The Covid-19 news is bad, but there's room for optimism
By: Harry Enten (CNN)
Pay no attention to the Cynics News Network. CNN makes money from glass-half-empty reporting that is intended to raise one's blood pressure.
The news is actually pretty good. We've already distributed twice as many doses of vaccine as the reported number of infections. More people have received vaccine doses than the reported number of infections. We've known (or should have known) that vaccinating hundreds of millions of people would take months.
However, there are real dangers lurking about that may lengthen the time to reach herd immunity. Joe Biden is setting up mass vaccination sites manned by FEMA and the military as political showcases. Anyone care to venture a guess where the vaccine supply will be diverted? Yes, we need to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as possible. But the bottleneck is production not administering vaccines. So far the process of producing, distributing, and administering vaccines appears to be working pretty well. How will these political showcases improve a process that seems to working pretty well?
The bright shiny stimulus package being fawned over by the Cynics News Network is another danger. While we are making real and substantial headway against the pandemic, it's too soon to stimulate the economy. We aren't near enough to the end of the pandemic yet to allow a rush to normalcy (whatever the new normal will be). There is real need for economic relief to address the catastrophe caused by the pandemic. The country does need economic help to just hang on until the pandemic can be brought under control. But disaster relief is something quite different than economic stimulus. And it's likely the country will need real economic stimulus later in the year as the end of the pandemic approaches. Don't expect this $1.9 trillion package to be the end of what will be needed as the pandemic is brought under control.
Don't worry. The Cynics News Network will be there to report every accident, mistake, or unforeseen event in breathless tones of pessimism; just to raise your blood pressure. Unfortunately that bit of normal hasn't changed.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Poll of the week: A new Axios/Ipsos poll finds that 63% of adults say they have had or are likely to get the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it's made available to them. That's the highest ever recorded by Ipsos.
When given the option of getting the vaccine immediately or at a later date, 50% of Americans say they'll get it as soon as it's available compared to at a later date. That too is the highest percentage ever recorded by Ipsos.
What's the point: No one would blame you for being in a depressed state about the coronavirus. More than 450,000 overall have died from Covid-19, including about 100,000 in the last month alone. There have been more than 25 million cases of Covid-19 in America, and an untold number of lives and businesses turned upside down.
Additionally, we don't know what exact effects new variants of the virus will have in terms of cases and deaths in America.
There is, however, at least some cause for optimism. The number of people getting the coronavirus is falling, and the number of people getting vaccinated is rising and will only continue to rise as more and more vaccines are made available.
The number of new cases of Covid-19, while still high at around 130,000 in the daily seven-day rolling average as of Friday, has been dropping rather dramatically over the last few weeks. Nationally, there has been a drop of about 30% in the rolling average over the past 14 days. You have to go back about three months to the early November to see the number of new cases this low.
The number of daily cases has fallen in pretty much every single state over the past few weeks. In most states, the decline has been considerable (as you'd expect given what we're seeing nationally).
More importantly, the number of people hospitalized has also declined. It's down more than 20% over the past few weeks.
Hospitalizations being down is key because more hospitalizations are usually followed by more deaths.
Right now, deaths are still way too high and have not fallen anywhere near as dramatically, but if past trends are followed they will eventually.
The fact that cases are down more than hospitalizations could mean that hospitalizations could drop even further.
Of course, current trends don't necessarily translate to future trends in cases.
For now, though, the number of people getting vaccinated every day is easily surpassing the number of new cases each day.
I noted a few weeks ago that President Joe Biden's goal of giving 100 million doses in 100 days was too modest. The statistics have, so far, proven that to be true.
The daily average of new vaccines given to people is well north of 1.2 million since Biden took office.
We want that number to go up. With a 2-shot regimen necessary for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, 1.2 million vaccines a day simply won't get us back to normal any time soon. There are more than 255 million adults in this country.
The good news is that last week it was announced that there would be a weekly 16% increase in the number of vaccines made available to the states.
This increase is likely to only climb higher in the next two months. Remember, Pfizer and Moderna are due to deliver 220 million doses combined by the end of March. Much of that is expected to be sent toward the end of March, according to Andy Slavitt, a White House adviser on the Covid-19 response.
And from there, the number of doses should only climb higher, with Pfizer saying it will get the US a total of 200 million doses by the end of May and Moderna saying it is on track for 200 million by the end of June.
Biden has announced that the US has ordered another 200 million doses combined of Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines that should be delivered by the end of summer.
Additionally, Johnson and Johnson has requested emergency authorization for its one-dose vaccine from the FDA, and has said they will have 100 million doses available by the end of June.
All told, there should be enough vaccines for 300 million people by the end of June, if Johnson and Johnson receives emergency authorization. Otherwise, it will be the end of summer until we have vaccines (600 million from Pfizer and Moderna) to cover 300 million people, enough to cover all Americans 18 years and older.
If the vaccines are out there, then the challenge becomes getting the vaccine into the arms of Americans. As judged by the rate of vaccines administered to those available, we're doing a much better job of that now than ever before.
And while there are still unfortunate racial disparities in who is willing to take it (i.e. Black and Hispanic people continue to lag behind), the number of people overall willing to take it continues to climb in the polling data.
There is a light at the end of the long dark tunnel. We won't get there for a while, but there is reason to believe we will get there.
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The real news is actually pretty good. We haven't made leaps & bounds progress yet but we are well on our way. We really are going in the desired direction despite what the Cynics News Network is telling.
There is a danger that this can be screwed up and CNN will be there egging on the screw ups just to sell advertising.