
This is a bad trend. A week or two ago, I saw that there were about 80,000 new daily cases and was warning people that it would be 160,000 by late November. I now think we are on track to beat my prediction, because exponentials are horrible.
In my home state of New York, here is the current trend:
I’m concerned by those rising numbers. Very concerned. New York has kept excellent control of the pandemic after being an early hotspot, but this could change in a matter of weeks. Look at the last time we went above 2500 daily new cases; it was in mid-March. Now, at that time, testing in the state was much worse, so it’s not directly comparable, but we need to be cognizant of how quickly those 2500 cases turned into 10,000 per day. It took about two weeks. While I am hopeful we will keep control of things, we need to watch the next two weeks carefully.
What am I doing to cope with the pandemic? This:
Celebrating an end to election day (finally) without being in crowds
I was concerned to see large crowds gathering in New York to celebrate the end of the election counts and the calling of a presumptive winner; not because I don’t think people should celebrate if they like the results, but because I think these crowds are dangerous to see forming when trends are not good in the country and state overall.
Instead, I watched the festivities from inside, and I got everything I needed out of it.
We really do need to be careful, everyone.
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No corrections since last issue.
Thanks for reading, everyone! Have a great week.
See you all next time.
Always,
JS
I've been wondering if social distancing would result in reduced spread of other diseases, like flu. Is there any evidence of that?
In the SNL cold open, a maskless Jim Carrey and Alec Baldwin, both ~60 years old, stood right next to each other arm in arm. I don't expect you to know exactly what protocols SNL is following, but even if testing right before the show I can't imagine this is particularly wise given testing error rates and rising covid rates in NYC. Is there a way they could be doing this that's legitimately safe?