The case for optimism on Covid-19, in two cards

America’s Covid-19 epidemic is still a disaster. The country has an average of more than 130,000 new cases a day, and deaths are still higher than 3,000 daily. Vaccination is not going as smoothly as anyone would like, and most people do not yet know when they will be able to ‘ to get a vaccine.

But for the first time as I deal with the pandemic, I’m just feeling a little more optimistic this week – for two big reasons.

First, the number of daily new Covid-19 cases in the U.S. has dropped dramatically over the past month by a staggering 45 percent since early January.

Second, the rate of vaccinations has continued to rise over the past few weeks, quadrupling the number of shots per day within a month. The current pace is still not good or even good, but it’s a big step in the right direction.

There are reservations everywhere. The number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the US is still far too high; if the population is controlled, the rates of both are still higher than in most developed countries. The vaccine explosion is still going too slow for the pandemic to end in the summer, as many of us would like; the current pace puts us on the right track to achieve adequate population protection as early as 2022. New virus variants from the UK, South Africa and Brazil could lead to an increase in infections in the US and provide a warning for possible future mutations .

“The decline after the holidays is good and so is the rising vaccination rate,” Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist at Infectious Diseases at George Mason University, told me. “The pleasant piece, however, is that we are still seeing a clear transfer from the community and a little in the dark about how the new variants really appear.”

So it’s not going well, but it’s getting better. In times filled with so much despair, it is worth highlighting some of this progress.

1) Daily new Covid-19 cases dropped in US

Here’s the first good news: the rise of Covid-19 cases from the holiday season seems to be finally here. According to Our World in Data, the US reached a peak of nearly 250,000 cases per day on January 8, based on a weekly moving average. Less than a month later, the daily new cases are less than 140,000 a day.

That equates to a drop of about 45 percent in a few weeks.

Our world in data

This is probably due to the fact that the country is reacting collectively to the holiday period, whether it is new restrictions imposed by state and local governments in recent months, or the general public adhering to precautions such as masking and social distance increases (especially now that Thanksgiving Christmas and New Year’s Eve are over). The growth of immunity to the virus, whether by becoming ill or vaccinated, may also play a role.

The lapse of affairs should mean without any imagination that the boom is completely over and that the US can now relax. America’s reported caseload is still higher than it was at any point in the pre-fall pandemic. The death toll has not decreased much yet, probably because there is a delay period between infection, serious illness and death.

Any relaxation now, whether in government restrictions or public compliance, is likely to lead to a new boom. There are still many viruses out there, ready to jump from person to person if given the opportunity. This is especially true now where new, more contagious coronavirus variants await, putting us at risk of an even greater surge than those we saw during the holiday season.

So don’t host that big Super Bowl party this year.

2) The vaccine campaign improves

The other good news is that the US vaccine campaign has taken the plunge and is likely to continue in the next few weeks and months.

At the beginning of January, the US delivered about 300,000 shots a day. The country has more than quadrupled since then – with the US now more than 1.3 million shots a day.

Our world in data

There is good reason to think that this will accelerate in the coming weeks. President Joe Biden’s administration, state and local governments, and various parts of the medical system are increasing the production and distribution of vaccines. Upcoming vaccine candidates can also make the delivery and administration of vaccines easier and faster; For example, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which is effective according to the data, requires only one shot to administer, while the currently approved Moderna and Pfizer vaccines each require two shots given weeks apart.

Yet there are some reasons to temper the optimism.

Most importantly, the current rate of vaccination means that the country will not achieve adequate population protection or herd immunity – estimated at 70 to 80 percent – until autumn, winter or even 2022. And even that depends on the fact that ‘ a vaccine approved for children, which is not yet certain. If vaccinations do not add up to 2 million or 3 million shots a day, the US will not get the summer end to Covid-19 which many public officials have promised.

There is also the question of whether vaccines stop the transmission. At present, evidence shows that vaccines prevent serious diseases and deaths, but whether this means the spread of the coronavirus is unknown. This does not mean the vaccines do not protection against transmission, it means that it is unclear whether they do it or not. This can determine how well the vaccines work to protect the wider community, in addition to the person receiving the vaccine.

And we do not yet know how long the protection of the vaccines will last. It can be months, years or permanent. The situation is complicated by the emergence of variants, which may eventually develop to overcome a vaccine (although this is not true for the current variants). Depending on the answer, the US may require regular vaccinations against the coronavirus in the future, similar to the flu.

That is, there is still a lot of work to be done, as well as to learn how effective the vaccines are, before the country can return to normal.

To put it another way: the fact that we can now see a sort of finish line, between the decline in cases and vaccinations, makes it all the more important that the country stick to masking, social distance and all the other recommended precautions against Covid. -19 – to ensure that more people can cross the finish line alive and well.

But if nothing else, the finish line now looks a little closer.

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