THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IS OVER FOR THOSE FULLY VACCINATED AND BOOSTED!!!

While the Omicron variant continues to attack pockets of vulnerability throughout the world, this pandemic is losing momentum, and the peak of new deaths reached exactly a year ago--16,503 on 24January2021--is now down to 7000.  Watch Japan, for example, which is on a definite upswing after doing so well the past two years.

To appreciate how important it is to get vaccinated, let's look further in Switzerland earlier this month in deaths/100,000:

• Unvaccinated  11.56
• Fully vaccinated, but not boosted  0.89 (13 times fewer deaths)
• Fully vaccinated and boosted  0.07  (165 times fewer deaths)

This same report looked into the U.S. early in December (almost no Omicron):

• Unvaccinated:  9.74
• Fully vaccinated, but not boosted  0.71  (14 times fewer deaths)
• Fully vaccinated and boosted  0.10  (97.4 times fewer deaths)

Keep in mind that, while contagion is much higher with Omicron, the mortality rate is much lower.  Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced:  You are 17 times more likely to go to the hospital if you're not vaccinated, and 20 times more likely to die.  In short, we now have pandemic of the unvaccinated.

In other words, and this is difficult to imagine today with all those Omicron cases surrounding us:

THE PANDEMIC IS OVER FOR THOSE FULLY VACCINATED AND BOOSTED!!!

The World Bank projects new deaths/day to drop to:

• 3300 in a month (February 24).
• 1044 by March 24.
• 168 on April 24.

To me this decline is astonishing, as just the USA since the beginning of this year has had new deaths/day in excess of 2000.  I could never be so optimistic after witnessing how the Delta and Omicron variants defied expert opinions.

I personally find it difficult to believe the World Bank's prediction will hold because the World is today only around 53% fully vaccinated.  Mostly because of the unvaxxed, hospitalizations of 2.2 million today will still rise to 2.3 million beds on January 20.  However, this need was up to 2.7 million beds on 3May2021.  The World Bank predicts hospitals bed needs to drop to 55,000 on April 24.  Around that time, the world vaccination will only have risen to 59%.  The World Bank also projects that on 24April2022, the new cases/day will drop from the 82 million today to 1.7 million.

I should point out discrepancies between the Worldometer data I show each week and the above World Bank information.  While the World Bank's deaths/day are slightly higher than that of Worldometer, the new case rate of the World Bank is much much higher in number of cases.  This is because the World Bank adds asymptomatic cases and under-reported estimate of many countries (like India, China, Russia and Africa).  Worldometer merely reports official data from their sources.

The World suffers from one billion flu cases/year, with 290,000 to 650,000 deaths.  Thus, the mortality rate is from 0.03% to 0.065%, or an average of about 0.05%.  A CDC report indicates something closer to 0.13%.  Further, this remains a guess, but 50% of flu cases are asymptomatic.  Thus, there are twice as many people going around each year who are innocently transmitting this disease.  My best guess is that COVID-19, too, will eventually be shown to have a 50% asymptomatic rate.

For the longest time, guesses on the mortality rate of COVID-19 has ranged from 0.5% to 3.4%.  The Worldometer table indicates a World mortality rate of 1.6%.  Same from another World Bank source.

Thus, if an infected unvaccinated person has even a very high 3.4% chance of dying from COVID-19, a fully boosted individual would thus have a mortality rate of 0.17% using Psaki's statement, but 0.02% rate using the Swiss data and 0.035% from the CDC study.  From above, the seasonal flu mortality rate ranges from. 0.05% to 0.13%.  Everything averaged out, COVID-19 has a mortality rate of 0.075%, while the seasonal flu is at 0.09%, or higher.  

Further, the world suffers from a billion flu cases/year, while the 0.3 billion total COVID-19 cases occurred over a two-year period.  Thus, this Omicron peak does not even get close to the number of flu cases/day.  As no pandemic is ever called for the usual seasonal flu, and anyone who is fully vaccinated and boosted has a lower chance of dying than the seasonal flu, I repeat:

THE PANDEMIC IS OVER FOR THOSE FULLY VACCINATED AND BOOSTED!!!

Mind you, too many people remain unvaccinated, especially those in the Trump states, and certainly in Africa.  So for them, the PANDEMIC is real and should be feared.  Read this article by Katherine Wu from The Atlantic on Will Omicron Leave Most of Us Immune?

I'll keep this short, but This was the greatest playoff weekend in NFL history.  

• Bengals beat the Titans on a walk-off field goal.
• 49ers came back to edge Packers on a walk-off field goal.
• Rams upset Bucs on a walk-off field goal.
• Chiefs 42 to Bills 36 in overtime.  Find a way to watch the final few minutes of the fourth quarter.  Incredibly amazing.  You won't see anything like that again, ever.

I'll close today with a reasonable reason why people my age did not have to exercise much in our younger days:

For the even more elderly:

For those not familiar with Bob Seger, he also wrote and recorded Night Moves and Old Time Rock and Roll (with Tom Cruise).

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