A day of pleasures – Mask mandates in schools – Slight increase in influenza cases – Evening statistics, with a caveat
Today was a good day, at any rate on a personal level. I met with RK, whom I have not seen for months. Our friendship has endured for decades, but she has had some health issues and as a result has been much more cautious than I have about during the past year about meeting with people indoors. But the decrease in COVID infections has given her more confidence, so today we lunched together in Shirlington at a Thai restaurant of which we are both very fond and which has miraculously weathered the pandemic without any loss of quality or of reasonableness in price. Afterwards we went to Mount Vernon, which I have not visited for years. We lingered at the museum there, which is relatively new and which delves extensively into George Washington’s life and achievements. The day was sufficiently warm to allow us to wander down to the old and new tombs and the wharf, as well as to the prominence behind the mansion to view the Potomac from above. It was good to reconnect with her; in Samuel Johnson’s words, “Friendships must be kept in constant repair.”
RK, as I have mentioned, is a teacher in a private school. We discussed how the removal of mask mandates has affected her work. For a time in the early stages of the pandemic she taught via webcamming, but she has been back to classes in person for well over a year by now. Until recently both teachers and students were required to wear masks; now, of course, mask mandates have been removed. Some still wear masks but many do not. She continually wears masks herself while teaching, as indeed I would do in her place. The risks of contracting COVID are lower than before, but why take unnecessary chances when being in close proximity with several dozen people five days per week and seven consecutive hours per day? Free testing is available to staff and pupils alike on a weekly basis, but it is not mandatory; RK has friends in other private schools, in which weekly testing is supplied by the school and which all of its teachers and students are required to undergo.
Incidentally, the rate of influenza has gone up as the mask mandates have been removed. Overall this season, an estimated 3.1 million flu cases have been reported. There have been an estimated 1,800 flu-related deaths, including those of 13 children. This result is still significantly lower than would be the case for a typical flu season, which can cause tens of millions of illnesses and tens of thousands of deaths. But during the flu season of the previous year, when mask mandates and social distancing directives were firmly in place, there was virtually no flu activity in the U.S.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 479,306,156; # of deaths worldwide: 6,137,741; # of cases U.S.: 81,590,763; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,002,919.
But these figures need to be treated with caution. The number of excess deaths (i.e., the number of deaths in excess of the usual annual death rate) in countries across the globe suggests that the death toll from COVID is in reality much higher. More than 100 countries do not collect reliable statistics on expected or actual deaths at all, or do not release them in a timely manner. Even in countries that are fairly meticulously in tabulating death statistics, some of them, such as the Netherlands, counted only those individuals who died in hospital after testing positive for COVID. In countries where reliable statistics are somewhat more difficult to obtain, such as Mexico and Russia, the number of excess deaths is greater than the number of deaths officially ascribed to COVID by a factor of 2 or 3. India has reported 500,000 COVID-related deaths, but its count of excess deaths may be as much as ten times that amount. In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, even statistics on excess deaths can be difficult to obtain. All in all, according to demographers, the probabilities are that the amount of deaths from COVID is probably between 12 and 22 million worldwide, or between 0.15% and 0.3% of the global population.