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The Incredible Shrinking Virus

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Virginia confirmed COVID cases. (Shaded gray areas indicate illnesses may not have been reported yet.) Source: Virginia Department of Health

It’s amazing how quickly COVID-19 has faded from the headlines.

I guess good news is no news.

A recent Centers for Disease Control study estimates, based on antibody testing, that 43% of all Americans have been infected by the virus. Naturally acquired resistance plus the high percentage of the population that has been vaccinated (76% at least one dose, 64% fully vaccinated, 28% boosted nationally) creates a lot of protection. Combine that with warmer weather, and we can expect COVID to largely fade from the scene this spring. From a peak of more than 120,000 confirmed and probably cases in early January, there were about 13,000 total  cases reported in the week ending Feb. 17. That number was undoubtedly lower the past week.

On the other hand, 57% of the population has not yet been infected, and the efficacy of the vaccine does diminish over time, so COVID is not going away.

After peaking at 433 confirmed hospitalizations in the first week of January, Virginia hospitalizations has declined to 158 in the week ending Feb. 19.

Reported Virginia hospitalizations.

And deaths are heading in the right direction, although there is a lag time between confirmed cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, so the actual decline may not be a steep as it looks her — 82 confirmed and probable deaths in the week ending Feb. 19.

Virginia COVID deaths

— JAB

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27 responses to “The Incredible Shrinking Virus”

  1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Thanks for the update.

  2. kls Avatar
    kls

    And 94% vaccinated VT requires masks…..except at Cassell.

  3. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    JAB, The graphs for Deaths and Hospitalizations are identical… that seems unlikely… maybe a mix up?

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      It’s only in the hospitals now.

    2. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      You are absolutely correct. Thanks for pointing that out. I have substituted the correct graph.

      1. VaNavVet Avatar
        VaNavVet

        Must just have faded from the alternate stream media (ASM) as there is still a lot of coverage in the national news. For example, Florida had almost 1300 deaths in the most recent reporting week.

    3. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      fake news?

      1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
        Eric the half a troll

        Still hasn’t been changed. Clearly JAB is having technical difficulties…

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          yep, noticed.

  4. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    COV-SARS-1? Pretty much did the same, but took 3(4) years.

  5. CJBova Avatar
    CJBova

    Still looking for reports of deaths from COVID vs deaths with COVID.

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Godot comes to tea before you see that!

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Is there a standard approach to this? IOW, suppose someone got influenza or the flu that had cancer and they died? Or is this a more generalized conundrum ?

      Should we have a ” they would have died anyway” category?

  6. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
    energyNOW_Fan

    Out of the frying pan and into the fire re: COVID to Russia. If it’s not one thing, its the other.

    All 3 of my grandchildren got COVID lately, but almost zero symptoms. It was just positive on the tests. One was out of school almost 2 weeks waiting for the test to go negative. Faintest pink line they ever saw (on the test).

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      was curious… why did they get tests if they had almost zero symptoms?

      1. Kathleen Smith Avatar
        Kathleen Smith

        And, could it have been the vaccination that may have caused the slightly positive read?

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          giving blood… they tested for COVID, actually antibodies, which confirmed that I had been vaccinated. Only did it once.

        2. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
          energyNOW_Fan

          Probably not…that student is 12 so he got VAX a while ago, and had had plenty of neg tests before. He probably got it from his sister. No complaints about the home tests here: they seem to work, and when we got PCRs to verify it agreed.

      2. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        Jeez, Larry, we’ve been testing the asymptomatic since early 2020. If you are in a school with somebody who pops a test, you must “prove the negative” with your own or wait the full quarantine.

      3. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
        energyNOW_Fan

        The first positive came in Florida to go on a Disney cruise. The one child who was fine, but not tested before hand, tested positive by Disney. They were rejected from the cruise. After that tests were needed to follow the school rules if you were exposed to someone at school or home.

        PS- Hi Larry thanks for asking

      4. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        Jeez, Larry, we’ve been testing the asymptomatic since early 2020. If you are in a school with somebody who pops a test, you must “prove the negative” with your own or wait the full quarantine. To get on a plane to or from Europe, you take a test. For Lufthansa, even the boosted and those with proof of prior infection take a test. $500 per couple to get the result in time to board.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Well, I’ve never been required to be tested to this point. So is it also a violation of your “rights” to be required to be tested to assure you won’t infect others?

          Is that a public health thing?

      5. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
        energyNOW_Fan

        The first positive came in Florida to go on a Disney cruise. The one child who was fine, but not tested before hand, tested positive by Disney. They were rejected from the cruise. After that tests were needed to follow the school rules if you were exposed to someone at school or home. Nobody in the fam got from the first child. Just the Omicron was being spread at school apparently.

        PS- Hi Larry thanks for asking

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Ah. Thanks!

  7. Kathleen Smith Avatar
    Kathleen Smith

    Does the 57% not infected include any fully vaccinated?

  8. CJBova Avatar
    CJBova

    I tried to look at the CDC excess deaths reports for 2015-2021, but unlike other states with multiple causes of death beyond respiratory, for Virginia, they only list Respiratory Diseases and Other diseases of the respiratory system. Clear as mud.

  9. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    The peaks for cases and deaths were just about exactly the same weeks of January in 2021 and 2022. But it’s not seasonal, of course. Trump said it would be (repeating Fauci) so it can’t be seasonal. 🙂 Massively more cases in Winter 2022, but as you can see the huge spike in case numbers produced fewer hospitalizations and about the same number of deaths.

    Those going into hospital and dying in 2022, of course, were mainly unvaccinated. The innumerate will rage, but the data are clear. They’ll be dying again next January.

    https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus/see-the-numbers/covid-19-in-virginia/covid-19-cases-by-vaccination-status/

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