Parallax View - part the forty seventh

Another week's up, so here are today's numbers:

  >= 1,000 -   484
100 to 999 - 1,501

(New) grand total of counties reads at 3,113. 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.

[24 Feb] One explanation, hinted at here a few times, for the cliff dive of infections beginning the first week of January is that wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's Herd Mentality has, in fact, occurred. Here's a news bit from last June:

Number Of Americans Infected With Virus Could Be 10 Times Higher Than Official Count, CDC Chief Warns

By CDC Director Robert Redfield's estimate, that means that up to 24 million Americans may have been infected by the virus. "Our best estimate right now is for every case reported there were actually 10 other infections," Redfield said.

Since today's total, from the NYT Covid page is 28.3 million (aka, 88.6% if you times 10 and divide by 330 million Americans), that's darn tootin Herd Mentality.

Of course, the Right Wingnuts have a logic problem, in that they've spent the last year claiming the reported number of infections is inflated by the Fake News Media and the Deep State, so if they now turn around and say that the real number is 283 million infections and we're out of the woods and can go back to Normalcy, huh? A rock and a hard place that even the shitkickers in the empty counties can't help but notice.

A growing number of conservatives (especially fringe sites like Alex Jones' Infowars) are embracing a conspiracy that government-approved death tolls are inflated for various political reasons—and some reports suggest President Trump will soon endorse the murky theory as well.

[26 Feb.] Yet another conundrum: the pundits are reporting that the reason for the cliff dive in infections since the first week in January is due to vaccination in nursing homes and the like. Okay? Here's the conundrum: the spike in infections that started after Labor Day (yes, that is when we started to climb the top hill of the Cyclone) is clearly seen in the NYT graph, with the ultimate spike coming after Turkey Day. As you can see, there were, if the numbers are accurate, dips after Turkey Day and Christmas. Now we have the cliff dive following New Years.

So, the question, do these numbers jibe with nursing homes? It seems to me no. Going back to at least, March it was clear that nursing homes were a problem, and steps started to be implemented to keep outsiders from bringing in Covid.

In all, then, two situations must be true for the nursing home & vaccination hypothesis as explanation for the cliff dive to itself be true:
1 - it was nursing home residents that drove the rocket ride from Labor Day
2 - the efforts to isolate nursing homes from outside Covid were a dismal failure (this report indicates not quite dismal, but not markedly greater than general community)

While one might see how 2 could be true, 1 being true stretches credulity. Reviewing the reporting following Labor Day, there is no extra weight put to nursing homes as the site of increase, rather the ususal Covidiot suspects: parties and such among the young at heart. This report supports such:

By November 6, 2020, approximately 569,000 - 616,000 COVID-19 cases and 91,500 deaths were reported among LTCF residents and staff members in the United States, accounting for 6% of total state COVID-19 cases...

IOW, long term care wasn't the site of the rocket ride. How, then, could it be the site of the cliff dive?

Now we have the scientists that be warning that the cliff dive is heading back up (see today's NYT Covid graph). And Newsom and Cuomo being flagellated, more or less over 'restrictions'. They both should retaliate with the truth: case counts go up when the populations refuse to do what they're told, just like 2 year olds.

It is still a puzzlement. But I am still not convinced that nursing home vaccinations could drive down an infection situation not made in nursing homes in the first place. The usual suspect is data fiddling in the Red states. We gotta prove wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's Nero fiddling was the correct response!!