We continue to enjoy good solid drops in new Covid cases every day. But we urge you to beware the “false spring” of these currently low and dropping Covid counts. We keep looking at what is happening in the UK, with their return to strongly rising cases due to the Delta/Indian variant becoming the main virus form there, and then look at ourselves in the US, where the Delta variant, while not yet dominant, is steadily growing in share.
Might we too see our numbers stop dropping and start risking again? The answer seems like it must be yes, we not only might, but perhaps definitely will, depending on the rate at which we can keep vaccinating people to stop the spread of the new variant.
This article luxuriates in the delight of the low Covid numbers currently, while this article focuses more on the lurking threat from the Delta variant.
This stupid article is puzzled why virus cases are rising so rapidly in the UK even though “8 in 10 have received shots”. There are two points to consider, which the article glosses over. The first is that the “8 in 10” statistic is of adults, not of everyone. The second is that only 46% of the population have been fully vaccinated. People who have had just the first dose are only about 33% protected from the Delta variant. So it is unsurprising to see rising case numbers.
Switching back to my concern about here in the US, the US has 45% of people fully vaccinated, and a lower percent of people with the first shot only, which is why I fear the Delta variant could start to impact on our new case numbers too, just as soon as it has increased its prevalence in the country.
Here’s an excellent article by Matt Taibbi; while ostensibly about the growing rabid censorship of what is surely both free speech and responsible discussion of reasonable opinions, he uses the recent Covid censorship as a great example. Well worth reading.
Current Numbers
In the minor country list the only change was Maldives and Gibraltar swapping over. Argentina and Belgium swapped places in the major country list, and Colombia displaced Poland at the bottom of the list.
UK dropped two places in the death rate list, and the US continues to creep closer to the UK’s number.
In the last week activity list, it was a good week for Bahrain, dropping seven places and almost halving its number of cases compared to a week before. I continue to be astonished, not just at how quickly Covid cases can shoot up, but also, and more puzzlingly, how quickly they can collapse down again.
The US had 235 cases per million last week, a drop of 23% from the previous week. The UK had 961 cases per million, a rise of 31% from the previous week’s count. The world as a whole saw a small 5% reduction in cases, to 337 per million, a reminder, should it be needed, that while we’re enjoying significant falls, the rest of the world in aggregate is not so fortunate.
But, call me callous if you will, it really is nice to now be in the “right half” of global statistics for a change.
Top Case Rates Minor (population under 10 million) Countries (cases per million)
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Andorra (178,504) | Andorra (178,872) |
| 2 | Montenegro | Montenegro |
| 3 | San Marino | San Marino |
| 4 | Bahrain (147,239) | Bahrain (149,511) |
| 5 | Seychelles (131,140) | Seychelles (142,749) |
| 6 | Gibraltar (128,025) | Maldives (130,784) |
| 7 | Maldives (127,925) | Gibraltar (128,292) |
| 8 | Slovenia | Slovenia |
| 9 | Luxembourg | Luxembourg |
| 10 | Lithuania (103,402) | Lithuania (103,665) |
Top Case Rates Major (population over 10 million) Countries (cases per million)
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Czech Republic (155,213) | Czech Republic (155,294) |
| 2 | Sweden (106,650) | Sweden (106,753) |
| 3 | USA (103,115) | USA (103,358) |
| 4 | Netherlands | Netherlands |
| 5 | Belgium | Argentina |
| 6 | Argentina | Belgium |
| 7 | France | France |
| 8 | Portugal | Portugal |
| 9 | Brazil | Brazil |
| 10 | Spain | Spain |
| 11 | Chile | Chile |
| 12 | Poland (76,109) | Colombia (76,743) |
Top Death Rate Major Countries (deaths per million)
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Peru (5,641) | Peru (5,699) |
| 2 | Czech Republic (2,817) | Czech Republic (2,822) |
| 3 | Brazil (2,278) | Brazil (2,345) |
| 4 | Belgium (2,155) | Belgium (2,159) |
| 5 | Italy | Italy |
| 6 | Poland | Poland |
| 7 | UK (1,875) | Argentina |
| 8 | Argentina (1,872) | Colombia (1,944) |
| 9 | Colombia (1,863) | UK (1,876) |
| 10 | USA (1,848) | USA (1,854) |
Top Rates in New Cases Reported in the Last Week (new cases per million) for Countries over one million population
| Rank | One Week Ago | Today |
| 1 | Uruguay 6,306 | Mongolia 5,247 |
| 2 | Bahrain 4,355 | Uruguay 4,692 |
| 3 | Argentina | Colombia |
| 4 | Colombia | Argentina |
| 5 | Mongolia | Namibia |
| 6 | Paraguay | Oman |
| 7 | Chile | Kuwait |
| 8 | Kuwait | Brazil |
| 9 | Namibia | Bahrain 2,366 |
| 10 | Brazil | Chile |
| 11 | Oman | Paraguay |
| 12 | Costa Rica 1,734 | Botswana 1,571 |
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Items below include new Covid treatments with extracts from black pepper and turmeric, CNN shares its love of China, NIH pays $14.5 million to research an obvious issue, does Covid shrink the brain, a new peer reviewed paper supports ivermectin, the US refuses to recognize the AstraZeneca vaccine as valid for arriving visitors, Canada still keeps our border closed, an article that exaggerates 44-fold the death rate in South America, BA and Virgin sue the UK government to try and open the country up some more, a judge says the CDC can’t regulate cruise lines, and Olympic athletes in Japan are already testing positive for Covid.
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Please stay happy and healthy; all going well, I’ll be back again on Thursday.
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