Coronavirus SF: February 15, 2021 Update

Hello coronavirus-sf subscribers!

Great news: The virus growth rates in the SF Bay Area are looking much better this month than last month! In SF city, death counts have also been virtually flat since end of January. Across the USA, new cases are the lowest since the end of October, and hospitalizations are down 46% in the last month (CBS).

Vaccination progress has also been much better in February. As of the time of this writing, 16% of San Francisco residents age 16+ have received at least 1 vaccine dose. 5% have received both doses. Here’s more info on vaccination progress for each Bay Area county: San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin. Just today, local and national news highlighted that the vaccination site at SF’s Moscone Center is temporarily closed due to lack of vaccine supply. Well, at least the allocated supply is not going to waste — or being utilized too slowly (real problems not too long ago)! Nationwide, an average of over 1.5M vaccine doses are being administered per day (see chart below).

I’ve been thinking about virus variants. The idea that there may be new variants that cannot be effectively defeated by existing vaccines is scary. I became more cautious in January (even though I had been double-masking on flights since last year). I admired how Israel leads the world in vaccine availability for their residents (though the USA is not doing badly, at #4 in vaccinations per capita). Things could be even better in the future, but no one can guarantee this. My conclusion is that most of the time, it’s just much healthier to be overall optimistic in the midst of uncertainty. We’ve all gone this far in surviving the pandemic, the virus and vaccination numbers are currently trending very well, and we will figure out how to resolve whatever other variants / situations that might arise in 2022.

Stay safe and well! 🍀

— Xian

Originally published at https://mailchi.mp.