FWIW -- Covid-19 -- Sweden Vs Israel -- October 9, 2021

Quick! Before we get started, if you want to see Dr Fauci's worst nightmare: the Alabama - Texas A&M football game; stadium jam packed; no masks; and, arms around their each other in the stands: 7:13 p.m., Saturday night, October 9, 2021, in Aggieland. 

We've been seen stadiums filled with fans for the past four weeks, and during that same period of time Covid cases in the US are plummeting. 

Later: upset of the year -- Texas Aggies, unranked, beat Alabama, was #1. 

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Sweden Vs Israel

Reposting from October 7, 2021:

Covid-19: I said the other day that vaccinations would now snowball --

• United Airlines is already there;
• Los Angeles passes most stringent "passport' requirement;
• IBM will mandate vaccines
• now, today, breaking: American Airlines says all workers must be fully vaxxed;

And vaccinations are "snowballing":

• anyone tracking the data on number off vaccinations given will see that once cities, counties, and corporations started mandating vaccinations, the number of vaccinations given daily has really, really picked up:
• prior to the recent mandates, daily vaccinations were trending toward 500,000 daily;
• now? solidly above one million vaccinations daily
• some of those numbers are boosters, but most are new folks finally getting with the program
  

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Sweden vs Israel

Links without comments:

• Sweden:
• population density: 25
• average age: 41
• my favorite memory: Swedish meatballs
• active infections:
• 8% of the peak
• decreasing
• highest daily average reported almost a year ago, December 22, 2020
• quick: what percent of the Swedish population is vaccinated; answer at link;
• Israel:
• population density: 400
• average age: 31
• my favorite memory: lox on a bagel
• active infections:
• 51% of its previous peak and falling
• 22% of its all-time peak and falling;
• I believe the Israelis began boosters on August 30, 2021 (need to fact check)
  
• quick: what percent of the Israeli population is vaccinated; answer at link;
• Flashback:
• "grim warning from Israel"
• vaccination blunts but does not defeat Delta
• Science, August 16, 2021

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Later: Florida

Florida:

• cases are now down 90% in the past month and a half; link here;
  
• no new statewide policy
• no mask mandate, no vaccine passports
• Florida now tied for 48th in the country in current case rate
• how many weekends with football stadiums packed with tens of thousands of unmasked fans

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Where We Stand Today

Link here.

Total cases / population (pretty obvious how this can be explained):

#1: Tennessee
#2: North Dakota
#3: Florida
#4: South Carolina
#5: South Dakota

Total deaths / population (pretty obvious how this can be explained):

#1: Mississippi
#2: New Jersey
#3: Louisiana
#4: Alabama
#5: New York
#13: South Dakota
#25: North Dakota

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Hoisted With Their Own Petard

It is clear, without a bit of doubt, in the United States, with regard to the economy, politics, and Covid-19, a lot of folks were hoisted with their own petard.

Mixing metaphors, it will be impossible to get that genie back in the bottle. That train has left the station. The horse is out of the barn. 

But if we want to get back to the original, it is impossible to stick the pin back in the grenade. 

Wow.

I did not realize this: the jobs number for September, 2021, the one reported yesterday, 194,000, that was the smallest monthly gain of the year. Think about that. We should be well past the fear of Covid-19 (and we aren't as a nation) and "everything and every state opened up in September." Back to school and back to work. Link here.

This explains why Steve Liesman, when he saw the numbers, he let out an audible gasp. Most of us just saw the number come in below expectations (yawn) but Steve saw two things, the second being more important than the first:

• analysts' estimates had missed the actual number by a country mile; and,
• he saw immediately, this was the smallest monthly gain of the year.

It did not make sense. Airlines were back; health sector was back; transportation was back; schools had re-opened; students returned to college; football and baseball stadiums were packed with non-masked fans. 

You wanna see the stunned live reaction to "real low" jobs report, here  it is: over at Media-ite. His reaction was akin to an 8th-grader watching 9-11 replays.

Liesman knew immediately.

Defied all credibility.

Immediately all was blamed on Delta.

Not the airline, but the virus.

I think they are wrong. The explanation goes back to Deming, and it goes back to ESG before ESG was a thing. [Note: for simplicity sake: I have a broad definition of ESG.]

More on that later but I'm going kayaking with Sophia.

Good luck to all. 

Oh, by the way, the first analyst's response to why the number was so low: bus drivers did not come back to work.