Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Does Recent US Rise in Wuhan Cases Support Sweden's Decision?

Short post. Between work, recent Supreme Court decisions and half marathon training in the heat, writing has fallen to the wayside.

The recent surges in CV cases in the southern US presents an interesting situation. Firstly, given the weeks of protests the spike among younger persons (more likely to be out and involved) we shouldn't be surprised by the spikes. Since some government officials, sympathetic to the protestors AND mobs have decided to not ask whether individuals were involved in any protests, we may never know the impact that has.

That issue aside, one of the things that was hoped for was that since all previous known corona viruses failed to produce large infections during summer months likely due to a combination of heat, humidity, UV radiation and increased vitamin D production in humans, that Wuhan would also drop off. It appears that this is not happening. That would definitely make Wuhan far more, shall we say, "interesting" and quite troubling as we go back into cold weather later this year.

Now we get to Sweden. One of the major reasons that Sweden went the "no official lock down" route is that they predicted that countries that locked down their population would suffer a [large] increase once they opened back up. They thought it better to let the pathogen make its way through the population in one go, get it over with and not suffer a second, or however many, wave.

As of this writing:

Sweden: no new deaths or cases, USA 1,339 new cases and 31 new deaths.

Lastly, my conspiracy theory: Not long after the full frontal assault on Hydroxy-chloroquine using badly designed meta-analyses and the revocation of "emergency use" by various governing bodies, the ICU count goes up. Remember the HCQ+Zinc-Sulphate and an anti-viral was to be used early in disease stage to prevent graduating to stages requiring ICU treatment. It's 'Interesting" that now these ICU admits are going up. Oh and that the Fed apparently pays out a 20% premium for hospital admits. But that's a theory. Just something to think about.