Corona: Still spiking (1/9/2022)

[Note: I have been trying to post this all week, but things got in the way. Now I’m trying to catch up on this and other things. A great start to the new year!]

I will attempt to keep this post short as nothing new has emerged: the coronavirus is still surging, although I almost want to say that there are signs that we are getting close to the peak. The graphics below is showing the major continents and I added colored blocks to show the various surges of the major variants (Delta and Omicron) throughout the two years. The yellow block covers the first appearance of the Delta virus occurring first in India. At the time, that surge was horrendous. Boy, we had no idea how much worse it could get.

The yellow orange is my best guess of the Delta surge running elsewhere in the world.

The orange block is what I think is the UK Omicron surge even though the first sightings were in South Africa. The South African Omicron surge is really muted against the background of the other continents.

And of course, the lime green depicts the signature surge of the Omicron. Look at that! This surge is DRAMATIC! And we’re not done yet. The silver lining is that the hospitalization and deaths statistics seem to be disconnected from the cases. However, with that kind of case surge, we will probably see a very high hospitalization and death rates, just from the sheer number of cases.

The source of data is from Wikipedia pages covering the world.

Look at Continents and Canada

Below, I’ve added each continents’ graphs to show the vertical ascent of the Omicron surge. In each chart, I added text delineating the top two countries driving the surges. In addition, I’ve circled what I thought were the “ice pick” characteristic of the Omicron descent – South Africa is obvious but UK appears to have an “ice pick” and Canada might be undergoing an “ice pick” descent.

US

The next series of images relate to the US and regions. I am not going to do the individual states. Trying to keep this post short.

Obviously, this current surge far outpaces last winter’s surge and the Delta’s surge. It’s just incredible. Of course, that means the situation in the hospitals could become extremely dire just from the sheer numbers.

The image on the left is just the usual bar graph with some selected dashed lines to show where the heights are being hit. I use those dashed lines to evaluate where we stand relative to prior periods.

The image on the right is a map of the top 10 states in cumulative cases over the last 21 days. I’m trying to see if there are regions of the US that are experiencing the surge. Aside from the usual big states (California and Texas – I think they are almost always in the top 10 just from population size), the northeast appears to be our current cluster.

The data comes from John Hopkins University. See the box “Sources of Data” at the end of this post for more details.

The next series show the cases, hospitalization, and deaths. You can see the cases really spiking but I have circled what appears to be an arrested ascent, maybe even a suggestion of an “ice pick” signature. All regions are undergoing this surge and the south and northeast may be peaking or will soon be peaking.

Hospitalization surge is definitely happening, but I need to qualify this observance with a note that some of the hospitalization may be non-COVID (until hospitals start doing rationalization of care or triage). In some areas, hospitals are cancelling non-essential surgery due to the crush of COVID patients, but not everywhere.

Deaths, a lagging indicator, has not started its ascent. There are signs that deaths have been decoupled from case surges which indicate a less severe infection. But doctors say you still don’t want to get the virus as it is still unpleasant, and it is like Russian roulette to risk your life catching the virus. We don’t know who will have a serious and adverse outcome.

These next series come from the CDC since the CDC includes hospitalization data. I haven’t found hospitalization data in the JHU.

Lastly, here’s a graphic depicting the regions and the states within each region. I’m not going to do a graphic drilling down into each of the region’s states. I will just leave at an upper overall level.

In the midwest, it looks like those states that have been surging may have peaked and are now poised to go into a dramatic descent. Let’s hope so. The rest of the regions, it’s mostly no with just a few states seeming to go into decline. Texas – I’m kind of surprised.

But still, the Omicron surge is really dramatic when compared to last winter or this summer’s Delta. The infectivity of this virus is very striking.

Last Night’s Data Pull

I didn’t have time to prepare the images for today’s post, but last night the results were more upward ascent. The US appears to be pulling away from the rest of the world. The graphic for the world as a whole is showing an upward bend in the curve, meaning the infection acceleration is ramping up. Up until the Omicron, the cumulative slope has been on a steady upward slant. Now that slant has curved upward – not quite vertical but getting there.

Okay, this wasn’t a short post. It is now time for me to sign off and end here.