The numbers seem to be plateauing again. We’re in a transition period as summer vacations are ending and the vast majority of students are returning to school. It will be interesting to see if this sends the numbers up or down. Will bringing the students back together in large numbers send the numbers up or will being in a controlled environment with safety protocols send the numbers down? Or regardless of all this, will the Delta variant just peter out like it did in India.
Our district starts in-person classes on Monday. I’m happy to be in the classroom and hope that the vast majority of my high school students are vaccinated for all of our sakes. Their families have control over whether they are vaccinated or not. My concern is for the elementary school students since they cannot be vaccinated. I realize that there is probably a higher need for them to get back in the classroom, but I don’t think we’re more than a month or two away from either a vaccine for them or the Delta variant cases declining. I do expect the number of those vaccinated will go up between the approval of the Pfizer vaccine and the mandatory vaccination mandate. Both of those will definitely help get this back under control
This weekly update of cases is showing that the national average of daily new cases seems to be plateauing again. This week the 7-day average of daily new cases decreased by 5.4% compared to a increase of 49.8% increase last week. It brings the national average down to 47.6 new cases per 100 000 people.
About 6 million vaccination shots have been given in the US over the past week for a total of 367 million shots so far. My estimations for the number of shots needed for herd immunity considers that the Johnson & Johnson single shot is out there. So let’s still say that 240 million people need to be vaccinated for herd immunity. And I’ll guess that out of those, about a sixth will eventually get the J&J shot. It would mean that about 440 million shots would need to be given ((2×200)+40). At the current rate (about 5.5 million/week) we could reach the herd immunity goal in 16 weeks around Christmas adding three weeks for the two weeks after the shot and another for the fact that it won’t be the second shot for everyone.
This first map shows the rate of new daily cases per 100 000 people. In my opinion, states have the spread of the virus under control if they can keep that down below 3/100k. Maine is the closest state to that mark at 16.1. Only 9 states are below the 24/100k mark and two states, Mississippi and Florida, are above 100/100k. 9 states: Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Hawaii, Montana, Arizona, South Dakota, New York state, and Maryland moved up a category since last week. 7 states: Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Idaho, New Mexico, Missouri, and Nevada moved down a category.
The second map shows the increase or decrease in the per capita rate of new cases over the past week compared to the week before. Nice to see some states starting to see a decrease again.
For the other places I’m tracking, here are the rates and percentages. I’ve been tracking the large cities and select countries for comparison. Those with rates lower than 3/100k, higher than 24/100k, or those with increases or decreases more than 20% have been put in bold :
Illinois: 29/100k, down 13%
Chicago: 19/100k, down 11%
New York City: 20/100k, up 20%
Los Angeles county: 29/100k, down 38%
North Carolina: 61/100k, down 3%
Canada: 7.8/100k, up 21%
Ontario: 4.6/100k, up 37%
Waterloo region: 3.6/100k, up 15%
Quebec: 5.9/100k, up 27%
Montreal: 9.0/100k, up 5%
India: 2.4/100k, down 11%
Italy: 9.2/100k, down 24%
France: 28/100k, down 16%
Spain: 20/100k, up 39%
Iran: 45/100k, up 2%
South Korea: 3.4/100k, down 5%
China: <0.01/100k, down 47%
The Prodigal Chicagoan 