Wildfire Air Pollution in Central Eastern States, June 8

Thursday, June 8, the Wildfire Smoke Moves South, to Washington, D.C.

Links are in the previous article, and at 3 PM EST this shows the PM 2.5 pollution contours and the color code of Unhealthy for All in the Red.

This shows the prediction for tomorrow, June 9th, of Ozone plus PM Air Quality Index.

This shows the PM 2.5 contours and monitors for June 8th, at 4 PM, EST.

This shows the air currents at 3 PM EST on June 8.

This shows the Western, Southern and then Eastward smoke movement from the fires in Canada at the tiny flame sites at 3PM EST, June 8.

This map gives the PM 2.5 readings from PurpleAir sites at 3:30 PM, June 8.  Philadelphia had reached a high of 444 this morning.

Caution:  a single, exceptionally high reading in a quieter zone may be due to a local pollution source.

This is PM 2.5 around Washington, D.C. at 10:30 PM, June 8.

This is a map of the Eastern wildfires in Canada at 10:30 PM, EST on June 8.

To be proper, the fires are wildfires in Canada, not Canadian wildfires.  There are 600 American firemen aiding in fighting them.

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Northeast and NY City Air Pollution from Canadian Wildfires

The tragedy of Canadian wildfires due to an early summer heat wave, and Southward air currents, has brought dangerously high particulate air pollution to the Northeast US.  The acreage of Canadian wildfires is now 15 times greater than the past average per year.  We compile some relevant graphs which have appeared or which we have generated as of 4:30 PM EST on June 7, 20203.

We start with the hazard scale of PM2.5, which is Particulate Matter of 2.5 microns or less in diameter, which can make it to the smallest parts of the lungs, where they can cause lung damage and inflammation.  Avoid outdoor exercise, and stay indoors if possible.  First we present the color code for the hazard levels of this air pollution.

 

We now zoom in on the Northeast, heading into NY City.  PurpleAir.com sells home air pollution monitors and shows their realtime results.  It also has the PurpleAir app that directly shows the map.  The results inside of circle outlines are those that are indoors.

The iPhone weather app has 327 for NY City.  The PM2.5 from the first map above goes up to 492.

In order of Causality, we first show the unusual May warming over Canada, in degrees C above average.  To convert the differences to Fahrenheit, multiply by 1.8, or nearly double.

Next, we show where the Canadian wildfires are.  Red is Out of Control, yellow is Being Held, and blue is Under Control, from @daynavettese on twitter.com:

We see that the acreage burned are already almost at the worst season total of 2021, but much earlier (3.5 Million hectares times 2.5 gives 8.7 Million acres,:

 

Finally, we have the wind pattern, from earth.nullschool.net.

From Airnow.gov we have smoother air pollution maps of the Northeast and then New York:

From the iQAir.com we have the hourly and daily air pollution forecasts for New York City:

But, there are worse locations:

Kilauea livestream at: https://www.youtube.com/live/Q5M-5XFplo0?feature=share

Posted in Air Quality, Canadian Wildfire air pollution, Climate Change | Leave a comment

The New Age of Creative Artificial Intelligence

The Age of A (quar) I US

Along with the Internet, Email, and Cell Phones, and Software, the age of computers and chips is enhancing Artificial Intelligence to Large Language Models, Chat, Creative Writing and even Programming.  AI has actually been advancing since WWII, when Alan Turing taught the first computers to compose music and to play chess.

A good and comprehensive source for technical AI is the website unite.ai, and that is the main source of this short talk.  The Breakthrough of 2022 in Science Magazine notes the creative writing of ChatGPT and artistic creativity of Dall-E2.  At UCI Olli we have had an Open Forum session where ChatGPT was well illustrated.  There are many articles in common media illustrating this, and you can try ChatGPT for a free trial.  The subscription with guaranteed access during overloaded periods cost $20 a month.  Microsoft has its creation AI in the New Bing.  Apple has lagged in creation AI because of its concern with privacy, waiting until it can put it on the user’s devices. 

All of these AI are computer structures based on a Deep Neural Network, with an array of mathematical “neuron” vertexes in layers, fed by inputs from the preceding row of “neurons”, similar to how many neurons in the brain stimulate a later neuron’s firing by emitting chemicals at the synapse.  Here is the Deep layering and mathematical connectivity picture.  In the network figure, the input is red, and the output is blue.

 

The Network starts out dumb, and is exposed to connected words in documents, or pixels in a picture.  The vertexes are rewarded or the triggering potentials numerically enhanced when the output resembles the successful wording or pictures.  Thus the network is trained to artificially mock up intelligence.  The recent progress in AI is due to larger datasets for training, more experimentation in network rules, faster processing chips, the use of more neurons, and a lot of feedback from volunteer or paid evaluators.   Once a network is trained in a specific area, it can be applied for many uses by many companies or users.

These advances and projected futures are cited on the unite.ai website.  The predicted world expenditures on AI are $110 billion, mostly in the tech sector.  Businesses have already been using AI in chats for aiding communications, and businesses point out that it can take a month to train a personal advisor, whereas the once trained chatbox can be multiplied freely.

NVIDIA which makes visualization chips for games has expanded into a leading AI creator and marketeer.  It’s stock valuation has quadrupled in a year, and it is now a trillion dollar valued company. 

Unite.ai lists categories where AI is being developed:

Marketing, with conversational AI, ad targeting, and personalized content;

Legal Services;

Sales;

Healthcare, with drug discovery, robotic surgery, and virtual therapists; and

Finance.

AI targeting was used by Obama in the 2012 election, and by Trump in 2016.  It will be heavily used in 2024.

Google Assistant (“Hey Google”) in 2020 already had one billion users in 90 countries, and 500 million users a month.  It gives short verbal answers, but refers you to longer sources in the Assistant app.  Amazon’s Alexa had 65 million Echos sold last year.  100 million have already tried ChatGPT, which had 1.8 billion uses in the past month.

To show the rapid increase in computer capabilities, GPT-3 used 175 billion parameters in its neural net.  In 2022, the speed of computation was up to 35 billion FLOP/second per US dollar (FLOP is Floating Point Operations such as mathematical ones).  The cost of training a GPT-3 network went down a factor of 10 between 2020 to 2022, where it became $450,000.  By 2030, the cost is expected to be only $30.  The cost of a billion informs from an AI in 2022 was $10 million, or a penny for their thoughts.

Warnings about the use of AI are that ChatGPT was only trained up to 2021.  The newer GPT-4 is more up to date.  Your use of the apps may not be private, and your complete online data will undoubtedly be used in targeting ads.  The apps may contain bias, since the internet contains many views.  Nothing new there, but leading suggestions on Google search tend to be of good quality, after the ads.  The creative output can deliver misinformation, and is subject to “hallucinations” in its creativity.

Concerned about the problems in AI, the non-profit Center for AI Safety (safe.ai), advises on companies installing safeguards.  These are to prevent: the Weaponization of AI; Destabilization of society from AI misinformation; Monopolistic control of AI technology; Surveilance or oppressive censorship; Overreliance on AI; Bias; or Transference of wealth. 

 

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The Inflation Reduction Act Plan for Lowering US Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Another Science Magazine Breakthrough was the US passage of the Inflation Reduction act, which contains $369 billion over ten years for lowering US greenhouse gases.  One goal of the IRA is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 40% from 2005 levels by decade’s end, with electricity from renewable sources and nuclear power, and moving to electrical vehicles.  Hopefully, emission mandates, state and local actions will reduce emissions further to 50% by 2030.  It is also projected to save consumers from $500 to $1,000 dollars a year, mostly by reducing expenses for gasoline.  It should also provide 1.5 million clean energy jobs and boost GDP by about 0.86% in 2030.  

Over the past 17 years, US greenhouse gas emissions have declined about one percent a year.  The IRA will increase this to about a 3% a year  decline for the next ten years.  The IRA will drive $3.5 Trillion in new American energy supply in the next decade.

While I could motivate this by atmospheric warming or sea level rise charts, I’ll just note the recent prediction that 70% of California’s beaches could be gone by 2100.  Also, State Farm has stopped adding new household policies in California due to the cost of California wildfires, and due to the state review board setting their insurance rates.

These are the current US sources of greenhouse gas emissions by percent.

 

$60 Billion is for the clean energy sector, manufacturing solar power, wind turbines, and electric vehicles (EVs).

$60 Billion is for disadvantaged communities to reduce environmental injustice.

Four private loan categories are to be encouraged by oversight and credit subsidies of $11.7 Billion to the Loan Program Office, which also partly guarantees the loans.  Their description follows.

1.  Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment for $250 Billion in new loans.

2.  Innovative Clean Energy Loans for $40 Billion, for fossil and nuclear energy, and critical minerals processing, manufacturing and recycling.

3.  Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing for $40 Billion in loans.

4.  Tribal Energy Loan Guarantee Program for $20 Billion in energy development.

These total $350 Billion in private loans in additional to the IRA funding.

For Electric Vehicles, 28% of IRA will go to $7,500 tax credits for the purchase of an EV SUV, truck, or van, and also $4,000 for the purchase of a used one.  The credits are income dependent, and the vehicles must be largely made of US parts and batteries.

US greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 were over 6,000 Million tons (Mt) of CO2e, or CO2 equivalent, for climate warming.  The IRA will cut those emissions by 2030 by about 1,000 Mt a year, equivalent to all the household emissions in America.  The breakdown of those cuts is projected to be:  [table]

360 Mt Clean Electricity, 36%;

280 Mt Large EVs and used ones, 28%;

140 Mt Methane, 14%;

130 Mt Carbon capture and storage, 13%;

100 Mt Forestry, 10%; and

100 Mt Consumer Home Energy, 10%.

(I know, it adds up to 111%, or 1,100 Mt.)

The Dream is to reach Zero Net US emissions by 2050.

We take a look at modeling of energy supply in hundreds of billions of dollars investments over the next decade by the REPEAT Project.  The bar graphs below on the left show the investments including only the previous Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and on the right the investments added with the Inflation Reduction Act.  We see that most of the clean energy gains are Solar, in yellow, followed by Wind, in blue.  To fit in the chart, they only show every other year.

The unproven Carbon Capture and Storage from fossil fuels, in light gray, is hardly present.  The increases in the Grid or Transmission, in purple, doesn’t come in until a decade from now.  Nuclear, in dark orange, is only slightly included in the left chart, since it is so expensive to build new plants.  Hydrogen, in dark red, does not come in until 2035, along with biofuels, in green.  It is estimated that eventually converting all transportation to electric will increase the need for electricity by 20% to 50%.

The Democratic House is now gone, and environmental government regulations are being assailed in the Supreme Court, requiring specific Congressional approval for large actions, as in including greenhouse gases in the clean air act, and secondary water areas under the clean water act.  However, the IRA, being a compromise bill, survived the cuts of the Debt Ceiling compromise.

Ten fossil fuel state legislatures and governors are adding obstacles to wind and solar installations, despite the fact that they pay off, and the auto industry is discontinuing some low cost electric vehicles.  

Posted in Air Quality, Autos, California Flood Maps, California Power Mixes, California Smog, Carbon Tax, Clean Energy, Climate Change, Climate Education, Climate Science, Coal, Conservation, Department of Energy, Electric Cars, Electric Power, Energy Efficiency, EPA, Fire Risks, Fossil Fuel Energy, Gasoline, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Hybrid Cars, Inflation Reduction Act, Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy, Ocean Acidification, Offshore Oil Drilling, Oil, OLLI Lecture, Politics, Renewable Energy, Sea Level Rise, Solar Energy, Supreme Court, Transportation, US Oil, Wind Energy | Leave a comment

RSV Vaccines to Protect Newborns, Young Children, and the Elderly

RSV Vaccines to Protect Newborns, Young Children, and the Elderly

The development of the RSV, Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Vaccine to protect newborns and the elderly is one of Science Magazine’s ten Breakthroughs of 2022.  We update this to the recent FDA approval, and cover the effects of RSV and the need for the vaccine.

Newborns for up to six months are covered if the vaccine is given to mothers late in their pregnancy.  It can prevent RSV caused inflammation of the airways in the lungs of newborns.  For children under 5, 58,000 to 80,000 a year are hospitalized in the US from RSV.  Globally, it causes 100,000 to 200,000 infant deaths a year.

For the elderly over 60, RSV can worsen lung and heart conditions and also attack those with weakened immune systems.  For those over 65, RSV strikes and hospitalizes 60,000 to 120,000 a year, and causes 6,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.

The breakthrough in the vaccine was to use the pre-cell fusion RSV glycoprotein, the F protein, and prevent it from fusing with the cell which it would infect.  This allows it to trigger much more antibody production.  The research was carried out by the NIAID agency, headed by Dr. Fauci.

The RSV vaccine called Arexvy, which was developed by GSK, GlaxoSmithKline, was approved for those over 60 by the FDA on May 3, 2023, and may be approved by the CDC in early June.  It may be distributed starting in August, before the usual Fall and Winter seasons of infection.  Arexvy prevents lower respiratory track disease (LRTD), which causes pneumonia and bronchiolitis, the swelling of small airway passages in the lungs.  In trials, Arexvy reduced the risk of symptomatic LRTD by 82.6%, and of severe LRTD by 94.1%.

On May 18, 2023, the Pfizer Vaccine for RSV was recommended for approval for infants by the FDA advisory committee.  The full FDA decision on it is expected by late August.  Its trials showed effectiveness against severe respiratory illness for those younger than three months of 81.8%, and for those under six months of 69.4%.  Essentially all children get RSV by the age of two.

The vaccines may be effective for a year.

The distribution to the global South requires multivial containers, preservatives, cold chain stability, and clinical trials.  Fears are that it might require as long as seven years to do accomplish this, as has been the delay in other cases. 

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Perennial Replanting Rice and Challenges of Climate Change

Perennial Replanting Rice and Challenges of Climate Change

One Science Magazine breakthrough of 2022 was the establishment of Perennial Rice (PR23), a cross of a Chinese rice with a perennial African wild rice.  This rice will effectively replant itself for four years before significantly declining.  This saves 77 person-days of planting per hectare per year, or 31 person-days per acre.  In 2021, it was used in 15,000 hectares in China, or 37,000 acres.

Rice provides 20% of world calories, mostly in Asia.  It is eaten by half of humanity, and for 3 billion it is their staple grain.  There are hundreds of millions of rice farmers, covering 165 million hectares, or 400 million acres, using the conversion factor of about 2.5 acres per hectare.  (For us US city dwellers, a US football field is 1.32 acres, a UK soccer pitch is 1.86 acres, and there are 640 acres per square mile, so global rice covers 0.64 million square miles).  California produces 20% of the US rice harvest, including all of Sushi rice, with 550,000 acres, or 860 square miles.

The current and future challenges to rice are brought about by climate change, as reported in the New York Times by Somini Sengupta.  This includes damaging by extreme heat, erratic rains, and rising sea levels which cause salt intrusions.  The flooded fields where rice decomposes is also said to contribute nitrous oxide and 8% of world methane, but a US made graph puts it at about 20% of methane, while another source puts it at 5% with cows generating 20%.  US methane emission by rice is only 2% of the US total methane emissions.

Seeds are being developed by crossing popular rice with hardier heirloom varieties that can take higher temperatures and salty soil. The rice planting calendars are also being shifted.  China has already lost 8% of its production to extreme heat, and by the year 2100 China expects to lose another 8% from extreme rainfall.

World rice production in 2022 was 515 million tons, led by China and India which total 53%, with leading countries given below.

 

Posted in China, Climate Change, Climate Education, Climate Science, Coastal Flooding, Earth, Foods, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, OLLI Lecture, Rice | Leave a comment

The Gene that Saved Us from the Black Death

Since we are just finishing the pandemic of a century, it behooves us to look back at the Second Plague, also called the Black Death, in Eurasia using the recent advances in the science of genomics.  The analysis of the DNA from the bones of more than 500 bodies of those who died before, during, and after the Black Death in London and Denmark found that people with two copies of the gene variant ERAP2 which produces a full size protein were twice as likely to survive as those who had two copies of the variant which produced a truncated version.  This comes from Science Magazine which made this one of the 10 breakthroughs of 2022.

The protein helps immune cells recognize and fight threatening viruses.  This bubonic plague was the infection by a bacteria Yersinia Pestis, named after Dr. Alexandre Yersin who discovered it.   The protein is called endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidate 2,  and is a cytokine which stimulates the immune system to fight the bacteria.

45% of British people still have this protective gene variant, but it also comes with a risk of developing autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.  However, it also protects against bubonic plagues, pneumonia, and COVID-19.

This is a good point to note that Y. Pestis is easily treated by antibiotics today, and is rare.

There is still debate on the geographical origin and method of transmission of the plague.  It is attributed to be carried by fleas from rodents.  The fleas get infected by the bacteria and have to suck up blood, so they attack humans.   However, the rapid spread of the disease is also attributed to human fleas, and also to spreading like pneumonia since it infects the lungs.  Once infected, the victim died in two to seven days.

Below is the map of the spread of the disease, from 1346 to 1353, from Wikipedia.  The disease is estimated to have killed 30% to 50% or 60% of Europeans, or from 75 million to 200 million people.  The map source is:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1346-1353_spread_of_the_Black_Death_in_Europe_map.svg

 

The supposed origin of the European infection was in the Crimea at the port of Feodosia (in light green), also previously called Kaffa, on the Black Sea.  The infection was spread from rats on ships.  However, analysis this year from an unusual number of bodies from deaths in 1338-9 due to pestilence in the northeastern part of Kyrgyzstan in the Tian-Shan region, show an earlier occurrence of Y. Pestis.  This is next to the region of China currently occupied by the Muslim Uighurs. From the map, you can see the uncanny match of the boundary of the Golden Horde of Mongols to the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia.  The port of Kaffa had been bought from the Golden Horde by the Genoese shippers.

The First Plague was the Plague of Justinian from 541 to 549 AD, which was also caused by a different strain of Y. Pestis.  It also spread throughout Europe and the Middle East.  In Constantinople, the capitol of the Byzantine empire, it caused the death of 20-40% of the population.  Emperor Justinian I was infected by it but recovered.  Perhaps 15-100 million died of it over two centuries of its recurrence, or 25-60% of the European population when it started.  Lower figures are also argued for.

We see the use of modern science and realistic governments in defeating the Covid pandemic in three years with at most 20 million deaths in a much more populated and rapidly connected world.  Obviously, we need much more study of the Black Death to determine what segments of the population survived and why, and why subsequent infections of it were less deadly.

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Covid Updates: China, Long Covid, Bivalent Omicron Vaccine Success

Let’s start with the very positive.  The Pfizer bivalent Omicron vaccine is a success.  Israeli analysis of its use before patients 65 and over got infected, versus those not so boosted, showed that it resulted in 81% less hospitalization.  That is only 1/5 as many who took the bivalent booster were hospitalized as those who didn’t take it.

The deaths in China have reached 60,000, and that is close to the value predicted in the IHME model for that date.  However, one source stated that those deaths may be near peaking, whereas the IHME model predicts that by April 1, deaths may exceed 300,000, and go up to 500,000 if no masking requirements are reimposed.  A picture of travelers in China at a station showed everybody masked, however.

A Nature magazine briefing said that about 10% of those COVID infected would develop Long Covid, which are symptoms lasting more than 12 weeks after initial infection.  For the world, they said that this is 65 million worldwide.  The IHME model on January 18 show that we are at the peak of daily covid infection of about 21 million a day.  That would imply that 2 million a day would eventually develop Long Covid for a while.

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IHME Global Covid Deaths Modeled at More Than Twice that which are Reported

IHME Global Covid Deaths Modeled at More Than Twice that which are Reported 

The bad news is that the IHME model of total Covid deaths, as of April 1, 2023 of 18.6 million, will be more than twice that which will have been reported.  The good news is that total Covid deaths in the first quarter of 2023 will be only 2/3 of a million, or a 3.7% increase over those which have already occurred by the start of 2023.  The other good news is that the quarterly deaths, without China, are roughly only a tenth of that from the previous year.

As of the projection for January 1, 2023, there were 17,910,000 total Global Covid deaths, and a projected 18,572,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2023 on April 1, or 662,000 more deaths, which is a 3.7% growth over January 1.  The modeled Reported Global Covid deaths by April 1 is 7,730,000, or only 43% of the total Global Covid deaths.  The projected first quarter deaths from China in the previous article are 281,351, which are 42.5% of the Global first quarter of 2023 total.  Without China, the new quarter deaths would be 381,000.

Current Global masking is only at 24%, and if that were to be increased soon to 80%, the total Global Covid deaths by April 1 would be reduced to 18,341,000, or only 231,000 deaths in the first quarter.  Out of the 662,000 deaths to occur with current masking, it is just 35% or a third of them.

Daily total Global Covid deaths on January 1, 2023 are modeled at 5,500 a day, which will increase to 8,900 a day by April 1, a 62% rise.  With 80% masking, 2,900 deaths a day could be saved on April 1, or 33%.

Global hospital use from Covid cases are modeled at 315,000 on January 1, with 49,000 of those in the ICUs, or 15.5%.  On April 1, these numbers are about the same, at 296,000 and 45,000, with ICUs at 15.2%.

Total Daily Global Covid infections will peak at around 21 million per day in late January, and drop to 17 million per day by April 1.  With 80% masking, infections will reduce to about 10 million per day in January, and rise to 17 million a day by April 1.  Reported new cases will be at only about a half million a day.

The Global infection fatality rate is less than 0.2% as of mid December modeling.  There are new variants in China and in the Northeastern US, but their fatality is not yet known.  The Global rates are partly driven by China, where 80% are susceptible to infection.  There is a low rate of receiving booster shots.  As of December 12, 2022, 77% of the Global population is modeled as infected at least once.  The infection detected rate is only 4%.  64% are fully (twice) vaccinated with the original vaccines, which will rise to 65% by April 1.  

The 77% infection rate of an 8 billion population would give 6,160 million infected.  With 17.9 million Covid deaths on January 1, that would give a 0.0029 historical global fatality rate or 0.29% or 3 out of a 1,000 including before vaccines and with deadlier strains than the Omicron ones.

The IHME model assumes that 80% of the fully vaccinated will get booster shots after 6 months of their original vaccination, and of the first boosted, 80% will get another boost after 6 months.  They also assume that in high income countries, 80% will receive antivirals when needed.

Global Reported and Cumulative Covid deaths per hundred thousand for Countries and states or provinces are shown in the two Global maps below.

We see that the Southern US states, middle South America, Southern African states, Eastern Europe, and Russia have suffered the highest fatality rates.

Percent population of Countries or States and Provinces which are fully (twice) vaccinated is shown below.

We see that African countries are poorly vaccinated, and Ukraine, Romania, the “stans” and Russia are only about half vaccinated.

The Global deaths peak on a quarterly basis, so we include a table of the IHME model total and quarterly deaths, starting in the first quarter of 2021 and ending on the projected first quarter of 2023.  Deaths are in millions.

Year Quarter Start Total Deaths Quarter Deaths
2021 January 1 5.138 2.272
7.410 3.925
11.335 2.719
14.054 1.377
2022 January 1 15.431 1.508
16.939 0.297
17.236 0.373
17.609 0.301
2023 January 1 17.910 0.662
18.572

Without China, the projected quarter of 0.662 would be 0.381, showing a fairly constant evolution of the rest of the world.  This shows that the rest of the world has essentially reduced its vulnerability and moved to less deadly viral strains roughly by a factor of 10 in the last year over the previous year.

Posted in Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health Care, IHME Projections, Russia, Vaccine Distributions, Variants of Covid-19 | Leave a comment

IHME Projections of Covid Surge for China with Peaking Infections in Mid-March

IHME Projections of Covid Surge for China With Peaking Infections Mid-March

The new December 16 issue of IHME Covid projections for China has fully vaccinated at 87%, with 59% masking.  Other sources say that China now has an inhaleable booster.  For those over age 60, 69% have received boosters, but fewer of those over 80.

The IHME Policy Briefing for China states that there is less than 10% Covid infections in much of China, but is 50%-60% in Inner Mongolia.  Only about 6% of Covid infections are detected.  BA.1/BA.2 is 50-74% of infections in most of China, but is lower at 25%-49% in Inner Mongolia.  BA.5 is 50-75% in Inner Mongolia, but 25%-49% in most of China.  There is projected to be a growth of immunity to BA.1/BA.2 to 28%, and BA.5 to 25%.  Currently 80% are susceptible because of the low effectiveness of vaccines and the long time since initial vaccinations.  In Beijing, the dominant strain is BF.7, short for BA.5.2.1.7, which is an offspring of BA.5 and more infectious with many asymptomatic cases, but also not overwhelming other countries where it is present.

In addition to the IHME Current Projection where masking mandates get reimposed by province when certain bounds are exceeded, the IHME also does a run not shown in the graphs, where the mask mandate is not reimposed.

Infections per day are projected to peak on March 14 at about 2.91 million a day with global antivirals, at 2.88 million a day with the Current Projection, and down to 2.13 million a day with an increase to 80% masking, saving 26% of the current projection infections.  With no masking mandate, daily infections are modeled at 4.6 million a day by March 1.  Today, infections are at 673,000 per day, which could be reduced to 615,000 a day or by 9% with 80% masking.

Hospitalizations will continue to rise though throughout the projections on April 1 where they will be at 96,744, with ICUs at 9,352 or 10%.  However, in the no masking mandate, hospitalizations will rise to about 150,000.

The IHME recommends China getting more effective vaccines from abroad, and also get Paxlovid.  China is already working on getting more seniors vaccinated.  They also need booster shots.  They are testing about a dozen vaccines.

Daily deaths in the model are still growing on April 1 where they are:

No masking mandate, 9,000 per day;

Current Projection,      5,362 per day;

Reported,                        5,058 per day;

With 80% masking,      3,881 per day saving 28% over current projection; or

With global antivirals,  4,361 per day saving 19% over current Projection.

 

Total Deaths by April 1 are modeled at:

No masking mandate, 500,000;

Current Projection,      322,660;

Reported,                        293,127 or 91%;

With antivirals,              275,308 or 85% saving 15% of the current projection; or

With 80% masking,      249,971 or 77% saving 23% of the current projection.

In the Current Projection, the peak is around April 1, but will continue for many months.  There could be more than 1 million deaths during 2023. 

Posted in Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health Care, IHME Projections, Omicron Variant, Vaccine Distributions, Variants of Covid-19 | Leave a comment