22 February 2021

Parallax View - part the forty sixth

Another week's up, so here are today's numbers:
  >= 1,000 -   575 
100 to 999 - 1,583
(New) grand total of counties reads at 3,116. While I've not gotten into an argument with the Topo folks over this re-definition of 'affected' counties, it certainly looks like a move to bolster wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's perpetual lying.

The only news of note is that David Kesslar, on MSNBC, noted that one possible explanation for the cliff dive in infections is that vaccinations of the 75+ cohort has an unexpectedly large impact on transmission. I am not sure I buy that explanation, since, by now, all those travelers/revelers from Turkey Day to New Year's Day would be separated from the congregant settings. As improbable as it seems to me, Herd Mentality, especially in the Red State Axis is a possible explanation for the dive. That axis has shown the greatest shift from red to blue.

In all, I remain suspicious. Here is a report (second sourced, on 6 February)
The number of coronavirus tests administered daily in the United States has been trending downward for more than two weeks. And though experts say the trend is too fresh to set off major alarm bells, the decline raises the possibility that testing has reached a ceiling at a time when scientists say the nation should be conducting millions more tests per day to help stop the spread of the virus.
It is also true, from the NYT Covid page, that hospitalizations have fallen nearly as fast. It is a puzzlement.

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