Days of Future Past
I neglected to report in the last Nett Report about the interview I gave on Ron Kamen’s Awesome Earthkind podcast. Ron is CEO of EarthKind Energy Consulting and a clean energy thought leader. Titled “Days of Future Past: Critical Transformations to Clean Energy,” the interview focuses on content in talks I have given about the history of clean energy, thinking about energy as a capital expense rather than a commodity, and other subjects. Highlights include the first battery powered car (1835), Ronald Reagan promoting the Westinghouse all-electric home in the 1950s (think Nest, automated irrigation, and many other conveniences that we have today), and Jay Leno on the future of cars. It’s a light-hearted and fun conversation about an important topic!
It’s been a year now – Covid-19 vs. annual flu statistics
We regularly have pointed out comparisons between Covid-19 and the annual appearance of influenza. With the pandemic having been part of our lives for a year now, it is instructive to compare the most recent full-year flu statistics from the CDC with a year of Covid-19 data. The last full year of estimated flu data is 2019-2020. Covid-19 data is an actual count.
| Category |
Influenza |
Covid-19 |
| Infected |
38,000,000 |
27,127,858 |
| Hospitalizations |
400,000 |
1,690,996 |
| Deaths |
22,000 |
470,110 |
Even though infections were less, hospitalizations for the flu were four times that of Covid and there were 20 times as many deaths, even with various levels of lockdown, social distancing and masks becoming the norm.
Only 165 flu hospitalizations this year to-date
Of note, a record number of flu vaccine doses (193.6 million) have been distributed in the current flu season. Seasonal influenza activity in the United States remains lower than usual for this time of year. The CDC reports “a total of 165 laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations occurring between October 1, 2020, and February 6, 2021, for an overall cumulative hospitalization rate of 0.6 per 100,000 population.”
The pandemic is retreating, but the situation is still bad
According to a February 11, 2021, story in the New York Times’ The Morning newsletter, the pandemic appears to be in retreat. The story says the “number of new coronavirus cases continues to plummet, as does the number of Americans hospitalized with symptoms. Deaths have also begun to decline. And the number of daily vaccination shots has nearly tripled over the last month. It’s been a long time since the virus news was as encouraging as it is right now.” However, it concludes that the “overall situation is still bad. The virus is spreading more rapidly in the U.S. than in almost any other large country, and more than 2,500 Americans are dying daily.”
Are we moving to a world of chronic Covid?
An interview in State of Reform on February 18, 2021, with Dr. Chris Murray, Executive Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations (IHME) revealed that “being previously sick with Covid-19 appears to offer no protection from being infected with the new South African strain of the virus.” This is based on data from the Novavax Covid vaccine trial. Murray says this data indicates we may be moving to a “world of chronic Covid” where every winter we treat Covid as we do the flu.
