Category: COVID through 2022

All my various postings tracking the COVID-19 pandemic through the end of 2022.

Post #787: Virginia coronavirus trends to 8/26/2020: Not much change

We’re getting around 900 cases/day in  Virginia, down from 1000 or so a couple of weeks ago.  Maybe 90 cases/day in Fairfax County, and 2/day in ZIP code 22180.  The latter is up a bit from a week ago.

The only new thing worth saying is that with students returning to college, and the intense scrutiny those students are receiving (see prior post), there has been something of a change in the reporting of cases.  The greater scrutiny of those populations, while at school, should boost the reported COVID-19 case numbers (regardless of whether the actual rate of new infections goes up).  I’m not sure whether there are enough college students in Virginia to have any material impact on the state-wide results.  In any case, whatever the size of that effect is, the state-total numbers continue on a slight downward trend.

My usual graphs follow.

Post #786: Coronavius odds, the college version

Source:  CNN

As the night follows the day, if there’s a gory school bus wreck anywhere in the USA, you can bet you’ll read about it.  Not because it has anything whatsoever to do with you.  But because it triggers all those hard-wired parental synapses.  News providers know that, and exploit that to the hilt.  You can’t help but click and read the story.

Today’s Washington Post had an article about coronavirus problems at colleges and universities that have resumed in-person classes.  As is typical for articles of this type, the purpose was to find the worst outliers and use them as click-bait to get people angry and upset.  And, judging from the comments under that story, I’d say they did an excellent job of that. Continue reading Post #786: Coronavius odds, the college version

Post #782: This explains a lot: Our top public health bureaucrats really can’t do math.

Before I start, what is your biggest fear, for the public as a whole, with respect to COVID-19?  Not for you and your family personally, but for the USA?  I have several.  One is that the outbreaks begin to increase exponentially, resulting in massive morbidity and mortality.  That seems unlikely.  Two is that the economy spirals into the next Great Depression, taking my life savings with it.   I still think that’s possible, but “the market” at least is not calling that likely.   Three is that this effectively disrupts education for years to come, resulting in an even-less-educated population, some years from now, than we have now.

I could go on, but you get the point.  If I ask for a biggest fear, we don’t exactly lack for candidates, do we?

And I’ll bet that you didn’t say “the potential interaction with the seasonal flu”. Because, in terms of biggest fears, that’s that pretty far down my list.  And that’s completely rational, based on the numbers.  It shouldn’t make anybody’s list of biggest fears about COVID-19. Continue reading Post #782: This explains a lot: Our top public health bureaucrats really can’t do math.

Post #780: Making an aerosol-filtering respirator from a dust mask and Filtrete (r) 1900

This post shows one way to upgrade a common dust mask so that it filters aerosol-sized particles.  The basic idea is not exactly rocket science:  Cover it with something that filters aerosol-sized particles. Continue reading Post #780: Making an aerosol-filtering respirator from a dust mask and Filtrete (r) 1900

Post #778: New case counts for Virginia, 8/21/2020, continuation of slightly lower trend

Note:  My wife found another Vienna, VA blogger who is tracking the COVID-19 numbers.  He obviously far better at graphics than I am, and you might want to check out his site for a more sophisticated set of views of the Virginia data.

I’m sticking with my flat-footed approach of three simple graphs.  These all rely on daily new COVID-19 case counts from the Virginia Department of Health.

Virginia (blue) continues to see somewhere around 1000 new cases per day.  It’s been like that, plus or minus, for more than a month  now.  Fairfax County, by contrast, is now up around 90 new cases per day, up from maybe 60/day a month ago.

Continue reading Post #778: New case counts for Virginia, 8/21/2020, continuation of slightly lower trend

Post #777: Covid-19 Vaccine 1, revisited: Yes, the Russians have it right.

 

This is a followup to Post #773, contrasting how the Russians are approaching vaccine development compared to America (and presumably the rest of the world).  In a nutshell, the Russians are hurrying things along, while we aren’t.

Two things have come into the news stream since that time.

One was our own Dr. Faucci, wagging his fingers and tsk-tsking at the Russians, saying they didn’t have a “real” vaccine because they hadn’t jumped through all the hoops that the public health infrastructure traditionally requires.  He’s been doing that for the better part of two weeks now.  Seriously, he was quoted as calling the Russian vaccine “bogus”. Continue reading Post #777: Covid-19 Vaccine 1, revisited: Yes, the Russians have it right.

Post #776: COVID-19 vaccine: 2: The US is screwing it up …

3: The major drug companies might be able to save us, despite ourselves.

4: But the stupidity of The American People may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Background

Source:  US Centers for Disease Control.

See Post #773 for the lead-in here, 1:  The Russians have it right, in their decision to distribute a vaccine that is safe (but of unknown effectiveness) sooner rather than later.  See Post #741 for some discussion of the seasonal flu vaccine, including high prevalence of asymptomatic flu cases.

The only other things you really need to know for this post are: Continue reading Post #776: COVID-19 vaccine: 2: The US is screwing it up …

Post #775: Modest decline in new coronavirus cases in Virginia

My three standard graphs, updated to today (8/15/2020), are given at the end of this post.  They don’t look materially different from (say) two weeks ago.  Virginia is getting about 1000 new cases per day, Fairfax is getting maybe 60, Vienna (22180) is getting about one new case per day.

But beneath that state-wide stability there are some interesting trends.  In particular, I wanted to step back and look at the Hampton Roads area.

Here’s the story for now. Continue reading Post #775: Modest decline in new coronavirus cases in Virginia