Good evening,

February 5, 2021 -- A year has passed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 had become a global health emergency, roughly 6 weeks before calling it a global pandemic. A year ago, 29 countries had already detected the virus within their borders with about 29,000 confirmed infections and 572 identified related deaths, the world was slowly bracing itself for the onslaught of a pandemic the breath of which it had not encountered in over a century. About four thousand mobilized construction workers had just completed the record-breaking 24x7, 10-day construction of the new 269,000 square feet (25,000 square meters) one thousand-bed Huoshenshan COVID-19 quarantine hospital, near the river in Wuhan city. A month later, 88 countries were reporting coronavirus infections as the global case count passed the symbolic 100,000 mark on March 4, 2020, and the world had already buried its 3,286th victim of the new infectious disease. Scientists worldwide developed vaccine candidates within weeks of the outbreak, started phase 1 testing in March 2020 and engaged in large population testing protocols by early summer. The first approved vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech was approved for use in the UK in the first days of December 2020, less than 9 months into the pandemic. Globally, about 106 million infections and 2.3 million covid-19 deaths have now been confirmed. Vaccination campaigns are on the way, but production and distribution challenges have resulted in disappointing results, further testing our global impatience. In the last year, we have all learned that the case counts, and the death counts are roughly equivalent on both sides of each peak. However, this time, after the last global peak was reached a month ago, we now have proven vaccines, the successful distribution of which should help further decelerate the viral spread. Let us hope distribution issues are resolved quickly, that more effective and safe vaccines become available and are massively and equitably distributed, and that the world can start a steady recovery as it also builds safeguards with maintained capacity, at the ready for the next pandemic.

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 national peak of new daily cases is now four weeks old, but 29 states still reported at least 1,000 new COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours, while related deaths are still high, essentially flat from last week (99.67%). Today the nation reported 126,125 new coronavirus infections and covid-19 has killed 3,572 Americans in the last 24 hours. The national hospitalization numbers are down but still high: 86,373 (-17% week-to-week) covid-19 patients are now hospitalized in the United States, with 17,284 (-13%) in ICU and 5,596 (-16%) people fighting for their life currently on ventilators. In the last 7 days, covid-19 has killed 23,207 Americans (-0.33%) and infected 878,287 more of our neighbors (-22.61%).

COVID-19 in the USA

This week, California's 102,087 new coronavirus infections total is 32% lower than it was last week and 3,376 more Californians have died from covid-19 (12% fewer than last week). More patience, diligence, vaccinations, and compassion are needed to beat the virus.

2/5/2021: Reporting 41 cases from the public, 7 from Valley State Prison, and 3 from Central California Women’s Facility (51 new total cases) bringing the total number of reported cases to 14,638. 

Of the 14,638:

Including its prison population, Madera County is averaging 55 new cases per day (35 per 100K), with 388 new cases revealed over the last 7 days. A significant improvement over last week, but still above 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 1,355 new infections and 27 new coronavirus deaths. In the combined 7 counties, COVID-19 has infected 295,703 people and has killed 3,270 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 worst part of the current wave is behind us in the Central Valley. The new infections have decreased to the lowest weekly reported cases since the post-Thanksgiving, 2020 report. The total of new deaths is still very high, with only 14 below last week's report. Our sharply decreasing new case numbers are still at or above last summer's peaks and 1,150 (35.2%) of the total 3,270 covid-19 deaths in the local counties, have occurred in 2021. The Holiday season has devastated our region with 51.4% of the covid-19 deaths reported since Thanksgiving (+1,680).

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.