The United States vaccinated 4.6 million people over the weekend about one in four adults are now vaccinated and while that is undoubtedly good news, the rest of the world has not been as fortunate and we may not be either if we're not careful.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says global coronavirus infections and deaths are "growing exponentially." The situation is spiraling out of control in India and Brazil as new variants or mutations spread quicker than the original strain did.
Covid-19 cases climbed by 9% across the globe last week — the seventh consecutive weekly increase — and deaths jumped 5%, she said, asking governments to support their citizens in implementing pandemic safety measures. [...]
The virus is “stronger, it’s faster” with the emergence of new variants that spread more easily and are more deadly than the original wild strain of the virus, Dr. Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said March 31. “We’re all struggling” with and sick of restrictive lockdowns, he said.
We're vaccinating people are a very fast pace here in the United States, but a fourth surge in infections that health officials feared was coming appears to be here.
Daily infections and deaths are still far below where they were at the beginning of the year, but infections have climbed back above where they were last summer during the second surge.
The U.S. has reported 70,000 daily new Covid-19 cases on average over the past week, Hopkins data show. While far below the country’s winter peak of about 250,000 new cases per day, that figure is in line with case counts reported during the nation’s “second wave” over the summer, which at the time were record highs.
Michigan is seeing nearly 7,400 average daily new cases, nearing the state’s record level of more than 8,300 per day recorded in December. On Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked high schools to temporarily halt in-person learning and asked residents to restrict activities. The governor also requested that schools voluntarily suspend youth sports games and that residents avoid in-person dining for two weeks in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
If daily infections are currently higher than they were during the second surge, does that not make this the fourth surge? Officials aren't calling it that, at least not yet, but that appears to be the case. Daily coronavirus deaths are hovering just below a thousand at the moment, but as you know that is a lagging indicator.
The situation is particularly bad in Michigan at the moment because Republicans challenged Governor Whitmer's emergency coronavirus restrictions and they won. They took away the governor's power to impose restrictions and now she can only ask people be responsible, not mandate it.
Republicans will literally get you killed if given half a chance.
Wear a mask and don't vote for people who want you dead.