Coronavirus, December 2023
By the Numbers
The Numbers:
The most recent surge of weekly hospitalization numbers with Covid peaked at around 21,700 for the week ending Sept 19. Then it went into a slow decline to 15,700 by the end of October.
Since then, the weekly hospitalization has been rising to 18,100 at the end of November.
Source Covid-19 hospitalizations here...
Dominant Variants in the US:
The XBB variant is no longer the dominant variantHV.1 31.7% which was new in September.
XBB's 12% Down from 42% in September
BA 2.86 8.8%
JD 1.1 7.7%
EG.5 13% Down from 24% in September
FL 1.5 6% Down from 13.7% in September
HK.3 7.5%
And the rest...
Per CDC tracker...
All the dominant variants are still "Omicron" derived, and the latest vaccine is still effective at mitigating the symptoms.
Covid v Flu
Since the start of the 2023-2024 Flu season in the US, from Oct 1 to Nov 18, the Flu has claimed an estimated 740-2,200* lives. During the last (22/23) season, 4,900 deaths in total were from the Flu.
In the same period of time, Covid has claimed 7,573. 98,000 lives since the beginning of the last Flu season.
So Covid is currently accredited to 3.5 times the number of deaths this season, and almost 20 times since the last season.
I bring this up because the Covid deniers are still out there, and they are active politically. The Texas legislature passed a bill forbidding employers from mandating Covid vaccines of their employees. Which includes hospitals. But hospitals can require unvaccinated individuals to where protective gear, including masks.
IMHO, Politicians should not be making medical decisions.
*Because influenza surveillance does not capture all cases of flu that occur in the U.S., CDC provides these estimated ranges to better reflect the larger burden of influenza. These estimates are calculated based on data collected through CDC’s Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network (FluSurv-NET) and are preliminary. (emphasis theirs)
