Good evening,

February 19, 2021 -- This week, the sharp declines in global new infections and new deaths are positive news: in the last seven days, the world counted 2,511,735 new global infections (-13% fewer than last week) and 28,520 related deaths (-19%). However, many geographies are still recording numbers that are either settling on high plateaus or still inching up their daily counts in the last week. Upward trends are clearly visible in Estonia, Albania, Finland, Czechia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Peru, Honduras, Paraguay, Jamaica, Cuba, Senegal, Nigeria, Somalia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, the UAE, and Indonesia. High plateaus are reported in Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Sweden, France, Great Britain, Germany, Chile, Romania, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Vaccination programs are slowly expanding their reach in many countries. Earlier this month, China approved the use of the Sinovac covid-19 vaccine for its general population and is already exporting it to Brazil and other countries. Initial results in Brazil indicate the Chinese vaccine is effective against the UK and South African variants, although anecdotal data are conflicting with reports of 50% efficacy. Until large-scale tests can be properly implemented, we will likely be exposed to conflicting reports on the efficacy of the current vaccines against the emerging variants. According to the CDC website, we still do not know “how widely these new variants have spread, how the disease caused by these new variants differs from the disease caused by other variants that are currently circulating, and how these variants may affect existing therapies, vaccines, and tests.” 

The three most aggressive variants are reported as follows on the CDC website:

These variants seem to spread more easily and quickly than other variants, which may lead to more cases of COVID-19. An increase in the number of cases will put more strain on health care resources, lead to more hospitalizations, and potentially more deaths.

Tip: click on any of the graphs for larger and clearer images and click on READ MORE to view the complete articles. Also, please forgive the occasional typos.

The sharp decline in new covid-19 cases is welcome news, with all seven days of the last week reporting fewer than 100,000 new daily infections in the United States. 21 states still reported at least 1,000 new COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours. Today the nation recorded 78,640 new coronavirus infections and covid-19 has killed 2,428 Americans in the last 24 hours. The national hospitalization numbers are also down: 59,882 covid-19 patients are now hospitalized in the United States (-19% week-to-week), with 12,491 (-18%) in ICU and 4,118 (-18%) people fighting for their life currently on ventilators. In the last 7 days, covid-19 has killed 13,921 Americans (-26%) and infected 493,124 more of our neighbors (-29%).

COVID-19 in the USA

This week, California's 47,293 new coronavirus infections total is 36% lower than it was last week and 2,235 more Californians have died from covid-19 (21% fewer than last week). The steep declines in both categories are welcome in the state with the largest number of confirmed infections and the highest count of covid-19 deaths. More patience, diligence, vaccinations, and compassion are needed to beat the virus.

2/19/2021: Reporting 34 cases from the public and 1 from Valley State Prison (total 35 new cases) bringing the total number of reported cases to 15,153.

Of the 15,153:

Including its prison population, Madera County is averaging 27 new cases per day (17 per 100K), with 187 new cases revealed over the last 7 days. A big improvement over last week, getting closer to the average of 11 cases per day over 7 days required to switch our county from purple to red -- "widespread" to "substantial" -- contagion risk.

Today, the seven local counties together reported 696 new infections and 32 new coronavirus deaths. In the combined 7 counties, COVID-19 has infected 308,331 people and has killed 3,637 residents of our region since it claimed its first central valley victim, in Madera, on March 26, 2020.

COVID-19 in Madera + 6 local counties (+% is the positivity rate)

COVID-19 in the 7 counties together

The last peak of the current wave is now two months behind us in the Central Valley. The new infections have significantly decreased to the lowest weekly reported numbers since the second week of November. However, the total of 204 new deaths for the week is surprisingly high, 25% higher than last week's, even though the new weekly cases are down 35%. Our sharply decreasing new cases numbers are now well below last summer's peaks. Notably, 1,517 (42%) of the total 3,637 covid-19 deaths and 90,344 (29%) of the total 308,331 infections recorded in the local counties have occurred in 2021. The Holiday season was brutal in our region with 56% of the covid-19 deaths reported since Thanksgiving (+2,047). This week, the cumulative infections total passed the symbolic mark of 10% of the combined population of the 7 local counties.

Keep observing the simple yet proven safety habits of physical-distancing, mask-wearing, and frequent hand-washing, that will help drive down new infections and new deaths, to a level low enough so as to give us a chance to reopen our schools for onsite education and thus, reopen our economy. Nothing else will work until we have massively administered a safe and effective covid-19 vaccine -- currently estimated by vaccinating up to 85% of the population -- to finally reach herd immunity.