COVID-19 case rates spike to record levels across the U.S. in December 2021
28 December 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Bill Gates tweeted, “Just when it seemed like life would return to normal, we could be entering the worst part of the pandemic.”
In a seven-tweet thread, he went on to say that the Omicron variant “is spreading faster than any virus in history” and it “will be the worst surge we have seen so far because it’s so infectious.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci warned, “Every day it goes up and up. The last weekly average was about 150,000, and it likely will go much higher.”
The holiday data-delay is over, and we’re starting to get the latest case rates from counties around the U.S. In several places, the case-rate spike is steeper and higher than during any previous wave, in some counties dwarfing previous peaks. It seems Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci were right, and we’re seeing the predicted increases now. And these numbers don’t yet reflect the Christmas infections that surely happened all over the country.
The new numbers arrive just as recent NIH research shows that the COVID-19 virus spreads within days from the airways to the heart, brain, and most other organs, where it lingers for months, based on analysis of tissues taken during autopsies on 44 patients who died after contracting the coronavirus in 2020.
“Our results collectively show that while the highest burden of SARS-CoV-2 is in the airways and lung, the virus can disseminate early during infection and infect cells throughout the entire body, including widely throughout the brain,” the authors wrote in their paper, titled SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence throughout the human body and brain.
If you’re looking for guidance on how to handle this newest wave, you could do worse than following the advice of Andy Slavitt, former White House Sr Advisor for COVID Response, in this thread:
“For me, my baseline is to advocate for policies that favor those with the fewest choices—Require vaccines when in crowds; preserve best anti-virals for immunocompromised; support frontline health care workers by reducing spread. 2022 will have twists and turns but we have many tools we should use to both minimize death and maximize living. Certainty seems like the only sure mistake.”
The U.S. isn’t the only nation suffering through another record-breaking wave of infection. France, the U.K., Spain, and Switzerland are seeing case rates that are far higher than during previous waves. Interestingly, the Netherlands (green curve in the following graph) has experienced a high, sharp peak already and may be seeing the end of the Omicron wave. Similar sharp peaks have occurred recently in Denmark and Southeast Europe.
Here’s a quick tour of the COVID-19 landscape in America at the end of 2021, courtesy of Covid Act Now. It’s worth noting that some of the steepest increases are occurring in the most highly vaccinated counties, so some of the increases may be attributable to elevated testing rates among the most Covid-conscious populations.
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