It's probably going to look like whatever the hell is going on in the UK Peaks are getting lower while the baseline is settling at a high point. I guess that counts as flattening the curve. The only way to track the impact is to look at hospitalizations and excess deaths, since the test and reporting system has been largely dismantled. People being mass infected at events every few months and dismissing it as "just a cold" is just how it goes now. We'll see how new variants and repeat infections play out over the next couple years, but the new normal seems bad.
Peaks are getting lower while the baseline is settling at a high point.
So based on wastewater, that's pretty much what I've been seeing in the US. If you look at the 'Covid-19 Wastewater Monitoring in the U.S.' there's a Year over Year option, that shows how we've 'flattened the curve' at a rather high level and have completely raised the floor. In previous years, February was where levels tended to drop giving us a month or so off before picking up around April/May. The lack of high spike like last year's seems like a good thing (unless you hang around here and you know what's coming) until you go on down into the county by level and see that the US has come down with a case of the 'Sisterhood of the Travelling Covid Spikes' which, unfortunately we can't really see how bad it is because of lack of monitoring data. As an example, Seminole County Florida saw a massive spike over the course of a week or so while surrounding areas seemed level, completely deceiving though, because Florida only has 8 counties monitored out of 67, so who knows what the fuck is happening out there.
It's interesting that while Covid is fucking overall herd immunity and speeding up the velocity of infection for other illnesses, the few months of immunity it's giving to itself and other variants is what's likely led to these out of sync spikes that are occurring as the new variants break through and fill in the gaps left by waning immunity. I really wish we had more data because it really feels like we're setting the stage for an even bigger disaster than what we're currently dealing with.
It's probably going to look like whatever the hell is going on in the UK Peaks are getting lower while the baseline is settling at a high point. I guess that counts as flattening the curve. The only way to track the impact is to look at hospitalizations and excess deaths, since the test and reporting system has been largely dismantled. People being mass infected at events every few months and dismissing it as "just a cold" is just how it goes now. We'll see how new variants and repeat infections play out over the next couple years, but the new normal seems bad.
So based on wastewater, that's pretty much what I've been seeing in the US. If you look at the 'Covid-19 Wastewater Monitoring in the U.S.' there's a Year over Year option, that shows how we've 'flattened the curve' at a rather high level and have completely raised the floor. In previous years, February was where levels tended to drop giving us a month or so off before picking up around April/May. The lack of high spike like last year's seems like a good thing (unless you hang around here and you know what's coming) until you go on down into the county by level and see that the US has come down with a case of the 'Sisterhood of the Travelling Covid Spikes' which, unfortunately we can't really see how bad it is because of lack of monitoring data. As an example, Seminole County Florida saw a massive spike over the course of a week or so while surrounding areas seemed level, completely deceiving though, because Florida only has 8 counties monitored out of 67, so who knows what the fuck is happening out there.
It's interesting that while Covid is fucking overall herd immunity and speeding up the velocity of infection for other illnesses, the few months of immunity it's giving to itself and other variants is what's likely led to these out of sync spikes that are occurring as the new variants break through and fill in the gaps left by waning immunity. I really wish we had more data because it really feels like we're setting the stage for an even bigger disaster than what we're currently dealing with.