Tag: pandemic

Mortality with Meep: Excess Mortality in California, Texas, and Florida by Race/Ethnicity

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-excess-mortality-8e2

Excerpt:

For Hispanics, it’s two thirds, with most of it coming from California (23%), then Texas (21%), then Florida (10%). New York City accounts for 9%, and then the rest of New York state for 3%.

UPDATE: Checking out the Hispanic population by state, these percentages are a little in line with national distribution — California (26% of U.S. Hispanic population), Texas (19%), Florida (9%), New York (including NYC — 6%). The most disproportionate effect comes from New York City.

Graph:

Author: Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 31 January 2021

Publication Site: STUMP

Mortality with Meep: Excess Mortality in New York and New York City

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-with-meep-excess-mortality

Excerpt:

For the data I have as of 27 January 2021, NYC mortality provides 9% of excess mortality for non-Hispanic Black people in the entire U.S. [8,638 excess deaths for Black people in NYC out of total 99,514 excess deaths for Black people in the entire country].

We get the same statistics for Hispanics in NYC: 97,725 excess deaths for the whole country, and 8,608 in NYC alone.

So excess deaths for these two groups have about 9% each coming just from NYC alone.

Graphic:

Author: Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 30 January 2021

Publication Site: STUMP

COVID-19: Newly Revealed Virus Map Shows Worst Hotspots In Nation

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/northsalem/news/covid-19-newly-revealed-virus-map-shows-worst-hotspots-in-nation/802383/

Excerpt:

Three states have emerged as national hotspots for the spread of the COVID-19 virus, according to new data.

When new COVID-19 incident rates per 100,000 people were compared nationally, Arizona, South Carolina, and California were revealed to be the states with the highest risk for the transmission of COVID-19.

Graphic:

COVID-19 new case rate per 100,000 people as of Jan. 24, 2021

Author: Kristin Palpini

Publication Date: 30 January 2021

Publication Site: North Salem Daily Voice

The Hard Lessons of Modeling the Coronavirus Pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hard-lessons-of-modeling-the-coronavirus-pandemic-20210128/?mc_cid=e9f8b32129&mc_eid=983bcf5922

Excerpt:

For a few months last year, Nigel Goldenfeld and Sergei Maslov, a pair of physicists at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, were unlikely celebrities in their state’s COVID-19 pandemic response — that is, until everything went wrong.

….

Following the model’s guidance, the University of Illinois formulated a plan. It would test all its students for the coronavirus twice a week, require the use of masks, and implement other logistical considerations and controls, including an effective contact-tracing system and an exposure-notification phone app. The math suggested that this combination of policies would be sufficient to allow in-person instruction to resume without touching off exponential spread of the virus.

But on September 3, just one week into its fall semester, the university faced a bleak reality. Nearly 800 of its students had tested positive for the coronavirus — more than the model had projected by Thanksgiving. Administrators had to issue an immediate campus-wide suspension of nonessential activities.

Author: Jordana Cepelewicz

Publication Date: 28 January 2021

Publication Site: Quanta Magazine

COVID-19: Cuomo Blames ‘Incompetent Federal Government’ After AG Report On Nursing Home Deaths

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/northsalem/politics/covid-19-cuomo-blames-incompetent-federal-government-after-ag-report-on-nursing-home-deaths/802403/

Excerpt:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is taking some heat after attempting to shift the blame on the state’s COVID-19 nursing home deaths by placing the culpability on the “incompetent federal government” after Attorney General Letitia James issued a report that found that deaths may have been underreported by as much as 50 percent during the pandemic.

Author: Zak Failla

Publication Date: 29 January 2021

Publication Site: North Salem Daily Voice

COVID-19 vaccinations: Why are some states and localities so much more successful?

Mary Pat Campbell
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/01/25/covid-19-vaccinations-why-are-some-states-and-localities-so-much-more-successful/

Excerpt:

The Maryland/West Virginia gap is one of many such anomalies across the country. Why has North Dakota managed to use 85% of the doses it has received for inoculations compared to 49% for Massachusetts? Why does New Mexico have an inoculations/doses received ratio of 77%, versus just 43% for Virginia? What differences of institutions, strategies, and leadership explain these gaps?

Author: William A. Galston

Publication Date: 25 January 2021

Publication Site: Brookings

Why scientists are more worried about the Covid-19 variant discovered in South Africa

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.vox.com/2021/1/21/22240475/covid-new-variant-south-africa-uk-brazil-vaccine-coronavirus

Excerpt:

On January 15, US public health officials warned that a more contagious variant of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 could dominate infections in the United States by March. That grim warning referred to B.1.1.7, a variant that was first identified in the United Kingdom.

But now, one week later, scientists are increasingly concerned about another variant that emerged in South Africa.

There’s evidence from several small, and not-yet-peer-reviewed, studies that mutations in the South Africa variant — known as 501Y.V2 and already present in at least 23 countries — may have a higher risk of Covid-19 reinfection in people who’ve already been sick and still should have some immunity to the disease.

Authors: Julia Belluz and Umair Irfan

Publication Date: 22 January 2021

Publication Site: Vox

Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w

Abstract:

Stringent COVID-19 control measures were imposed in Wuhan between January 23 and April 8, 2020. Estimates of the prevalence of infection following the release of restrictions could inform post-lockdown pandemic management. Here, we describe a city-wide SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening programme between May 14 and June 1, 2020 in Wuhan. All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270–0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases. 107 of 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 patients tested positive again (re-positive rate 0.31%, 95% CI 0.423–0.574%). The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown.

Authors: Shiyi Cao, Yong Gan, Chao Wang, Max Bachmann, Shanbo Wei, Jie Gong, Yuchai Huang, Tiantian Wang, Liqing Li, Kai Lu, Heng Jiang, Yanhong Gong, Hongbin Xu, Xin Shen, Qingfeng Tian, Chuanzhu Lv, Fujian Song, Xiaoxv Yin & Zuxun Lu

Publication Date: 20 November 2020

Publication Site: Nature Communications

Asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 didn’t occur at all, study of 10 million finds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/asymptomatic-transmission-of-covid-19-didnt-occur-at-all-study-of-10-million-finds

Excerpt:

A study of almost 10 million people in Wuhan, China, found that asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 did not occur at all, thus undermining the need for lockdowns, which are built on the premise of the virus being unwittingly spread by infectious, asymptomatic people.

Published in November in the scientific journal Nature Communications, the paper was compiled by 19 scientists, mainly from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, but also from scientific institutions across China as well as in the U.K. and Australia. It focused on the residents of Wuhan, ground zero for COVID-19, where 9,899,828 people took part in a screening program between May 14 and June 1, which provided clear results as to the possibility of any asymptomatic transmission of the virus.

Author: Michael Haynes

Publication Date: 23 December 2020

Publication Site: LifeSiteNews