A local  Star-Advertiser  article caught my attention:   Hawaii sees rise in COVID-19 positivity amid variant spread Health officials indicated that the FLiRT variants, including KP.1.1, KP.2 and KP.3, are beginning to dominate.  These variants are more immune-invasive, and another wave could be coming this summer. Hospitalization rate in Hawaii Two weeks ago, 27 hospitalized from Covid-19. May 22:  55 patients. Hawaii positivity rate: On May 1:  4.3% Last week:  8.5% This week:  10.5% Definitely going up.  But what is positivity?  Simply, divide the number who tested positive divided by the number who took the test, multiplied by 100.  How high is too high?  Four years ago a  report from Johns Hopkins indicated : The higher the percent positive is, the more concerning it is. As a rule of thumb, however, one threshold for the percent positive being “too high” is 5%. For example, the World Health Organization recommended in...

Before I get into the topic of today, got to report that this morning's  Star Advertiser   headline showed: New infection record reached Hawaii confirmed 2205 new COVID-19 cases...but zero new deaths.   Also, our hospitalization peak of 448 is only at 84 today.  A bit worrisome is that 32 of them were fully vaccinated.   This will get worse because of the holiday season, but maybe not significantly so as the Omicron variant gains in taking over from Delta. We also now have 12,777 active cases, another record, as the pervious high was 11,500. Our seven-day average positivity is 11%, creeping up, but nowhere close to the  really badly hit states in this union . DC  109% Kansas 53% Vermont 52% New cases per million; Hawaii  1575 Puerto Rico  1947 Denmark  2448 New York  1869 Ireland  2081 UK  1571 Japan  2.5 Congressman Kai Kahele, who was vaccinated and boosted, reported that he tested positive.  However, he said t...

COVID-19 summary : The USA of course still remains #1 in new cases with 147,434 and 10 states now showing the Omicron variant.  Watch a  CBS news clip .   #2 was Germany with 70,681 new cases and the UK #3 with 50,120.  However, the U.S. is at 441/million versus Germany at 841/million and the UK at 734/million.  And this rate is all over Europe, for Poland with 26,964 new cases is at 713/million. Then there is South Africa, which had another increase, up to 16,055 new cases yesterday.  While that is "only" 266 new cases/million, their  positivity rate is 24.3% .  Botswana did not report. Still with little to no Omicron, though,  positivity rates : Slovenia  42% Croatia  40% Ukraine  38% Vietnam  8% U.S. 7% UK  5% India  1% Israel  0.5% Japan  0.3% Taiwan  0.0% For those who forgot,  positivity rate  is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have...

    From  Worldometer :          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9     1093    4732        1185       246          82 July    22     1205    7128        1293      1120         572 Aug    12     1504     6556       1242       835         130 Sept     3      1094    5886        830     1083         174             9      1208    6222        1136      1168    ...