Hello everyone,
There was one piece of good news in an otherwise downbeat update yesterday at Gov. Carney’s Covid-19 press briefing.
While hospitalizations and new cases are approaching figures from a year ago, the Covid death rate has declined.
Granted, the latest figures are not great news for the economy. The numbers here and elsewhere are likely to delay some employers’ return to the office plans and keep some closer to home or out of the workplace.
Don’t buy into rumors that mandatory masking is on its way back. There is no sign that Delaware will go the New York or California route.
Still, the state and health care providers are strongly advising mask use at indoor public locations. Masks are required on public transport and in most government buildings.
The latest figures from Statistica show Delaware ranking in the mid-30s among the 50 states in the death rate per 100,000 residents. The state had been in the mid-20s not that long ago and toward the top in the early days of the pandemic.
The lower death rate can be attributed to vaccinations that, in addition to sharply improving immunity, reduce the severity of the virus in breakthrough cases.
Those cases exist, and the percentage is higher than the 1.5 reported by the state since testing is down dramatically and the virus can be spread without symptoms.
A lot of credit for the lower fatality figure goes to the state’s healthcare professionals.
They have served on the front lines for 20 exhausting months and have performed their share of miracles while putting the latest treatments in place.
State Emergency services director AJ Schall pointed out the stress the current wave of hospitalizations imposes on the health care system.
The bottom line is that the current surge is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, with between 70 and 80 percent of deaths and hospitalizations coming from those who have not gotten both shots.
Politics and misinformation lurk in the background. However, in Delaware, the army of unvaccinated is often made up of apolitical younger people who have other reasons for avoiding the needle.
We did get another bit of good news this morning when the makers of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines reported early findings that indicate booster shots dramatically increase the immune response and have the potential to ward off the widely feared omicron variant.
Despite all of the noise out there, it remains clear that vaccinations work. – Doug Rainey, chief content officer
