Corona-zona

  I used to do these roundup posts more frequently, when pandemic news was coming in so fast and furious that even my (then) daily posts couldn't keep up. As it happens, the last couple of weeks has produced several tidbits that are too limited for their own post, but still worthy of sharing.  One Cable News Outlet (Guess Which One) Causes Vaccine Hesitancy A recent study  published in in Nature looked at how watching a certain cable news outlet causes increased vaccine hesitancy. The researchers used exogenous (i.e. not study related) geographical variation in the channel lineup to tease out the causal effects. They controlled for differences in partisanship, local health policies, local COVID-19 infections/death rates, and consumption of other major television networks.  The network in question is—wait for it—Fox News. I for one am shocked. SHOCKED!  Every one additional hour watching Fox News per week for the average household reduced the number of vaccinati...

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: It's not another week like last week when it seemed everything was heading up. But this week—for the first time in a long time—we are exceeding values a month ago on many of the measures. Both statewide and Maricopa County cases are down since last week but up 41% and 55%, respectively, over a month. By the way, the Maricopa County dashboard is broken again. I give up and will stick with the NY Times for Maricopa County numbers (I replaced last week's value with the one from the NYT, which was higher that what county dashboard reported when it briefly came back). Also worrying is that hospital beds—maybe one of the best current-infections indicators we have left—continue an upward trend. They also increased over the last four weeks. Deaths decreased from last week. Wastewater signals are a mixed bag, with Mohave County and Tempe declining, Maricopa County staying abou...

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: Ugh. This sure isn't the report I was hoping to give this week. Everything has increased except Pima and Yavapai wastewater measurements.  Cases are up big for the state and Maricopa County. Again those are not considered especially reliable, but that's because they're thought to underestimate true cases. So it's not good to see things more than double for the state and and almost double for Maricopa County.  One note: The Maricopa County dashboard is now working for me again. Over the past few weeks I have been getting their numbers from the New York Times. Today the Times shows a higher value than the county dashboard. I am going to go with the county dashboard number since it's a primary source. Deaths increased again, though as noted before that is a lagging indictor (perhaps lagging a lot). The more worrisome thing is that hospital beds are going ba...

  Today my news feed contained this story about a couple of new variants called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. These variants were previously lumped-in with BA.5, from which they descended.  They were broken out separately a month ago, and officials worry about them because of how fast they're increasing—growing to 10% of U.S. cases in one month. The article claims they are rapidly spreading in Europe too, though I can't find any mention of them on the EU Dashboard . Lim Lab lists these two variants as accounting for about 4% of Arizona cases as of October 3. Most recent data from October 10 shows only BA.5, but there are very few sequences involved in that calculation. As with the other variants, the worry is that these variants are increasing because they are better at  evading immunity from previous infections and vaccinations. There is also concern that monoclonal antibody treatments may not be as effective against them.  That's the same thing they said about BA.2.75 which I...

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: These numbers look pretty good! There are large decreases in many measures, and decreases in all the others except two. One dark spot is deaths, which increased about 36%. As mentioned before, deaths are a lagging indicator. While they are terrible for the people who suffer them and their families, an increase like this isn't very worrisome for the population at large, especially since they are a tiny fraction of the high water mark. Another increase is in the Maricopa County wastewater signal. But that is against a large decrease in the Tempe wastewater signal, so I suppose the infections must be coming from other parts of the Valley. Checking Lim Lab for variants detected in Arizona, we find zero samples that were positive for the variant I have been worrying about , (BA.2.75). For the last report 10 days ago, all the cases were  BA.4 and BA.5, both of which are ...

A new study is out comparing excess death rates of Democrats and Republicans during the pandemic. The results are not good for Republicans. The Republican party has lost its collective mind and (among other things) is rife with anti-vaxxers.  Consequently, its members are the most resistant political group to getting vaccinated, with 30% saying they plan to never get vaccinated. Of those that are vaccinated, only 11% say they plan to get the new bivalent booster anytime soon.  It is abundantly clear—at least for those willing to look at evidence—that vaccines are safe and effective. They keep people from getting seriously ill and dying.  So it comes as no surprise that researchers have found more excess deaths in a party whose members refuse to accept this. It's hard not to think of this as natural selection. "Excess deaths" are determined by comparing death rates during normal periods with those observed during some special period like a pandemic. It's how public h...

  Today's geek-out post is inspired by an NPR Morning Edition   story  yesterday about what is likely a new infection wave gathering steam in Europe. Here is a chart from Our World in Data: The story notes that we don't know yet whether this increase is associated with new variants, such as BA.2.75.2 that I was fretting about a week ago. I checked the EU Dashboard and indeed it looks like the OG Omicron is still dominant in France, Germany, and Italy (99.8% - 100% of sequences).  That's odd because BA.5 is dominant here, with BA.4.6 close behind, and zero percent cases of OG Omicron (BA.1.1 or BA.1.1.529) according to the CDC : I won't be losing any sleep over a new wave just yet. Current modeling shows that even in a scenario where there is a new variant it shouldn't get too bad depending on how many people get the new bivalent booster: The dotted line is the actual observations, and we have been beating the expected numbers for the last couple of months. The so...

Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: The case, hospitals, and deaths measures increased over the last week but only modestly. The statewide case numbers are at about the same floor we saw back in May. Maricopa County wastewater measures have started showing up in BioBot so I have included them in the table. Figures are down over the week there and in Mohave County. They are up a little in Pima County and Tempe, and have almost tripled up in Yavapai County. We will see if the translates into any uptick in cases next week.