Not all the pandemic news is bad, in Minnesota anyway

[dreamshark]

• New cases and daily deaths are back at the bottom of the statistical mountain that started in late September and peaked in late November. We're seeing about 750 new cases/day and daily deaths <10. 
• Number of people hospitalized is similar, but COVID patients currently in ICU is the lowest it has been since we started counting, back in June.
• % tests returned positive has been below 5% since mid-January, so the declines are not due to insufficient testing
•  Almost 700,000 people have had at least one vaccine dose, and it's increasing at about 180,000/week (an increase of 5% of the adult population each week). If vaccination continues at this pace, I calculate that it would take 4 months to hit 100%, 3 months to reach 80% (did I do that right? Seems much sooner than the official nationwide prognostications even if the don't take into account that the vaccine supply is expected to keep increasing). 
• About 20% of adults in Minnesota have had at least one dose. 36% of Minnesotans 65 and older have had at least one dose (this number is hard to find, but it's the one I care about right now).
• 98% of vaccine doses are being administered within 7 days of receipt. If you are wondering how good a job your state is doing at administering the vaccine, this is the number that matters. 

Actually, I guess my Minnesota calculation is pretty much in line with the official predictions (which typically present the worst case scenario). Assuming that second shots are forthcoming on schedule, it should take about 6 weeks after one's first dose to achieve full immunity. So assuming that there is no change in the vaccine supply, Minnesota should have 80% of its adult population fully vaccinated by mid-June and at full vaccine-dependent immunity about 2 weeks later.  And of course that's not counting the 20-30% of the population that already has immunity from having been infected. So summer is looking pretty good right now. 

Residents of nursing homes are essentially fully vaccinated now, and have been for long enough that I'd expect to see some evidence of this showing up in the statistics. There doesn't seem to be much so far. There was a breathless headline in the Strib a couple of weeks ago to the effect of "Nursing home infections plunge as vaccinations proceed!" which turned out to be misleading. As the experts quoted in the story pointed out, infections had been plunging at close to the same rate throughout the state, with the steep decline starting before any vaccine was even available. So, pretty much a non-story.  However, Israel (one of the world leaders in vaccination rates) is seeing differential results in targeted age groups. This is very good news. 

The one sign I see that the first round of vaccinations is having an effect in Minnesota is that the number of patients in ICU  has dropped to the lowest level ever. That's a bigger drop than the drop in new infection rates, and what you would expect if infections are dropping faster among the most elderly. 

Oh, and if you're somebody that was worried about a "Twindemic" - good news! Flu season was cancelled this year.  Last year there were about 400,000 hospitalizations due to flu. This year there have been... 165. Even the habitually dour CDC admits "This is lower than average for this point in the season." You can always count on the CDC for spectacular understatement of anything that might sound like good news.

Comments

[spiderplanet]

Yes. Flu was canceled. :) Take that, "cancel culture!" You may be interested in some detailed statistics about the Flu in Minnesota.

Here is the Minnesota Department of Health's most recent "Weekly Influenza Report"

https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/flu/stats/flustats05.pdf

[quadong]

Your projections are too optimistic because pretty soon they will start to be impacted by anti-vaxxers. I suspect that we'll never reach 80% unless people are required to have it to work. But yeah, it seems like this summer could be pretty ok among groups of people with very small fractions of anti-vaxxers, which I hope includes Minn-stf?!

[dreamshark]

The harder it is to get vaccinated the more people will be stampeding over each other to get the vaccine before their neighbors. We're already seeing that happen, even in corners of the state where half the population refused to wear masks because they didn't believe COVID was real but now they're up in arms because they believe their pharmacies are being shortchanged in the vaccine distribution.

I googled "How many people are really anti vaccine" and up popped an article claiming that the answer is 9%. As distinct from the 30% who believe that vaccines should not be mandatory, and the varying percentage of people who are "not sure" about one vaccine or another. 9% sounds about right. And even that percentage may erode as people realize that they may need to pit their deeply held beliefs that vaccines are a hoax against the possibility that they won't be able to get on a plane or apply for a job or even get invited to family gatherings without one.