Good news regarding the pandemic – but we still need to be cautious
I continue to closely follow the pandemic, sending lengthy e-mails to my coronavirus e-mail list roughly once a week. If you'd like to receive them, simply send a blank e-mail to: cv-subscribe@mailer.kasecapital.com.
Below is an excerpt from the e-mail I sent to my readers yesterday (you can read the entire e-mail here)...
1) The headline here in the U.S. continues to be: "Good news regarding the pandemic – but we still need to be cautious."
Let's start with the first part of that sentence... Here are the latest data for testing, cases (down by half in the last two weeks), hospitalizations (down 27%), and deaths (a lagging indicator, so this will soon start declining – see below) (source):
The positivity rate is also falling rapidly (source):
(If you click the source links above, you can see all of this data by state, plus here are the data for New York City.)
2) There are now three approved vaccines with two more nearing approval (not counting four Chinese and Russian ones, one of which just reported 91.6% efficacy) – here's a summary (source):
All five vaccines "look extremely good." Here's a summary from the New York Times:
All five of the vaccines – from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Novavax, and Johnson & Johnson – look extremely good. Of the roughly 75,000 people who have received one of the five in a research trial, not a single person has died from COVID, and only a few people appear to have been hospitalized. None have remained hospitalized 28 days after receiving a shot.
To put that in perspective, it helps to think about what COVID has done so far to a representative group of 75,000 American adults: It has killed roughly 150 of them and sent several hundred more to the hospital. The vaccines reduce those numbers to zero and nearly zero, based on the research trials.
Zero isn't even the most relevant benchmark. A typical U.S. flu season kills between five and 15 out of every 75,000 adults and hospitalizes more than 100 of them.
I assume you would agree that any vaccine that transforms Covid into something much milder than a typical flu deserves to be called effective. But that is not the scientific definition. When you read that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 66% effective or that the Novavax vaccine was 89% effective, those numbers are referring to the prevention of all illness. They count mild symptoms as a failure.
"In terms of the severe outcomes, which is what we really care about, the news is fantastic," Dr. Aaron Richterman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said.
There's great news from Israel regarding Pfizer's vaccine: Vaccine found 92% effective in Israel, in first controlled result outside trials.
I think the answer is: Get the first vaccine you can. Which COVID Vaccine Should You Get? Experts Weigh the Effect Against Severe Disease.
And when your turn comes, don't turn down a vaccine because you think someone else needs it more: If You're Offered a Vaccine, Take It.
3) A vaccine is, of course, useless unless it's actually injected into someone's arm – and the good news is that the U.S. is now vaccinating 1.35 million people per day (source):
As a result, nearly 10% of our population has been vaccinated (note that this chart is doses/100 people... Since some people have received two doses, I estimate that roughly 8% of Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine) (source):
We continue to be among the world leaders in vaccinating our population, trailing only the U.K. among major countries (though every country should be looking to see what Israel is doing – they're at 56%!) (source):
4) In summary, I think (hope) this Financial Times article proves to be correct: COVID-19: how close is the light at the end of the tunnel? Excerpt:
Without minimizing the suffering so many people are enduring, I think there is potential for rapid progress very soon...
Why, then, are we still talking about lockdown? Because the virus can spread very rapidly indeed. We have learnt that lesson the hard way, twice. Let's not forget. A one-third reduction in ICU admissions could be swamped by a day or two of uncontrolled growth, and certainly by a week of carelessness.
We will be out of the worst far more quickly, with fewer deaths, if we meet the vaccine halfway by suppressing the virus with social distancing. That need not mean a draconian lockdown, but it will mean that normality is postponed.
There is another reason for hope: The vaccine may also prevent transmission of the virus. If it does, then every dose brings us closer to herd immunity. Vaccinating 10 per cent of the population won't do much for herd immunity, but vaccinating half of us will go a long way towards protecting the other half.
Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises has a character who ruefully notes that he went bankrupt gradually – and then suddenly. In countries fortunate enough to have plenty of vaccine doses, that is how this pandemic will end, too.
To read the rest of my e-mail – in which I discuss why we still need to be cautious, the bad situation in Africa, two black eyes for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and "The Mysterious Link Between COVID-19 and Sleep" – click here.
Best regards,
Whitney