HOW THE WORLD IS ADJUSTING TO THIS PANDEMIC

You know how the U.S. has reacted to this Pandemic.  How do we compare with other parts of the world?  Let's look at New Zealand, Japan and Australia, where they all initially well-handled this COVID-19 virus.

• 
  New Zealand closed its border to non-residents and went into a protracted lockdown, eliminating COVID-19.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised for her leadership.
• It went months without a single locally spread case, and life returned to normal.
• But this month the Sydney outbreak spread to New Zealand by just one returning traveler
• Cases spread to 72 and 10,000 people exposed people were identified.  
• A total national lockdown was instituted, and widely supported by the populace.
• During the past two days they have had 24 new cases/day but no new deaths.
• Total deaths since the beginning amounted to 2873, or 5 per million population.
• Vaccination rate is only at 20%.
• 
  Japan initially was successful because its citizens, mostly because of air pollution (usually from China) and spring allergies from pollen, almost all wore masks, plus there was a moral ethic that if you were sick, put on a mask so that you don't infect others.
• The country never imposed a national lockdown, wary of government overreach learned from its fascist period before and during World War II.  The postwar constitution also identifies strict protections for civil liberties.
• In addition, there is a tendency to live a natural life, and vaccinations just have not caught on, now at 40%.
• While the Tokyo Olympics did not itself contribute to the current exponential rise, now at 25,000 new cases/day, TRIPLE the previous peak, what they did was some imbue laxity linked to TV watching in groups and late night drinking in bars.
• There is growing pressure on Prime Minister Suga to impose tougher restrictions, but he said vaccines are the way to go.
• Japan has suffered from a little over one million deaths, at 124/million.
• 
  Australia is somewhere between New Zealand and Japan.
• Early in the Pandemic, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown.
• The Delta variant made a difference, but, instead of another quarantine, they pursued a strategy called aggressive suppression, with strict controls on travel, letting state leaders call the shots.
• New South Wales' attitude is that it will not be possible to eliminate COVID-19 completely, and that they will need to learn to live with it.
• Canberra went into lockdown.
• Only 23% are currently vaccinated.
• Thus the new cases/day count has been rising, now up to 900/day.
• The total deaths sit at 31,593 at 38 per million.
• In comparison, regarding deaths/million:
• World  570/million
• USA  1936/million
• India  312/million (but there is high suspicion that many deaths have not been reported)
• Brazil  2681/million
• Peru  5908/million
• Hungary  3119/million
• South Korea  43/million
• Taiwan  35/million
• Nigeria  11/million (but how accurate is this?)
• Tanzania 0.8/million (same)
• Singapore  8/million
• China  3/million
• Diamond Princess  3503/million

So how does the USA compare?  Well, you can see the above data.  About Japan, which is now in a crisis mode, note that they have a deaths/million population rate 16 times lower than the U.S.

This tally shows that 51% of Americans have been fully vaccinated as of today.  Of course that figure doesn't mean what it represents, for my 95% immunity began six months ago, and by all reports, I'm now down to a figure lower than 50%.  Thus, I look forward to my upcoming booster in October.  However, I took Moderna, and it is Pfizer that today got blessed by the FDA to be fully approved.  When will Moderna?  They fully applied a month after Pfizer, so maybe in a month, or sooner, if the process can be accelerated.  Anyway, approval would be expected by the time of my booster.

In any case, as these vaccines get formally okayed, medical insurance companies will now require their members to get vaccinated OR NOT BE COVERED BY THEIR PLAN IF THEY CONTRACT COVID-19.  This will most definitely jack up vaccination rates.  Combined with boosters, we can now feel a lot more comfortable that by early next year new cases and new deaths will begin to significantly drop.

What about the world vaccination rate?  Supposedly more than 4 billion shots have been given, so with a global population of 7.7 billion, and the need for at least two injections for most, the world vaccination rate must be around 30% to 40%.  Then you must subtract those who took their vaccination many months ago to thus lose effectiveness.  Perhaps something like 25% of the world today are immune.

Here is a summary of an Atlantic article by Sarah Zhang:  The Coronavirus Is Here Forever.  This Is How We Live With It.  She provides a scenario of what will happen to this pandemic that makes sense:

• 
  This is the first coronavirus to ever have caused a recognized pandemic.
• However, there are signs that other variants of the current COVID-19 virus some time in the distant past--could well have been centuries ago, and the cattle pandemic of the late 1800's ,where 1 million died--did cause at least an epidemic or outbreak not today recognized as part of medical history.
• This variant went on to become part of the common cold package of four coronaviruses--hCoV: O43, 229E, NL63 and KHU1.  
• Of all colds, 10-15% from coronaviruses, 30-50% from rhinoviruses and 5-15% from influenza viruses:

• 
  COVID-19 and its family of variants look like candidates to follow that pathway, which is:
• The eventual end of the pandemic with a sufficient number of individuals either temporarily immune through contracting the illness or vaccinated with boosters.  
• This coronavirus will never go away, it will become endemic.
• Will continue to infect us, but an eventual herd immunity percentage of individuals will be able to recognize the virus, resulting in milder illness conditions or an asymptomatic response.
• It could become part of the common cold virus package.

Nature, in February of this year, essentially said the same thing.  After polling 100 immunologists, infectious-disease researchers and virologist working on the coronavirus, here was the response:

Thus, almost 90% of the respondents felt that this coronavirus would become endemic, meaning that it will continue to circulate in pockets of the global population for years to come.

• In short immunity to SARS-coV-2 will decline 6-8 months after getting sick or being immunized, but your body also has memory B cells to manufacture antibodies if it returns, and T cells that eliminate virus-infected cells.
• What is not yet known is the long-term efficacy of this process.  It is possible that the vaccines or average individual capability could yet eliminate this virus from future return.

I'll end with the seasonal blooming of Pearl's sunbursts, days 1, 2 and 3:

-