The news on COVID-19 infection numbers this Valentines Day continues to be good! New cases per 100,000 individuals remain low, even in California. Texas and Tennessee remain the only outliers.
The number of new cases continues to drop and has been below 100,000 for several days.
Even in the states with the most new cases, numbers continue to drop.
You may have noticed I have stopped giving numeric estimates of virus transmission (Rt). In simple terms, this value is the number of people infected by a single person with COVID. If it is less than 1.0, the infection is contracting; if over, it is expanding.
Unfortunately, my colleagues at Rt.live stopped their reporting on Rt because the virus had become endemic and their methods of calculating transmission were not adequate. Luckily, a more complex model is now available and provides the impressive news that the infection is contracting in 47 of 50 states!
Their data concludes that the Rt is less than 1.0 in most states and continues to drop. Only South Dakota is above 1.0, at 1.2.
This is not the time to stop all the good things we are doing to achieve these reductions in infections, especially in states like Texas where the total number of infections remains very high, but it is a true Valentine’s Day present!
Pandemic Pondering 
That’s great news. I saw a video from a scientist who evaluated the research papers on the new variants. The basic conclusion was that the increased contagiousness is purely based on a model and some things they see in a Petri dish. In other words it’s not real world case data proving its more contagious. and we know the track record on models are this point.
Any insight on this?
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Would agree with that assessment, especially on the UK variant. Lots of “modeling,” very little actual transmission data. Still no one has suggested RNA vaccines aren’t effective for prevention. In contrast, prior infection may not prevent re-infection. So everyone needs the vaccine.
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