Coronavirus, Late Feb Edition, 2022

 Coronavirus, Late Feb Edition, 2022

By the Numbers

 

Not much new here, save yourself 5 minutes and click off.  I'll never know...

 

The Numbers:

The Omicron surge continues to abate.  The average number of daily new cases continues to decline about about -6% per day.   About 80,000 new cases per day, down from a million a day in the second week of January.  The estimated number of total cases nation wide is about 1.6 million at this time.

The mortality rate peaked about 4 weeks after the top end of the surge on January 21 at around 3,000 per day and has been declining since.  The average for that is about a 1,500 a day.

On Removing the Restrictions:

Will removing all Covid restrictions cause another surge?  Probably not.  Logically, removing the restrictions CANNOT lower Covid new infections.  The question is by how much.

 

But truth be told, with the high level of civil disobedience regarding even the least restrictions, all removing the restrictions means is acknowledging what is fait accompli.  I was going to make a prediction here, but my hit/miss rate on them has been abysmal, so, I'll focus on what can be measured.

Why Not Just Get It Over With?:

There is a fatalistic thought that you might as well catch Covid now, and get it over with.   If you are vaccinated and boosted, your odds of dying of Delta, if you caught it, was just about 90 in 10,000.  We have had a lot of improvement on treatments since June.  I haven't seen any good numbers on Omicron yet.  But Omicron peaked at 4 times the number of cases of Alpha same time last year, and the number of deaths about the same, that puts the Omicron mortality rate at about 22 in 10,000.

This back of the envelope calculations here.  So take all this with a grain of salt.

 

Of that 22, the vaccinated are contributing about 2 deaths, unvaccinated 20.   See, here.

For flu 2017-2018 season, there was a 41,000,000 estimated number of cases in the US, 61,000 deaths.  That's 15 per 10,000. So we are in the same range as Omicron for an individual mortality rate.  But this does not take into a account the reinfection rate, which for Omicron is around 7, vice the flu's R rating of between 1.2-2.  

 

So when you roll those dice for the 22 in 10,000, you are forcing 7 people you know to also roll those dice.  

 

The odds of dying of Omicron, if you get it, is .0022 to 1.  Another way to look at it is the odds of surviving a single case of Omicron is .9978 to 1. 

 

One infection generation out there are now 8 cases, the 1 case, you, plus 7 new cases, the odds of all them surviving those cases is .9825 to 1.

 

Or the odds of at least one fatality is .0175 to 1.  This still seems like pretty good odds.

Compare against to the seasonal Flu.

The odds of dying of Flu, if you get it, is .0015 to 1.  Another way to look at it is the odds of surviving a case of Flu is .9985 to 1.   In both cases, the healthier you are, the better your odds, though Covid is still known to take healthy people as well.

 

One infection generation out there are now 2.2 cases, the 1 case, you, plus 1.2 new cases, the odds of all them surviving those cases is .996 to 1.

 

Or the odds of at least one fatality is .003.  (there is some fraction rounding here)

So for all the talk of Omicron being less deadly, it is still 5.8 times deadlier than Flu when taken out 1 infection generation.  

 

Now lets take this to two infection generations, with Omicron, there are 58 infected people, the odds of all of them surviving is .88%.  Note: that is point 88% as in under 1%.  Compare to Flu, infecting 3.6 people, the odds of all surviving is .994, or 20 times the odds of someone dying. 

And if you don't have to roll those dice, why would you?  There is no upside here.

The one argument is to catch Covid on your terms, and give you increased immunity of natural infection + vaccine for when you catch Covid again.  And this is true.  Being vaccinated and catching Covid confers more protection than either alone.

 

But the problem is no matter what the extended protection is, it is not zero.  Which means you have to roll the dice again.  Along with everyone you know. 

But why would you do that?

 

The Vagaries of the Numbers:

It's Tuesday, cup of mocha in hand, cat purring on the chair next to me, the heater is making a gentle hum, and I download the and compile the numbers.   27,798 new cases for yesterday.  I blink and while excel is bouncing back and forth doing calculations programmed years ago, (almost two years, think about that) and the number hit me.

27K?  Wait, weren't we just at 100K last week?  That's wonderful!  

Alas, with realization, the day before was Presidents day.  Where Washington comes out of his burrow, and if he sees Lincoln's shadow, we have six more weeks of Covid.

 

Various testing, reporting and psychology to any medical procedures get under reported on Sat, Sun. and holidays.   Throwing the day-to-day numbers out of whack.

One of my ways of dealing with this is to calculate a rolling average week by week, which mitigates the day to day peaks and troughs.

Still good, with the average day to day drop of new cases at 6%.