COVID update
By 
A lot has happened in the last week, both in the USA and internationally.
The biggest news here is that the CDC is no longer recommending indoor mask usage for people living in 70 percent of the country. Surprisingly, to me anyway, this recommendation applies to people in these areas whether or not they’re vaccinated. (I was struck yesterday that mask usage in the main Boulder Whole Foods was about 10% at best, just a couple of days after the county’s mask mandate for public indoor spaces had been dropped).
Data on the Pfizer vaccine for 5 to 11 year olds show that it’s effective in lowering the already extremely low rates of hospitalization in this cohort, but apparently has little effectiveness in regard to preventing infection per se.
A huge number of schools across the nation, at both the primary/secondary and higher ed levels, have dropped or are dropping mask requirements.
Here are some comparative data that I thought were interesting, in re the Omicron wave.
Note that the UK population is almost exactly .2 of the USA’s population, so you can make a per capita adjustment to these numbers by multiplying the UK numbers by five.
Peak of the Omicron wave in the UK, seven-day rolling average of cases:
1/5: 214.5K
Peak of the Omicron wave in the USA, seven day-rolling average of cases:
1/13: 821K
Peak deaths from Omicron wave in the UK, seven-day rolling average:
1/22: 286
Peak deaths from Omicron wave in the USA, seven-day rolling average:
1/29: 2700
Current seven-day rolling average of cases in the UK:
30K
Current seven-day rolling average of cases in the USA:
58K
Current seven-day rolling average of daily deaths in the UK:
60
Current seven-day rolling average of daily daily deaths in the USA:
1,563
Current daily COVID deaths in the UK as a percentage of peak daily COVID deaths last winter:
4.7%
Current daily COVID deaths in the USA as a percentage of peak daily COVID deaths last winter:
43.9%
Interestingly, to the extent that testing reflects cases, the UK is currently experiencing nearly three times as many cases per capita as the USA, yet mortality totals are five times lower (all numbers per capita). Note that Omicron hit the UK about a week before it got to America, but even so the relative failure of the USA to mitigate the damage from the latest wave is striking.