The virus slows down. Is it the vaccine?

We look at various countries and try to see how the vaccination rate affects the number of cases and the death rate.

First of all, there is a remarkable drop in worldwide infections and deaths. While some rich countries have received enough vaccine doses to make a difference, I don't think there was enough vaccine to justify this global effect.

Just to be clear, I have never said that the vaccine does not work. So far, all hard evidence available to me points to the fact that the vaccine does what it should: it protects people from becoming infected and, if vaccinated people become infected, the infection is less severe. Thus, the vaccine does work.

There is debate if the immunity from the vaccine is better or worse than the immunity acquired from infection. I will not get in that debate, but we should acknowledge, from past experience, that some vaccines give immunity that is worse and some better than from infection itself. Regardless, any immunity is good and will reduce infections and deaths.

About one year ago, in February 2020, I have placed the Coronavirus mortality at 0.2% of the infected population. This is vastly less than the number of people tested positive because most people with mild symptoms won't be tested.

A pandemic stops when most people have been immunized through either infection or vaccination.

In the following, we will take countries one by one, starting from the ones who have vaccinated the most and see if and why the slowdown is due to the vaccine.

Israel

Israel is the world leader in vaccination, with about 90 does given for 100 people. That is somewhere between 45% and 90% vaccinated, depending on the fraction of people who received one of 2 doses. The Israeli policy has been to offer people 2 doses as fast as possible. Thus, the number is close to 50%.

Infection rates are relatively low in Israel, with 618 deaths per million. That is, based on my expected 0.2% mortality, only about 30% of Israelis have been infected.

Given that infection and vaccination are poorly correlated, it's reasonable to assume that 50% of the 70% uninfected people are vaccinated.

This leaves us with 35% of the population susceptible.

Due to this relatively large susceptible population, the reduction in both infections and deaths is nowhere near as spectacular as the vaccine progress.

Sure, once almost the entire population is vaccinated, which will happen in the near future in Israel, the Coronavirus will become a rare disease.

United Arab Emirates

The UAE ranks 2nd in the world after Israel, with 60 doses of vaccine for 100 people.

Shockingly, there is only a modest drop in cases, and deaths are almost at their maximum. If we believe that the worldwide drop in cases and deaths has something to do with the vaccine, then the UAE must be giving it to their camels.

That is a very poor performance for the word'd second most successful nation in the vaccination campaign. The reduction in both deaths and cases is well below the world average in UAE.

The reason is that, despite the 30% of people who are immunized by vaccine, the virus has infected rather few in the UAE. At 119 deaths per million, and a 0.2% mortality rate, this is only 6%.

With 6% infected and 30% vaccinated, most of the population remains susceptible, which explains the lack of reduction in both deaths and cases, despite the UAE being the second in the world in the race to vaccinate.

To see the positive side, in the UAE, most vaccinated people have not been infected, so they're getting a good return on investment for their vaccine. A vaccine given in UAE is far more likely to save a life, compared to one given in NY.

United Kingdom

With nearly 30 vaccines given per 100 people, the UK comes a distant 3rd in the vaccination race. The Brits used half as many vaccines per capita as the UAE and a third of what was used in Israel.

Yet, the number of cases and deaths has plummeted -- a result Israel and UAE can only dream of.

How come, given that so much fewer doses of vaccine were given?

The UK had a controversial policy of giving only one dose of vaccine. This would mean as much as 30% of Brits have received one dose, so the fraction of vaccinated people may be comparable to the UAE. Yet, that's not enough.

The answer, in my view, lies in the immunity from the virus.

The death rate in the UK is nearly 1800 people per million. At 0.2% mortality, that means 90% of the population has been infected. Some of them would have been infected in the first wave and their immunity may be waning now.

With 90% infected and 30% vaccinated, this leaves only 7% who have not been exposed to the virus in the form of either infection or vaccine.

Despite being everywhere, the virus now finds it hard to find a virgin victim to infect. Hence, the epidemy dies down, mainly due to nature taking its course and not because the UK is the worlds' 3rd most prolific immunizer.

United States

With about 20 vaccine doses per 100 people, and with many Americans getting 2 shots, the impact of the vaccine in the US is relatively small.

Yet, the drop in cases and deaths is quite large -- not as big as in the UK, but larger than Israel and UAE.

The American mortality from Covid-19 appears to be above my universal perdition of 0.2%. This may be due to obesity and the healthcare system -- good healthcare for some, allowing people to live close to deaths for a long time making them susceptible to Covid-19 , and lack of coverage for others, making them more likely to die from an acute infection.

The US has lost 0.16% of the population, so taking a one-size-fits all approach to mortality and assuming the 0.2% holds, 80% of the Americans have been infected. Add to that something between 10-20% vaccinated (depending if one or 2 does are given) and we are left with 16-18% susceptible.

It's probably a bit more due to the higher mortality in America and to the fact that some people infected in first wave have lost their immunity.

If the infection immunity is perfect, the vaccine only adds 2-4% to the immune population. Not too much, and not a justification for the much bigger reduction in cases and deaths than we've seen in Israel and UAE, despite them using 4.5 and 3 times more vaccines per capita.

In the United States, the drop in cases in Hawaii is comparable to NJ and NY, which makes no sense, given that factor of 8 difference in infection rate.

NY and NY should have herd immunity from first wave and new infection should be mostly people catching it for the second time. Thus, milder.

Europe

Across Europe, a similar picture emerges. Serbia, with nearly as many doses per capita as the US doesn't seem to do better than other countries like Belgium, France, Spain or Italy.

It seems countries see cases and deaths grow until somewhere close to 0.2% mortality and then they stop.

Success in containing the first wave doesn't imply success in containing the 2nd. Herd immunity seems to play the crucial role in stopping the epidemic.

When the epidemic stops due to lockdowns or summer, the virus comes back and often comes near the 0.2% mortality. Going beyond 0.2 appears difficult, which is consistent to a large fraction of the population being infected.

Sure, immunity doesn't last forever. Thus, we will probably see subsequent waves and new genetic variants infecting people for a 2nd or 3rd time, generating additional mortality.

Sources:

Mortality and cases come from
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Vaccination status comes from
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker/?areas=gbr&areas=isr&areas=usa&areas=eue&cumulative=1&populationAdjusted=1

A year of lock-down for the children of the Philippines

I dedicate this post to them and hope that they will soon be free. What they suffered is the all-time world record for the largest and longest nationwide mass incarceration of children. In the madness of Corona-times, other countries, including Europe were not that far behind.

During the year of the Coronavirus, in the interest of public health, the government of the Philippines has decided to incarcerate children. The Philipino children were not allowed to go out and play, leave home for school or see the sea for one whole year.

Children under 15 -- all 32 million of them -- are “required to remain in their residences at all times” as part of the government’s efforts to curb the spread of covid-19.

That's 32 million young life-years lost -- or about 500 000 full lives could have been lived in these years.

With 12 000 deaths in 110 million people, this archipelago is doing rather well compared to the US and Europe. They have 110 deaths per million people. That's 11 times fewer than Sweden and 14 times less than the US.

Had they been the worst hit country in the world, they could have lost 20 times more or 250 000. Most would have been grandparents, and would, on average, have lost 1 year of life expectancy each. Much of the lost lifetime would have been end of life care. Thus, for every year of end-of-life saved, 2 full lives would have been lived under house arrest.

And we believe the military government of the Philippines cares so much about the old people to go to such lent and sacrifice the children. It's all about saving lives.

While their freedom to go to school was taken away, their right to meet friends and visit the beach was sacrificed in the interest of safety and security, these children have one important right left: they can have sex. The age of consent, in the Philippines is 12.

Imagine you're 12, you haven't been out of your small room or house for one year and one adult asks something they should know better not to ask. Perhaps he offers hope or an illusion of freedom. What do you do? Would you consent?

Unfortunately, the relatively low mortality is not linked to the draconian quarantine measures. The following factors dramatically reduce deaths

-- having a young population. The Philippines have relatively few old people, compared to the West.
-- low obesity
-- being a tropical island. The state of Hawaii, despite being under American control and having all the American problems, has the lowest Corona mortality in the US -- 307/million, or 8 times less than NY.

Among the countries inhabited by East Asian people, the Philippines, at 110 deaths per million, have the highest mortality rate. They are followed by

Japan -- 60
Myanmar -- 59
Malaysia -- 33
South Korea -- 31
Hong Kong -- 26
Singapore - 5
China - 3
Thailand - 1
Vietnam - 0
Taiwan - 0
Cambodia - 0
Macao - 0
Laos - 0
Timor Leste - 0

As usual, the people who work the hardest, obey the most and lose the most are not the most rewarded.

It is just hard, not to say impossible, to beliebe this extreme commitment of the political class in the Philippines to save the old people who might have been in danger of dying of Corona. He was the first to give a "Shoot to Kill" order in order to stop the virus.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/philippines-president-duterte-shoot-to-kill-order-pandemic/ Of course, when you shoot for the virus, you may hit the occasional journalist. who just happened to say rather controversial things before ... being accidentally shot. Of course, this man is truly afraid that the old people may die...

The Philippines used to be part of the US. These former Americans now have a rather different lifestyle. Philippines is one of the countries where COVID-19 lookalike pneumonia is remarkably common and deadly among children of political prisoners born in jail.

World War III Combatants

It is clear to me that this is World War III. I can't think of a period of peace with greater loss of human freedom and larger economic losses.

The guns and loss of life haven't come yet. They may follow.

But... who fights against who? Is it those behind Internet vs. the oligarchy like David suggested in March last year? or will we also have countries that destroy each other yet again?

China sure seems to be a player, in the traditional sense. They may have or may not have created the virus, but they did turn it into a fantastic weapon. With the help of the media, of the induced fear, and of leaders worldwide, they turned homes into prisons and have shown the path for others to follow.

Private companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook are also entities with budgets and power superior to many countries. They may also play a major role in this conflict.

Airlines have been very heavily hit. Will Ryanair do nothing? Quietly go bankrupt?

India and Pakistan might side together in spite of their differences. Will the US also join them instead of continuing its games with Russia? Will Europe and Russia be combatants or just part of the battle-ground to be split just like Africa. How about South America and the rest of Asia?

I don't know the answer to any of these questions. The idea of more lock-down and of an eventual war with guns scares me. I think we should focus on improving our way of life, and on limiting climate change without destroying freedom.

Update from the war-room

The third world war has been raging for one year. Europe has been the hardest hit, with its economy partially shut down for most of this period. We are now an aging continent living on credit. Children have lost one year of education and are now considerably more addicted to electronic devices compared to one year ago. This will have wide ranging consequences. We should not forget that accelerating a gifted child in school doubles the number of publications in science that this child will achieve in life. It's reasonable to believe that slowing children down will have the opposite effect.

The US has the world's largest number of Covid-19 deaths. In a large number of states, over half of these deaths have occurred in hospices and retirement home -- i.e., institutions designed to cater for people at the end of life, and from which, in general, inmates are not expected to exit alive. For their safety, security and in order to avoid the rather unavoidable infection, they were also robbed of their chance to see their infectious children or otherwise live dangerously.

The US was led by an extremist fool -- sabotaged, hated and ridiculed by his own people and, perhaps, supported from outside, Donald Trump may not have acted at all times in the interest of the people who didn't elect him with a majority of votes. Fools, however, are known for telling the truth. Was Donald Trump a truth telling fool when he called Covid-19 the Chinese Virus? Was the virus made on purpose? Maybe as a weapon of war? K. Andersen et al. in Nature Medicine say it is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.

But what is the circumstatial evidence? The Wuhan institute of Virology has long been an active research center for the study of coronaviruses. Scientists from Wuhan have well known long published research on engineering bat coronaviruses to enable them to infect human cells. They have the expertise and technology to do this. It's a somewhat similar process to creating a vaccine like Sputnik -- adding some Covid-19 genes to an otherwise harmless adenovirus creates a hybrid that is hopefully harmless and can create immunity to Covid-19.

Vineet D Menachery; Boyd L Yount; Kari Debbink; et al. (9 November 2015). "A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence". Nature Medicine. 21 (12): 1508–1513. doi:10.1038/NM.3985. ISSN 1078-8956. PMC 4797993. PMID 26552008. S2CID 5953778. Wikidata Q36702376. (erratum) Butler, Declan (12 November 2015). "Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research". Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18787.

On January 2, 2020, the whole genome sequence of the new coronavirus was determined. But was it also created there? Maybe as a weapon of war? We may never know ... or we may have to look the other way if we come too close to the truth.

Even if there is no clear evidence that COVID-19 was man-made-- so far it seems it was not -- there is ample evidence that China hid deaths, and then argued that they managed the infection perfectly. They used lies to convince the world that lock-down and loss of human rights is the way to go. So, China closed for a brief period, and then remained open while the rest of the world closed down and was locked in for more than a year so far. This leads to growth in China, and destruction everywhere else.

On the bright side, the vaccination campaign is ongoing and the virus will soon be gone. As the winter fades, with most people infected and somewhat immune, the number of cases falls much faster than it could be justified by the vaccine alone. Yesterday, India had 79 Covid-19 deaths across the whole subcontinent.

Strangely enough, with about over half of the population immunized, Israel has seen a smaller decrease in deaths compared to the UK, US and Germany, who have been immunizing vastly less. This is probably because the population in the US, UK and Europe have aquired more immunity from natural infection with the virus than people in Israel or UAE. The natural immunity combined with the immunity aquired from the vaccine leads to the larger drop in deaths and cases. Note that I am not claiming the vaccine is ineffective, just that populations with less immunity (i.e., from areas that have not been affected by the virus to the same extent as Europe, the UK and the US) might need to vaccinate more to achieve the same drop in cases and deaths.

There is also a subjective element -- with the vaccine on the horizon, and peace in America, people are, perhaps, testing less. But why are they also dying less?

COVID-19 mortality: the 0.2% revisited -- yet again

One of my key predictions that I first made about one year ago was that the mortality rate for the Covid-19 infection is in the region of 0.2%.

This would make the current pandemic comparable to the flu epidemics of 1957 and 1968 and about 10 times less deadly than the Spanish flu of 1918.

According to Worldometers, the 0.2% mortality rate was exceeded in 2 micro nations:
— The Rock of Gibraltar — 0.25%
— The village of San Marino — 0.2%

Of normal size countries, the top currently looks as follows
— Belgium — 0.18%
— Slovenia — 0.17%
— UK — 0.16%
— Czechia 0.16%
— Italy — 0.15%
— Bosnia — 0.15%
— US — 0.14%
— Portugal — 0.14%
— North Macedonia — 0.14%
— Hungary — 0.14%
— Bulgaria — 0.13%
— Montenegro — 0.13%
— Spain — 0.13%
— Mexico — 0.13%
— Peru — 0.13%
— Croatia — 0.13%
— Panama — 0.13%
— France — 0.12%
— Sweden — 0.12%
— Switzerland — 0.11%
— Lithuania — 0.11%
— Columbia — 0.11%
— Brazil — 0.11%
— Argentina — 0.10%
— Poland — 0.10%
— Romania — 0.10%
— Chile — 0.10%
— Slovakia — 0.10%

All other countries (excluding the micro nation of Andorra) are under 0.1% mortality officially recorded.

We should note the relatively small difference between countries that adopted difference strategies. Sweden didn’t impose a lockdown and sits comfortably between France and Switzerland, who both did.

Countries like Czechia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Montenegro that were successful in containing the first wave and had almost no deaths in spring now find themselves close to the top. This suggests the limiting factor is herd immunity and not containment. The epidemic wave stops when the virus has infected most people, killing a comparable fraction of the population everywhere.

About one year ago, based on very limited data coming from China and Europe, I have predicted this number to be 0.2%.

Looking at the world today, we see this number exceeded in many regions. As these are not whole countries, some will be missing. Thus, the list below isn’t complete.

First most extreme deviations from the 0.2% mortality occurred in relatively small population groups. The smaller the group, the more the results of a measurement can deviate from average. There, just a few random deaths can skew the statistics. They may also be places with lots of elderly people or places where people are more likely to be poor, uninsured and overweight. Such groups are known to have a higher mortality rate.

Some excess mortality in places like NY can be due to a second wave of infection. Indeed, Covid-19 can infect people more than once. While a second infections are generally less deadly than the first, the way we count Covod-19 deaths means we’ll register a rather large number just due to the passage of time. About 0.1% of us die every month. (the average lifetime is roughly 1000 months — think 100 years at 10 months a year.) Thus, if COVD causes no deaths but lasts one month, it will pick up a 0.1% mortality rate among the infected population.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/europe/united-kingdom-coronavirus-cases.html

In England,

Southend-on-Sea — 0.302%
Blackpool — 0.276%
Bedford — 0.269%
Hartlepool — 0.262%
Medway — 0.261%
Thurrock — 0.257%
Stoke-on-Trent — 0.253%
Essex — 0.248%
East Sussex —0.248%
Kent — 0.247%
Staffordshire — 0.245%
Blackburn with Darwen — 0.245%
Derby — 0.241%
South Yorkshire — 0.234%
Merseyside — 0.229%
Cheshire and Chester — 0.228%
Greater Manchester — 0.226%
Middlesbrough — 0.225%
Lancashire — 0.224%
West Midlands — 0.223%
Kingston upon Hull — 0.222%
County Durham — 0.221%
Stockton-on-Tees — 0.217%
Cumbria — 0.216%
Warrington — 0.216%
Darlington — 0.214%
Luton — 0.214%
Derbyshire — 0.208%
Central Bedfordshire — 0.199%

Overall, about 42% of the deaths the occurred in England were in regions with overall mortality rate exceeding 0.2%.

In the US, there are currently 7 states where deaths surpassed 0.2% of the population. 20% of the US fatalities occurred in these states and 13% of the American population lives there.

New Jersey — 0.248%
New York — 0.228%
Massachusetts — 0.218%
Mississippi — 0.211%
Rhode Island — 0.209%
South Dakota — 0.204%
Connecticut — 0.202%

In NY City, the mortality was 0.328%

In Mississippi, Neshoba County lost 0.563% of its population to Covid-19
Five other counties are between 0.4 and 0.5%
13 counties are between 0.3% and 0.4%
40 counties between 0.2 and 0.3%
23 counties between 0.1% and 0.2%
No Mississippi county below 0.1%.

In South Dakota, there are a few sparsely populated places with extremely high mortality rates — the following list only includes those over 0.5%.
Total Deaths Mortality Rate
Jerauld — 16 — 0.795%
Buffalo — 13 — 0.663%
Gregory — 27 — 0.645%
Hamlin — 38 — 0.616%
Turner — 50 — 0.596%
Faulk — 13 — 0.565%
Aurora — 15 — 0.545%
Grant — 37 — 0.525%
Day — 28 — 0.516%

Louisiana has 3 counties over 0.5% and one more over 0.4%.

East Feliciana — 103 — 0.538%
Bienville — 68 — 0.514%
Franklin — 100 — 0.500%
Red River — 34 — 0.403%

In Arizona, two counties with large indian population were the hardest hit.
Apache › 326 — 0.453%
Navajo › 449 — 0.405%

North Dakota was a bit like South Dakota. Some counties were over three times the state average of 0.191% mortality.

Dickey › 32 — 0.657%
Pierce › 24 — 0.604%
Foster › 19 — 0.592%
Renville › 13 — 0.559%
Towner › 11 — 0.503%

In New Mexico, McKinley County — predominantly rural and Indian had over 3 times the state mortality rate of 0.162%.

McKinley — 421 — 0.590%
Sierra — 43 — 0.398%
Colfax — 45 — 0.377%
Cibola — 100 — 0.375%
San Juan — 400 — 0.323%

In Iowa, again small rural places appear hard hit, and well above the state 0.162 mortality.

I once bought a pretty little house in Ontonagon, Michigan for $300. It wasn’t a good investment, despite being real. I also bought, from the government, a nice piece of land at Lake Gogebic, which proved to have fake papers and not exist at all. Interesting to see both counties rank among the deadliest places in the State.
Michigan — 15,843 — 0.159%
Iron — 48 — 0.434%
Baraga — 32 — 0.390%
Ontonagon — 19 — 0.332%
Gogebic — 45 — 0.322%

Tennessee › 10,370 — 0.152%
Pickett › 21 — 0.416%

Gove County in Kansas tops the chart at 0.835% Corona mortality

Kansas — 4,101 — 0.141%
Gove — 22 — 0.835%
Ness — 15 — 0.545%
Comanche — 9 — 0.529%
Norton — 27 — 0.504%
Nemaha — 50 — 0.489%

Georgia has a fair few places over 0.4%
Georgia › 14,642 — 0.138%
Hancock › 55 — 0.650%
Wilcox › 43 — 0.498%
Randolph › 31 — 0.457%
Candler › 49 — 0.454%
Jenkins › 38 — 0.438%
Glascock › 13 — 0.438%
Terrell › 37 — 0.434%
Dodge › 89 — 0.432%
Early › 44 — 0.432% Johnson › 40 — 0.415%
Ben Hill › 67 — 0.401%

In Texas, we only bother with the places over 0.5%,
– Texas › 39,490 — 0.136%
Foard › 7 — 0.606%
Lamb › 78 — 0.605%
Motley › 7 — 0.583%
Dawson › 66 — 0.519%
Floyd › 29 — 0.508%
Cottle › 7 — 0.501%

Florida › 27,695 — 0.129%
Union › 70 — 0.459%

Montana › 1,315 — 0.123%
Big Horn › 68 — 0.511%
Rosebud › 44 — 0.492%
Roosevelt › 52 — 0.473%
Daniels › 7 — 0.414%

Wisconsin › 6,617 — 0.114%
Iron › 37 — 0.651%

Minnesota › 6,367 — 0.113%
Kittson › 21 — 0.489%

California › 44,152 — 0.112%
Imperial › 559 — 0.308%
Los Angeles › 18,044 — 0.180%

Kentucky › 4,224 — 0.095%
Robertson › 12 — 0.569%
Monroe › 36 — 0.338%

Virginia › 6,778 — 0.079%
Emporia › 35 — 0.655%
Galax › 41 — 0.646%

Utah › 1,736 — 0.054%
San Juan › 36 — 0.235%

Oregon › 2,034 — 0.048%
Malheur › 56 — 0.183%

Once upon a time, I bought a great piece of land on the bottom of lake Malheur and one more in nearby Callow Valley! These again prove to be the deadliest places in Oregon.

… and yet, most people dying are close to death. In 11 states, over half of the deaths occur in nursing homes, which is sad because these people are vulnerable, but the nursing homes are the last stop before death. Nursing home residents are people with little left to do in life other than die -- until we figure out a way to reverse aging.

Brazil’s Deadliest
Amazonas — 9,003 — 0.222%
Rio de Janeiro — 30,597 — 0.179%
Roraima — 896 — 0.158%
Distrito Federal — 4,618 — 0.156%
Mato Grosso — 5,223 — 0.153%
Espírito Santo — 5,995 — 0.152%

Mexico’s deadliest

Mexico City — 23,786 — 267
Baja California — 6,983 — 211
Sonora — 5,517 — 194
Coahuila — 5,383 — 182
Spain
TOTAL DEATHS PER 100,000 — DAILY AVG. — IN LAST 7 DAYS PER 100,000
Castilla La Mancha
5,089 —250 — 61.6 — 3.02
Castilla y León
5,868 — 244 — 30.0 — 1.25
Aragón
3,058 — 231— 14.6 —1.10
La Rioja
679 — 216 — 4.1 — 1.32
Madrid
12,924 — 193 — 36.4 — 0.54
Navarra
1,057 — 162 — 2.3 — 0.35
País Vasco
3,454 — 158 — 17.7— 0.81
Asturias
1,607 — 158 — 11.9 — 1.16
Extremadura
1,593 — 150 — 17.9 — 1.68
Cataluña
9,624 — 126 — 17.0 — 0.22
C. Valenciana
5,426 — 109 — 95.7 — 1.91
Murcia
1,243 — 83 — 19.6 — 1.31
Andalucía
6,937 — 82 — 71.0 — 0.84
Cantabria
473 — 81 — 1.7 — 0.29
Galicia
1,950 — 72 — 26.9 — 1.00
Baleares
631 — 53 — 6.4 — 0.54
Canarias
549 — 25 — 2.6 — 0.12
Melilla
58 — 0.4 —
Ceuta
75 — 0.4 —

TOTAL DEATHS PER 100,000 — DAILY AVG. — IN LAST 7 DAYS PER 100,000
+
Grand Est
7,469 — 133 — 34.9 — 0.62
+
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
3,488 — 122 — 20.1 — 0.70
+
Île-de-France
13,802 — 112 — 49.7 — 0.41
+
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
8,363 — 102 — 35.7 — 0.44
+
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
4,936 — 98 — 47.7 — 0.94
+
Hauts-de-France
5,576 — 92 — 34.6 — 0.57
+
Centre-Val de Loire
1,760 — 67 — 10.9 — 0.42
+
Normandie
2,008 — 60 — 15.4 — 0.46
+
Pays de la Loire
1,827 — 47 — 12.3 — 0.32
+
Occitanie
2,813 — 47 — 24.7 — 0.41
Guadeloupe
171 — 43 — 0.1 — 0.04
+
Nouvelle-Aquitaine
2,457 — 40 — 21.6 — 0.35
+
Corse
131 — 39 — 0.7 — 0.21
+
Bretagne
986 — 29 — 9.1 — 0.27
Guyane
76 — 28 — 0.3 — 0.10
Mayotte
50 — 20 — 0.3 — 0.12
Martinique
45 — 12 — —
La Réunion
56 —7 — 0.1 — 0.02
Saint-Barthélemy
— — — —
Saint-Martin
— — — —

In Both France and Spain, tropical islands did particularly well. Corsica, the Canary island and Martinique had very low death rates, despite the virus getting there.

Historically, these places didn’t have too many colds as well.

COVID-19 is fading away

As I correctly predicted in a previous post, the Coronavirus problem seems to fade away following the peaceful transition of power in the US.

Indeed, the number of new cases is going down, not only in the US, but in a few other countries and, overall, worldwide.

The number of cases is lower for several reasons
— Politically, both patients and health care providers are tired of positives. I suspect, in the current climate of political stability sick people are less likely to seek testing and doctors are likely to test less. Thus, we see fewer cases, in part because we look the other way.
— A good fraction of the people are immune to the virus. This is, again for 2 reasons.
(1) Many people have been infected and have natural antibodies. These confer good protection against a second infection, albeit for a limited time.
(2) An increasingly high fraction of the population has been vaccinated. Again, theses people are unlikely to become infected and not likely to end up in the hospital of tested. While currently, the number of vaccinated people isn’t large enough to have an impact on the overall infection rates, they soon will. They do however impact the number of tests — once people who are vulnerable are vaccinated, their entourage won’t require tests and won’t notice the positives.

The number of deaths has not declined that much yet. Usually, deaths trail infection by a few days.