USA:
On June 10, 2022, the 7-day average number of COVID fatalities per day hit its all-time low since they first had reasonably accurate numbers, way back in in April of 2020. The rate of fatalities per capita has now dropped lower than Canada’s.
In contrast, the number of reported cases in the States is not declining, but neither is it increasing. The 7-day average has been hovering around 100,000 since May 17. It should be noted that the case numbers are really unreliable now, because in-home rapid testing has become so widely employed. It is presumed that many, many positive tests are not reported to authorities.
Roughly half of the states have declined in the past two weeks, and in some cases by very large percentages. Nearly every Northeastern state has seen cases fall by 30 percent or more, led by Maine and Connecticut, which are reporting only half as many as a fortnight ago.
There are still areas of the country in trouble. Alaska, Colorado and Florida, for example, are all four times the red line for new cases and are still increasing. COVID hospitalizations are also increasing in all three of those states.
We may be through with the virus, but it is not through with us. The nation’s official testing percentage is 14%, which is well into the red zone, and about five times higher than it was in early April. We are fortunate that the most common current strains are rarely fatal.
Global:
As of last week, only 18 major countries were still in the red zone for new cases (1000 cases per million population per week). They are listed below, from most cases (per capita) to fewest.
Taiwan
N. Korea
Portugal
New Zealand
Australia
Singapore
Germany
Chile
Israel
Greece
Austria
France
Italy
USA
Finland
Spain
S. Korea
Brazil
Cases are still increasing in seven of those countries:
Israel
Austria
Brazil
Italy
Chile
Germany
Greece
And fatalities are increasing in four of those seven:
Chile
Brazil
Austria
Italy
None of those four are currently in the red zone for fatalities, so no countries made the devil’s quadrifecta.
There are only two major countries in the world still in the red zone for fatalities: Taiwan and Portugal. Both of those countries are in rough shape overall, but the “new cases” rate is declining in both. Unfortunately, the decline is from “extremely bad” to “still extremely bad, but less than last week.” Taiwan’s new case rate is still 20 times the red line, and Portugal’s is 11x. Taiwan is currently leading the world in both new cases per capita and fatalities per capita, while Portugal is third in new cases and second in fatalities.
To place Taiwan’s numbers into North American perspective, both its case rate and its fatality rate are approximately ten times as high as the USA’s.
For the record, suppressing case rate by lockdowns, combined with low vaccination has turned out to be a bad strategy in the long run. “This was a huge surprise,” said nobody.
The decline in roughly half of the states can be completely explained by the prospect of abortion laws that’ll trigger once SCOTUS officially throws out Roe/Casey… Yeah, I doubt anybody’s about to quash the Novo USSR, let alone Alabama.