Coronavirus, Mid-September, 2024

 

Coronavirus, End of September, 2024

 By the Numbers

Some of this information is old, as I am trying to keep these missives to once every 2 months.

The Numbers: 

The number of Covid cases has been climbing steadily over the summer. This is born out in the statistics on the number of hospitalizations from Covid.  From a low of 1.1 hospitalizations per 100,000 population in April, to 2.5 in June, to 4.8 in August.  This has started to drop by the end of August.

Peak for the year was the first week in January at 7.6.  For a comparison, the peak for last year was 7.7, in Dec, 2023, and the year before at 10.9 in December, 2022.

Source Covid-19 hospitalizations here...

The number of weekly deaths has risen to about 700 in July/August, to just over 1,000 in September.  This is up from 330 in May. Peak for the year was 2,500 in January.   See here...

The pattern for rise and fall has been nearly identical since 2021.

And where is Covid increasing?  Here is a link to the wastewater tracking information...  This chart used to be more localized "dots" on a map, but now it is just state by state. 

Dominant Variants in the US:

Various KP's, 83%

LB.1  11% and declining

Others   6%

Per CDC tracker...

I was traveling in a plane earlier in August, and got a renewal of the older booster.  I have had 3 friends catch Covid recently while attending a convention a spacious, well ventilated convention center.  This also means I won't be eligible for the latest formulation until November or so.

I'm almost at that "free" shot.

Free At Home Tests

Last month, the government announced a renewal of free at home Covid tests starting later in September. Not yet available till Septembers end.  But the link should be here.

New Booster Available

The FDA has approved updated Covid booster shots to be available soon.  They are "Comirnaty", by Pfizer-BioNTech, "Novavax",  and Spikevax by Moderna.  

Both boosters are based on the variant  KP.2.  I see that Spikevax is recommended for ages 12 and up.  Comirnaty ages 6 months and up. 

The previous booster, available from 2023 till August 2024, was based on the variant BA.5 and the original virus.

The new boosters should be available as of this publishing.   Recommended for all at risk population who has not had a booster or case of Covid within the last 4 months.  And face it, everyone on my email list is in that group.

Personal Experience with Covid

I have been writing these missives for over 4 years now.  More or less trying to provide the straight information, but without any first hand experience.

Until now.

I flew to Europe for a gaming competition and then followed on with a site seeing tour of Lisbon, Euro-Disney and Paris.  8 days after arrival, Joanne came down with what we now believe to be Covid.  At the time it seemed like a head cold, a seasonal crud, and after napping most of the day, she was out and about.  The Paris bus tour, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and dinner cruises.  All with a fair amount of foot pounding.

3 days later we boarded the plane for home and I slowly declined during the flight.  I must have looked horrible, as 3 strangers asked me if I need help going through the de-boarding process. Two worked for American Airlines, so full marks for customer service.  One of them followed me briefly with a wheel chair.  

On arriving home, and feeling worse, I took an expired (all my at home tests are expired at this time) Covid test and it reported an emphatically positive result.  Joanne took one of the less expired tests and which was also unambiguously positive.  

I have reported before, that the government tests the old tests for efficacy.  The rule of thumb is, if it reports positive, it's positive.  A negative result should be regarded as uncertain.

Slept for 12 hours, woke up, my phone's face recognition software did not know who I was.  Or maybe it was just a bad hair day. :)

At 8:30, I called the VA.  The VA called back within the hour. They accepted my test results as valid, and ordered Paxlovid(tm) for treatment.  By 11am, I had taken the first dose.  By noon, I was back in bed.  At three I woke up with, "My God, 'IS THAT MY BREATH!'"  I had read about it, heard some commentary, and if I was lackadaisical in my responses, for that, I am truly sorry.

Paxlovid has a bitter tasting compound that  causes your saliva to generate the antigens to deal with the virus.  The counter point is you are going to have bad breath for a while.  

And regarding the aches and pains that is Covid suffering, I did not have enough sympathy there either.

Now back to bed again.

 

Health Benefits of Childhood Vaccines
This is a bit long, and somewhat political and not strictly about COVID.

These are excerpts from the recent CDC report on the "Health and economic benefits of routine childhood Immunization."

In the report summary:
Among children born during 1994–2023, routine childhood vaccinations will have prevented approximately 508 million cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1,129,000 deaths, resulting in direct savings of $540 billion and societal savings of $2.7 trillion.

These are big numbers.  Made somewhat possible by the 1994 program, U.S. Vaccines for Children (VFC). Which has covered the cost of vaccines for children whose families might not otherwise be able to afford them.  Published CDC report can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7331a2.htm

Now the Gallup Polling company has been posing a question over time, from 2002 to 2024,  "How important is it that parents get their children vaccinated -- extremely important, very important, somewhat important, not very important or not at all important?"

For all Americans, the number for Very Important or above sat at 64% in 2002.  This declined to 54% in 2015 with a rise to 58% in 2019.  In 2024 fell to 40%.

Part of the reason for the gradual decline from 2002 to 2019 is that for most of our lives, we have lived in a world with a seriously reduced childhood disease environment.  Where as in 2002 many people have lived in pre-polio vaccine world and has memories of measles, mumps and rubella outbreaks maiming and killing children.

Now plus 20 years later, that cultural memory is fading, combined with vaccines have done their job of dealing with the threats very well.

With the politicization of the Covid vaccine, the numbers have gone south quickly.

In the Gallup article, it also covers the same question, indexed against party affiliation for the answer "Extremely Important." 
2002 66% D, 62% R
2015 59% D, 52% R
2019 67% D, 52% R
2024 63% D, 26% R 

So there was a small difference between 'D's and 'R's in 2002.  And with the drop in 2015, the difference tracked together.  Then in 2019, there was an increased separation.  More D's answered "Extremely Important", while the R's stayed the same from 2015.  Now, after 4 years of Covid, the R's response took a dive.

One implication is that the news feeds for the R's were effective in sowing distrust of all government provided information, including the Covid vaccines, and by inference, all vaccines in general.  While promoting ineffective treatments.  But another implication is that having survived the pandemic, other fear mongering has taken it's place.

There was another question, "should the Government require vaccinations for children?"  In 1992, 81% said yes.  In 2019, 62% said yes.  In 2024, 51% said yes.  This breaks down to 69% D and 36% R.

And the final question on the list, "Do you think vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent, or not?"
In 2002, the number that replied yes was 6%.  Broken down to 5% D, 6% R
2015 9%    Broken down to 8% D, 8% R
2019 11%   Broken down to 10% D, 12% R
2024 20%   Broken down to 5% D, 31% R

Gallup poll published here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/648308/far-fewer-regard-childhood-vaccinations-important.aspx

Considering how successful childhood vaccinations have been in the last 30 years, we are talking trillions of dollars to the country, it is reprehensible that as one of Trumps stump speech items is that he will, "Sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, and I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate (emphasis mine) or a mask mandate."  See here:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-vows-to-defund-schools-requiring-vaccines-for-students-if-hes-reelected

Fast forward to 37 seconds in the video for verification. 

For the sake of full disclosure, the official Republican party platform stops short at de-funding schools at just CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND OTHER INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL, SEXUAL, OR POLITICAL CONTENT ON OUR CHILDREN, (their caps, not mine) but is silent on vaccinations.  See the official Republican party platform here...

And if you accept that Project 2025 will be used as a blueprint for a Trump administration, it does state,  "Never again should CDC officials be allowed to say in their official capacity that school children “should be” masked or vaccinated (through a schedule or otherwise) or prohibited from learning in a school building."  (emphasis mine).  For a PDF of Project 2025, see here...  page 454.