Another COVID Christmas in the books

That makes two now, if you're counting.

A remarkable number, inasmuch as we were supposed to need just a two-week shutdown to "flatten the curve." (The law firm of Husch Blackwell has maintained a state-by-state, day-by-day archive of COVID-19 related orders -- the link is to the 2020 orders -- and you will note that the original Illinois "Shelter in Place" order had to wait until after the March primary. Political priorities had to be maintained.) The original shutdown of the Cook County court system was only supposed to be for 30 days.

I haven't done a 'Rona post for some time now (the link will take you to all posts so labeled).

Back on August 5, when I last reported a COVID-19 update from the Chief Judge's Office, there were 337 employees of that office (out of a total of about 2,600) who'd been diagnosed with the virus.

The latest update I've seen from the Office of the Chief Judge (dated Christmas Eve) announced that another judge and 21 more employees have tested positive for COVID-19. A total of 528 employees of the Office of the Chief Judge have now come down with the virus, as have 32 judges. As is probably unsurprising, given the length of this never-ending plague, some of these 528 employees have caught the Covid more than once -- but are only counted once in these cumulative totals, according to the Chief Judge's Office.

There's been definite growth in the number of reported Covid cases generally.

Here is the most recent Covid Dashboard from the City of Chicago, released last evening:

Compare the above to the City Dashboard last issued before the Christmas holiday:

Looks like Santa brought quite a few Covid cases with his other gifts.

But these figures are only snapshots. To try and place these figures into some perspective, I suggest comparison of these numbers with those the City put out last August 21, around the time the mask mandate was reimposed (it was briefly withdrawn over the Summer, lest you forget). There were hundreds of cases reported then; there are thousands now.

And those August numbers were up substantially from those just the month before:

Depending on your "tribe" or "silo," you may interpret these numbers as "proof" of the devastating effects of the Delta or Omicron variants... or that mask-wearing is useless and may even be harmful.

As the old saying goes, figures lie, and liars figure.

Ugh.

Lawyers love to argue. Good lawyers ground their arguments in fact. However, when it comes to vaccinations, the facts are all over the board.

According to the Mayo Clinic vaccine tracker, 64.2% of all Illinois residents are fully vaccinated. (Numbers recently released by IDPH are consistent.)

If you look at the City's Covid Dashboard for December 27, we here in the Deep Blue City are only slightly behind the rest of the State. (And, if you look at the City's Covid Dashboard for December 27 and December 23, our fully vaccinated rate went up from 64% to 64.1% over the Christmas weekend, meaning that Santa brought Covid cases to some and shots to others.)

And Illinois is not faring much better the national average in terms of vaccine compliance: Per the Mayo Clinic site, only 61.8% of Americans are fully vaccinated.

Broken down by age group, in Illinois, only 19.3% of children aged 5-11 are fully vaccinated, and 57.2% of children aged 12-17. Among adults aged 18-64, 70.2% are fully vaxxed, while 91.5% of Illinois residents aged 65 and up have received all their shots. And, no, I can't tell from these charts if the "fully vaccinated" category includes boosters or not. I rather doubt it. Perhaps I am overly pessimistic.

The numbers for Illinois residents receiving at least one dose of vaccine are better, according to the Mayo Clinic (28.8% for ages 5-11, 63.6% for ages 12-17, 78.5% for the 18-64 group, and 99.9% of those aged 65 and up).

But the numbers are still awfully low for the very young.

This number supports at least a hypothesis that the virus is spreading fastest among kids -- just as the public health authorities are claiming -- which, in turn, supports the notion that it is spreading in our schools.

Except... schools that stayed open during the 2020-21 school year were among the safest public places to be. And that was without any vaccine for the students at all. So a number of things may be operating here, probably in combination: First, more schools are open this academic year than last. Personnel in newly opened schools may not be as vigilant as those that were working in schools open last year. Also, the availability of vaccines for kids may have caused some teachers and school administrators to relax more than the actual vaccination rates would suggest is prudent. Moreover, the new variants may well be more contagious than their predecessors.

Contrary to what you may hear on cable news, or in some other corners of the Intertubes, there is not always only one simple answer to every question.

The numbers are only going to go up, in the short term anyway, thanks to the unvaccinated and vaccinated alike getting together for Christmas cheer.

COVID-19 may never actually go away, the promises of our leaders notwithstanding. The latest scientific consensus, according to this recent NBC News article, is that the COVID-19 pandemic will subside into endemic Covid -- always with us, but kept largely at bay by vaccination and preventative measures.

Sort of like the flu.

But not exactly.

And even the flu manages to kill a whole bunch of people every year: over 20,000 Americans in 2019-20, and nearly 28,000 in 2018-19, according to the CDC.

COVID-19 was never the bubonic plague. But neither was it 'just a flu': Covid causes more and longer hospitalizations than does the flu, and in particular taxes the resources of intensive care units, and people who did not succumb to the virus often experienced long-lasting complications.

The Covid virus continues to mutate. Perhpas, as some are already speculating about the current Omicron variant, it will become more contagious but less serious.

The smart money should be put on this, our second Covid Christas, not being our last.