By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I had to focus on beating up on Zeints, Walensky, and Fauci, and so I got a late start. Here is a skeletal version. I will break my rule on UPDATEs, and add more material in an hour or so. –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
I’m having a good time with migratory birds because their songs are so various.
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#COVID19
I’ve started adding “NOT UPDATED” in front of the charts (mostly CDC) that were not updated by the time of this posting. —lambert
The South and the Northeast plunge. Could be reporting. (If by Bubba we mean The South, then Bubba had been doing pretty well on vax, despite all the sturm und drang in the press.
61.4% of the US is fully (doubly) vaccinated (CDC data, such as it is, as of December 19. The stately 0.1% rise per day returns. We have broken the important 61% psychological barrier! Mediocre by world standards, being just below Hungary, and just above Turkey in the Financial Times league tables as of this Monday).
Case count by United States regions:
The fiddling and diddling abruptly ends. Also, as happened in 2020, I would expect a second, higher peak, from Omicron if for no other reason.
At a minimum, the official narrative that “Covid is behind us,” or that the pandemic will be “over by January” (Gottlieb), or “I know some people seem to not want to give up on the wonderful pandemic, but you know what? It’s over” (Bill Maher) is clearly problematic. (This chart is a seven-day average, so changes in direction only show up when a train is really rolling.)
NOT UPDATED One of the sources of the idea that Covid is on the way out, I would speculate, is the CDC’s modeling hub (whose projections also seem to have been used to justify school re-opening). Here is the current version of the chart from the CDC modeling hub, which aggregates the results of eight models in four scenarios, with the last run (“Round 9”) having taken place on 2021-08-30, and plots current case data (black dotted line) against the aggregated model predictions (grey area), including the average of the aggregated model predictions (black line). I have helpfully highlighted the case data discussed above. Not updated:
Case data (black dotted line) has been within the tolerance of the models; it does not conform to the models’ average (black line), but it stays within aggregated predictions (the grey area).
I wrote: “It’s too early to say ‘Dammit, CDC, your models were broken’; but it’s not too soon to consider the possibility that they might be. The case data still looks like it’s trying to break out of the grey area. We shall see.” The case data has now broken out of the grey area (see at “Oopsie!”). Since the models are aggregated conventional wisdom, it’s not fair to call them propaganda, exactly. Nevertheless. conventional wisdom is looking a little shaky, and anybody who relied on them to predict that we would be “back to normal” by early next year should be taking another look at their assumptions. And this is — I assume — before Omicron!
MWRA (Boston-area) wastewater detection:
I wrote: “We’ll see if gets choppy again, or not.” This blip upward is the first sign of choppiness.
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) service area includes 43 municipalities in and around Boston, including not only multiple school systems but several large universities. Since Boston is so very education-heavy, then, I think it could be a good leading indicator for Covid spread in schools generally.
NOT UPDATED From CDC: “Community Profile Report” (PDF), “Rapid Riser” counties:
Maine improved. Upper Midwest improved. Acela corridor sketchy. More flecks of red, especially in Texas. Weird flare-ups, like flying coals in a forest fire. They land, catch, but — one hopes — sputter out. The fleck of red in the middle of New York near the Pennsylvania border is, I think, Ithaca (i.e., Cornell).
The previous release:
NOT UPDATED Hospitalization (CDC Community Profile):
I have helpfully highlighted the states where the “trend” arrow points up in yellow, and where it is vertical, in orange. (Note trend, whether up or down, is marked by the arrow, at top. Admissions are presented in the graph, at the bottom. So it’s possible to have an upward trend, but from a very low baseline.)
Death rate (Our World in Data):
Total: 827,323 824,520. At this rate, I don’t think we’ll hit the million mark by New Year’s. I have drawn an anti-triumphalist “Fauci Line” to demonstrate that the “new normal” for deaths is quite high, even before Omicron has hit.
NOT UPDATED. Excess deaths (total, not only from Covid).
Hard to believe we have no excess deaths now, but very fortunate if so. (CDC explains there are data lags).
Covid cases in historic variant sources, with additions from the Brain Trust:
South Africa is looking better (I highlighted them) but I think that’s a reporting artifact. Gauteng empties out in the holiday season, I am told; some go to the beach, others up-country. So it’s really too soon to declare victory. Look at the UK, too. This is a log scale. Sorry for the kerfuffle at the left. No matter how I tinker, it doesn’t go away.
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[To come.]
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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (AG):
AG writes: “Last Thursday night, we got our first freeze of the year here in the Sierra foothills of CA, 2700’ elevation. So, still in a daze before coffee kicked in, I went out to see what I could see, hoping for some frost patterns.
The native Black Oak leaves (and acorns) that had fallen looked very interesting, just as the sun peeped over the hill and lit them softly. Especially the ice crystals along the edges of each leaf. I had about five minutes before this very delicate frost melted entirely. As I’m sure any physicist will tell you, the edges or corners of any body will experience the greatest delta transfer of energy, so the crystals along the edges of these leaves will get colder (and most likely bigger, if sufficient water is available from the leaves and air—think dew point— to support their growth) and will also melt first when the sun arrives—relative to the crystals on the surface of the leaves.
The green shoots are the first shoots of the (unfortunately, non–native, meaning European annual, and most unwelcome invader) grasses stimulated by the first rains a couple of weeks ago, and already four inches or more long.”
Gorgeous!
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