1/9 Covid Epi Weekly: One Step Forward, One Step Back

Decreasing cases in much of country. But decreasing testing, less information, and impending explosions with schools, universities, and more.

Primary concern : “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

2/9 Positivity rate decreased from 5.5 to 5.1% nationally. That’s good - it’s progress. But we’re losing the ability to track the virus - antigen tests, less testing, and still no reliable information on who is being tested. We should have better information each week, but don’t.

3/9 Most of U.S. still failing. Too many cases to test, trace, isolate. Even in places with fewer cases, very little tracking of actual outcomes:
*Days infectious before isolation
*% cases from quarantined contacts.
Tens of thousands of lives and millions of jobs depend on this.

4/9 STILL don’t have reliable information on cases, hospitalizations, deaths by race/ethnicity. Outrageous. Proportion among Latinx & Black people unacceptably high, indefensibly invisible. Every place should report these numbers weekly for prior week and work to end disparities.

5/9 Avoidable cases and deaths are heartbreaking. Avoidable economic decline is grinding. Carville said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” To get the economy back, “It’s the pandemic, stupid”. Unless we control the virus, we can’t get our jobs back. Striking data confirms this:

6/9 Deaths matter most. US will hit 200,000 deaths and world 1 million reported deaths in next few weeks. Germany has had less than one fifth US death rate, Canada less than half. Tens of thousands didn’t need to die from Covid. We don’t want to be #1 in death, but see below.

7/9 On 9/11, I reflect on deaths. My group is called Resolve to Save Lives with reason. We risk getting hardened to tragedy. Superb article on this and more at https://bit.ly/2ZvJc9C . More than 1,000 deaths/day recently. Even at “only” 500 deaths/day, this would mean:

8/9 Communication matters. 1. Be first. 2. Be right. 3. Be credible. 4. Be empathetic. 5. Give people practical things to do to protect themselves & their family. Is it possible for US national response to have violated these proven principles more than it did?? We can do better.

9/9 We must chip away. Close riskiest places. Mask up. 3W's. Box it in (test, trace, isolate). Ventilation. Every little bit helps, as long as there are enough little bits to get R<1 and keep it there. Vaccination can help if it's safe, effective, accessible, and trusted. IF.