Saturday, August 7, 2021

Coronavirus virulence since the India variant became dominant in the US is actually running below the first year average

News reports in early July declared the India variant to be dominant in the United States.

From July 6-August 6 total announced cases per the New York Times data have grown by 1.97 million.

But during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, dated roughly from March 7, 2020 to March 7, 2021 (when The Covid Tracking Project at The Atlantic stopped collecting data), total announced cases averaged 2.42 million per month over the entire twelve month period.

What is more, since March 7, 2021 total announced cases are averaging an even lower 1.34 million per month to August 6 (five months), which includes the new period of the India variant.
 
So the India variant is really going to have to outperform from here on out to prove the claim by the authorities that the India variant is much more virulent, much more transmissible, et cetera. It is going to have to produce many more millions of cases per month than it is doing in order to do it. They have 7 more months, because that's how these things must be measured to be meaningful (disease morbidity is measured in cases per 100,000 per year). 

But this far at least, the India variant isn't living up to the hype, from either side, which includes the Buck Sextons and Alex Berensons of the world who keep insisting on the basis of specious antibody testing that far more people have been exposed than the case counts show and that natural immunity is widespread.