It has been a long tiring and, in many ways, terrifying week in the US. The events in DC have nevertheless obscured the growing public health crisis, which even with vaccines available can be expected to get WORSE over the short term - a thread

Where are we right now? Daily deaths cleared 4000 this week. That will get worse. How do I know? Because the deaths are the results of infections in the past, and infections got worse in the last few weeks. I'm so sorry, but it is coming

The amounts of infection now are so high, and the comparative vaccination rates so low, that we have to be prepared for a coming surge into healthcare across the nation. It is already going to be bad enough. It might well be worse given the threat of more transmissible variants

The variant B.1.1.7 which was first detected in the UK, is certainly IMO more transmissible. That has a bunch of consequences that we should prepare for even if it is not in your town yet and it *is* in the US, in at least some places, if rare for now. But that will change

B.1.1.7 has run rampant through the UK, at a time that country had *relatively* firm restrictions in place. I know the UK’s restrictions have not been all they might be, but that’s for another thread – still they were stronger than those in much of the US.