Makes sense, and I’m not questioning the data. Is there any reason why cases would be increasing in this age range? Are they doing something different right now, or would the interpretation be that the other age ranges would be increasing too if not for the vaccine? Is there another reason for the increases, like maybe the variants?
It’s increasing at all ages below 50, and i assume it’s a mix of fatigue with safety measures and the new variants. It’s rising fastest in the 20-29 cohort. I assume it’s because young adults are the people going to restaurants and bars, holding parties, etc. At least, to a larger extent than older adults or kids.
Here’s a little piece of good news
Bhutan vaccinated most of their population in a week. They decided that instead of rationing their doses out, they would wait until they had enough for first doses for all (vaccine was gifted by India) and they held a massive national event.
I have to share the first paragraph, which is terrific:
WHEN INDIA presented Bhutan with a generous gift of covid-19 vaccines in January, the neighbouring kingdom made an unusual choice. Rather than rushing to inoculate all 800,000 of its citizens, the government sought advice from the Zhung Dratshang, a body of Buddhist monks. The stars were not auspicious, they ruled. Better to wait two months, and then to make sure that the first dose be both administered by, and given to, women born in the Year of the Monkey.
Meanwhile the virus is surging in India. Mumbai and Bangalore are entering lockdowns. My apartment complex in Mumbai is now completely sealed - in India that means no one can get out their apartments, and no one can enter the community’s gates, on pain of being arrested and sent to prison. Lockdowns are pretty harsh in India. I am glad I don’t live there at this time.
Thailand’s getting socked too. They just shut down all bars and other entertainment venues for at least two weeks in Bangkok and 40 other provinces, with the 35 or so governors of the other provinces empowered to follow suit if they think it necessary. This is at least the third such business shutown, and my friends in Bangkok reckon another public lockdown is imminent.
I’m a few hours 
late with the numbers; sorry, folks:
136,772,601 total cases
2,951,864 dead
109,995,229 recovered
In the US:
31,920,778 total cases
575,831 dead
24,480,631 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
News from Brazil is scary
Michigan asked for more vaccines to deal with surge, but CDC says too late:
Brian
I was reading about this a little while back. They’ve considered surging vaccine to places with rapidly rising numbers, but they concluded that, because of the delay, the vaccine surge would always be chasing behind disease surges. Disease surges need to be contained with strategies that work more immediately.
It makes sense to me, particularly as well in terms of not creating perverse incentives. I mean, drop all distancing rules, get tons of vaccine to bail you out – but not until a bunch of people die while you get the vaccine into people and wait for it to take effect while not reimposing mask mandates, etc? Seems like the wrong way to do it.
To be fair, it’s not like the US government is holding onto vaccine and denying it to Michigan out of spite. There is a vaccine shortage and putting one state above the others isn’t fair either.
Are there any metrics for how much vaccination demand there is in the different states? Perhaps things like how quickly slots fill up, how often there are no-shows, etc.? I could see also not surging vaccine to Michigan if vaccine demand there is soft anyway since more vaccines might not really greatly increase the number of people getting vaccinated.
And i could see giving Michigan more if it’s citizens are scrambling for appointments while citizens in other states can just walk in and get one.
I, too, wonder if we are getting to the point of trying to direct vaccine by demand rather than just by headcount. But maybe headcount is good. Maybe we need vaccination to be really easy in places with less demand. Maybe we need pop-up vaccine events at bars and stuff.
There was a recent story, I think in the Washington Post, about some states letting vaccine sit in their “accounts” unordered. I believe Michigan’s governor was asking for more vaccine while they hadn’t ordered all of the vaccine allotted to them. Other states are also seemingly not using all that’s allotted.
It was unclear to me, though, how much of that was planning around when to order, since there are storage issues, and also possibly attributable to poor communication lines and rules about second dose allocations.
When Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) last week asked White House officials if they would consider sending more vaccine doses to her state during a deadly surge, the state appeared not to have ordered 360,000 doses then available — a single-day snapshot that nonetheless puzzled federal officials who advised her to work with experts to make sure Michigan’s supply was being deployed effectively.
137,278,334 total cases
2,959,324 dead
110,472,218 recovered
In the US:
31,990,143 total cases
576,298 dead
24,560,856 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
On 25 March I reported that the three easternmost states of Austria were going into a tight lockdown (24-hour curfew, all nonessential shops to close, etc.). This was supposed to have lasted only for the week of the Easter holidays, but at the end of that period it got extended by another week, and yesterday it was announced that the lockdown would be extended for a further three weeks.
Now today the federal health minister has announced his resignation, citing exhaustion. He first took office in January 2020, but says that the last 15 months have seemed more like 15 years, and that overwork is endangering his health and his ability to do his job.
Meanwhile, there remains a shortage of intensive care beds in eastern Austria, and daily infection rates, while no longer climbing, are still too high (around 2300 new cases/day). Fortunately, the vaccination campaign continues to ramp up. 20.19% (about 1.5 million people) of the total immunizable population (about 7.5 million people) has received at least one dose, and 8.41% are fully vaccinated. Over 30,000 new immunizations are taking place daily, and vaccines are now available not just at vaccination centres but also from GPs.
That’s crappy news. In addition to the obvious impact of not being able to use the J&J doses for at least a little while, it will also increase vaccine hesitancy across the board.
Some informed perspective on clotting issues & safety
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/04/12/az-oxford-calculations
Michigan seems to have plentiful vaccine appointments available via VaccineSpotter:
I agree with you but it’s kind of crazy. Six reactions out of millions of doses administered; the odds of dying from COVID are higher. I’m not against the pause, just marveling at how complicated the ethics are.