Cold Covid - part the twenty second

In the event you haven't visited the NYT Covid data page in a while, now might be a good time to do so. Yes, the early Covid-ο states have topped the hill and, mostly, coming back down just as rapidly as they went up. Another data point that argues for, at least, local herd immunity to a variant. So far, I haven't heard Fauci, et al, admit that.

But the point of this missive is to look at the deaths per capita country map. Boy howdy!! Them thar Red States do like to kill off their kin!! The step graph of deaths per vaccinated/unvaccinated (scroll down a bit) is truly out of hand, although the 20x figure for the unvaccinated is as-of 4 December, before Covid-ο took hold. We do know from the daily-ish data graph that overall deaths are rising at a good clip.

My home state of MA is somewhat unexpected. The western county, Hampden, which borders CT and has it's main city Springfield, and Bristol county in the east and bordering RI (New Bedford is the main city) show as the highest deaths per capita, not Boston or Worcester.

Checking wiki census/income data, we find Hampden is largely poor, Bristol is quite the same. Access to healthcare matters.

But, north of the Mason-Dixon Line, the Dark Counties are generally small population rural, aka Red, counties. An exception, of course, is New England + New York, where the death rates are nearly all at or near the bottom of the scale, even in rural areas. While in the true Red states, Dark Counties are everywhere.

Cold Covid - part the twentieth, version 3

Well, we get a testable prediction from the CDC

An ensemble forecast from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Wednesday predicts that over 62,000 more people could die from Covid-19 over the next four weeks.

Let's keep track from week to week. Here's the count as of 12 January

842,754

Here's the count as of today, 19 January

857,672

Here's the count as of today, 26 January

874,002

So, an increase of 31,248 deaths since 12 January. And, so two weeks of the four yields a speculation of a smidge more than 62,000. Deaths per week are ramping. We'll see if that continues. I'll bet a gonad, given that most of the Red States are still in infection climb. Infection climb precedes hospitalization climb, and that precedes death climb.

The Tyranny of Average Cost - part the eighteenth

Yet another chapter in the saga of the tyranny of average cost. Rooftop solar has been in the news a bit, but this report brings home the problem in stark terms. Tellingly, the energy utilities never admit what's really going on: they've got millions, or even billions, in capital to depreciate and the only way to do that profitably is to soak as many energy consumers as exist.

The California Public Utilities Commission plans to vote in the next few weeks to reduce the growth of solar energy in the state, which has added more of it than any other. The commission has proposed slashing the incentives homeowners receive to install rooftop solar systems. Officials argue that the changes would help reduce utility bills for lower-income residents about $10 a month by forcing rooftop solar users to pay higher fees to support the electric grid.
[my emphasis]

Which just another way of saying: 'we poor power plant operators can't make lots o moolah if we don't pump out electrons 24/7/365'. All of those infrastructure (aka, capital) costs have to be paid if we hope to make a profit.

"You can understand why utilities don't like distributive resources," said David Feldman, a senior energy analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, using an industry term for small energy systems. "The more electricity they sell, the more money they make."

Got to cover those average costs, and the more electrons you shift, the lower the average cost of each electron. Simple arithmetic.

Mr. Feldman of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a division of the U.S. Energy Department, said the campaign to limit rooftop solar often ignores its benefits. Rooftop panels reduce the amount of power the grid needs to deliver, making the system more efficient.
[my emphasis]

Just precisely what a monopolist doesn't want to see. Their P&L is based on soaking everybody to the maximum extent.

What's somewhat odd, is that in Bermuda every building must have a water collecting roof and cistern underneath. Bermudians accept that their rooftops are vital to their survival. Red blooded MAGA Americans aren't so enlightened.

Fortunately, Bermuda's climate favors rainwater harvesting. The islands receive an annual average of 55 inches of rainfall that is spread evenly throughout the year. This allows underground cisterns that each house is equipped with—by law—to be topped up regularly. The law requires that every house must collect 80 percent of the water that falls on its roof. To achieve this, each square foot of roof space must be matched with eight gallons or thirty liters of tank space. Thanks to these building regulations, every home is self sufficient.

On the way to and from the Island on that cruise many years ago, the boat runs past an abandoned (at least, then) resort that's on a small rise from the bay. From water's edge to the main building, a matter of dozens of yards, is just such a 'rooftop' water collection. It's not just for homes.

Cold Covid - part the twentieth, version 2

Well, we get a testable prediction from the CDC

An ensemble forecast from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Wednesday predicts that over 62,000 more people could die from Covid-19 over the next four weeks.

Let's keep track from week to week. Here's the count as of 12 January

842,754

Here's the count as of today, 19 January

857,672

So, an increase in 14,918 deaths since 12 January. At this pace, 62,000 is within reach, given that we're just starting to see the ramp up in deaths from initial Covid-ο infection.

Cold Covid - part the twenty first

Well, Dr. Fauci has added some more confirmation that Constant Power^© makes sense.

It is an open question as to whether or not Omicron is going to be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for because you have such a great deal of variability with new variants emerging.

Because, naturally

But that would only be the case if we don't get another variant that eludes the immune response to the prior variant.
...
But the sheer volume of people who are getting infected overrides that rather less level of pathogenicity.

As considered in a previous missive, 2% of 400 is less than 1% of 100, and so Covid-ο is showing. Whether we see, net, more deaths per unit time is too early to tell.

But, should Constant Power^© continue to be supported by the data, we should expect that more virulent forms (aka, Covid-β or Covid-γ) would be limited in time and space, just as SARS and MERS and Covid-γ and Covid-β. One can hope.

P.1 [Covid-γ] infected people have a greater chance of transmissibility and death than B.1.1.28 infected ones.
-- the wiki

And Covid-β

People infected with Beta were 25% more likely than those infected with Alpha to develop severe disease, and around 50% more likely to require critical care, as well as 57% more likely to die.
...
As the more-transmissible Delta variant spreads, Beta is now fading in many places where it was once dominant, including South Africa and Qatar. But Abu-Raddad notes that Beta seems to be more resistant to immunity generated by vaccines and previous infections than are other variants, including Delta, and it could begin wreaking havoc again. "We should never underestimate this pathogen."

So, the evidence so far is that more virulent Covid-19 variants act closer to SARS/MERS than Covid-ο. That is a good thing, as Fauci observed.

Cold Covid - part the twentieth, version 1

Well, we get a testable prediction from the CDC

An ensemble forecast from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Wednesday predicts that over 62,000 more people could die from Covid-19 over the next four weeks.

Let's keep track from week to week. Here's the count as of today

842,754

Cold Covid - part the nineteenth

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
-- Aldous Huxley

The same view, it turns out, is true of Covid-ο. It's tedious, but spend some time with the graphs the NYT provides us. They're a mother lode of insight. Today's conundrum: Minnesota. Across the USofA, Covid-ο has meant a vertical increase in Covid-19, and Minnesota is a bit different. There are piquant differences with many other states.

- case count hasn't been a rocket launch, combining Covid-δ and Covid-ο starting in mid-December as in many/most of the other (even initial Cold Covid ones) states, but rather a 45-ish degree trudge since the minimum in late July, with a marked retracement at the end of December; that could well be non-reporting.

- a very odd hospitalization by age cohort graph. the other states have displayed a wide gap between the Geezer cohort and the rest. not Minnesota, where the cohorts are, by eye at least, equally separated. compare with New York.

- unlike many other states where deaths have budged only a tad, here they are tracking upwards with cases in nearly lockstep. compare with New York, for instance; completely different universe.

I, for one, wonder what Olsterholm has to say by way of explanation. He's in Minnesota, after all.

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.