Corona-zona

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending Wednesday: Cases at both the Maricopa County and statewide levels are up a little. The percentage increases look large but that's because the increase is calculated against a very small number to begin with. Both measures are up by only about 1.5 per 100K.  Death rates are up a  little over the week,  but they are level over a month. Hospital beds continues to decline, and I view that as the most valid indicator of serious infections. Most of the wastewater signals are down. Tempe did not report new data this week for some reason.  So is this it, or are we in for another surge based on new variants? After not updating over the holidays, Lim Lab has brought  their AZ variants page  up to January 9.  True to predictions, a number of sons-of-omicron are taking over. The one virologists have been fretting about the most , XBB.1.5, accounted for just over 41% of cases earlier this month,

  The other day, I was feeling a little sniffley, so I decided to crack open one of the at-home COVID-19 test kits the government has sent me over the last couple of years. There was a time there where they'd periodically send you four kits (two tests each) per household if you requested it.  I have received two tranches of these. When I tore into the envelope for the first one, I saw that all the tests had expired about 18 months ago. I opened the second envelope and its four tests had expired about a year ago. When I got my booster last fall, the pharmacist asked if I wanted some at-home tests. Not knowing the ones I had were expired, I said "no I have plenty." However, she insisted I take them, just in case.  Good thing I did, because I had to resort to one of those for my sniffles incident (test was negative). I note that the other tests in that batch will expire at the end of next month. What is going on? I checked and the FDA says the tests have a shelf-life of abou

Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending Wednesday: Apologies for the delay posting this...life got the better of me on Thursday. But hey, it's a pleasure to make this report today even if I'm a little tardy. Every measure i s down over a week and a month except for one fly in the ointment: Deaths. I can't remember the last time the number were so green. The death rate, too, is down over a week, but it's up 17% over the month. As noted here many times before, my understanding is that due to AzDHS sloppy reporting practices there is no telling when these deaths happened.  One other note: Check out the difference in the case graph between the between the right end (today) and the left end (one year ago). Then, we were at the peak of the Omicron wave. What a difference a year makes! Previous posts you may have missed: Anti-vaxxer Asshattery Continues: No Lie Too Big Public Health Officials: XBB.1.5 is Comin' to

 The anti-vaxxer deplorables are at it again—or still. I have two recent incidents to tell you about.   The first is an article published by a outlet that I won't name here because I don't want to promote it (if you must know, you can find the name in the first link below). The outlet has published vaccine disinformation multiple times. This time, they used the headline: “Secret CDC Report reveals at least 1.1 Million Americans have 'Died Suddenly' since the COVID Vaccine roll-out & another Government Report proves the COVID Vaccines are to blame.” As USA Today reports , this is 100% Grade AA bullshit. As is usually the case with these asshats, there is  a report, but it doesn't say what they claim. The data in question come from a CDC report on excess deaths during the pandemic.  They get that number by comparing death rates during the pandemic to death rates when there was no pandemic (studies I've seen compare 2020-2021 to 2018-2019).  It's like a kin

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending Wednesday: Case counts increased by about a fifth for both Maricopa County and the state. Deaths are up by almost 50% but are still fractional and nowhere near the 2022 high. Hospital beds continues its downward trend. As for wastewater signals the larges is in Yavapai County. Pima county is up a little. Everywhere else is down form 10% to 50%. Previous posts you may have missed: Public Health Officials: XBB.1.5 is Comin' to Getcha!

  The public health community is wringing its hands over a new variant. New variants take over periodically because they evolve better fitness and this allows them to supplant older variants. We've learned by now what trouble this can cause.  Delta took hold in summer/fall 2021. It was more infectious and caused more serious disease, and it killed a whole bunch of people. Then about a year ago Omicron started up. It caused less serious disease but was more contagious so it also caused a big surge that killed a lot of people. Since the Omicron wave died down, people who worry about these things have been waiting for a new variant to pop up and renew our misery.  First it was BA.4 and BA.5. Then it was BA.2.75.2 . When that didn't cause the expected problems, attention shifted to BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 . The new boogeyman is another son-of-omicron dubbed XBB.1.5. This one is concerning because of how quickly it is taking over. According to a guy at Northwestern University who tracks va

  Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending Wednesday: Cases for both Maricopa County and the state went up a good bit. But that is to be expected given that the period included two holidays.  The most important number, hospital beds, is down both over a week and over a month. Deaths are down over the week, but as we know it's hard to tell what time period fatalities data are from.  Wastewater numbers are mixed. Tempe more than doubled. Since so much of the Tempe population is students, it's possible the dip then surge is because of students who were traveling for the holiday.  Yavapai and Maricopa counties went up by about a quarter, but they are down over a month. Mohave and Pima counties are down.   Finally, as you can see from the case graph, about this time a year ago we were at the beginning of a huge surge due to Omicron. Cases went from a low of 2,833 on December 22, 2021 to a high of 20,261 on January 19, 2021—an