Im-Politic: So Much for the “Pandemic of the Unvaccinated”

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Biden administration, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, Im-Politic, vaccination, vaccine mandates, vaccines, Wuhan virus

Remember when President Biden was railing last fall that the CCP Virus crisis at that point was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” that was needlessly stressing the hospital system, and inexcusably exposing to danger those Americans who had done the right thing? How he used this claim to justify his push for vaccine mandates as a condition of employment for much of the U.S. workforce? And how numerous businesses, universities, and numerous state and local governments had already been using the same reasoning to shut the unvaccinated out of workplaces (both as employees and customers) and classrooms?

As I explained back then, this contention was completely unfounded because natural immunity and asymptomatic Covid had created towering, and likely insuperable, difficulties, in knowing the percentage of unvaxxed Americans who had even contracted the virus, much less who had been killed or hospitalized from it.

But just the other day, I discovered that even by the misleading evidence cited by the President and other fearmongers to make their case, this argument has completely fallen apart. The evidence – from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – ignores the above complications, and leaves out jurisdictions containing nearly 40 percent of America’s population.

In addition, its central supposed finding is presented – and has been ceaselessly parroted by much of the national media – without mentioning any of the context that all along would have made clear just how rock-bottom low the chances of being hospitalized or killed by the CCP Virus have been.

Specifically, claims such as “Recent CDC data shows unvaccinated people are 20 times more likely to die” left out the fact that this finding showed that in absolute terms, as of December (the latest CDC figures cited in this ABC News piece), about nine unvaccinated Americans per 100,000 were dying from the CCP Virus versus about half a vaccinated American per 100,000 dying. In other words, unvaccinated Americans had a 0.009 percent chance of dying of Covid, versus 0.0005 percent of the vaccinated. And these literally microscopic numbers warranted throwing the lives of tens of millions of Americans into turmoil?

But even if you’ve been in favor of such measures, the latest CDC figures (from April, which you can see at the above link) show that the gap has been cut in half since December in per-100,000 terms and virtually disappeared in absolute terms.

That is, 0.62 unvaccinated Americans per 100,000 were dying of the CCP Virus – about nine times greater than the vaccinated rate of 0.07 Americans per 100,000 versus the 20 times gap last December. That is, many fewer than one of every 100,000 unvaccinated and vaccinated Americans alike is now dying from the virus. And at least as interesting: These numbers mean that since December, the death rate for the unvaxxed has plummeted by 93.11 percent, while the rate for the vaxxed has barely budged.

In addition, and not so coincidentally, the CDC data on hospitalization rates for the vaxxed and unvaxxed display exactly the same trends.

Yet despite this evidence, many businesses are still insisting on some form of vaccine mandate and/or CCP Virus testing for employees, and the Biden administation is still pushing them for federal workers. So much, it seems, for “following the science” as well as for the always-dubious idea of a pandemic of the unvaccinated. 

 

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(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Transitory Inflation Story Endures

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CCP Virus, consumer price index, core inflation, coronavirus, COVID 19, CPI, energy prices, Federal Reserve, food prices, inflation, Jay Bhattacharya, Jerome Powell, lockdowns, mandates, shortages, stimulus, supply chains, vaccine mandates, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Rather than presenting a good news/bad news story, today’s official U.S. figures on one key measure of inflation (bringing the story through December) put into pretty clear focus an important old news/new news story. And its main implication is that the current version of lofty inflation looks considerably different from the standard versions that have hit the nation previously. Therefore, it’s looking more “transitory” (at least in terms of stemming mainly from developments specific to the CCP Virus epidemic) than ever.

This distinction of course matters because evaluating the nature of today’s inflation will greatly influence how American policymakers (especially the Federal Reserve) respond, and how they should respond. If today’s price increases stem from standard sources, then a standard response – tighter monetary policy, less government spending – make sense. If current inflation is distinctive, more austere economic policies stil may be needed for any number of reasons, but inflation-fighting won’t be a strong one.

The new news? The U.S. government tracks two main measures of inflation: Overall price increases, and price increases for “core” goods and services. The latter gauge strips out food and energy prices – because ordinarily they’re supposed to be extraordinarily volatile for reasons mainly unrelated to the economy’s underlying inflation prone-ness.

But today’s inflation data (for what’s called the Consumer Price Index, or CPI), demonstrates that during the virus era, the core price increases have been more volatile than their overall counterparts.

Let me make clear two crucial points right at the outset, though: First, as I’ve written previously, “transitory” (a term used for months but “retired” recently by the Federal Reserve) doesn’t necessarily mean “short-lived.” That’s because the virus itself and its effects may well not be short-lived. Indeed, because of the unusually rapid spread of the Omicron variant, pandemic-related and inflation-fueling economic disruptions could well last for months more.

Second, viewing today’s inflation as transitory doesn’t mean that the Biden administration and Congress may not have made a serious mistake in supporting a major round of economic stimulus earlier this year – and therefore greatly boosting Americans’ spending power while the amount of goods and services remained limited for all sorts of (CCP Virus-related and other) reasons.

At the same time, precisely because the last stimulus bill was explicitly linked to the the pandemic’s effects, because the infusion of new money has been running out, and because President Biden’s Build Back Better bill looks pretty dead in Congress, this fiscal policy mistake’s effects are looking transitory, too.

Don’t forget, moreover, the immense monetary policy support for the economy provided by the Fed. It’s virus-related, too, and yesterday, Chair Jerome Powell made clearer than ever his view that the case for such emergency assistance no longer holds, and that the central bank’s decision to start withdrawing it is firmly on track.

In addition, some of the old news (at least for RealityChek readers) about today’s inflation still holds – and further reenforces the case for “transitory-ness.” And this old news concerns the baseline effects phenomenon – by which unusual results recorded at the beginning of a period of time in which comparisons are made exercise powerful, but intrinsically, misleading results at the end of that period. In this instance, the unusually low annual inflation numbers of 2019-2020 have been bound to play a significant role in generating abnormally strong increases for 2020-2021. (BTW, savvy investors take these baseline effects into account when evaluating stock performance, too. Just Google “easy comps.”)

Nevetheless, even this old news now reflects some of the new news. Meaning that for overall inflation, the baseline effect is fading and will continue to fade for the next two data months. For the core, however, the baseline effect will stay strong through March.

The month-by-month and year-by-year figures for both overall and core CPI illustrate all of these points nicely. First, let’s review the monthly changes in overall CPI for this calendar year:

Dec-Jan:                          0.26 percent

Jan-Feb:                          0.35 percent

Feb-March:                     0.62 percent

March-April:                  0.77 percent

April-May:                     0.64 percent

May-June:                      0.90 percent

June-July:                      0.47 percent

July-Aug:                      0.27 percent

Aug-Sept:                      0.41 percent

Sept-Oct:                      0.94 percent

Oct-Nov:                       0.78 percent

Nov-Dec:                      0.47 percent

That new December figure represents both the smallest such increase since July, and a big slowdown from November. So that’s a noteworthy sign of transitory-ness right there.

Yet on a monthly basis, as shown below, core inflation actually quickened a bit in December:

Dec-Jan:                      0.03 percent

Jan-Feb:                       0.10 percent

Feb-March:                  0.34 percent

March-April:                0.92 percent

April-May:                   0.74 percent

May-June:                    0.88 percent

June-July:                     0.33 percent

July-Aug:                     0.10 percent

Aug-Sept:                    0.24 percent

Sept-Oct:                     0.60 percent

Oct-Nov:                     0.53 percent

Nov-Dec:                    0.55 percent

A closer look, however, shows that the core’s ups and downs have been greater than that for overall inflation, and that was especially true early in the pandemic. From January through April, it skyrocketed from 0.03 percent to 0.92 percent, whereas overall price increases went up more slowly (though still impressively), from 0.26 percent to 0.74 percent.

Similar increase patterns are revealed in the annual overall and core inflation increases, but the volatility trends are somewhat different. First, the overall data:

Jan:                             1.37 percent

Feb:                            1.68 percent

March:                       2.64 percent

April:                         4.16 percent

May:                          4.93 percent

June:                          5.32 percent

July:                           5.28 percent

Aug:                           5.20 percent

Sept:                          5.38 percent

Oct:                            6.24 percent

Nov:                           6.88 percent

Dec:                           7.12 percent

Here the nation has experienced not only accelerating annual inflation, but a fourth straight month of acceleration.

Ditto for annual core inflation:

Jan:                            1.40 percent

Feb:                            1.28 percent

March:                       1.65 percent

April:                         2.96 percent

May:                          3.80 percent

June:                          4.45 percent

July:                          4.24 percent

Aug:                          3.98 percent

Sept:                          4.04 percent

Oct:                           4.58 percent

Nov:                          4.96 percent

Dec:                           5.49 percent

But rather than being more volatile early in the pandemic period, these prices sung the most between last June and September, and during December. Still, if the volatility of overall and core inflation have been in the same ballpark lately, that’s an indication that this most recent burst of inflation has broken the mold.

The baseline effects are also signaling the recent outsized volatility of core inflation. Since it was so unusually depressed early in the first pandemic year 2020, these effects, as mentioned above, will stay prominent in January and February, too. But the baseline effect for regular inflation is already fading and will continue on that path. 

As has been the case for nearly two years now, however, the wild card remains the CCP Virus and now its Omicron variant and even more particularly, government reactions to its stunning transmissability. Moreover, it’s not just the Biden administration that may contribute to inflation-boosting supply chain bottlenecks and shortages due to vaccine mandates, other curbs, and their impact on individual fears and behavior. China’s ongoing Zero Covid policy looms as a major threat, too.     

All of which brings up a point made by Stanford University medical school professor Jay Bhattacharya, a leading public health authority. He’s repeatedly written that “The end of the pandemic is primarily a social and political decision” because although “we have no technology to eradicate the virus,”`the knowhow and strategies for reopening safely and sustainably are already available. If, as I believe, he’s right, then ending virus-induced inflation and making it truly transitory is well within reach, too.  

 

Im-Politic: Covid Derangement Syndrome

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CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, health care, hospitals, Im-Politic, mask mandate, masks, Omicron variant, Politico, vaccine mandates, vaccines, Wuhan virus

If there’s emerged an Exhibit A as to how completely incoherent the nation’s public health establishment and medical systems have become on dealing with the CCP Virus (including its super-infectious but generally mild and often asymptomatic Omicron variant), it’s an article yesterday in Politico headlined “Health care workers are panicked as desperate hospitals ask infected staff to return.”

As is so often the case, moreover, this virus-related trend and its fallout has been reported without any allusions to the incoherence. And practically all of the muddle is expressed in the very first paragraph, starting with the very first half of the very first sentence:

“While most health workers are vaccinated, many are still falling sick, exacerbating a staff shortage as more Americans seek hospital care. The reliance on employees who may still be infectious comes despite objections from nurses‘ unions and the American Medical Association, which warned the decision puts patients’ health and safety at risk. And there are no requirements that patients be notified if their caregiver is sick.”

Presumably, when reporter Rachael Levy writes that “most health workers are vaccinated,” she means “fully vaccinated” – including boosters. Yet “many are still falling sick.” Readers never learn how many or, more important, what percentage. But it’s no doubt lots – indeed, enough to create and worsen staff shortages.

That alone should blow a big hole in the various sweeping “vaccines work” claims used, notably, to justify mandates for the jabs, especially since these health care workers by definition must overwhelmingly be individuals young enough and free enough of the special medical conditions to be able to avoid illness serious enough to render them too infeebled to report to work — much less to threaten grave illness or death.

But the headline indicates that the concern of the “panicked” health care workers isn’t simply that the colleagues who believe they should be staying home are crawling in, uncontrollably shedding pathogens and threatening staff and patients alike, and/or are physically incapable of performing their duties adequately.

They’re also concerned that these colleagues are “infected” in the first place.

Yet these worries are loopy for any number of glaringly obvious reasons. For example, if infected health care workers are asymptomatic, they should be fully capable of doing their jobs. In addition, the evidence so far seems to show that most virus victims don’t spread the pathogen (see, e.g., here and here), and when they do, they’re most contagious very early in their infections.

That last point is crucial because it’s behind the latest guidance for health care facilities issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As Levy (thankfully!) reports, this advisory allows such providers “to bring back workers after five days of isolation, instead of 10, without a negative Covid-19 test.” What’s more, “In cases where workforce shortages become extreme, hospitals can bring back staff without any isolation period.”

Stranger still: Presumably the health care workers who so fear their supposedly irresponsible colleagues are, according to their own definitions, behaving very responsibly themselves. In other words, they’re surely individuals who are both fully vaccinated and dedicated mask-wearers.

If they’re vaccinated, of course, it’s now clear that their protection against infection is far from perfect, but that their protection against severe illness and death is very good. That is, if they do get infected, and since they are young-ish and strong-ish, they’ll recover fully and pretty quickly — assuming they experience any symptoms at all.

Further, since they work in hospitals, they’re almost certainly also wearing the kinds of masks that are highly effective in preventing infection, not the cloth masks worn so widely outside hospitals that even the CDC has found provide pretty ineffective protection. So have the worried workers now joined the “vaccines and many masks don’t work at all” camp?

It’s true that the Omicron variant may be a virulent enough spreader to confound both vaccines and boosters and even high quality masks, at least to a significant degree. But if this is the case, to date, the health effects of Omicron spread look much too weak to justify panic or even close for anyone without specific vulnerabilities.

Yes, hospitals are full of people with such vulnerabilities – the patients. But the CDC guidelines contain recommendations for dealing with them.

Not that the CDC has covered itself with glory throughout the pandemic. Or that this specific approach that it’s taken to the health care system will keep everyone involved fully protected.

But as one hospital CEO quoted by Levy reminds, “We don’t have good choices — or the choices that we want.” A new consensus seems to be emerging in the nation that America has to “learn to live” with the CCP Virus. Unless it’s believed that somehow the health care delivery system should be an exception (and should be crippled until somehow something close to Zero Covid is reached without it?) hospital workers need to follow this advice, too.

Im-Politic: It’s Time for Them to Go

Tags

Anthony S. Fauci, Biden adminstration, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children, coronavirus, COVID 19, Fauci, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, hospitalization, hospitalizations, Im-Politic, Mary T. Bassett, misinformation, New York State, pediatric vaccination, public health, Rochelle Walensky, schools, testing, vaccinations, vaccine mandates, vaccines, Wuhan virus

As the New Year brings Americans their third calendar year of coping with the CCP Virus, it’s abundantly clear that there’s no such thing as a firing offense when it comes to the nation’s leading public health authorities. And it’s been evident in not one but two cases over the last week alone.

Case number one involves Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser. Fauci should already be in near-boiling legal water over the likelihood that he lied to Congress in denying that the National Institute of Alergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) never funded dangerous gain-of-function virus-related research in China. Now he’s just (unwittingly) admitted that he’s been guilty of pandemic-related fear-mongering of the first order on the vital issue of safeguarding children’s well-being.

Fauci has long warned about the dangers posed to minors by the virus and linked vaccination of pupils (along with mask requirements for them) to the goal of keeping schools safely opened. And he’s focused not only on pediatric infection numbers, but on hospitalization rates – widely considered a far more serious matter because they supposedly reveal the incidence of serious and potentially fatal infections. As he argued on NBC News‘ “Meet the Press” on August 8:

“There are a lot of children now – all you need to do is do a survey of the pediatric hospitals throughout the country, and you’re seeing a considerable number of young people who are not only infected but who are seriously ill….the numbers compared to the elderly are less, but that’s a false comparison. These kids are getting sick. We’ve really got to make sure we protect them.”

The alarmist nature of his comments should have been clear from the start, as, for example, that week, according to the CCP Virus data tracker maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the virus-related rate of new hospital admissions for Americans under 17 averaged about 0.14 per 100,000 – which comes to an absolute number of about 100 total hospitalizations among the 73.1 million in that age group as of the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures.

But as I’ve explained, by that time, a national healthcare leader like Fauci should have been aware of the big problem with the hospitalization data in general – they rarely distinguished between patients who were hospitalized because of the virus, and patients hospitalized for other reasons who happened to test positive for the pathogen once admitted. In other words, many “Covid-related hospitalizations” have had nothing to do with Covid.

Here’s how one expert has explained the problem:

“[I]f you look at the children are hospitalized many of them are hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID. What we mean by that is that if a child goes in the hospital they automatically get tested for COVID and they get counted as a COVID hospitalized individual, when in fact they may go in for a broken leg or appendicitis or something like that.”

“So it’s over counting the number of children who are ‘hospitalized’ with COVID as opposed to because of COVID.”

This expert’s name? Anthony Fauci. But he didn’t make the admission until last week – when total national “Covid-related hospitalizations” for kids still numbered in the low hundreds.

Yet bizarrely, Fauci still favors vaccination for this highly secure demographic cohort, in line with the equally bizarre authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recommendation from the CDC.  And this even though the jabs for five-to-fifteen years olds are approved only on an “emergency basis”; even though the evidence used seems to consist of a single trial of some 3,100 children; and even though – unlike far more vulnerable older Americans – these vaccine recipients will mostly have many decades from now for any side effects to emerge.

So on the grounds of spreading virus misinformation alone, Fauci should be gone.

Speaking of pediatric hospitalizations and misinformation, it’s also time to sack new New York State Health Commissioner Mary T. Bassett as well. Also last Monday, touting the imperative of pediatric vaccinations, she declared, “Many people continue to think that children do not become infected with COVID. This is not true. Children become infected with COVID and some will become hospitalized. The vaccination coverage remains too low. We need to get child vaccinations up, particularly in the 5-to-11-year-old age group.”

At this time, New York State had recorded 184 child covid hospitalizations (out of a total under-18 population of 4.18 million, according to the latest Census Bureau data). But alarmism wasn’t the worst of Bassett’s offenses. Instead, it was this jaw-dropping admission: 

“The numbers we gave on pediatric admissions weren’t intended to make it seem that children were having an epidemic of infection. These were small numbers that we reported in our health alert. That was based on 50 hospitalizations, and I’ve now given you some larger numbers, but they’re still small numbers. It really is to motivate pediatricians and families to seek the protection of vaccination.”

Lying to the public isn’t a criminal offense – and probably shouldn’t be.  But it sure should be a firing offense. 

According to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, who should be facing big job security questions herself due to the nation’s crying shortage of CCP Virus testing capability despite the Biden administration’s backing for sweeping vaccine mandates, her agency’s controversial decision last week on isolation for indivduals with asymptomatic cases stemmed partly from the “relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic. Some science has demonstrated less than a third of people are isolating when they need to.”  Given Americans’ truth-challenged public health officials, reluctance to follow their advice and instructions is easy to understand.            

 

Im-Politic: The Lockdown-Light States are Winning the U.S. Population Contest

Tags

CCP Virus, Census Bureau, coronavirus, COVID 19, demographics, Im-Politic, lockdowns, mandates, mask mandate, migration, population, reopening, states, vaccine mandates, Wallethub.com, Wuhan virus

Unless you don’t think that voting with one’s feet speaks volumes about what people like and dislike, (and how could you not, given what a pain most sane people consider moving to be?), you have to agree that data released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau data sent a powerful message about heavy CCP Virus-induced restrictions on various aspects of their lives. In a phrase, they can’t stand them. Or maybe they can’t stand how they’ve been implemented, which is pretty much the same thing.

Of course, people move for all sorts of reasons. But it’s undeniably striking that the Census data on which states gained and lost the most population during roughly the first pandemic year (April 1, 2020-July 1, 2021) show that those with relatively light anti-virus regimes have generally gained new residents, and those with relatively heavy rules and regulations experienced declines.

The most revealing indicator of these trends isn’t the headline set of population increases and decreases by state during the above time period. After all, those figures also include natural births and deaths (mainly because here we’re trying to measure not the states’ individual records in fighting the virus, but how Americans perceive them), as well as changes due to international migration (which say almost nothing about how the perceptions of the U.S. population as of spring, 2020).

Instead, the best indicators of public opinion about pandemic policies are the domestic migration data – that is, Americans’ movements among states over this latest data year.  They’re found in the third spreadsheet listed under “Tables” at this link, and the states’ April, 2020 populations that are used as the baseline are in the second spreadsheet. 

Our methodology? Comparing the new Census findings with Wallethub.com‘s ranking of individual states’ levels of virus restrictions as of this past April. Let’s start with a list of the ten states (out of 51, including the District of Columbia) that have performed best in absolute terms in attracting residents from other states (listed from most to least successful), with their restrictiveness rankings next to them. (The lower the number, the less restrictive a state.)

Florida                                263,958       2

Texas                                  211,289       5

Arizona                              119,650     15

North Carolina                  106,884      28

South Carolina                    78,812        7

Tennessee                           73,472      16

Georgia                              59,979       24

Idaho                                  56,439       11

Utah                                   36,084       18

Nevada                              34,280        30

What this list shows is that eight of these ten states are among the 50 percent of states that have the fewest anti-CCP Virus restrictions, three of the ten are among the five least restrictive, and four of the ten are in the ten least restrictive. That looks like the least restrictive states have been awfully attractive to Americans.

Similar results come from the list of the ten states that have attracted the most domestic movers as a share of their populations in April, 2020:

Idaho                                    3.07         11

Montana                              1.98         10

Arizona                               1.67          15

South Carolina                   1.54            7

Delaware                            1.45          49

Maine                                 1.25          43

Florida                                1.23           2

Nevada                               1.10         30

Utah                                   1.10         18

New Hampshire                 1.07         22

Tennessee                          1.06          16

Again, eight of this group of ten are found among the half of states with the fewest pandemic restrictions. The correlation, though, is slightly weaker. After all, Delaware and Maine are big outliers, attracting relatively large numbers of domestic movers despite having super-strict approaches to fighting and containing the virus. In addition, only one of these states is in the top five least restrictive states, and just three in the top ten least restrictive. Overall, though, this list supports the case that the least restrictive states have been popular moving destinations for Americans.

But does the opposite conclusion hold – that the most restrictive states have performed especially poorly in this demographic popularity contest? The following list of the ten states that have lost the most residents in absolute terms to other states, along with their restrictiveness rankings, says the answer is “It sure does.”

California                 429,383             45

New York                 406,257             46

Illinois                      151,512             34

Massachusetts            54,339             38

New Jersey                 39,954             41

Louisiana                   36,854              27

Maryland                   26,666              26

DC                             23,222              50

Hawaii                       16,174              37

Minnesota                 15,947               40

All of these states are in the group of 50 percent of states with the most virus restrictions, four of the ten are in the group of the ten most restrictive, and California and New York are among the five most restrictive states.

As with the states with the biggest percentage domestic migration increases, the list of states with the biggest relative domestic migration decreases is consistent with a strong correlation between virus policies and population gains, but one that’s not quite as strong as the relationship between virus policies and population change among states with the biggest absolute population losses.

DC                                3.38             50

New York                      2.01            46

Illinois                           1.18            34

Hawaii                           1.11            37

California                      1.08            45

North Dakota                0.91            17

Alaska                           0.81              6

Louisiana                      0.79            27

Mass.                            0.77            38

New Jersey                   0.43            41

Maryland                     0.43             26

Here, BTW, we’re dealing with eleven states, because New Jersey and Maryland have lost equal percentages of their populations. But this list reveals that two of the eleven are among the half of states with the fewest virus restrictions (versus none among the states with the biggest absolute domestic migration losses). Moreover, Alaska is one of the ten least restrictive states and North Dakota is among the twenty least restrictive.

At the same time, nine of the eleven are in the half of states that are most restrictive, two are among the ten most restrictive (the District and New York), with California right behind them. Moreover, the strength of the relationship between extensive CCP Virus restrictions and big population losses becomes even clearer given the outsized roles played by highly restrictive California and New York. Together, they account for fully 65.49 percent of the 1.276 million Americans who have moved from high-restriction to low-restriction states. (There’s considerable concentration among the states that have gained domestic migrants, but the top two – Florida and Texas – represent only 475,247 out of this total 1.066 million population, or 44.60 percent.

But there’s still the question of whether the population change and virus regime relationship looks the same when the variables are flipped. In other words, have the least restrictive states performed well and the most restrictive performed poorly in terms of population gains and losses? Here’s that list (starting with the least restictive state), including these states’ population changes in absolute and percentage terms:

Iowa                        -1,116               -0.04

Florida               +263,958               +1.23

Wyoming               +1,531               +0.27

South Dakota         +5,566               +0.63

Texas                  +211,289               +0.72

Alaska                     -5,912                -0.81

South Carolina     +78,812               +1.54

Mississippi (tie)      -7,132                -0.24

Oklahoma (tie)    +27,589               +0.70

Montana              +21,483               +1.98

Of the ten least restrictive states, seven have gained population, and three have gained lots both in absolute terms and percentage terms (Florida, South Carolina, and Texas). Moreover, one of the loser states (Iowa) has barely lost anyone by either measure.

And now for the population changes in the most restrictive states (starting with the most restrictive), again with the increases or decreases presented alongside their names in both absolute and percentage terms:

Vermont                +4,470               +0.70

DC                       -23,322                -3.38

Delaware            +14,387               +1.45

Virginia                -11,294               -0.13

Washington (tie)   +9,408               +0.12

New York (tie)   -406,257               +2.01

California           -429,383              +1.08

Maine                  +17,003              +1.25

Connecticut              +226              +0.01

Rhode Island            +291              +0.03

Among these most restrictive states, the correlation at first glance doesn’t look strong at all. Only three – the District, New York, and California – suffered a net migration outflow during the first pandemic year. But look below the surface and some of the relationship reappears. After all, two of the three are highly restrictive California and New York, whose population losses are enormous in absolute terms and significant in percentage terms. The other, the even more restrictive District of Columbia, saw an astonishing 3.38 percent of its people leave for other states – the highest percentage change whether we’re talking population increases of decreases.

Qualifiers for these conclusions should be kept in mind on top of those concerning multiple possibilities for inter-state moves.  First and foremost, I haven’t compared these migration patterns with those of past years.  If they turn out to be broadly similar, then maybe the CCP Virus isn’t a main determinant at all – and in this vein, the popularity of Sun Belt states like Florida, Arizona, and Texas is nothing new.  Nor are departures from northeastern states like New York and New Jersey. 

At the same time, Florida and Texas in particular have gotten terrible publicity all year long for their loose virus restrictions.  (Google, e.g., “Death-Santis.”)  And not only was Califonia’s annual population decline its first ever, but domestic out-migration was responsible for 143 percent of it.  (Positive population developments like births made up the difference.)  So something out of the ordinary demographically seems to have gone on in at least some big states during that first pandemic year.   And if it wasn’t the virus, I’d sure like to know what else it could have been. 

Im-Politic: So the Vaccines Work…Except in Europe?

Tags

CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, Europe, Im-Politic, infections, lockdowns, mortality, vaccination, vaccine mandates, vaccines, Washington Post, Worldometers.info, Wuhan virus

There’s no doubt about it: Europe is having a terrible time with what looks like a severe new CCP Virus wave. Not made nearly as clear by the coverage – this new wave is rising despite high vaccination rates in most of the countries being hit. As this post will show, two key trends are casting serious doubt on broad claims of vaccine effectiveness claimed by the U.S. public health establishment and others who have viewed it as the only reliable source of “The Science” on the pandemic and fighting it.

The first trend is in reported infection rates. As known by RealityChek regulars, I don’t take this metric especially seriously because it can be impacted by developments having little to do with the actual severity of the pandemic – like testing rates and numbers of asymptomatic infections. (The latter complicates the situation because people carrying the virus who are feeling no effects are relatively unlikely to take a test.)

But the public health establishment takes infection rates very seriously – and evidently in Europe as well as in the United States. So here are the relevant figures for eleven European countries – with their full vaccination rates as of November 22 on the left and the change in the seven-day moving average (7DMA) of daily new infections between November 15 and November 22 on the right. The vaccination rates come (with the exception noted below) from the Washington Post‘s virus tracker feature, and the infection rates from the worldometers.info website. And for comparison’s sake, I’m including the U.S. figures as well.

Netherlands:        73.0 percent*     +48.76 percent 

Germany:             68.0 percent      +30.62 percent

Belgium:              75.4 percent      +45.52 percent

Austria:                65.7 percent      +24.40 percent 

UK:                      69.1 percent        +9.06 percent 

France:                 69.6 percent      +81.76 percent 

Czech Republic:  58.6 percent      +39.58 percent 

Portugal:              86.9 percent      +48.04 percent

Denmark:             78.5 percent      +21.30 percent 

Spain:                   79.8 percent      +58.98 percent 

Italy:                     73.1 percent      +26.59 percent

USA:                    59.0 percent      +11.24 percent

*See here for the Netherlands vaccination rate   

It’s easy to see that there is absolutely no correlation between the two sets of numbers. Just look at the contrast in infection rate increases between the United Kingdom and France – even though their full vaccination rates are nearly identical. Also, how come highly vaccinated Spain and Portugal are seeing case numbers rise so quickly? Why are Italian case numbers rising much more slowly than those on the Iberian peninsula, even though it’s vaccination rate is somewhat lower? And why does the United States, with the second lowest vaccination rate (due to all those supposed kooks who won’t get vaxxed?) come in with the second lowest infection growth rate in this group?

But like I said, in my view, infection rates don’t deserve much relative attention. Death rates aren’t a flawless measure of virus severity, either, but they’re another matter – especially because so many inside and outside the public health establishment say that the main value of the vaccines is less their power to prevent infections than to prevent serious illness and death. That proposition holds more strongly for Europe, but as you’ll see, there are several big exceptions.

Below are the data comparing the same vaccination rates (on the left) and CCP Virus death rates (on the right) for the eleven European countries plus the United States. The death rate number is the change in the 7DMA between November 15 ad November 22 and is also from the worldometers.info site.

Netherlands:        73.0 percent*       +52.17 percent 

Germany:             68.0 percent        +22.35 percent

Belgium:              75.4 percent        +27.59 percent 

Austria:                65.7 percent        +27.27 percent

UK:                      69.1 percent           -5.80 percent

France:                 69.6 percent        +27.03 percent 

Czech Republic:   58.6 percent       +43.75 percent

Portugal:               86.9 percent       +30.00 percent 

Denmark:              78.5 percent       +50.00 percent

Spain:                    79.8 percent        -26.09 percent 

Italy:                      73.1 percent         +5.36 percent

USA:                      59.0 percent        +0.29 percent 

The lessons of this table are more difficult to draw for one main reason – the absolute numbers of deaths involved for most of these countries are extremely low. Meaning single or double digits low. And as known by RealityChek regulars, very low numbers can be highly volatile when it comes to percentage change terms, because only a tiny move in absolute numbers can produce huge relative moves. (For exampile, an increase of one to two in absolute terms equals a 100 percent increase.)

The three exceptions are Germany (where the daily deaths 7DMA have been growing recently by the high-100s), the United Kingdom (where they’re rising by the mid-100s), and the United States (where daily growth still exceeds 1,000). Even taking these disparities into account, it’s interesting that the U.S. daily death rate has been stable lately and in fact has come way down since August; and that in the United Kingdom, with its average vaccination rate, mortality is declining.

And in relative terms, on this front, both countries have been out-performing Germany – whose vaccination rate is a bit lower than the United Kingdom’s but a good deal higher than the United States’. It’s true that death rates are lagging indicators (because CCP Virus victims typically take a while to pass away). But the different directions in this indicator in these three countries don’t seem to have much to do with their vaccination rates.

As for the high vaccination countries, the rates of mortality increase are indeed worrisome, and simply because of their often-soaring infection rates could worsen. But the absolute numbers are still so low that the only reasonable conclusion is “Wait and see.”

That’s why even though tight virus-related restrictions are reappearing all over Europe (see, e.g., here, here, and here), it seems panicky at best to close down entire economies and societies – especially given all the collateral damage that would result. Sweepingly linking employment opportunities to vaccination status, as the Biden administration has sought seems equally unreasonable in light of these mounting signs that the jabs simply aren’t the panacea that was initially advertised.

An announcement yesterday by the President’s coronavirus response coordinator that “We can curb the spread of the virus without having to in any way shut down our economy,” indicates that Mr. Biden is learning the first lesson. A more targeted approach toward vaccinations and other responses, focusing on the most vulnerable, would be a welcome sign that he’s learning the second.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Now Oil’s Fueling the U.S. Trade Deficit’s Boom

Tags

Advanced Technology Products, Biden, CCP Virus, China, climate change, COP26, coronavirus, COVID 19, exports, Glasgow, imports, lockdowns, manufacturing, non-oil goods deficit, oil, oil imports, oil trade, OPEC, supply chains, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, Trump, UN Climate Change Conference, vaccine mandates, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

So many records and multi-month or year highs and lows were revealed in this morning’s official report on U.S. trade flows (for September) that it’s tough to know where to begin. What caught my eye immediately, though, was a development that concerned a product that hasn’t generated much major trade news lately, but has produced quite a few headlines in the last few weeks alone: oil.

With the United Nations’ latest global climate change conference still underway in Glasgow, Scotland, and President Biden still asking members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost their production to ease national and global energy shortages, it’s more than a little interesting that September saw America’s oil trade deficit balloon from $28 million (yes, with an “m”) in August to $3.38 billion (with a “b”).

That monthly total is the biggest since May 2019’s $3.98 billion and the $3.35 billion sequential worsening is the greatest such change for good or ill in absolute terms since the $3.52 billion improvement in this deficit in Dec., 2012 (when the monthly oil deficits were regularly some five or six times larger). It’s also the biggest increase in the oil trade shortfall since Jan., 2013 ($3.86 billion).

At least as interesting: On a year-to-date basis, the oil trade balance has shifted from a $13.98 billion surplus to a $6.84 billion deficit, mostly because oil imports are up 23.55 percent during this period.

The monthly spurt in the oil trade deficit weighed heavily on the overall September trade figures, accounting for 41.26 percent of the rise in the total deficit to a record $80.93 billion.

Moreover, not only was the September combined goods and services trade shortfall an all-time high. It beat the previous record (set in June) by a healthy (or sickly?) 10.52 percent, and the 11.52 percent monthly jump was the greatest such widening since the 19.87 percent recorded in July, 2020, when the U.S. economy was rebounding sharply from the short but deep downturn produced by the CCP Virus’ initial wave and the shutdowns and lockdowns mandated in response, along with major consumer caution.

September’s deficit resulted from both major trade flows moving in exactly the wrong way. Total imports set their third straight monthly record, increasing by 0.58 percent to $288.49 billion. And overall exports sank by 3.01 percent, to $207.56 billion. That total was the first monthly falloff since February and the biggest since the 19.96 percent plunge in April, 2020 – when the pandemic’s impact on the U.S. economy was peaking.

Still worse was the trade story in goods, where the $98.16 billion gap grew by 9.99 percent over the August total to a new record $98.16 billion. That figure broke the old mark (also set in June) by 5.25 percent, and the monthly increase was also the biggest since July, 2020 – when it rose by 12.20 percent.

Here, too, both exports and imports can be blamed. As with total exports, the former also decline for the first time since February, and the 4.71 percent sequential decrease to $142.71 billion was the steepest since the 25.10 percent crash dive suffered in pandemic-y April, 2020.

Goods imports, meanwhile, climbed by 0.78 percent to $240.86 billion – a new record , too.

Since manufacturing dominates U.S. goods trade, it’s not surprising that much of this September deterioration on the merchandise side came in industry. This sector saw its own longstanding and massive deficit hit a second straight monthly record, rising 1.60 percent to $118.75 billion.

Manufacturing exports dropped on month by 4.69 percent, from $97.13 billion to $92.58 billion. But the much greater amount of imports was down only 1.25 percent, from $214.041 billion to $211.33 billion.

These new records have pushed the 2021 manufacturing deficit so far to $968.25 billion – 22.52 percent bigger than last year’s January-through September number. So the full-year shortfall is sure to top $1 trillion for the fourth straight year – and by October.

Yet another all-time high was reported in an important manufacturing sub-sector – advanced technology products (ATP). The $50.50 billion worth of these goods imported by Americans in September set a monthy record, and one that broke the previous mark of $47.24 billion set in October, 2019, by 6.91 percent. Largely as a result, the ATP deficit surged sequentially by 22.82 percent in September, to $19.74 billion. The total was the biggest since last November’s $21.90 billion and the increase the fastest since May, 2020’s 22.98 percent – early during that US rebound following the CCP Virus’ first wave.

With many of these ATP goods coming from China, the import boom in this category understandably led to a big (15.01 percent) increase in the bilateral merchandise deficit. Indeed, the monthly rise, from $31.74 billion to $36.50 billion was the biggest since the shortfall’s near-doubling in April, 2020 – when the Chinese economy was bouncing back from its own broad virus-related shutdown – and the level was the highest since December, 2018’s $36.60 billion.

Goods imports from China hit $47.41 billion – their highest level since October, 2018’s $52.08 billion. And their 10.27 percent jump in September was the biggest such monthly change since the 18.23 percent increase of this past March, at the start of the U.S.’ last post-CCP Virus recovery.

The China goods deficit in September did worsen faster than its closest global proxy – the U.S. non-oil goods deficit (which widened by 6.47 percent). It’s still also growing more slowly on a year-to-date basis – 14.89 percent versus 18.60 percent, which indicates that the Trump tariffs continued by Mr. Biden are still restraining it. But the gap is narrowing.

What’s especially sobering about these and other recent trade figures is that the overall deficit rose by 7.50 percent between the second and third quarters of this year while the rate of economic growth fell by 40.31 percent.  That’s not supposed to happen. Clearly, virus- and lockdowns- and mandates- and supply chain-related disruptions are distorting normal economic patterns, but that’s a huge discrepancy nonetheless.  Worse (in this sense), the American economy’s expansion is so far expected to speed up again in the fourth quarter. Although trees aren’t supposed to grow to the sky, it seems a safe bet that the U.S. trade deficit going forward will do a pretty good imitation.     

Im-Politic: Fauci Doctors the Facts Again

Tags

Anthony S. Fauci, Biden administration, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CCP Virus, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chris Wallace, coronavirus, COVID 19, essential workers, Fauci, Fox News, Im-Politic, law enforcement, mortality, Officer Down Memorial Page, police, vaccine mandates, vaccines, Wuhan virus

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, had a ready answer this past Sunday when a news anchor asked him whether or not he bears any responsibility for the growing criticism he’s attracted during the CCP Virus pandemic:

“[I] have stood — always making science, data, and evidence be what we guide ourselves by. And I think people who feel differently, who have conspiracy theories, who deny reality that’s looking em straight in the eye, those are people that don’t particularly care for me.

“And that’s understandable because what I do and I try very hard is to be guided by the truth. And sometimes, the truth becomes inconvenient for some…people, so they react against me. That just is what it is. There’s not much I can do about that…”

Actually, here’s something he can do about it. He can stop presenting facts that are not only completely free-floating but so devoid of any context that they become completely misleading – as he did on the same program.

Asked by Fox News‘ Chris Wallace whether vaccine mandates should be enforced for essential workers like police – many of which oppose the requirements, Fauci declared,

“We now know the statistics, more police officers die of COVID than they do in other causes of death. So, it doesn’t make any sense to not trying to protect yourself as well as the colleagues that you work with.”

Fauci’s claim is correct strictly speaking – at least according to this organization that tracks police deaths in the line of duty. But comparing police virus deaths with other causes of police fatalities has zero to do with how especially susceptible or not officers are to Covid. In fact, the only valid way of determining the relative vulnerability of these law enforcement personnel is to compare their CCP Virus experiences – in this case, mortality – versus that of their closest population-wide peer group.

And what these data make plain as day is that police nationwide are much less likely to die of the virus than those most like them demographically.

The peer group in question is working age adults, and this source pegs their population at 170,975,648 as of last year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that through October 13, they’d suffered 233,965 deaths. “involving” the CCP Virus (which RealityChek regulars know is a problematic concept). So that’s a mortality rate of 0.14 percent.

The number of police officers whose deaths have been attributed to having contracted the disease on duty is 479 according to the aforementioned Office Down Memorial Page. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has pegged the nationwide number of police and sheriff’s patrol officers at 654,900. Do the math, and you get a death rate of 0.07 percent. That’s only half the level for the working age adult control group.

Surely one big reason for this disparity is that law enforcement personnel are healthier as a rule than their closest demographic peers. But far from “explaining away” Fauci’s mistake, it’s a point so obvious that he should know it. He should also realize that because, like other essential personnel, policemen and women stayed on the job during the worst of the virus, stayed on it long before vaccines were available, and worked jobs that required lots of personal contact, many surely contracted Covid – and recovered, thereby acquiring natural immunity. Despite his enthusiasm for the mandates, as even Fauci has admitted, this inconvenient (for vaccine zealots) truth of virology is tough to square with calls for mass, indiscriminate, and forced jabbing.

I’m enough of a believer in vaccines’ effectiveness and in the seriousness of the CCP Virus that I cringe every time I hear some pundit or news talker argue that members of the public health establishment like Fauci and the politicians that follow them have supported vaccine mandates and other forms of anti-virus business and behavioral curbs primarily because they’re control freaks. But every time I hear such folks so blatantly and sanctimoniously peddle this kind of misinformation, it makes me wonder.

Im-Politic: A Biden Administration Whopper on Vaccinations

Tags

Biden, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, Im-Politic, Jeff Zients, vaccinations, vaccine mandates, Wuhan virus

It’s a good thing for Jeff Zients that social media’s policies on spreading misinformation are so one-sided. If they weren’t, the White House CCP Virus response coordinator (no, not his official title!) would be suspended or banned.

This past Wednesday, Zients told reporters that President Biden’s vaccination requirements, announced in a September 9 speech, had “increased vaccination rates by 20-plus percentage points.” And he continued, “Higher vaccination rates make workplaces, schools, and communities safer; accelerate our path out of the pandemic; and strengthen our economy.”

There’s no doubt that the latest virus wave has been receding by the most important measures – as I wrote October 1. Do higher vaccination rates make the above places safer? That’s entirely plausible. Will they strengthen the economy? We’ll just have to wait on that one, since the data aren’t in yet.

But the claim that since Mr. Biden’s speech, U.S. vaccination rates are up by 20-plus percentage points is just untrue. Indeed, it’s not close to being true. Further, it’s not close to being true even if our gauge is eligible Americans who are at least only partly vaccinated. This measure would take into account that not all of those eligible for vaccinations haven’t yet had the chance to complete the two-shot regimens, and that vaccines have not yet been recommended for childen younger than twelve.

And we know how untrue Zients’ contention is because it’s completely contradicted by the federal government’s own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The agency’s COVID Data Tracker monitors vaccination rates over time, and it’s interactive, so changes since the Biden announcement can easily be calculated. And here’s what’s happened with at-least-partial vaccination percentage rates by age group from the day of the Biden announcement through this past Wednesday.

                        Sept. 9 rate        Oct. 13 rate

12-15:                  51.2                    55.5

16-17                   59.3                    62.8

18-24                   60.9                    64.9

25-39                   64.2                    68.2

40-49                   73.3                    76.7

50-64                   81.3                    83.8

65-74                   94.9                    97.8

75-plus                89.6                    92.3

In fact, these official figures make clear just how wildly un-close to being true Zients’ claim is. The biggest percentage point change in the at-least-partial vaccination rates during this period hasn’t been twenty.  It’s been 4.3 – for the 12-15 group. The next biggest is four – for the 18-24 and the 25-39 groups.

Of course also crucial to point out (as I did in that October 1 post) – the substantial improvements in the virus picture have taken place despite this unimpressive vaccination progress. Which raises the questions of just how effective the vaccines actually have been in influencing the course of the pandemic, and how effective the mandates – which could come into force as early as today – actually are and will be going forward. After all, if an administration can’t or won’t describe this key piece of the pandemic story so inaccurately, why should anyone trust in their ideas to fight it effectively?       

Im-Politic: Anti-Pandemic Economy Clamps Could Be Strengthening Just as the Virus Threat is Weakening

Tags

Andrew Jackson, Battle of New Orleans, Biden, CCP Virus, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, COVID 19, data, hospitalizations, Im-Politic, Jobs, lockdowns, mortality, OurWorldinData.org, stay-at-home, vaccination, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, vaccines, War of 1812, Washington Post, Wuhan virus

What a stunning and thoroughly depressing point the U.S. fight against the CCP Virus may be at. Governments at all levels, private businesses, and non-profit institutions of all kinds are imposing all sorts of vaccination mandates on employees that could result in significant layoffs for the recalcitrant (including those with natural virus immunity) and equally important damage to the economy. And at the same time, the most reliable data now show that the virus’ destructive impact – recently renewed by the highly infectious Delta variant – is easing once again, and for reasons that look completely unrelated to vaccination rates.

Not that the most reliable CCP Virus data are incredibly reliable. As I’ve previously written, there are some awfully dubious definitions of “Covid-related deaths” being used across the country, and major holes in the coverage achieved by the official record keepers. In addition, serious problems have been revealed even in the hospitalization numbers – which I’d considered the most accurate gauge of the virus’ effects on human health.

All the same, the proverbial statistical curve for both indicators is now bending down for the first time since Delta began dominating the American virus scene in mid-summer.

As often the case, my source for the death and hospitalization figures are the Washington Post‘s very user-friendly CCP Virus databases. For this post, I’m also using some hospitalization figures for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website. Unless otherwise mentioned, the specific numbers here are changes in seven-day averages (7DA), which smooth out random fluctuations that tend to occur on a day-to-day basis.

Regarding mortality, the 7DA for daily reported covid-related deaths bottomed out on July 6 at 209 and it had plummeted by nearly 30 percent during the previous week. And through July 27, the 7DA stayed below 300. But by August 16, it hit 651 and thereafter began soaring rapidly.

By the 18^th, the 7DA average had jumped by nearly 32 percent week-on-week, and the rate of increase continued surging until it peaked on the 24^th at an appalling 77.90 percent. But thereafter, these increases dropped dramaticaly. A week later, they were down to just over 21 percent. That is, consistent with the “bend the curve” criteria, the problem kept worsening, but it was worsening much more slowly, which counts as welcome progress.

This encouraging development continued through September 9, by which time the 7DA was rising on a weekly basis by just 3.17 percent. In other words, it nearly stopped rising altogether. But this fall-off proved to be a head fake. Almost immediately, the weekly increases in the 7DA for covid-related mortality bounced back, and reached a discouraging 27.49 percent in less than a week (by the 15^th).

Yet another decline has followed, and this one has been considerably deeper. By September 21, the weekly 7DA increase was back below ten percent, and just four days later, hit zero for the first time since the second half of July.

Since then, and through yesterday, the 7DA has not only been decreasing on a weekly basis. It’s been decreasing faster and faster. Yesterday, the decline stood at 6.74 percent.

The hospitalization story has been somewhat different, and brighter, especially since early September. The 7DA for daily new hospital admissions for CCP Virus-related reasons bottomed out on June 25 at 1,824 and at that point, it was down on week by just under 5.20 percent.

By August 9, the situation had turned around completely – and then some. The 7DA had soared by 34 percent. Afterwards, however, came a consistent decline. By the 20^th, the weekly rate of increase in the 7DA had fallen to ten percent, and by September 1, the increases had stopped. The weekly 7DA registered its first weekly decline on September 6 (down two percent), and its first double-digit decrease on the 21^st (ten percent).

Since then through the 30^th, it’s fallen by ten percent or more twice, and the weekly decrease in the 7DA hasn’t dipped below seven percent.

Given the mushrooming of vaccine mandates and widespread claims – including by President Biden – that the nation is now facing a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” you’d think that the above improvements stemmed overwhelmingly from increased vaccination rates. But the data – in this case, from the OurWorldinData.org website, provide no support for this conclusion.

Specifically, on August 24, when the 7DA of daily covid-related deaths was skyrocketing at that awful 77.90 percent weekly rate, 51 percent of Americans were fully vaccinated against the CCP Virus, and 9.1 percent were partly vaccinated. By yesterday, these figures were only 55 percent and 8.8 percent, respectively.

On August 9, when the 7DA for covid-related hospitalizations was growing by 34 percent week-on-week, half of Americans were fully vaccinated and 8.5 percent were partly vaccinated. Through yesterday, those numbers hadn’t changed dramatically, either.

Could mask-wearing be responsible? Trouble is, I haven’t seen any figures on how this practice has changed in recent months. (If you have, let me know.) As far as I’m concerned, the real reasons for this good CCP Virus news have to do with rising levels of natural immunity (especially important given Delta’s virulence), the distinct possibility that the CCP Virus is one of those pathogens whose lethality wanes as it mutates (an important Delta consideration, too), and the nation’s better treatment record – due to a combination of more experienced doctors and new therapeutics.

In early 1815, then-General Andrew Jackson led American forces to a great victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans. But due to that era’s painfully slow communications, the triumph came about two weeks after the United States and Great Britain signed the treaty ending the War of 1812.  It makes me wonder how long the U.S. public and private sectors — which don’t have the communications excuse — will keep threatening the economy’s recovery with redoubled anti-virus measures just as the pandemic tide appears to be turning.