Showing posts with label Thomas von Kempen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas von Kempen. Show all posts

Sunday, April 25, 2021

The longer the pandemic continues, the more it looks to be a seasonal, 2-hump phenomenon

 


The Africa graph is the most compelling, since it represents the "control continent" where there has been the least human intervention to shape the progress of the disease in comparison with developed world places like Europe and North America.

But even Israel shows the phenomenon, as do California, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Early attempts to keep the virus at bay reduced the size of hump one, here more, here less, depending on the varying local containment efforts and the varying degree to which people complied with them.

Homo proponit, sed coronavirus disponit.




Sunday, April 18, 2021

US COVID-19 update Mar 20 - Apr 17, 2021

Hospitalized Mar 20: 33164
                     Apr 17: 39090
                     +18%

Case positivity rate Mar 20: 4.5%
                                Apr 13: 7.6%
                                +69%

Daily new deaths per million Mar 20: 3.13
                                               Apr 17:  2.17
                                               -31%

Daily new deaths Mar 20: 1038
                             Apr 17:   719
                             -31%

But . . .

The bi-weekly change in confirmed deaths was dropping much faster on Mar 23, 37.15%, than it is on Apr 17, 7.4%. Indeed, the Mar 23 low was a retest of the 2020 low from last June 2 at 33.6%, after the initial outbreak of the pandemic subsided. It is itself the new low in the series.

There's been a dramatic slow down in the drop of bi-weekly change. The measure has itself been consistently rising since the advent of spring.


 























That doesn't make any sense in an environment in which increased vaccination, which is supposed to reduce severity of illness and therefore hospitalization and death, is occurring.

Share fully vaccinated Mar 20: 12.9%
                                     Apr 17: 24.7%
                                     +91%

Hospitalizations are clearly up, and deaths are falling but at a much slower rate than they were falling when there was much less vaccination, and colder weather, in the country.

Warmer weather is supposed to mean improving conditions. People get outside and get fresh air and Vitamin D, reducing spread of the infection. That's the theory anyway.

But the data say otherwise.

Daily new confirmed cases per million hit an interim low of 162.17 on Mar 14, and retested that on Mar 23 at 162.12. As of Apr 16 the figure is 211.77, up 31%. Those levels are nothing to write home about. ~100 per million, as in September 2020, would be.

This virus has a mind of its own. 

Homo proponit, sed SARS-CoV-2 disponit.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Origin of the Adage "The President Proposes, but Congress Disposes"

The origin of the adage "The president proposes but the Congress disposes" appears to be a variation on Thomas von Kempen's Imitation of Christ, Book I, ch. 19, circa 1418:

Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit.

"Man proposes, but God disposes."