#stayhomebewell
September 27, 2021
It’s has been about six weeks since my last update. I said I was done, but I’m not really done. However, I’m going to be brief.
The portion of the world’s currently active (Unresolved) COVID-19 cases that the United States represents is greater than it has ever been at any time since the beginning of this pandemic. As of yesterday, that number stood at 52.9 percent. With the United States representing only 4.2 percent of the world’s population, and problems with the collection of statistics around the world notwithstanding, the United States represents more than half of the global COVID-19 pandemic cases. Yesterday.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that the rate at which those currently active, Unresolved cases is growing is slowing down. It is still growing. But it is growing more slowly, which suggests that the United States’ fourth wave has already peaked and is now waning.
In the chart below, the blue line represents the Unresolved cases in the Rest of the World (combined), while the orange line represents the Unresolved cases in the United States.
As indicated by the text box, the United States has added five million active cases since July 7, 2021. We currently stand at the highest level to date, at 9.8 million Unresolved cases, exceeding the previous high point of January 24, 2021 by nearly one million. Somehow, tragically, this is not even news anymore. Occasionally there are stories of hospitals, primarily in those states where the anti-vaccination sentiment is strongest, of emergency rooms and intensive care units having to either refuse treatment to non-COVID emergency patients due to a lack of available beds and staff to treat them, or, conversely, having to consider refusing treatment to COVID patients who present themselves to hospitals deathly ill, but who have chosen not to be vaccinated despite the vaccine’s having been available to them at no cost for some six months.
The problem is that that stroke victim or car crash victim or heart attack sufferer who is refused care will not return to the community and give other people strokes or car crashes or heart attacks before they die, while the COVID-19 victim will do just that.