Covid Update December 29, 2020 - Use a single dose (for now)

 How has Covid affected the US?

It looks like the US has turned the corner of the third wave but we are still loosing too many lifes.  The overall toll of the pandemic to date is illustrated by looking at total weekly deaths in the US this year compared to previous years. Overall, Covid effect continues to result in excess deaths.  Note that this is an increase in overall deaths including more Covid deaths, more suicides, and likely reduced accidents.

Bring on the vaccines!

The actual design of the vaccine (Moderna's with Pfizer's shortly after) was complete January 2020. There was significant supportive safety data for the vaccines at the beginning of the pandemic. The actual safety data for the specific vaccine was available May 2020.   It has been months waiting for the FDA bureaucratic generation and review of additional efficacy and safety data.  What if we had taken a different approach, balancing the known risk with a reasonable estimate of safety of vaccine to greatly greatly accelerate emergency use authorization?  How many lives would we have saved?  Given the Pfizer data shows that one dose has a significant effect, why not go with 1 dose for now?  How many lives would we save?  UPDATE - UK today decided to go with 1 initial shot to save lives.

How's the US doing?

Relative to the major EU countries and Canada the US has been on the high end of cases (positive tests per million) but more in the middle of the pack in deaths per million.  Given that positive tests are affected by testing availability, non-random population sampling, and inter-country events/requirements, it is not a perfect measure of actual cases per million.  Deaths, however, are most likley the ultimate measure of Covid effect.

How are Individual states doing?

Data on cases (positive tests), hospitalizations and deaths in individual states shows that most states have had or are in their 3rd wave.  And, while total hospitalizations in the US is at a high level, most states are at a lower level than the worst hit states were early in the pandemic.  I highlight Illinois (my state), New York (where my daughters are)  and CA, NY, FL and TX to illustrate some of the larger states.

What's happening within the states?

Looking at what's happening in the largest counties in the US (over 1 million) shows the high level of cases (positive tests and note that during the first few month of the pandemic there was a severe limit of testing and as a result it is very likely that there was a much, much higher level of cases than shown through positive tests) and recent increase in deaths, noting that the deaths are still, thankfully, much lower than early in the pandemic.