COVID-19: Will it get worse in the Fall?

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil      India   South Africa

June      9     1093    4732        1185      246         82

July       1       676    4857        1057      438         92

             5       251    3572          535       421       173

             7       993    5504        1312       479       192

           12       380    4118          659       500       108

           14       935    5414        1341       586       174

           15     1001    5760        1261       614       107

           19       412    4606          715       675         85

           21     1119    5669        1346       671        195

           22     1205    7128        1293     1120        572

           26       450    4307         556       715        114
           28    1266     5589         955       776        190
Aug      1    1462     6429       1191       765        193
            2     1123     5601       1048       852        148
            3       467     4430         514       514        213

            5     1362     6292       1394       849        345

          10       534     4813         593     1013        198
          11       569     4575         721       887        213
          12     1504     6556       1242       835        130
          13     1386     6816       1164       950        129
          14     1284     6653       1301     1006        260
          15     1071     5410         726       950        121
          16       522     4525         582       961        162
          17       589     4289         775       880        143
          18     1358     6312        1365    1089        282
          19     1263     6671        1170      980        159

Summary:  another bad day.

The Democratic National Convention ends tonight with a keynote by Joe Biden.  This all starts at 8:45PM (2:45PM Hawaii time), 15 minutes earlier.  Others include Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, Andrew Yang, Tammy Duckworth, Keisha Lance Bottoms , Michael Bloomberg and Ashley and Hunter Biden.  Host tonight, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, with entertainment by The Chicks for the national anthem and John Legend.

Remember those early days of this pandemic when everyone, especially Donald Trump, kept saying that this coronavirus would just go away when summer comes and the weather gets warmer?  People go out more and all will get well.

Well, that did not happen.  But, surely, won't the coming cold temperatures worsen pandemic conditions in the Northern Hemisphere?  After all, every year the flu season begins in the Fall and sticks around through the rest of the Winter.  In fact, CDC Director Robert Redfield recently warned that American should brace for the worst fall, from a public health perspective, we've ever had. 

While the vaccine for this coronavirus will not be available until next year, the CDC ordered 190 million doses for the seasonal flu.  This will cover 58% the U.S. population.  Why not 100%?  Simple,  for last year only 47% of Americans took this shot.  They're hoping for more this time.  I'm signed up for mine on September 8.

Under those conditions, it would be foolhardy for anyone to predict that, compared to this past summer, the combined impact of the flu and COVID-19 might well not be all that bad as feared in the fall.  Why would we possibly be spared?

First, even though the warning of catching colds (therefore also flus) when you get chilled...is just not so.  Cooler temperatures, per se, do not catalyze the onset of this infection.  What winter does:

• Forces people to stay indoors more.  We know how bad that is for spreading this coronavirus.
• Reduces exposure to sunlight, lowering your Vitamin D and melatonin levels, thus compromising your immune system.
• Enables any virus to survive a little longer in an exposed condition.

But the flu doesn't just show up in the Fall from nowhere.  The virus had to come from somewhere.  For the longest time I've thought that the opening of schools in August and September enabled the flu virus to be initially transferred.  It takes a month or two to reach a critical mass of illnesses for widespread exposure into homes, jobs and crowded environments.  Did you know, for example, that the asymptomatic rate of the seasonal flu is 50%?

Surely enough, I found a study not generally know, provided by  the National Institutes of Health.  Eleven years ago some researchers reported an elevated percent of outpatient visits for influenza-like illness 14 days after school began.  In time, this spark catalyzed the community-wide transmission.

So why might this year be different?  Schools that open with classroom instruction generally immediately suffer from a jump in COVID-19 cases, and are peremptorily shut down.  In addition, a high percentage of schooling will this year be remote.

In previous years, society tolerated children with the flu.  Schools kept open and parents continued to go to work.  The economy was not much bothered and life went on like almost normal.  This went on year after year and became the norm.

Under these stay-at-home conditions this year, chances are that our flu season could thus actually be milder and the coronavirus will finally begin to go away.  There will, of course, be a slight rise in cases, and therefore deaths, in September into October because of this school opening confusion.  However, by the end of the year, with more people wearing masks and taking precautions, I would not be surprised if the 45,000 new daily cases as we had yesterday, drops to 10,000 or less.  At that rate of illness, there should be as low as 10% the current deaths daily, or in the range of 100/day.

While this is still terrible, consider that the seasonal flu kills an average of 50,000 Americans each year, which is 137 deaths/day.  Of course, most of these casualties come from October through March, so, effectively, during the flu season, something closer to 250 Americans die daily.  If the coronavirus pandemic death rate is less than the flu, society will begin to similarly accept this inconvenience.

Of course, all these face wear, hand washing and social distance should also decrease the incidence of the flu and associated deaths this year.  We also now know that anyone can be dangerous because they could be asymptomatic.  A vaccine should come on line sometime next year, and by the start of school a year from now, classroom teaching should return and our economy surely will ease back to normality.

In other words, don't expect our economy really recovering until the middle of next year.  Hopefully next year there will be an abundance of cheaper, more accurate and quicker test kits available, a luxury currently enjoyed by professional sports and the White House.  Perhaps even home care kits.

By then, the matter of asymptomaticity will be better known through universal testing and more effective contact tracing.

• Go to the Worldometer link and divide the total World deaths today by the total cases.  You will get 3.5% for the mortality rate.

• The mortality rate for the U.S. is 3%, for we test more.  But we are doing something still wrong, whether in the hospital or in contact tracing or whatever, for this figure remains much too high.
• Israel tests a bit more than the U.S., and has a mortality rate of 0.8%.
• When the mortality rate drops to less than 1%, we will be on a path to metastable recovery.  When all is said and done, I suspect this death rate will actually drop to around 0.5%, still five times higher than the seasonal flu at 0.1%.

This suggestion that the doom predicted by the CDC and most authorities for the coming Fall might just not happen is pure speculation.  Don't take it to the bank.  Only some thoughts for discussion purposes.

I continue to subsist by watching Netflix, exercising, followed by a hot bath with an appropriate libation, then dinner, some fine, some terrible, like loco moco:

The sashimi was ahi, and note that new glass I have for hot sake.  It is double-walled, so I can hold it comfortably.  Yesterday, for lunch I snuck over to Duck Lee to pick up a bento plate of cold ginger chicken, roast pork and roast duck, with chow fun:

For $14, you can't fully appreciate the amount of food, so I placed the meats on a large plate:

Then for dinner I had soba with hamachi sashimi:

Watched Obama give a scathing condemnation of Donald Trump.  Next to Barack's 2004 convention speech, this one had to be #2.  Watch all 19 minutes.

By the way, without much fanfare, did you know that both Kamala Harris and Jill Biden have new books out?  Kamala Harris:  Rooted in Justice, which will be released next week.  I think this will be for children.  Earlier, Jill was involved in a picture book entitled, Joey:  The Story of Joe Biden.

Two photos sent to me by my most prolific provider:

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