Beginning to Hope

 Back in January, new cases of Covid-19 in the United States were rising, and reached over 300,000 per day. That was frightening. In the last few weeks, the numbers have turned downward. New cases reported for yesterday were fewer than 70,000, though new deaths were still 1,800. We will reach 500,000 total deaths by Tuesday if not Monday. But deaths are also slowly beginning to decline.

Ohio is following the same trends. No one is quite sure what is causing this drop. I suspect that one factor is that many people, like me and my family, are following the public health recommendations carefully, and so have lower risk of infection. And many of those who haven't followed those practices have already been infected. I see estimates that only about 1 in 5 cases is reported, maybe because people with no or mild symptoms don't get tested. People working in health care get tested regularly, even without symptoms, but no one else does, it seems.

Hospitalizations have decreased. Positive test rates have decreased. These suggest that the drop in cases is real, and not a result of decreased testing. Because there is a drop in testing, too. I think outside high risk populations, people are only getting tested if they go to seek care. Fewer people are getting tested because fewer people are getting sick. So maybe those vulnerable to infection due to poor compliance have all been sick. After all, with 28 million confirmed cases, multiplied by 5, we have 140 million people already through Covid-19. Add in those who have been vaccinated, which is only 13%, but that is 42 million people, we could have as many as 180 million people with some immunity. And if the most vulnerable are the majority of those, then the spread will slow because the noncompliant have already become immune. Those of us carefully complying with the rules for safety are getting more safe.

Will this trend continue? Hard to know. New variants could make people vulnerable again. though so far, the vaccines seem to offer at least some protection with known variants. We may see improvements in vaccine delivery, if we get through these winter storms, and that will help. 100 million people vaccinated by 30 April, 100 days after the inauguration, would mean a pretty big difference in the susceptible population. With acceleration of production and delivery, we could be almost normal by July. Let's hope that is a real hope. But for now, keep wearing masks and social distancing.