Notices by Andy McGlothin ☮ (amcglothin@infosec.exchange)

@ZeroCovidColin @darnell @neroden I would say I'm not trying to minimize it. I'm just looking at the data and where the numbers are trending. Of course what I said assumes that a new variant doesn't cause more mortality. There's always a chance this could get worse. But that likelihood gets smaller every day due to vaccinations and natural infection.

I get that it's still a deadly disease, and that people should be taking precautions. But it's been nearly 9 months since we've seen a large spike in infections. Though I'm sure it's debatable, it really looks like this virus has started to become endemic.

@neroden @ZeroCovidColin @darnell

I think our definition of endemic is different. I'm going by this definition:
"An endemic disease always has a steady, predictable number of people getting sick, but that number can be high (hyperendemic) or low (hypoendemic), and the disease can be severe or mild."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemic_(epidemiology)

All on board with what you are saying as far as #HEPA filters and proper masks. No disagreement here.

@darnell @neroden @ZeroCovidColin If you zoom in on the data a little, you can see that since Thanksgiving the number of hospitalized has continued to rise and will most likely continue to rise for at least 2 more weeks. And given that the new variant XBB.1.5 that is now becoming prevalent in the US is far more immune evasive that number may continue to rise for months longer.

As far as deaths are concerned, using the 7-day rolling average, they had fallen to about 300 per day just before Thanksgiving but shot back up to over 400 per day for a couple weeks after the holiday. This will probably be the trend for Christmas and New Years. 2-3 weeks of 400+ deaths per day.

We are at the endemic stage of this disease. We just have to accept that it isn't going away. We may have to accept around 100,000 deaths per year from COVID-19 as normal.