Is COVID endemic yet? – The turpitude of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow – Evening statistics
Another fairly uneventful interval since the latest entry, Friday being taken up primarily with lawn work, which was greatly needed after spending a week away from home; whlle yesterday evening I was at a party among friends with whom I had traveled to Idaho this past summer, it being our custom to hold “post mortem” celebrations to commemorate the adventures we have enjoyed together. Indoor gatherings of this nature are undertaken much more lightly than they were as little as six months ago. In fact, one topic of conversation that arose was: are we now at the endemic stage in all but name?
There are certainly indications that this may be so. Masks are worn much less frequently than before, very sporadically within public indoor gatherings, such as stores and restaurants and hotels, and outdoors not at all. People are less hesitant to use public transit, as I found during my return from the airport a few days ago, and airplane flights are booked to full capacity. Infection rates are (temporarily?) on the rise for both DC and New York, but the number of people who are seriously affected remains relatively low. Several states are already treating the disease as endemic, i.e., something to be lived with but not to the extent of disrupting daily habits. On February 18th California became the first state to unveil a response plan that treats the virus as a manageable risk. The plan is called SMARTER (shots, masks, awareness, readiness, testing, education, and Rx treatments). In Utah Governor Spencer Cox laid out a state response that shifted to a plan called “Steady State” by March 31st. Missouri’s Governor Mike Parson announced the state will be shifting to an endemic phase April 1st. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order to lift the state’s COVID-19 public health emergency and a statewide mask mandate in schools and daycares, which went into effect on March 7th. In Arizona Governor Doug Ducey announced the state has terminated its COVID-19 emergency declaration as of March 30th.
We have made improvements in our vaccination status. The recent surges in late 2021 and early 2022 have shaken the anti-vaxxers to some extent. At this point 82% of the population over 5 years of age have received at least one dose and nearly 70% are fully vaccinated. More than three-quarters of those 18 years and older are fully vaccinated and nearly 49% have received a booster. More than 95% of all U.S. counties are rated by the CDC as low risk for incurring death as a result of the virus. Even the much-publicized resurgence of COVID cases among prominent Washington politicians (68 by now among the Gridiron dinner attendees alone) has not, at this point, resulted in any deaths or any hospitalizations. Does this mean that we can declare victory now?
Alas, not yet. The mortality rate for COVID is certainly much lower than before. Still, we lost more than 1,000 people over the past Friday and Saturday, which is not negligible. The mortality rate for influenza in the 2018/2019 season was 34,157 for a twelve-month period; if the mortality rate for COVID remains constant at this point, the total for a twelve-month period starting from today will be nearly 6 times that amount. Several experts have said that if we manage to reduce the average daily death rate to about 100, we will be doing pretty well (even though this figure seemed high during the early phases of the pandemic). New variants will continue to emerge, and it is unknown whether they will be relatively mild, as omicron has been. It took the 1918 flu pandemic three years to settle into a more regular pattern. During that period, the U.S. had a significant wave in 1920 that killed more people in some cities than the previous waves had. Finally, the severity of the disease has little to do with whether it is categorized as a pandemic or endemic. It is primarily based on the disease’s rate of spread. And we are still undergoing large unexpected outbreaks in various locations, such as the current one in central New York.
“What we have with COVID-19 is not predictable,” said Cynthia Leifer, an immunologist from Cornell. “I think everyone can agree that over the past two years, the one thing we can agree on is this is not predictable. Until we get to a stage where we know from year to year approximately who’s going to get sick, what type of people are going to get sick, and what the variants might be from year to year, if we don’t have that, we haven’t reached endemic.”
In other news, Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, has apparently decided to celebrate Palm Sunday by re-enacting the role of Caiaphas, the high priest who betrayed the innocent in his efforts to knuckle under to the secular authorities and thus ensure his retention of high office. The enterprising prelate called on Russians today to rally around the authorities as Moscow pursues its military intervention in Ukraine. He has repeatedly expressed approval of the invasion (he is careful not to use the term “invasion,” thereby complying with Putin’s censorship law) and has blessed the Russian soldiers fighting and plundering and butchering there. After the Bucha massacre on April 3rd he praised them for their “feats of service” during a ceremony in the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces. In other projects he has urged Latvia to make Russian its official language and Bulgaria to express groveling submission to Russia on account of the latter nation’s role in obtaining Bulgarian independence from the Ottoman Empire; even though the Bulgarians, understandably enough, consider that they themselves played a significant role in their liberation that Kirill appears to have overlooked. Both of the Russian Orthodox churches in the Netherlands and in Lithuania have decided that they have had enough of this man full of years and wickedness, and are currently making strenuous efforts to disassociate themselves from Moscow entirely.
Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 498,570,009; # of deaths worldwide: 6,201,796; # of cases U.S.: 82,053,242; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,131.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 498,964,614; # of deaths worldwide: 6,202,915; # of cases U.S.: 82,062,159; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,012,147.