28 February 2022 ⚡️Status of the COVID-19 pandemic, year two

“Coronavirus is killing Americans at far higher rates than people in other wealthy nations.” 950,490 US deaths; 79,045,043 confirmed cases.

It’s been two full years since officials announced, in Seattle, the first US death from SARS-CoV-2. That would not be the first COVID-19 death, but it was the first known death at the time.

On Saturday [29 February 2020], public health officials announced that a King County man had died after being diagnosed with coronavirus/COVID-19. His was not only the first death in the U.S. but also appeared to be via community spread. That is, he had not traveled to an affected country and had no known contact with someone who had. He was in his 50s and had underlying health issues.

An unconscionable number of Americans, 950,490 (Johns Hopkins), have died.

Almost half of those deaths have occurred in the past 365 days, after vaccines became available. On 28 February 2021, the US had recorded 513,091 deaths (Johns Hopkins). Our death rate: 2,875.42 per million. The UK: 2,403.72; Germany: 1,476.11; Canada: 971.98.

United States leads the world in the daily average number of new deaths reported, accounting for one in every 5 deaths reported worldwide each day. (28 Feb 2022)

According to The NY Times (🎁), “coronavirus is killing Americans at far higher rates than people in other wealthy nations.”

Why are so many people still dying? According to the CDC, unvaccinated adults aged 18+ were 41 times more likely to die after being diagnosed with Covid-19 in December and January than adults who had been vaccinated and boosted.

According to the CDC, only 64.9% of the US population is fully vaxxed. Only 43.7% of that group has been boosted.

Despite the fact that states have seemed to be racing to see which state can lift indoor masking the fastest, most Americans still (mid-February) support indoor mask mandates.

That “Canadian trucker” protest was orchestrated and “not the Covid-weary Canadians they pretended to be.”

While the US is rapidly “opening up” (although we never “closed” like most countries), Hong Kong is in the midst of its worst Covid-19 wave. As is Denmark. And New Zealand.

The observation that removing mask mandates privileges the privileged (and the young) is landing on willfully blind (and deaf) leaders. For example, the CDC is warning anyone with 24+ risk factors to “talk with your healthcare provider” about how to protect yourself from the unmasked and unvaxxed.

André Picard @picardonhealth

In our haste to put the pandemic behind us, let’s not forget that #COVID19 will be forever for many: #LongCOVID deserves a long, hard look, by @picardonhealth theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl… via @GlobeDebate #cdnhealth

theglobeandmail.comOpinion: Long COVID deserves a long, hard lookDespite the condition’s complexity and vagueness, we can’t afford to be dismissive of it

Toronto Star @TorontoStar

While Ontario moves into its latest phase of reopening and considers eliminating mask mandates, many vulnerable people — the immunocompromised, those with disabilities, older adults and those caring for children under five — are feeling left behind.

thestar.comAs Ontario lifts restrictions, immunocompromised and other vulnerable people feel left out of the partyThe public health measures some see as restrictive and inconvenient, others consider potentially life-saving.

Eric Feigl-Ding 💙💛 @DrEricDing

📍Don’t forget the vulnerable—With mask mandates & mitigation measures lifting in many countries worldwide, millions of people in America at high risk of severe #COVID19 cannot return to normal. They are seemingly forgotten.😢 By @victoriaregisk californiahealthline.org/news/article/c…

californiahealthline.orgCovid Still Threatens Millions of Americans. Why Are We So Eager to Move On?Those who are living with disabilities, chronic illnesses or are immunocompromised because of medications or cancer treatment feel that their needs are not being considered as states open back up a…

Moreover, the CDC recently modified how it determines community risk, not without controversy:

Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves

So @POTUS, @AmbassadorRice & @WHCOS are making a gamble with American lives. The new @CDCgov recommendations puts burden on immunocompromised, uses questionable new metrics and downgrade NPIs. They are hoping the midterms come before another #COVID19 surge.

Read a long discussion of the logical fallacies in that CDC calculation.

Jason L. Salemi, PhD, FACE 🙈🙉🙊 @JasonSalemi

@CDCgov changed the way it measures county-level "risk", which then is supposed to, in part, guide decision making. They call these the "COVID-19 Community Levels" & it replaces the previous "Community Transmission Risk". The details in this calculation matter. So, a thread. 1/

Finally, research continues to support animal-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2, with the Wuhan market being the most likely point of origin. These three papers are pre-prints.

Scientists have released three studies that reveal intriguing new clues about how the COVID-19 pandemic started. Two of the reports trace the outbreak back to a massive market that sold live animals, among other goods, in Wuhan, China and a third suggests that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spilled over from animals—possibly those sold at the market—into humans at least twice in November or December 2019.

Quote source:

Jerome Adams @JeromeAdamsMD

Twitter tip for the week: If you tweet about how inspiring it is that Ukrainians are risking their lives to defeat a common enemy, and then tweet it’s your “right” to do nothing to protect others from covid, people may question your sincerity (or your sanity). Be well!✌🏽🇺🇦

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